Society's Child

Facebook expects up to $5 BILLION in fines from FTC over privacy violations

RT
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 00:52 UTC

Facebook has told investors it's probably on the hook for up to $5 billion in fines - a record-high penalty for a tech company in the US - as a Federal Trade Commission probe continues into its violations of users' privacy.

Citing "a $3.0 billion legal expense accrued in the first quarter of 2019 related to the ongoing US FTC matter" in its quarterly financial statement, Facebook later admits the penalty might be higher: "We estimate that the range of loss in this matter is $3.0 billion to $5.0 billion," the statement reads, adding that "the matter remains unresolved, and there can be no assurance as to the timing or terms of any outcome."

The FTC is investigating Facebook on charges it repeatedly and catastrophically failed to safeguard users' data, from allowing Cambridge Analytica to scrape 85 million users' information to permitting corporations like Microsoft and Netflix to access users' messages and other personal info as part of secret data sharing partnerships. Investigators have reportedly found plentiful evidence that Facebook violated a 2011 FTC agreement requiring it to get permission from users before sharing their data with third parties - and to notify the FTC when third parties have misused this data.

Comment: See also:

Absurd 'inclusivity training': NC University hosts no-whites-allowed faculty and staff listening sessions

Jennifer Kabbany
The College Fix
Wed, 24 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC

Wake Forest University is hosting a series of "listening sessions" for faculty and staff of color that aim to advance inclusion efforts on campus.

The listening sessions come amid ongoing racial tensions on campus, including a protest Monday at which some students decried the "white supremacy" that allegedly runs rampant at the private, North Carolina institution.

"Dear faculty and staff colleagues, this is a reminder about our upcoming listening sessions on inclusion that I am holding for faculty and staff of color over the next several weeks," stated an April 18 email from Michele Gillespie, dean of the college, to campus employees.

Fiery train derailment forces evacuations, hazmat response in Fort Worth, US

RT
Wed, 24 Apr 2019 12:38 UTC

Residents living near a rail line in Fort Worth, Texas were forced to evacuate in the early hours of Wednesday after a train carrying ethanol crashed and caught fire, causing a hazmat emergency.

Four Union Pacific cars derailed at around 12:40am local time, several of which caught fire. The ethanol within the cars continued to burn for several hours and even ignited a nearby outbuilding.

It remains unclear what caused the derailment, though there were heavy thunderstorms in the area at the time, swamping emergency services with calls from residents.

Comment: It remains to be seen what caused the crash but there's a strong possibility it's related to America's crumbling infrastructure:

Bayer CEO faces a shareholder reckoning over Monsanto deal

Naomi Kresege, Eyk Henning, and Bloomberg
Fortune
Wed, 24 Apr 2019 20:39 UTC

Bayer AG is facing mounting opposition ahead of what's shaping up to be its most contentious annual meeting in years, with influential shareholders faulting management for failing to foresee the risks of the company's biggest deal ever.

A growing number of shareholders have said they won't support executives and supervisory board members in a no-confidence vote at Friday's annual meeting in Bonn, Germany. Though the vote has no legal weight, a low enough approval rating would throw into question the future of Chief Executive Officer Werner Baumann and other leaders who orchestrated the $63 billion acquisition of U.S. agriculture giant Monsanto.

Buying Monsanto was supposed to secure Bayer's position in the rapidly consolidating agrochemicals market and deter outside forces from trying to split up the company, which sells everything from aspirin and cancer medicines to shoe inserts and soybean seeds. Instead, lawsuits linked to Monsanto's contentious weedkiller Roundup sparked the biggest and quickest loss of value in the history of Germany's blue-chip DAX Index.

"In all good conscience, we can't exculpate management if so much shareholder value is destroyed," said Ingo Speich, chief of sustainability and corporate governance at Deka Investment, one of Bayer's top-10 shareholders with a stake just shy of 1%. Deka will vote against discharging both Bayer's management and supervisory boards for their actions last year, Speich said.

Boeing woes continue: Company withdraws 2019 economic forecast due to 737 issues

Michael Sheetz
CNBC
Wed, 24 Apr 2019 16:57 UTC

Boeing announced Wednesday it will pause share buybacks and is withdrawing its full year 2019 financial forecast while it works through issues surrounding its 737 Max aircraft, whose software is suspected in two deadly crashes.

Boeing said the previous guidance "does not reflect 737 MAX impacts," adding that "new guidance will be issued at a future date" because of "the uncertainty of timing and conditions" for when the 737 Max planes will return to flight. The company's presentation to shareholders noted the commercial airplane business had $1 billion in increased costs due to the 737 production line.

The company also delivered first-quarter earnings that were in line with Wall Street expectations while revenue was lighter than expected. Boeing's cash flow fell nearly 10%, to $2.8 billion this quarter from $3.1 billion the same period last year, specifically citing lower 737 aircraft deliveries.

Shares of Boeing initially fell in premarket trading after the release but bounced back, trading up more than 1% from Tuesday's close of $374.02 a share.

Lawyer claims Boy Scouts of America has 'perversion files' covering nearly 8,000 alleged sexual offenders

Zachary Halaschak
Washington Examiner
Tue, 23 Apr 2019 23:31 UTC

Jeff Anderson Boy Scouts perversion files

A lawyer in New York alleges the Boy Scouts of America has "perversion files" on nearly 8,000 people who have been accused of sexually abusing children over the years.

Victims' rights attorney Jeff Anderson said at a Tuesday press conference the estimated number of suspected perpetrators sits at 7,819, with 12,254 victims. That's far higher than the roughly 1,247 alleged pedophiles revealed in 14,000 pages released to the public in 2012.

"For many, many years there's been an excavation of what are called the 'perversion files' - those are files held and hoarded at the Boy Scouts of America headquarters," Anderson said. "Those 'perversion files' that they've had reflect that they have removed thousands of offenders of childhood sexual abuse over the years, and they've kept that in files secretly."

"That is a number not known before today or ever revealed by the Boy Scouts of America," Anderson added.

Boy Scouts of America said all of the individuals on the "Anderson list" have been reported to law enforcement and removed from scouting.

Comment: The secrecy over sexual predators within the organization has also enabled those offenders to quietly resign and thus cover their tracks. Some background:

Russia's top investigator reveals motive of Crimea school shooter: Bullying and humiliation

RT
Wed, 24 Apr 2019 18:04 UTC

An 18yo student who killed 20 people and took his own life in a polytechnic college in Crimea last year was driven by bullying from his better-off classmates for being poor, the head of the Russian Investigative Committee said.

"I had no idea, but it turned out it was that important to wear real US-made jeans, not fake... He wore fake jeans bought at the market, he was brought up by a single mom," Investigative Committee chief Aleksandr Bastrykin said during a lecture.

"He was constantly humiliated because of this. Here is the result," he said, stressing that young people react strongly to "inequity in society and the state."

In October last year, polytechnic college student Vladislav Roslyakov, likely inspired by US-style school shootings, particularly the 1999 Columbine massacre, detonated an improvised explosive device in the college cafeteria, then embarked on a shooting rampage. On the day of the attack, he wore black jeans and a white t-shirt with a slogan, copying Eric Harris, one of the Columbine killers.

The attacker ultimately committed suicide at the college library, just as his predecessors did 19 years before. A total of 21 people died, including 16 students and five teachers, and 67 people were injured.

Comment: See also:

Crimea college shooting has echoes of Columbine massacre: 'Bodies lying everywhere'

'Political correctness gone mad': Lord Admiral slams maritime museum for gender-neutral ships

RT
Wed, 24 Apr 2019 16:51 UTC

The de-gendering of ships by a maritime museum is "political correctness gone mad," a retired senior British Royal Navy officer has said. He warned conceding to pressure groups is a "very dangerous road" to go down.

Admiral Lord Alan West was responding to the Scottish Maritime Museum's decision to introduce a "gender neutral interpretation" of ships, following a spate of vandalism targeting the words 'she' and 'her' on one of their signs.

Lord West, the former head of the Royal Navy, phoned BBC Radio 4's Today show, to argue that boats have been referred to as 'she' for centuries, and scraping that tradition would be "absolutely stupid."

It's stark staring bonkers and political correctness gone mad... an insult to a generation of sailors, the ships are seen almost as a mother to preserve us from the dangers of the sea and also from the violence of the enemy.

David Mann, director of the maritime museum, in Irvine, Scotland, claims they have been forced into making the changes, saying offended vandals have targeted their "very expensive" signs for a second year in a row.

Father legally gagged and found guilty of 'family violence' for referring to his trans daughter as a 'she' in British Columbia

Jeremiah Keenan
The Federalist
Wed, 24 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC

British Columbia's Supreme Court declared a father guilty of 'family violence' for giving interviews to publications including The Federalist in which he used female pronouns for his daughter.

Last week, Justice Francesca Marzari of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada, declared a father guilty of "family violence" against his 14-year-old daughter on the sole basis that he had engaged in "expressions of rejection of [her] gender identity." These "expressions" revolved entirely around his polite refusal to refer to his daughter as a boy in private, and his steady choice to affirm that she is a girl in public.

As previously reported, the BC Supreme Court ordered in February that 14-year-old Maxine* receive testosterone injections without parental consent. Accordingly, Maxine began regular injections at British Columbia (BC) Children's Hospital over the course of the last two months.

Her father, Clark*, strongly objects to this treatment and immediately sought to reverse the decision in the BC Court of Appeal. Hoping to raise awareness of his case, Clark gave a number of interviews to media outlets, including The Federalist. In these interviews, he repeatedly referred to his daughter as a girl, stating to The Federalist that "she is a girl. Her DNA will not change through all these experiments that they do."

Navy SEALs say they were warned against reporting chief for war crimes - told to 'stop talking about it'

RT
Wed, 24 Apr 2019 11:28 UTC

A group of Navy SEAL commandos from Team 7's Alpha Platoon allege that they were warned by top brass against reporting their commanding officer for possible war crimes in Iraq.

Special Operations Chief Edward 'Blade' Gallagher, 39, a highly decorated platoon chief, has been accused by several members of his platoon of committing atrocities in Iraq. These include: indiscriminately bombarding civilian neighborhoods with rocket and machine-gun fire, opening fire on civilians without provocation and summarily executing a captured, teenage Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) fighter who was undergoing medical treatment by US medics, by stabbing him repeatedly with a custom-made knife and hatchet.

He was arrested in September on more than a dozen charges including premeditated murder and attempted murder, all of which he denies. He faces life in prison and was detained in the Navy brig following his arrest amid fears he was attempting to intimidate witnesses and undermine the investigation.

Bill Gates is going to be the one with the uncertain future,,, * New Lt. Governor of Virginia Winsome Sears: "We're going to have safer...

parzival

The more we hear about adverse affects the more we will merely shrug. It's a catch 22. Is that an asteroid trail in the photo?

sass

Welcome to the new normal. The more sensory exposure we have about such things, the less it is an issue.

sass

more misbehaving phuqqin' jewzskies starring on the sott; speaks for itself

Jibrish

Robert F. Kennedy talks about what is in his book about Fauci: [Link]

parzival

Society's Child

Facebook expects up to $5 BILLION in fines from FTC over privacy violations

Absurd 'inclusivity training': NC University hosts no-whites-allowed faculty and staff listening sessions

Fiery train derailment forces evacuations, hazmat response in Fort Worth, US

Bayer CEO faces a shareholder reckoning over Monsanto deal

Boeing woes continue: Company withdraws 2019 economic forecast due to 737 issues

Lawyer claims Boy Scouts of America has 'perversion files' covering nearly 8,000 alleged sexual offenders

Russia's top investigator reveals motive of Crimea school shooter: Bullying and humiliation

'Political correctness gone mad': Lord Admiral slams maritime museum for gender-neutral ships

Father legally gagged and found guilty of 'family violence' for referring to his trans daughter as a 'she' in British Columbia

Navy SEALs say they were warned against reporting chief for war crimes - told to 'stop talking about it'

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