Society's ChildS


Propaganda

Atlantic Council - the four person NATO-funded team who advises Facebook on "propaganda"

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Tue, 07 Aug 2018 20:10 UTC
facebook nato
This is not at all comforting: during a week that's witnessed Alex Jones' social media accounts taken down by Facebook, Apple, Spotify and Google, and what appears to be a growing crackdown against alternative media figures including several prominent Libertarians, notably the Ron Paul Institute director, and the Scott Horton Show, who found their Twitter accounts suspended - we learn that the Atlantic Council is directly advising Facebook on identifying and removing "foreign interference" on the popular platform.

While the initiative was initially revealed last May through an official Facebook media release, more details of the controversial think tank's role have been revealed.

Supposedly the whole partnership is aimed at bringing more objectivity and neutrality to the process of rooting out fake accounts that pose the threat of being operated by nefarious foreign states.

And yet as a new Reuters report confirms, Facebook is now itself a top donor to the Atlantic Council, alongside Western governments, Gulf autocratic regimes, NATO, various branches of the US military, and a number of major defense contractors and corporations.

What's more is that the team of four total individuals running the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFR Lab) is headed by a former National Security Council advisor for the last four years of the Obama administration, Graham Brookie, who is also its founder.

Comment: It's not like they need to keep it a secret anymore. In fact they want you to know. Big brother's got your back don't you worry! See also:

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Fire

"Devil worshipper": Teenager suspected of burning down unique wooden church in Russia


RT
Mon, 13 Aug 2018 21:31 UTC
The Uspenskaya Church of the XVIII century burned down in Kondopoga, Russia
© public111906776/vk.comThe Uspenskaya Church of the XVIII century burned down in Kondopoga, Russia
A historic 18th century church has burned to the ground in Russia's Republic of Karelia, after being deliberately set on fire. A teenager, referred to by some locals as a devil worshipper, is suspected of the arson.

The Church of the Assumption of Our Lady, built in 1774 on a picturesque lakeshore in the town of Kondopoga in northwestern Russia, caught fire on Friday. The investigators said the structure started burning from inside, with the caretaker noticing the flames when it was already too late. The all-wooden 42-meter-tall church couldn't be saved by fire crews and was turned into ashes in just a few hours.

A 15-year-old boy, who was visiting his grandmother in Karelia for the summer holidays, has been detained by the police over the incident. He reportedly used five liters of gasoline to destroy the historic building. Locals told Life tabloid that "the boy was a Satanist. He always dressed in black." According to witnesses, he didn't resist arrest, but was laughing when the officers handcuffed him.

Comment: Whether influenced by dark forces or motivated by his own sick desires, this is one of many similar incidents reported recently:

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Stock Down

10 numbers that demonstrate America's current financial condition is a disaster waiting to happen

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog
Tue, 14 Aug 2018 09:27 UTC
nightmare
America's long-term "balance sheet numbers" just continue to get progressively worse. Unfortunately, since the stock market has been soaring and the GDP numbers look okay, most Americans assume that the U.S. economy is doing just fine. But the stock market was soaring and the GDP numbers looked okay just prior to the great financial crisis of 2008 as well, and we saw how that turned out. The truth is that GDP is not the best measure for the health of the economy. Judging the U.S. economy by GDP is basically like measuring the financial health of an individual by how much money he or she spends, and I will attempt to illustrate that in this article.

If I went out right now and got a whole bunch of new credit cards and started spending money like there was no tomorrow, would that mean that my financial condition had improved?

No, in fact it would mean that my long-term financial condition just got a whole lot worse.

GDP is a measurement of how much economic activity is happening in our society, and it is basically an indication of how much money is changing hands.

But just because more money is changing hands does not mean that things are going well. What really matters is what is happening to assets and liabilities. In other words, is wealth being built or is more debt just being accumulated?

Comment: See also:

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Handcuffs

Ex-soldiers demand public inquiry into UK involvement in US torture program


RT
Mon, 13 Aug 2018 17:47 UTC
prisoner in chains
© Velar Grant/ Global Look Press
A public inquiry into Britain's complicity in torture must be ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May, a cross-party group of ex-soldiers, including Andrew Mitchell, Dan Jarvis and Crispin Blunt, has demanded.

In a letter to May, the group said that "only through an independent judge-led inquiry will we learn the lessons of the past and decisively demonstrate our commitment to the values for which we served."

Their plea comes two months after a parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report concluded that Britain had tolerated "inexcusable" treatment of suspects by the US during the so-called war on terror.
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Heart - Black

Rough sleepers surge 60% in UK due to government imposed 'austerity' and the failing economy

Patrick Greenfield
Guardian
Fri, 10 Aug 2018 13:47 UTC
tents slough church homeless uk
© Martin Godwin/GuardianHomeless people camping outside a church in Slough have been given notice to leave.
UK may not have tent cities like US, but encampments have become feature of British life

Sun-bleached food packaging and the fading remnants of a campfire are the only clues that people used to live in woodland near Cardiff Bay. Residents nearby said the homeless men living in Hamadryad Park had left shortly after Aaron French-Willcox, 19, was found cold and unresponsive in a tent at an encampment in the early hours of 13 February.

French-Wilcox, who had type one diabetes and died from diabetic ketoacidosis, started living in one of the three tents at the site after he was reportedly caught taking the synthetic cannabinoid spice at a homeless shelter three weeks before his death.

"He didn't belong out here," said a Cardiff rough sleeper who knew him. "He was a nice guy. Goodhearted. Just a decent 19-year-old."

The teenager was one of a growing number of homeless people in temporary and semi-permanent encampments throughout the UK, in what has become an increasingly common fixture of British life, living underneath bridges, clearings in woodland and quieter corners of city centres.

Comment: Consecutive UK governments bet the country's future in the casino banking sector, and, when that failed in 2008, they bailed them out with billions from the public purse. Then, using imminent financial armageddon as cover, they implemented ideologically driven slashes to government spending (aka 'austerity'). Consequently the UK has seen poverty and homelessness skyrocket and an already ailing economy go into freefall: Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Perfidious Albion: If Russia is a Rogue State, What is the UK?

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Control Panel

Our virtual reality is controlled by algorithms

Sartre
BATR
Tue, 14 Aug 2018 08:49 UTC
liberal hate speech
The backlash against the high tech mob is so obvious that no sane person can deny that their version of acceptable thinking requires banning Free Speech. The genie is out of the lamp and the only way to prevent these demons from repeating their censorship is to cork the bottle of any product offered by these companies. Utopia for the authoritarian collectivists necessitates that they conjure up twisted and absurd content targets as hate speech in a desperate attempt to rationalize the purging of counter opinions to their orthodox "PC" Communist Manifesto. In essence, the "so called" left has become the model of fascism by and under Silicon Valley's techno plutocrats. Merging Fabian ideals with state/corporatist absolutism produces a deformed corporeality by algorithms in an artificial intelligence society.

Algorithms function as filters to identify dangerous voices of reason and common sense. Eradicating any kind of dissent or historic cultural viewpoints is automated in the digital cloud of approved thinking. The canard that the masters of artificial truth are private companies and are not subject to Bill of Right protections is an insult to anyone who is committed to the building of a free society. Google, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have emerged as monopolies that restrict speech and excel at censorship.

Several years ago Jane Wakefield's article in the BCC When algorithms control the world cited the following.
"In his book, The Filter Bubble, Eli Pariser questions how far Google's data-crunching algorithm go in harvesting our personal data and shaping the web we see accordingly.

Meanwhile, a recent study by psychologists at Columbia University found that reliance on search engines for answers is actually changing the way humans think."

Comment: See also:

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Fire

80 car fires in 20 locations in 1 night as wave of arson sets Sweden ablaze


thelocal.se
Mon, 13 Aug 2018 21:00 UTC
Frölunda car fire arson sweden
© Photo: Adam Ihse/TTA burned-out car in Frölunda, Gothenburg. Dozens of cars burned in several cities in Sweden on Monday evening.
Gothenburg police and fire services were alerted to the first blaze after 9pm, after which several more calls came in from the city as well as Trollhättan, Lysekil and Falkenberg some 100 kilometres away.

"We have been to around 20 places in Gothenburg. It's mainly vehicles that have burned - cars, some truck, caravans - but also some buried waste disposal site," Johan Eklund, emergency control room officer in the greater Gothenburg area, told Swedish news agency TT shortly after midnight.

Swedish media reported that groups of up to ten youths had been seen throwing stones and lighting cars on fire in Gothenburg districts Gårdsten, Hjällbo and Frölunda, among other locations.

Videos posted on social media showed masked people dressed in black torching cars.

Comment: Sweden has seen a surge in crime including shoot outs and an unbelievable frequency of bombings, just what is going on?

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Camera

The goal of propaganda is a population that will police itself...

Mark GB
Renegade Inc.
Mon, 13 Aug 2018 22:47 UTC
surveillance cameras
...or why the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn are not what they seem...

Propaganda has reached its zenith when each member of the target population thinks the same; when they are afraid to think differently. At this point 'leadership' may commit whatever atrocities it sees fit...in the certainty that the population will either not 'see' it, or will view the expression of criticism as a more heinous crime than the act being observed. This is achieved through cementing a 'false equivalence' in the mind of the group. Such a false equivalence is being cemented in the UK right now - the idea that criticism of Israel's persecution of Palestinians is an act of anti-Semitism.

The propagandist seeks to bend the 'group mind'. Thoughts and actions consistent with the 'narrative' are deemed to be socially acceptable & politically correct...ones that challenge it are regarded as socially UN-acceptable & politically IN-correct. Overtime this is reinforced through a dynamic that exists within every human grouping, and many species of mammal - fear of disapproval. Ergo, the propagandist is employing a form of 'crowd control'.

Comment:

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Target

Infantilizing Black America

Tosin Akintola
Quillette
Sun, 05 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC
Boy 1942
© UnknownPhoto of boy in 1942, Cincinnati, Ohio.
In contemporary political discourse, black America often seems to be perceived as a monolith. We are expected to think, act, and vote as one, and any attempt to step outside the bounds of our pre-determined spectrum of thoughts can lead to summary excommunication.

Our diversity pertains to our race, ethnicity, gender orientation, or sexual preference when set against the rest of the American population, but the diversity of opinions, beliefs, and values found among American blacks is seldom acknowledged. Even though the 'black community' in America includes immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America, as well as multiracial individuals and descendants of the slave trade, we are often grouped together as one large indistinguishable ideological bloc.


Comment: Any group is made up of individuals with things in common and things diverse. If we are to acknowledge and respect a person, it is on an individual's merits and choices. Surely we are not where we were 100 years ago and surely we will not be where we are today a hundred years from now.

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Attention

'More data, more profit': Google tracks location, your every move - even when you ask it not to


RT
Mon, 13 Aug 2018 16:44 UTC
Google cameras
© The Last Vagabond
If you've ever suspected that Google is watching your every move even when you explicitly tell it not to, a new investigation has vindicated your suspicions by proving just that.

An investigation carried out by the Associated Press has found that Google is in fact storing Android and iPhone users' location data even when they have chosen privacy settings to prevent the company from doing so.

Google claims that if you turn off the 'Location History' setting on your device, the company will not be able to store information about where you have been. The company states on its support page, that you can turn off Location History "at any time" and that, with the setting turned off, "the places you go are no longer stored."

But that's not true, the AP report says, because some Google apps continue to store time-stamped location data even when the 'Location History' setting is switched off - without asking for permission.

Some of the examples given by the AP include the Google Maps app, which takes a snapshot of your location as soon as you open it and even completely unrelated searches like "chocolate chip cookies" which "pinpoint your precise latitude and longitude" and save it to your Google account.

Comment: In order to prevent Goo from 'saving location data', they have to have it first. Someone's location should never be a company's cash cow. Deny this usurp of corporate and intelligence 'privilege'.

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