Leaked Facebook Papers reveal social media giant targeted children as young as SIX-years-old to generate bigger profits

The leaked Facebook Papers revealed the social media giant was working to target children as young as 6 years old to expand its consumer base and generate greater profits for the tech titan.

An internal blog post published on April 9 announced that the company was in the process of hiring employees to re-envision its full range of products for kids ages 6-9 and tweens ages 10-12. The company currently already targets children starting at 13 years old.

The post, titled 'The internet wasn't built with young people in mind, but we're about to change that,' was among documents released by whistleblower Frances Haugen's legal team and provided to Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission that has become known as the Facebook Papers.

'Our company is making a major investment in youth and has spun up a cross-company virtual team to make safer, more private, experiences for youth that improve their and their household's well-being,' the blog post read, according to NBC News.

'For many of our products, we historically haven't designed for under 13.'

The company changed its corporate name to Meta on Thursday as it attempts to rebrand itself after the Facebook Papers highlighted other troubling accusations against the social media titan, including incentives to promote hate and misinformation, a list of high-profile people who can skirt censorship, and even human trafficking.

The leaked post discusses the five different groups Facebook plans to establish: kids 6 to 9 years old, tweens 10 to 12 years old, early teens from 13 to 15 years old, late teens from 16 to 17 years old, and adults 18 and above.

'These five age groups can be used to define education, transparency, controls and defaults that will meet the needs of young users,' the post states. It then goes on to cite the Age Appropriate Design Code (AADC)- a new statutory code that will apply to the company's products in Europe.

In the post, Facebook stated that they had kickstarted the project with several researched but were looking to hire people who had a background in 'global research among youth (particularly kids, tweens, and their caregivers)' and 'partnering with external parties (e.g. academic, policymakers, regulators, child advocates).

Open positions are listed for Privacy Research, Instagram Child Safety and Family Center, MK Youth Research, Instagram Youth Research, Instagram Youth Overall, Instagram Child Safety, and Messenger Kids/Youth Platform- Messenger Kids is a video calling and messaging app created by Facebook that is currently available in app stores. (Facebook owns Instagram)

A diagram titled Where We've Been and Where We're Going outlines how the company plans to expand beyond's Facebook's current target market to reach kids and tweens.

http://www.stationgossip.com/2021/10/leaked-facebook-papers-reveal-social.html

Special inspector general for Afghanistan warns the Pentagon is classifying documents to cover up failures and demands secret reports on how country collapsed are published now

A U.S. government watchdog on Friday accused the State Department and Pentagon of suppressing information that lawmakers and the public need to understand the collapse of Afghanistan's former government and military and the chaotic U.S. troop pullout.

John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR), spoke out on Friday after it emerged that many of the routine documents had now been marked as classified.

'The full picture of what happened in August - and all the warning signs that could have predicted the outcome - will only be revealed if the information that the departments of Defense and State have already restricted from public release is made available,' said Sopko.

He published on Friday his latest report into the spending in Afghanistan, as requested by Congress who asked for an explanation of what went wrong.

Sopko said that it was time for transparency since the government of President Ashraf Ghani had collapsed.

'There is a lot of information that was classified or withheld from the American people over the years, particularly since 2015, to protect the Afghan government from embarrassment,' Sopko told NPR.

'And there is no Ghani government. There is no Afghan government anymore. So we think that information should be immediately released to SIGAR and to the American people and Congress in an unclassified format.'

Asked what the information he wanted publishing was, he replied: 'It was, how good was the Afghan government fighting corruption?

'How good was the Afghan military able to stand on their own? - casualty rates for the Afghan military, efficiency rates, their ability to actually function as an independent military.

'That was information that the Ghani government requested the U.S. government not share with the American people. There's no reason to protect it any more.'

A State Department spokesperson said the department had requested 'some reports be temporarily removed to redact identifying information from public records and protect the identities of Afghans and Afghan partner organizations' due to security concerns about the evacuation effort.'

The spokesperson continued: 'The identifying information are the only details intended to be shielded.'

They added that SIGAR has the authority to restore the reports.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

http://www.stationgossip.com/2021/10/special-inspector-general-for.html

‘I Was Raped By The CIA Medics,’ Says Black-Site Survivor

In his first-ever statement, Majid Khan detailed the vengeful reality of the post-9/11 CIA: “The more I cooperated and told them, the more I was tortured.”

IN ONE OF THE MOST HORRIFIC accounts in the entire 20-year War on Terror, a survivor of the CIA’s black sites testified at Guantanamo Bay on Thursday that his CIA captors repeatedly sexually assaulted him—sometimes as revenge for his hunger strikes.

“I was raped by the CIA medics,” Majid Khan said in an address before the Guantanamo military commission on Thursday. It was his first statement to the outside world in 18 years of captivity and abuse in Afghanistan and Guantanamo.

Khan, now 41, spent his first 16 years in Pakistan before his family moved to Maryland. He attended Owings Mills High School outside of Baltimore. He acknowledged on Thursday that his trajectory from “normal U.S. teenager” to al-Qaeda adherent to CIA and military prisoner “must be tough to comprehend.” Left unsaid was how often throughout U.S. history Americans, to say nothing of foreigners, have experienced brutality at the hands of a state that sees them as nonpersons.

He recounted asking one of the CIA medics at an Afghanistan black site in September 2003 why the medic administered what Khan called “the insertions.” Khan said the medic responded, “You’re a fucking terrorist.”

Yet the CIA’s treatment of Khan suggests that the agency did not believe Khan mattered in the world of terrorism, or even possessed much intelligence to extract. By late August 2003, he had been tortured so brutally that he signed a confession—“I don’t remember what I wrote, but I did whatever they asked,” he said—an extension of a willingness to cooperate he said he tried to establish on his first day in captivity.

Even though he had given his captors the confession they wanted, Khan said he was mostly left to rot in his cell for the seven months that followed. His interrogators showed no interest in him. Those particular seven months were a hell of a time for people allegedly out to thwart terrorist plots to show such neglect. They bracket a wave of al Qaeda violence from bombing the United Nations out of Baghdad up to the First Battle of Fallujah. “I was so starved for attention,” Khan recalled.

Khan is unique amongst Guantanamo detainees and black-site survivors. He was moved to Guantanamo Bay in 2006; in February 2012, he pleaded guilty to couriering money for al-Qaeda, and agreed to testify in military tribunals against several of the few detainees charged with crimes, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammad. The lieutenant colonels, colonels, commanders, and Navy captains of the commission are expected to sentence him to 25 to 40 years. But his cooperation, in both criminal and military prosecutions, is expected to result in Khan’s release from Guantanamo in February 2022. He has been in one cage or another since March 5, 2003.

“He has lived up to his obligation to provide U.S. authorities with credible and complete information for a decade,” said Katya Jestin, one of Khan’s longtime pro bono attorneys.

https://foreverwars.substack.com/p/i-was-raped-by-the-cia-medics-says

>>14887485

but there are on instagram etc…

Most American Parents Unaware China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar are Major Donors to US Universities

A majority of American parents are unaware that China, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar are among the top financiers of U.S. universities and are worried that foreign cash is influencing what their children are taught in the classroom, according to a recent poll.

Nearly 60 percent of those interviewed in the September poll said they were not aware that the countries are major donors to U.S. universities. The poll was commissioned by the Lawfare Project, a nonprofit advocacy group that tracks campus issues.

Qatar’s presence in the U.S. academic system was concerning to parents when they learned about the small Gulf nation’s deep ties to Iran and terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the Taliban. Eighty-four percent of those surveyed said American schools should publicly disclose their ties to Qatar and explain how the money could be coloring the in-class agenda, according to the poll, which surveyed 2,009 adults last month and was provided exclusively to the Washington Free Beacon.

While extensive foreign funding of American universities has raised alarms in Congress and among advocacy groups such as the Lawfare Project, ordinary American parents are not aware of the issue. This is partly because American schools do not publicly disclose their funding and in many cases try to hide their ties to adversarial nations like China. Foreign countries see the U.S. academic system as central to their propaganda efforts, including anti-Israel initiatives. In the case of countries such as China, they seek to steal cutting-edge research. More than 80 percent of those surveyed said Congress should enact legislation requiring schools to publicly account for every foreign donation.

Around 70 percent of those surveyed said they were concerned that foreign donations influence teaching and research priorities. In Qatar’s case, the country has spent billions running propaganda efforts in at least 28 American universities, generating concerns these donations run afoul of U.S. law. With anti-Semitism and anti-Israel attitudes increasing on many American campuses, foreign money has helped foment these movements, including at the University of North Carolina and Duke University—both of which have been embroiled in a long-running controversy over Qatar’s funding of programs critics see as anti-Semitic.

"The public wants full transparency on what Qatar is funding in American schools, and Congress must demand it," Brooke Goldstein, the Lawfare Project’s executive director, told the Free Beacon. "Parents have a right to know what foreign governments are teaching our children."

China’s funding for American universities remains the top concern for parents, with 70 percent expressing worry about Beijing’s presence at U.S. schools. Around 65 percent expressed similar concerns about Saudi Arabia, followed closely by Qatar with 57 percent of those surveyed.

More broadly, there was a 50-50 split between those who support foreign funding of schools and those who oppose it altogether.

https://freebeacon.com/campus/most-american-parents-unaware-china-saudi-arabia-qatar-are-major-donors-to-us-universities/

McDonald’s to deploy automated drive-throughs in partnership with IBM

Process will use voice-recognition software to streamline ordering process

Fast-food giant McDonald’s is preparing to move forward with an expanded automated drive-through ordering system in a partnership with IBM, a technology the company says is already showing promising results.

McDonald’s announced earlier this year that it was debuting automated drive-up services in the Chicago area. CEO Chris Kempczinski said the system could fulfill orders with up to 85 percent accuracy.

This week the company announced in an earnings call that it had entered into a partnership with IBM in order to accelerate the development of that system.

IBM “is the ideal partner for McDonald’s given their expertise in building AI-powered customer care solutions and voice recognition,” Kempczinski told callers.

The computer company as part of the deal will acquire McDonald’s McD Tech Labs. The company has not revealed financial terms for the deal, though CFO Kevin Ozan said during the call that the deal “isn’t a big financial statement impact, plus or minus.”

https://justthenews.com/nation/technology/mcdonalds-deploy-automated-drive-throughs-partnership-ibm

Health Ministry sets up 24/7 hotline as threats against doctors rise

The Health Ministry announced that Head of Public Health Services Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis had been assigned a bodyguard, following serious threats on her life by anti-vaxxers.

The Health Ministry has established a 24/7 hotline where employees can report cases of defamation and intimidation, following a series of violent threats against senior officials and others, including Head of Public Health Services Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis.

“The Health Ministry is working in close cooperation with the Israel Police,” it said in a statement Saturday night, “and all the threats reported against the ministry’s employees as a whole are being examined and treated in accordance with the assessments of the situations.”

The hotline, which is operating under the Health Ministry’s National Security Department, was set up earlier in the month and employees of the health system were informed of it on October 19 via a letter from Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Nachman Ash, which was released to the public Saturday night.

The Health Ministry also announced that Alroy-Preis had been assigned a bodyguard, following serious threats on her life by anti-vaxxers.

Last week, her husband, Dr. Meir Preis, took to Twitter to express his fear over the situation, tagging the police and Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev.

“There are concrete threats to the life of my wife,” he wrote. “You know that, there are messages on social networks, there are phone numbers, there are explicitly threatening calls. You have the materials. It is time to act, now before it’s too late!”

The Health Ministry said that in addition to the bodyguard, the Preis home had been equipped with a distress button and reinforced by other security activities for months.

“We have recently witnessed extreme statements toward healthcare workers,” Ash wrote in his letter, “coming from opponents of the actions being taken by the state to eradicate the coronavirus, most prominently from vaccine opponents.”

He said there have been clashes on social networks, including personal attacks characterized by blatant criticism and abusive images.

Ash said that sometimes the criticism crosses the threshold of “legitimate discussion and may impair the resilience of the system’s workers.”

Alroy-Preis has been the target of insults for months. According to reports in Israeli media, the threats against her had already been considered at level four out of six, hence the reason for the police patrols and other efforts.

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/israeli-health-official-receives-bodyguard-following-death-threats-683569

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1454422072764076040

IC member tells @HumanEvents

that at least some members of the ISIS cell in Northern Virginia had been locked up in Bagram but were let out by the Taliban and made their way onto planes at the Kabul Airport

https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1454372094255501318

The irony of this study is when they went looking for people hospitalized with COVID-like symptoms they found over 6,000 who were vaccinated and only 1,000 who were unvaccinated and had a prior COVID infection.

I thought they told us 99% of hospitalizations were unvaccinated?

WTF is this shit

Europol and European Investment Bank sign Working Arrangement

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Europol have signed a Working Arrangement that facilitates the sharing of information and expertise in the fight against fraud and corruption in Europe.

Europol today hosted European Investment Bank Vice-President Kris Peeters for the signing of a Working Arrangement between our two organisations. Mr. Peeters was joined at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague by Europol’s Executive Director, Catherine De Bolle.

The Arrangement provides a legal framework for the exchange of information and expertise relating to serious crime, with the objective of preventing organised crime in multiple areas - including financial crime, terrorism, and cybercrime. Today’s official signing seals the integration and cooperation the two parties, particularly relating to the prevention of fraud and corruption risks arising from the post-pandemic economic recovery.

Money laundering and the financing of terrorist groups, as well as other forms of serious crime, pose serious threats to the security of the EU and its financial infrastructure. Working Arrangements such as this with the European Investment Bank and other European institutions will foster collaboration that protects rights and prevents criminal activities.

Working together on common ground

Kris Peeters, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank, said: “The cooperation with Europol reinforces the EIB capacity to prevent and combat fraud and corruption globally. This agreement takes even more relevance in the context of the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. While such crisis times require extraordinary measures, zero tolerance of fraud and corruption should remain central for multilateral institutions like the EIB. Resources released to support the recovery must reach their intended beneficiaries and not be diverted by fraud and corruption. Thanks to Europol’s extensive network of law enforcement agencies both within and outside of the EU, we will have more tools to ensure that we as a bank identify and prevent any sources of serious crime. Together the two institutions can make a difference in the international fight against fraud and corruption”.

Catherine De Bolle, Europol’s Executive Director, said: “Cooperation between EU institutions is important for combatting organised crime, and for keeping communities across Member States safe. This Working Arrangement with the European Investment Bank enhances our abilities to fight crime on all fronts, especially our shared priorities in tackling fraud and corruption. As the information hub for European law enforcement, we are glad to be able to connect the EIB with expertise and resources to identify and fight back against serious crime.”

https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/europol-and-european-investment-bank-sign-working-arrangement

Black Lives Matter, Inc. – Black Minnesota Community Leaders Discuss Shakedown in NEW VIDEO – BLM Collected $30+ Million But Didn’t Put One Dollar in Community

Minneapolis black community leaders spoke out recently on camera on the fraud perpetrated by leftists and Black Lives Matter leaders in their communities. After Black Lives Matter and their Antifa allies destroyed the Minneapolis business community and residential areas in the famous 2020 riots the local black leaders were led to believe that BLM would invest the millions they collected into the black community.

They were wrong.

These leaders now say Black Lives Matter has not invested a dime in their community since 2020.

Black Lives Matter-Antifa mobs caused over one billion dollars in damages in cities across America since May. In Minneapolis alone Black Lives Matter mobs damaged or destroyed over 1,500 businesses or buildings.

Over 700 police officers were injured in the BLM riots — and that was back in June!

Black Lives Matter was linked to conservatively 91% of the riots that resulted in the most expensive property damage in US insurance history.

And since that time BLM has done nothing to invest in these communities.

Members of Minneapolis’s black community describe the aftermath of the destruction caused by Black Lives Matter following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer; how the organization profited millions of dollars, none of which has gone back into the community, and are a key tool to implementing gentrification, a process

to displace black residents from their neighborhoods by killing business and driving real estate values down to pennies on the dollar for developers.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/black-lives-matter-inc-black-minnesota-community-leaders-discuss-shakedown-blm-collected-30-million-didnt-put-one-dollar-community/

US, EU Near Last-Minute Deal To Roll Trump-Era Tariffs On Steel And Aluminum

Nobody ever said 'Free Trade' was easy. As it happens, it isn't particularly "free" either.

But for months - practically the entire summer - President Biden's top trade representative Katherine Tai has been engaged in time-consuming negotiations with the EU's Valdis Dombrovskis about a new system that would prevent a trade dispute with the EU that began during the Trump era from spiraling out of control.

A few weeks ago, sources told Reuters that the US Trade Rep Katherine Tai felt she could resolve the dispute by the end of October. And according to a Bloomberg report published over the weekend, it looks like a deal to remove the steel and aluminum tariffs is finally within reach.

But with Halloween just one day away, it looks like a good-old-fashioned Democratic can-kick might the only option left, with the new deadline Dec. 1 - which, incidentally, is the day US tariffs on EU goods would double without a deal.

A deal would allow the US and the EU to remove tariffs on steel and aluminum that would eliminate more than $10 billion in export costs each year. It would also help reverse the protectionist stance that President Trump made a hallmark of his presidency, and which President Biden has often copied.

For those who were around for the beginning of the Trump Trade Wars, they should remember that the dispute with the Europeans began in 2018, when Trump slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum from Europe, Asia and pretty much everywhere else, using a provision of the American trade law allowing a supposed threat to national security to be invoked as an excuse to jack up tariffs. Specifically, Trump slapped a 25% duty on steel imports and 10% on duty on inward-bound shipments of aluminum from producers, with a handful of exceptions allowed for the NAFTA agreement. Tariffs on European metal and goods continue to escalate under Trump.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/us-eu-near-last-minute-deal-roll-trump-era-tariffs-steel-and-aluminum