Society's ChildS


Laptop

'Facebook has never cared' about privacy says Cambridge Analytic app developer


RT
Mon, 23 Apr 2018 13:49 UTC
FacebookCA
© Global Look Press
Through a simple quiz app, Aleksandr Kogan was able to collect the personal data of some 87 million Facebook users. However, tens of thousands of app developers did the exact same thing.

A scientist at the University of Cambridge, Kogan developed a quiz app that was used by consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to mine the data of 87 million Facebook users, including their private messages. That data was then used to target political advertisements in the run-up to the 2016 election in the US.

Kogan's app collected data not just from users who accepted its terms, but from their friends and contacts too. It did this through a feature called 'Friend Permissions.' Sandy Parakilas, a former data protection manager at Facebook, told NBC's Lesley Stahl how this worked:
"The way it works is if you're using an app and I'm your friend, the app can say, 'Hey, Lesley, we want to get your data for use in this app, and we also want to get your friends' data.' If you say, 'I will allow that,' then the app gets my data, too."

"It seems crazy now," said Kogan. "But this was a core feature of the Facebook platform for years. This was not a special permission you had to get. This was just something that was available to anybody who wanted it who was a developer."
According to Kogan, "tens of thousands" of app developers did the exact same thing, until Facebook recently removed the 'Friend Permissions' feature after the Cambridge Analytica scandal went public last month.
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Attention

France: Students, workers protest Macron's austerity, militarism, destruction of social rights and industry

Anthony Torres
World Socialist Web Site
Sat, 21 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC
MacronProtesters
© Daily ExpressFrance in Chaos
The first protest of strikers from multiple professions since November 2017 took place on April 19, organized by the Stalinist-led General Confederation of Labor (CGT) and Pabloite-linked Solidarity unions, as student blockades of universities spread across France to protest President Emmanuel Macron's policies of austerity and militarism.

The CGT claimed 300,000 people (119,000 according to police) had marched in a total of 130 protests across France. Approximately 20,000 people joined the protest in Paris from Montparnasse to Italy Square. In Lyon, 15,000 people according to the CGT (9,200 according to police) marched. The CGT also claimed 13,000 protesters in Nantes and 65,000 in Marseille (6,000 and 5,000, respectively, according to police).

Apart from university and high school students, retirees, rail workers and workers from several industries that have taken strike action against Macron were present. Strike movements are emerging in Air France, Paris regional transport, the energy and electricity industry, the auto industry, hospitals as well as among undocumented workers and school and day care workers.

Comment: Macron is not out to support his country or do them any favors. He has the makings of a tyrant and dictator, fomenting his own brand of social uprising. How soon before we see the French version of Martial Law?

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Jet4

Upwards of 50 killed in Saudi-led air strikes on Yemeni wedding


RT
Mon, 23 Apr 2018 08:53 UTC
Wedding funeral
© Democracy NowTurning a wedding into a funeral...
Suspected Saudi-led strikes on a wedding ceremony in Yemeni Hajjah province have resulted in multiple casualties, including women and children. The death toll ranges from 20 to 50 people, reports citing local health officials say.

On Sunday, a reported Saudi-led missile strike hit a house where a wedding ceremony was being held, in Yemen's northwestern province of Hajjah. There are conflicting reports on casualties. Numbers vary from 20, according to AP, to 50 people, according to local Saba News Agency. Meanwhile, Xinhua reports that at least 40 people were killed or wounded, citing a senior health official, Mohammed al-Ashwal.

The same figures were given by the head of Al Jumhouri hospital in Hajjah, who said they received "40 bodies, most of them torn to pieces," according to Reuters. Thirty children were among the 46 injured in the attack, the official said.

The death toll could rise, as some people are believed to still be under the rubble, according to Saba. At the same time, "a dozen of the injured are in critical condition," al-Ashwal told Xinhua.

Comment: Insanity doubles down as weddings are turned into funerals. See also:

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X

New Russian bill orders firing of MPs whose spending exceeds official income


RT
Mon, 23 Apr 2018 09:53 UTC
ManMoney
© Nikolay Gyngazov / Global Look Press'nip and tuck'
The Lower House Security Committee of the Russian parliament has approved a new draft law which allows to firing of federal lawmakers who lie in their income declarations and spend more than they officially earn.

The bill, written by MP Anatoly Vybornyi of the majority party United Russia, orders that Russian senators and state Duma deputies who knowingly include false information in their annual income declarations are automatically ousted from parliament. If the mistake is unintentional then the lawmaker responsible can get off with a warning.

In comments to the Izvestia daily newspaper the author of the bill said that the document equates the rights and responsibilities of parliament members to those of other civil servants. At present, civil servants who give false information on their income declaration are punished with automatic sacking, while senators and state Duma deputies face only the obligatory disclosure of this information in the mass media and on the parliament's website.

If passed the bill would make it obligatory for parliamentarians to report all deals made within a year when the size of such deals exceeds the combined income of all their family members for the previous three years. The reports must include the detailed list of sources for the purchase.

In addition, the bill orders automatic expulsion of members of parliament who allowed a conflict of interests to occur and whose actions hurt the interests of citizens, state organizations or the state as a whole.
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Mr. Potato

Fox News commentator and former adviser to Trump campaign defends ISIS in bizarre comments

Paul Antonopoulos
Fort Russ News
Sun, 22 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC
Walid Phares
A Fox News commentator and former presidential campaign adviser to Mitt Romney and Donald Trump has gone on record on Twitter to defend ISIS.

Earlier today, Professor Walid Phares tweeted: "Assad air force is bombarding Palestinian refugees camp, Yarmuk, not far from Damascus while his ally Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah is threatening wars to "defend the Palestinians." Is it a war to stop Assad strikes against the Palestinians, perhaps?"

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Life Preserver

Stench coming from home leads investigators to 10,000 endangered tortoises

Jani Actman
National Geographic
Fri, 20 Apr 2018 12:00 UTC
10000 tortoises madagascar
© DREEF / Atsimo Andrefana
Authorities found 10,000 radiated tortoises, a critically endangered species, crammed into a house in Toliara, Madagascar.

Soary Randrianjafizanaka set out with police, colleagues, and others earlier this month to investigate a rancid smell coming from a two-story house in Toliara, a town on the southwestern coast of Madagascar. She arrived at a scene unlike any she'd seen before in her role as a regional head of Madagascar's environmental agency: thousands of tortoises of varying sizes covering the floors, jammed up against one another with no room to move.

Randrianjafizanaka said the stench of feces and urine was overwhelming.

"You cannot imagine. It was so awful," she said. "They had tortoises in the bathroom, in the kitchen, everywhere in the house."

The vast majority of the tortoises, although alive, were weak and dehydrated.

Comment: See also:

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Snakes in Suits

PACE report finds 'strong suspicion' Council of Europe officials involved in corruption in favor of Azerbaijan


RT
Mon, 23 Apr 2018 18:44 UTC
pace session
© Vladimir Fedorenko / Sputnik
There is "a strong suspicion" that several Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe officials, including its former head, have been involved in corrupt activities in favor of Azerbaijan, a new PACE report said.

The officials have accepted luxury gifts, including caviar, carpets, and stays in top hotels in the Azeri capital, Baku, the 219-page report conducted by French, UK, and Swedish experts said, stating that "there was a strong suspicion that certain current and former members of PACE had engaged in activity of a corruptive nature."

"The investigation body found that, in their activities concerning Azerbaijan, several members and former members of PACE had acted contrary to the PACE ethical standards," the report, published on PACE's website, said.

The report pointed out that there were allegations of suspicious practices in favor other countries at PACE, but the probe lacked resources to look into all of them. The investigators singled out Azerbaijan due to several NGOs blaming the country of attempts to avoid criticism at PACE "in exchange for gifts and money" to the body's members.
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Pirates

Drag kings seek to combat 'toxic masculinity' by dressing up like men and acting like women

Faith Moore
PJ Media
Mon, 23 Apr 2018 18:21 UTC
drag king
For a while now, feminists have been trying to find a way to combat "toxic masculinity." The feminist belief that rape and other sexual crimes stem from societal norms about masculinity, has caused the term "toxic" to come to encompass any behavior that is traditionally considered male. So, to combat toxic masculinity, one must weed out all behaviors that are seen as masculine. Which, of course, leaves only behaviors that are seen as feminine. Which means pretty much everyone would have to act like a woman. Hooray for feminism.

A recent article at HuffPost suggests a way to mainstream the idea that, in order to combat toxic masculinity, men must act like women. The article, called "It's Time For Drag Kings To Detoxify Masculinity On TV," is written by a drag king named Goldie Peacock. A drag king - for all you unenlightened sexist misogynists out there - is a woman who identifies as a woman but impersonates a man.
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Sherlock

Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr questions why Mueller hasn't contacted her

Nataliya Vasilyeva
The Associated Press
Sun, 22 Apr 2018 18:33 UTC
Veselnitskaya
© Associated Press/Dmitry SerebryakovRussian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, April 22, 2018.
A Russian lawyer who discussed sanctions with Donald Trump Jr. in New York during his father's 2016 campaign for the U.S. presidency said Sunday that special counsel Robert Mueller has not contacted her yet.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Natalia Veselnitskaya also detailed her recent meeting in Berlin with investigators from the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee. Like Mueller, the committee is investigating allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election.

Veselnitskaya met in June 2016 with then-candidate Donald Trump's son, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort, his campaign chairman at the time, Paul Manafort, after Trump Jr. was told the Russian lawyer had potentially incriminating information about Hillary Clinton.

Comment: Ms Veselnitskaya appears to be the loose thread of a murky, messy situation Mueller seems keen to avoid.

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Star of David

While the world is transfixed by Gaza protests, Israeli forces continue to invade Nabi Saleh in the West Bank

Anne Paq and Heidi Motola
Mondoweiss
Mon, 23 Apr 2018 18:13 UTC
Belal Tamimi israel soldier
© Anne PaqJanna Jihad Ayyad confronts Israeli soldiers invading her village of Nabi Saleh during clashes with youth, April 21, 2018. Janna who turned 12 counts herself among the youngest journalists in the world, and has been reporting about the situation in the village since she has been a very young child.
"What's happening now is what is happening every week, sometimes everyday, since nearly nine years", explains Belal Tamimi, a resident of the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. "Every Friday, we have this situation, the soldiers try to surround the village, they don't want anyone to be near the spring area that the settlers occupied nine years ago. Every Friday, the situation is horrible", says Belal, who has taken the role of documenting the protests and the constant raids by the Israeli army.

Nabi Saleh, a small village of 600 inhabitants, has been recently in the headlines, following the arrest of the young activist, Ahed Tamimi (17), who slapped an Israeli soldier in front of her home last December. However, there is little attention to the fact that the village is regularly invaded by the Israeli army, days and nights, triggering clashes with the youth, who confront the soldiers with stones. The arrests takes place mostly during the nights and currently, according to Belal Tamimi, 19 residents of Nabi Saleh are imprisoned by the Israeli authorities.

Comment: The smirk on the soldier's face in the last photo says it all. The army is untouchable and they know it. So long as the US continues to enable Israeli criminality, the Palestinian people will continue to suffer.

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