Society's ChildS


Eye 1

Facebook has expanded roll-out of fact-checker in 'fake news' crackdown

Facebook  fact-checking facility
© Valentin Wolf / www.globallookpress.comFacebook announced the fact-checking facility following the US elections last year.
Facebook has expanded the roll-out of its fact-checker tool to combat 'fake news' as more users report the appearance of the 'disputed' message alert. The pop-up lets users know when a story's accuracy is questionable before they share it.

Users in regions including the US have reported seeing the warning, advising them that "before you share this content, you might want to know that the fact-checking sites, Snopes.com and Associated Press disputed its accuracy."

The alert then allows the user to share the story or cancel.

Comment: "The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history." - George Orwell


No Entry

Over 636,000 accounts suspended since 2015 as Twitter tackles extremism

Twitter
© Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters
Twitter Inc announced it has suspended over 636,000 accounts since mid-2015 in an effort to tackle "violent extremism." The company has also begun taking "legal requests to remove content posted by verified journalists and media outlets."

The company suspended 376,890 accounts for violations related to the promotion of terrorism in the second half of 2016 alone, according to its transparency report released Tuesday.

The bi-annual report includes a new section, Government TOS reports, which includes requests made by governments "against the promotion of terrorism." According to the report, Twitter received 716 reports about 5,929 accounts, with 85 of those being "actioned."

Stock Down

Crashing economy putting families' post-Brexit living standards at risk

women shopping
© Luke MacGregor / Reuters
There are signs that the financial fallout from the Brexit referendum is beginning to have a negative impact on people's standards of living thanks to a spike in inflation that is squeezing incomes as a result of a crashing pound sterling.

A 15 percent drop in the value of British currency is now starting to affect people's living standards, as it freezes earnings and drives up prices.

According to the Office for National Statistics, inflation in the UK hit 2.3 percent in February, its highest level since September of 2013, and well above the predicted 2.1 percent.

Moreover, average earnings growth was below the inflation rate for the first time in three years, rising by just 2.2 percent in February.

Average food prices are up for the first time since April of 2014, increasing by 0.3 percent. Import costs and poor harvests are apparently offsetting savings achieved through competitive supermarket deals. More expensive fish and fruit, with particularly "large prices" for vegetables, are responsible for the increase in the cost of living.

Eye 1

British police spy on journalists & campaigners using Indian hackers

Indian hackers
© Fayaz Kabli / Reuters
The Metropolitan Police is under investigation after complaints it uses hackers in India to illegally crack into the email accounts of journalists and environmental activists.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is looking into the allegations after receiving an anonymous letter from a person claiming to have been working in the intelligence unit responsible for the hacks.

The letter was originally sent to Green Party peer Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb.

"For a number of years the unit had been illegally accessing the email accounts of activists," the letter read.

Eye 1

Schizophrenic inmate scalded to death by laughing guards, State Attorney announces no one will be charged

Darren Rainey
"Please take me out! I can't take it anymore!" screamed Darren Rainey, a schizophrenic man serving time in prison for cocaine possession — as he kicked the door of the scalding hot shower repeatedly — while four guards stood just outside for fully two hours, laughing sadistically at his agonizing pain.

Neither John Fan Fan, Cornelius Thompson, Ronald Clarke, nor Edwina Williams — guards at Florida's Dade Correctional Institution, who forced the man into the 180-degree shower as a demented punishment — answered the frantic pleas.

"Is it hot enough?" inmates say one of the four cruelly quipped.

Rainey died.

Comment: The shower itself was quite obviously dangerous enough to burn a man to death. Pleas for help were obviously ignored and laughed at, so it is also quite obvious this man's well being was grossly disregarded. A system that disregards life and expresses such contempt for humanity naturally orders a hellish future. And it'll be a hell inflicted on everyone.


Monkey Wrench

Dakota Access pipeline vandalized in two states

oil pipeline
© Rick Wilking / Reuters
Vandals are alleged to have attacked sections of the Dakota Access pipeline in two separate incidents. A hole was burned in an empty section of the pipeline in South Dakota, and others took a blowtorch to a safety valve in Iowa, according to authorities.

Calling it "felony vandalism," the South Dakota Attorney General's office spokeswoman Sara Raber confirmed the incident on the Dakota Access Pipeline on Tuesday, according to AP.

The attack happened at an above-ground site that had no fencing or other security, southeast of Sioux Falls last Friday.

Comment: While the environmental activists might have good intentions, the fact that they think stopping oil production will have an effect on global warming and climate change is not scientifically sound. The data suggest otherwise. Read:

Fire and Ice: The Day After Tomorrow


Family

UNICEF criticizes Germany for neglecting refugee children

refugee children Germany
© Fabrizio Bensch / ReutersRefugee shelter in Berlin's Hohenschoenhausen district, Germany.
A new report produced by the German branch of UNICEF criticizes the government for providing insufficient quality housing and schooling for the record-breaking number of minors it has accepted since 2015.

"Compared to many other countries in the European Union, Germany has invested a lot in hosting the refugees in the last two years," Sebastian Sedlmayr, head of children's rights and education at UNICEF Germany, told Deutsche Welle. "But it's important to flag that there are still some shortcomings."

Out of over 1 million migrants who arrived in Germany since the outbreak of the refugee crisis two years ago, about 350,000 stated that they were under 18 at the time of their arrival, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan, Africa and Eastern Europe. The authors of the 68-page German-language study, titled "Childhood Postponed," interviewed 447 staff and 18 migrant families at the refugee shelters hosting them last year.

Brick Wall

Mosul's refugee crisis: Many displaced would rather live under ISIS than in UN camps

Mosul refugee crisis
© Sputnik/ HİKMET DURGUN
The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights is reporting that roughly 415,000 refugees have been displaced since October, when Iraqi Security Forces first began their operation against Daesh in Mosul, and that life inside UN refugee camps is so dismal some say they prefer living in occupied areas.

Based on quotes from western Mosul refugees, the right group says conditions both inside and outside refugee camps are so extreme that displaced people would rather stay with relatives on the eastern side of Mosul, which has been recaptured by Daesh, than remain in camps in the Hammam al-Alil district in the west of the city.

Some refugees said "nothing would help them stay," in the camps located in Hammam al-Alil, with others saying it's "difficult to live in camps due to the absence of daily livelihood requirements," according to Iraqi News.

Bomb

The global debt bomb is ready to explode: $21,714 for every man, woman and child in the world

debt bomb
According to the International Monetary Fund, global debt has grown to a staggering grand total of 152 trillion dollars. Other estimates put that figure closer to 200 trillion dollars, but for the purposes of this article let's use the more conservative number. If you take 152 trillion dollars and divide it by the seven billion people living on the planet, you get $21,714, which would be the share of that debt for every man, woman and child in the world if it was divided up equally.

So if you have a family of four, your family's share of the global debt load would be $86,856.

Very few families could write a check for that amount today, and we also must remember that we live in some of the wealthiest areas on the globe. Considering the fact that more than 3 billion people around the world live on two dollars a day or less, the truth is that about half the planet would not be capable of contributing toward the repayment of our 152 trillion dollar debt at all. So they should probably be excluded from these calculations entirely, and that would mean that your family's share of the debt would ultimately be far, far higher.

Handcuffs

Friend of Charleston attacker Dylann Roof gets 27-month sentence for lying to FBI

Dylann Storm Roof
© ReutersDylann Storm Roof
Joey Meek, the only person Dylann Roof told of plans to open fire at black worshipers in a South Carolina church in 2015, was given a 27-month federal prison sentence for impeding an FBI investigation into the massacre.

Meek, 22, had advanced knowledge of Roof's plan to attack the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. On June 17, 2015, Roof carried out his plan, killing nine people after sitting in on a prayer meeting for an hour. Three victims survived the shooting rampage. Roof was sentenced to death in January.

Yet Meek was not punished Tuesday for failing to notify authorities of Roof's plans before the shooting, as this does not constitute a criminal act. Federal Judge Richard Gergel said during Meek's court hearing that the more serious offense regarded Meek's efforts to conceal knowledge of the plot from the FBI after the killings occurred.

When confronted by the FBI, Meek denied knowing of the plan. He also encouraged friends with whom he had shared his knowledge of Roof's plot not to speak to the authorities.

Comment: See also: Dylann Roof gets Death penalty as sentencing verdict reached