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WhatsApp plasters Indian TV with ads to confront fake news after chat rumors turn to lynch mob deaths


RT
Mon, 03 Dec 2018 14:11 UTC
WhatsApp India
© WhatsApp
WhatsApp has branched into Indian TV screens as it launched its first-ever film ads to urge users to spread joy and not rumors, after fake news on the chat app incited a spate of mob lynchings.

From Monday, Indians, the world's biggest users of WhatsApp, will be blasted with ads portraying the grave consequences of false information. The 60-second movies based on the experiences of real users will run on TV, in cinemas, as well as on YouTube and Facebook in nine different languages, including English and Hindi.

The protagonists in all three films are ordinary people teaching someone close to them how they can escape becoming propagators of fake news. Tips include leaving group chats where rumors can be spread and blocking any suspicious user.


Comment: Is it too late to put the destructive WhatsApp genie back into the bottle? What is it about this particular platform that seems to attract so much pathology?

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Padlock

Tijuana shuts down sports complex migrant shelter


The Washington Times
Sun, 02 Dec 2018 00:00 UTC
tent tape
© AP/Rebecca Blackwell
Caution tape blocks migrants from camping outside a sports complex authorities were attempting to shut down.
The city government of Tijuana announced Saturday that it has closed down a migrant shelter at a sports complex close to the U.S. border that once held about 6,000 Central Americans who hope to get into the U.S.

Officials said all the migrants were being moved to a former concert venue much farther from the border. The city said in a statement the sports complex shelter was closed because of "bad sanitary conditions."

Experts had expressed concerns about unsanitary conditions that had developed at the partly flooded sports complex, where the migrants had been packed into a space adequate for half their numbers. Mud, lice infestations and respiratory infections were rampant.

The remaining migrants were taken by bus to the new shelter about 10 miles from the border crossing at Otay Mesa and 14 miles from San Ysidro, near where people line up to file applications for asylum in the United States.

Comment: A developmental plan and working agreement, formulated to include the entire region, would be a huge step forward in galvanizing a unified approach to massive and ongoing migrant activity. See also:

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Attention

Italy: 60% of 'retired' migrants receive pensions without working a single day

Laura Cat
Voice of Europe
Sun, 02 Dec 2018 00:00 UTC
Migrant boat
© photofilippo66/shutterstock.com
An astonishing report by newspaper Il Giornale says that 60% of immigrants in Italy have retired having never worked.

Out of 96,000 non-EU citizens who receive a pension from Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza Sociale (INPS), 60,000 have never worked and therefore never paid in any contributions or taxes.

There are roughly two million foreigners enrolled with Italy's social security agency in total. The number of employed, contributing towards their pensions is only 1,700,000. This means 60 per cent of immigrants in Italy have never worked and are having their pensions paid for by the Italian taxpayer.

The INPS figures show that in 2017 96,743 pensions were paid to non-EU citizens. Of these, 60,000 receive a pension that is not covered by previously paid contributions.

The majority of the migrants living off the Italian taxpayer for retirement appears to be older family members allowed to migrate through chain migration "reunited with immigrants" Il Giornale reports.

Comment: Why bureaucratic rationalizations never work.

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Bulb

Back to the present: Court rejects delusional Dutch man's request to legally change his age


RT
Mon, 03 Dec 2018 15:50 UTC
Emile Ratelband
© ANP / AFP / Robin van Lonkhuijsen 20
Emile Ratelband, 69, answers journalists' questions on December 3, 2018 in Amsterdam
The 69-year-old Dutch motivational speaker who fought to legally change his age so that he might fare better in the dating scene has had his case rejected by a court in the Netherlands.

Self-proclaimed 'positivity coach' Emile Ratelband was frustrated by his lack of luck with the ladies in online dating, something which he attributed to his age.

Thus began the legal case which garnered worldwide media attention and perhaps a few wry smiles at how audacious Ratelband's claim was; namely that he 'felt' 20 years younger and should therefore be allowed to legally change his age.

"I say it's comparable because it has to do with my feeling, with respect about who I think ... I am, my identity," Rateband said.

He argued that his appeal was in keeping with recent progressive policies and laws in which personal transformation and identification is afforded more freedom than ever before, including but not limited to, changing one's name or gender identity.
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Eye 1

Prince Andrew dragged back into Jeffrey Epstein paedo scandal, Florida court will hear victims stories

Aletha Adu
The Sun
Mon, 03 Dec 2018 01:35 UTC
Prince Andrew poses with Virginia Roberts

Prince Andrew poses with Virginia Roberts on March 13 2001 at Ghislaine Maxwell's townhouse in London
On Tuesday, a Florida courtroom will hear Epstein's victims recall their accounts of being sexually abused

Prince Andrew has been dragged back into the Jeffrey Epstein paedo scandal as a photo of him with an 'underage prostitute' has been listed as an exhibit at a new court case.

On Tuesday, a Florida courtroom will hear the tragic stories of sexual abuse that US financier Epstein subjected his victims to.

The Duke of York is photographed with his arm around Virginia Roberts' waist at a London townhouse in March 2001.

Roberts who may be called as a witness at Palm Beach County Court this week, has claimed she was forced to have sex with Epstein and he "loaned [her] out" to perform sex acts for his wealthy pals.
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Bullseye

More #MeToo: Three women accuse Neil deGrasse Tyson of sexual misconduct

Nicole Chavez
CNN
Sun, 02 Dec 2018 15:32 UTC
Neil deGrasse Tyson
© Fox
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Astrophysicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson has denied allegations of sexual misconduct made against him by three women.

Last month, three women told Patheos, a religion and spirituality website, that Tyson harassed them and made inappropriate sexual advances as early as 1984 and in recent years.

"Accusations can damage a reputation and a marriage. Sometimes irreversibly. I see myself as a loving husband and as a public servant -- a scientist and educator who serves at the will of the public. I am grateful for the support I've received from those who continue to respect and value me and my work," he wrote in a lengthy Facebook post titled "On Being Accused."

Tyson disputed or offered a different version of the allegations against him. Katelyn N. Allers, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, told Patheos that Tyson grabbed her arm and reached into her dress while looking at her tattoo of the solar system. She said the incident happened during a party after a gathering of the American Astronomical Society in 2009.
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Attention

'We are experimenting on children': The dangers of trans ideology


Spiked
Fri, 30 Nov 2018 00:00 UTC
Psychotherapist Bob Withers
Psychotherapist Bob Withers on the dangers of trans ideology.

The number of children identifying as transgender is on the rise. Referrals to the NHS's Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service have increased by an astonishing 2,500 per cent in the past nine years. Psychotherapist Bob Withers is concerned that large numbers of children are being transitioned unnecessarily, and that discussion of this phenomenon is being closed down by trans activists. spiked caught up with him to find out more.

spiked: What first made you want to intervene in this debate?

Bob Withers: 25 years ago I had my first ever trans client. Chris had been living as a trans woman for nine years but had decided to de-transition. By that stage, he had lost his penis. Looking back, he felt he identified as a woman for psychological reasons. But he had fallen in with the trans community and got the idea in his head that he needed to transition with surgery. You have to have counselling in order to get the hormones and the surgery, but his friends in the trans community told him what to say.

Most people, including children, who want to transition nowadays are coached online by trans activists. They are told what to tell therapists in order to improve their chances of getting surgery and hormones. Most have already made up their minds that transitioning is the answer to their problems.

But if 10 years down the line, if you find that transitioning does not fix everything, you cannot go back, you have permanently altered your body. And so it became a mission of mine to try to help people like Chris before they have surgery, to work psychologically on the issues that they are actually suffering from.

Comment: See also: Mother forcing transgenderism on 6-yo son may suffer from mental illness, pediatrician says

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Camcorder

Love in the #MeToo age: Women are being asked to record 'consent videos' before sex

Lydia Hawken
The Sun
Fri, 30 Nov 2018 00:01 UTC
couple phone in bed
© Getty
According to an Evening Standard report, some men have been filming 'consent videos' to prevent any public rape accusations.
In a post #MeToo era some men are going to extreme lengths to ensure they have consent from female sexual partners

A worrying new trend is seeing women being asked to record "consent videos" before having sex with men who fear they will be accused of assault afterwards.

This post #MeToo dating trend involves one partner filming the other giving them verbal consent before they engage in a sexual act.

This then allows the person who recorded the video to use it as "evidence" that their partner gave consent before having sex.

Comment: So this is what it's come to? One could easily argue that we're living through the death of romance. But you certainly can't blame guys for wanting to cover their bases, considering the ridiculous "rules" that have come forward about consent from the #MeToo movement. But considering that today, a post-coitus change-of-mind can lead to rape allegations, even these steps aren't ironclad.

See also:

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Bacon

Language police: Phrases like 'bring home the bacon' will go out of fashion because of vegans, academic claims

Miles Dilworth
The Daily Mail
Mon, 03 Dec 2018 13:39 UTC
bacon
© Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
The growing popularity of veganism could lead to a cull of meat and dairy sayings, an academic has claimed.

Phrases such as 'bring home the bacon' and 'killing two birds with one stone' will go out of fashion to avoid offending animal lovers, according to Shareena Hamzah of Swansea University.

She cited guidance from Peta, the animal rights charity, which wants people to replace expressions such as 'take the bull by the horns' with 'take the flower by the thorns'.

Comment: When will people learn that the average person does not like being told what they can and can't say? What's much more likely to happen than the scenario put forth above is that people will resent vegans trying to police their language and the existing expressions will become even more popular. Or perhaps new ones will emerge. How about, "There's more than one way to eat a pig"?

See also:

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Snowflake

Overly-fragile win: 'Baby It's Cold Outside' pulled by radio station, citing #MeToo


BBC
Sat, 01 Dec 2018 00:01 UTC
Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban in Neptune's Daughter
© Getty Images
The song was recorded for the 1949 film Neptune's Daughter (pictured) and won an Oscar for Best Original Song in 1950.
It's a Christmas classic probably being played in shops and radio stations all over the world.

But a radio station in Cleveland, Ohio has decided to remove Baby It's Cold Outside from its playlist following complaints from listeners.

Local media report that listeners said the song was inappropriate and at odds with the #MeToo movement.

But a poll on the station's Facebook page showed a majority of respondents did not want the song banned.

Comment: The move to ban absolutely anything that potentially causes offense is a dangerous trend. If one finds a song offensive, don't listen to it. To try and remove it from existence is essentially trying to rewrite history. People thought differently in the past - deal with it. If you're so fragile that a song is going to cause you offense, maybe you've got bigger problems than what a radio station has on its playlist.

See also:
baby its cold outside meme


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