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Facebook will now start using AI to 'fact check' photos and videos

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Thu, 13 Sep 2018 18:28 UTC
Data Zuckerberg

How would an unsuspecting Facebook user know if this was real or not?
Facebook on Thursday announced the expansion of their fact-checking army to send "photos and videos to all of our 27 partners in 17 countries around the world," after using an artificial intelligence which will use "various engagement signals, including feedback from people on Facebook, to identify potentially false content."

The company says that because people share millions of photos and videos on Facebook each day, it creates an "easy opportunity for manipulation by bad actors."

"The same hoax can travel across different content types, so it's important to build defenses against misinformation across articles, as well as photos and videos," said Facebook.

Facebook categorizes photo / video "misinformation" into three categories: "(1) Manipulated or Fabricated, (2) Out of Context, and (3) Text or Audio Claim. These are the kinds of false photos and videos that we see on Facebook and hope to further reduce with the expansion of photo and video fact-checking."
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Key

'Genuinely dangerous' Islamist hate preacher Anjem Choudary to be released from jail


RT
Thu, 13 Sep 2018 12:54 UTC
Anjem Choudary
© Velar Grant/Global Look Press
Anjem Choudary
Anjem Choudary, the Islamist hate preacher is to be released from jail in a matter of weeks, despite a stark warning from the prisons minister that he remained "genuinely dangerous."

Choudary, who was jailed in 2016 for terrorism offences, after being found guilty of encouraging Muslims to join Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL) is to be released from prison next month, having only served half his five-and-a-half-year sentence.

The UK government's prisons minister, Rory Stewart, conceded on Tuesday that they were powerless to prevent Choudary from being freed on licence, despite his assessment that the cleric remained "a genuinely dangerous person."

Stewart told the Evening Standard that the preacher was "a deeply pernicious, destabilising influence", adding: "He is somebody that I would put into the category I have just mentioned - somebody who was not given a sentence of enormous length but somebody who is a genuinely dangerous person.

"We will be watching him very, very carefully."


Comment: See also:

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People 2

Diluting the meaning of the word woman to appease transactivists is misogyny

Barbara Kay
National Post
Thu, 13 Sep 2018 17:45 UTC
gender protest
© National Post / Tyler Anderson
Quinn Valkyrie holds a sign in protest of anti political correctness professor Jordan Peterson, who has refused to refer to transgender people by their chosen pronouns, at University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario, Wednesday October 5, 2016.
In his writings on totalitarianism, George Orwell powerfully exposed the link between the manipulation of language and the erosion of individual liberty. Ideologues understand that linguistic control precedes, and is crucial to, political and cultural power. The novel 1984 illuminated the shame in being compelled - figuratively - to endorse the lie that two plus two is five.

For those who follow gender politics, vocabulary manipulation by ideologues is one of the biggest cultural stories of our time. No ideologues make more aggressive use of this strategy than radical male-to-female transactivists. They can be ruthless in mobbing anyone who dares to resist their linguistic hegemony. Transactivists reserve particular animus for the thought crime they perceive in the factual statement that "a transwoman is a biological male who identifies as a woman," rather than the official transactivist mantra that a transwoman "is" a woman.

This latter belief is held only by a statistically nugatory number of transactivists and gender-studies academics. And yet, remarkably, otherwise intelligent professionals with social and cultural influence have willingly accepted this redefinition, forswearing objectivity and cognitive precision to appease gender tyranny.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

UK prison officers union leader calls for strike: 'My members have excrement & urine thrown at them'


RT
Fri, 14 Sep 2018 17:13 UTC
prison protest
© Darren Staples / Reuters
Prison officers protest over violence and safety concerns outside Leicester Prison, September 14, 2018.
A Prison Officers union leader has called on all staff at jails in the UK to walk out in protest of the "unprecedented" levels of violence being perpetrated against them, saying he's fed up at hearing of members being "attacked."

Prison Officers Association (POA) General Secretary Steve Gillan made the demand of all members in England and Wales on Friday to go on protest at 7am, "until instructed otherwise."

Gillan told the Mirror that his members had every right to stage a mass walkout under health and safety legislation, saying that he was fed up at the acts of violence his members had to endure, including having "excrement and urine thrown at them."

"Under legislation the government and employer have a duty of care toward my members, and I'm fed up of hearing of my members receiving smashed eye sockets, broken arms, broken legs, broken jaws, being attacked, spat on, having excrement and urine thrown at them, and enough is enough now," he said.

"We need ministers to start taking control of what's going on."
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Bad Guys

Gaza Health Ministry reports 2 Palestinians killed, 12 injured in clashes on Gaza border


Sputnik
Fri, 14 Sep 2018 19:22 UTC
Palestinian protesters
© AP Photo / Adel Hana
Palestinian protesters run to cover from teargas fired by Israeli soldiers during clashes with Israeli troops along Gaza's border with Israel, east of Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Friday, April 6, 2018
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 12 people have been injured following clashes at the Israeli border.

Earlier in the day, the ministry said that two Palestinians, including a 14-year-old boy, had been killed.

The teenager was killed in northern Gaza, east of Jabalia, while the second Palestinian was shot in southern Gaza near Khan Yunis.

Comment: See also:

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Question

Vehement racism or PC insanity? Met policeman under investigation for using the term 'whiter than white'


RT
Fri, 14 Sep 2018 16:49 UTC
New Scotland Yard
© Luke MacGregor / Reuters
A sign is seen outside New Scotland Yard in central London.
A senior London Metropolitan police officer could face being sacked for using alleged racist language after telling colleagues they need to be "whiter than white" while carrying out inquiries - words of a racist or PC gone mad?

The detective superintendent, who works in the Met's anti-corruption, faces the possibility of an internal investigation for gross misconduct for a phrase the Plain English Campaign characterizes as meaning "morally beyond reproach."

According to the Evening Standard, the Met received a complaint after the briefing led by the senior Scotland Yard officer in question, who have since passed it to the police watchdog for investigation.

While the Independent Office for Police Conduct investigates the complaint, the officer will be on restricted duties - an inquiry that could take up to 12 months to complete. The highly respected officer denies any wrongdoing and is said to be cooperating fully with the investigation.
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Heart - Black

Traumatizing children: Police to fire blanks during active shooter drill at Pennsylvania high school


WPXI.com
Wed, 12 Sep 2018 17:29 UTC
active shooter drill school

The high school drill was similar to one held at Salisbury, Maryland, in 2013, pictured above.
Active shooter training will be conducted Thursday at Bethel Park High School, and students will be exposed to the sound of gunfire, according to a letter to parents.

The A.L.I.C.E. Drill, conducted by school police and a trained A.L.I.C.E. team, will be a scenario including an alleged shooter in the school.

A.L.I.C.E. stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate.

During the drill, police will fire blanks in hallways to expose everyone to the sound of gunfire in the building. The blanks will not be fired at anyone.

Comment: More worrying is the fact that 'drills' often predate or coincide with actual events:

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UFO

Social stigma about unexplained phenomena is holding humanity back

Luis Elizondo
Medium
Fri, 14 Sep 2018 15:39 UTC
International Space Station
© NASA
International Space Station
Like most other biological systems on this planet, humans are largely motivated by self-preservation and conflict avoidance.

As a species, we tend to avoid associating ourselves with anything that will isolate us from the larger group or make us sound strange, or that might draw negative attention from our peers.

And when left unaddressed, it exerts a chilling influence over society and across generations. This is true whether we are trying to find the cause for diseases, reasons for environmental change, or primers for global conflict.

Throughout history, there are times when we, as a society, found it more convenient and socially acceptable to ignore uncomfortable topics. The results were often catastrophic both to our moral fiber and the health of our species. Stigma regarding certain psychological conditions once led to a life sentence in an asylum and forced lobotomies simply because stigma prevented families having a conversation about mental illness.
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Attention

Dalai Lama says 'Europe belongs to Europeans', refugees should return home and rebuild their own countries

Virginia Hale
Breitbart News
Thu, 13 Sep 2018 15:31 UTC
Dalai Lama
© Johan Nilsson/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The Dalai Lama has told a press conference in Sweden that "Europe belongs to the Europeans", asserting that refugees should be repatriated so they can rebuild their homelands.

Speaking in the multicultural city of Malmö, where nearly half of residents are of foreign background, with Iraqis making up the largest single group, the leader of Tibetan Buddhism said Sweden is seen as "a peaceful, generally prosperous country" with a relatively small gap between rich and poor.

"Spontaneously", reports Norrköpings Tidningar, the Dalai Lama then "moved on to talk about one of the biggest issues in the Swedish election - the reception of refugees".

Noting that a large number of immigrants have settled in Europe from the Middle East and elsewhere, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning spiritual leader said it was good for nations to help "a refugee really facing danger against their life".

Comment: Interesting, given the Dalai Lama's role as a political chess piece in the West's decades-long effort to smear China.

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HRC Red

Integration failure: Report finds 51% Vienna pupils don't speak German at home


RT
Fri, 14 Sep 2018 14:57 UTC
Migrant children
© Michaela Rehle / Reuters
Migrant children pose before passing the Austrian-German border in Achleiten, Austria, October 29, 2015.
More than half of students at Viennese schools use their native language, rather than German, at home and as they go about their everyday activities, according to a new integration report released by the Austrian government.

The 8th annual report, prepared by an independent expert council, has found that the Austrian government's efforts to encourage those with migrant background to learn German have largely fallen flat. The reluctance or inability of migrants, many of whom have arrived into the country in the recent years, is showing more clearly in the country's capital, Vienna, where 51.2 percent of schoolchildren now interact in a language other than German.
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