>Diagalon = Canadian Boogaloo?
>looks like she slammed her head into an open tackle box
>Live from centre of Kiev on Day of Unity
>Live from centre of Kiev on Day of Unity
>There's no indication the guns were connected to the theft early Sunday of a parked tractor-trailer carrying some 2,000 small-caliber guns manufactured by Savage Arms.
>Are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party?
We are done with this.
kek
https://acuitastx.com/
Who are these clowns?
https://www.antihate.ca/
>clowns
https://www.antihate.ca/ottawa_occupation_shows_why_we_need_anti-hate_legislation
Ottawa Occupation Shows Why We Need Anti-Hate Legislation
Every day the government allows social media companies to self-regulate, Canadians are getting misled, enraged, and absorbed into the far-right and Covid conspiracy movement. Now a far-right mob has occupied the capital.
Ottawa has now been occupied for a week with no end in sight. They are led by a cadre of organizers and streamers who are connected with Islamophobia, antisemitism, racism, and incitements to violence. Many among them want to see the Prime Minister and public health officials put on trial for treason, or executed. While a majority of participants are not assaulting people in the streets, there are those among them who would directly confront passer-by, physically attack journalists, wave a Nazi flag, or assault a houseless person, hurl racial slurs, and take food from a soup kitchen.
The people supporting this far-right occupation are both victims and perpetrators of misinformation. Most of them find their way to the movement beginning on mainstream social media platforms. The algorithms notice they engage with conspiracy content and far-right content, feeds them more, and suggest groups for them to join. Fellow travellers say the unvaxxinated are being persecuted on the same level as Holocaust victims and that drastic action is necessary. Eventually, they’re angry enough to drive to Ottawa.
It will be difficult, if not impossible, for members of the intertwined antivaxx and far-right movement to come back to reality. New people are finding them every day. With online harms legislation, we may be able to disrupt that pipeline by making it harder for dis/misinformation to find people. We may be able to build a fence of protection both online and offline around the groups that the far-right slanders, harasses, threatens, and attacks. We have to try.
>Ottawa Occupation Shows Why We Need Anti-Hate Legislation
The government was proposing a complicated regulator that would try to address several kinds of online harm, like child sexual exploitation. Its thorniest and most controversial issue was that of regulating hate speech. The technical paper envisioned a body that would hear complaints about pieces of hate content and issue rulings on whether each post stays up or comes down.
The government received a lot of critical feedback on its plan. We had our issues with the technical paper too.
We urge the government to look at the convoy outside the window to understand why we cannot put this issue on the back burner. We must push forward with a better and (hopefully) more popular plan.
One in five Canadians are directly affected by online hate; harassers use hate speech to silence and scare women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples, and others.
It’s important to note that 80 per cent of Canadians want legislation to curb online hate. However, the average person is not writing a feedback letter to the government about a technical paper. Some of the critical letters are coming from the companies themselves, which should frankly be thrown out – they demonstrably can’t be trusted. But more of that criticism is coming from dogmatic free speech academics and organizations.
These civil liberties advocates aren't trying to do harm, or do nothing, but they seem not to understand that the prevalence of hate speech and how it silences people is the free expression issue of this generation. We would rather see a small amount of posts that are not-quite hate speech be a casualty of any legislation rather than have hate speech continue to attack and silence women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples, and others. It's time for the speech of equity seeking groups to be prioritized over racists, abusers, and neo-Nazis.
The remaining critics are members and groups from communities actually facing hate who are afraid of unwarranted police involvement in the process / with the regulator, and the complaints regime being wielded against them by bad actors. They’re right and we should all be listening.
Additionally, and fundamentally, the plan put forward in the technical paper seems to address the wrong problem.
The problem is not that the complaints mechanisms on Facebook and other platforms are slow and poorly adjudicated. We shouldn’t be handing victims a homework assignment to get hate content taken down long after it’s already done its damage anyway. The problem is that there are people who want to harass, abuse, and incite violence with hate speech, and that platforms have decided to allow it to be posted in the first place, and even amplify it.
>government allows social media companies to self-regulate
Like everyone says, we really need to go after the business model of these companies, which have decided to prioritize engagement at the cost of our democracy and the safety of our neighbours. The platforms have been purposely getting people angry and funnelling them into dangerous echo chambers.
We sat with this for a while, and we think we have a solution.
We’re calling it the ombudsperson approach.
We’re recommending that the government create an ombudsperson/regulator, with broad investigatory powers. They can compel evidence and testimony from the social media companies and take a hard look at their algorithms and business practices. They can also issue recommendations.
Facebook’s own employees warned that after it changed how it measured the success of a post in 2018, it incentivized angry engagement and misinformation. In 2021, another employee found that new users were being quickly pushed by their algorithms towards QAnon groups. Internally, Facebook staff have been warning about problems and proposing solutions for years. We also know, thanks to Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen, that the company chooses not to implement any fixes (in any reasonable time frame) that would hurt engagement.
Meanwhile, hundreds and thousands of people were being radicalized into the far-right, estranging them from their families, and movements were recruiting people on Facebook that would culminate in murders and mass murders and incidents like January 6th and the Ottawa convoy.
If the ombudsperson had access to this information in real-time, they could, for example, issue a timely recommendation that the company has to undo the algorithmic changes that incentivized angry, divisive posts and misinformation.
We propose that if the company doesn’t want to follow a recommendation, the ombudsperson be empowered to apply to a court to make it an order. The court would apply two tests. First, is the order consistent with the goals of the regulator. Second, is it consistent with the Charter and previous rulings. Here, groups can intervene and put their arguments to the court.
If the order is granted, and the company doesn’t follow the order, we propose that they face significant fines (the same as envisioned in the technical paper).
Of course, this is just a starting point and a framework. But we would like to keep it simple and move it along.
Here’s the upside – this is way faster than putting in a complicated complaints regime, it does away with the contentious police involvement and 24-hour takedown pieces, and isolated free speech vs. hate speech arguments can be had later, in front of a court.
The Ombudsperson Approach
We have been socializing the idea of an ombudsperson approach with other civil society groups, and it’s finding support. Some of the ideas here are, in fact, already in the technical paper.
Here's what we've been imagining:
The ombudsperson (and their office) would be empowered with broad investigatory powers so that they can compel evidence and testimony from large online platforms.
They would be empowered to make public recommendations, in keeping with a charter of values.
Where the companies do not follow the recommendations, the ombudsperson may apply to a court to make those recommendations into orders.
The court has a short time window to apply a two-pronged test. First, does the proposed order align with the charter of values? Second, is the proposed order in keeping with the Charter and previous jurisprudence around hate speech?
Interveners could make submissions at this stage.
If the order is granted, and the company or companies do not comply, they will be subject to the same strict financial penalties laid out in the technical paper.
The ombudsperson may take complaints as evidence of an issue, but does not address individual pieces of content.
In an emergency situation (eg. Jan 6th), the ombudsperson may make an emergency order which goes into effect immediately, but also convenes an emergency hearing with the court to either uphold or quash the order.
We would leave it at that. The ombudsperson approach would move things forward in a real way, while kicking individual issues that are causing so much opposition to the ombudsperson, interveners, and the court at a future date.
>Private prison company to test U.S. house arrest program for immigrants
>first a chicken now a bunny?
>Lots of avocado comms lately.
https://www.antihate.ca/tradcath_community_support_behind_freedom_convoy
The TradCath Community Throwing Its Support Behind The “Freedom Convoy”
A short drive from the nation’s capital, Madawaska Valley is home to multiple religious institutions promoting a far-right interpretation of Catholicism that has been boosting the convoy protests.
Just two hours from downtown Ottawa, traditionalist Catholics living in Madawaska Valley have been vociferously supporting the so-called “Freedom Convoy”.
LifeSiteNews is one of three institutions in the Madawaska Valley, alongside Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College and Catholic Insight magazine, with personnel as well as ideological links, promoting a far-right, traditionalist interpretation of Roman Catholicism.
Originally started in 1997 by the Canadian anti-abortion lobbying group Campaign Life Coalition, LifeSiteNews is now a transnational far-right media outlet, claiming to publish 4,000 articles a year and consumed by over 20 million readers. The organization’s most recent IRS filings indicate that they brought in $1.97 million in revenue in 2019 (the latest year for which records are available).
Prior to the convoy arriving in the capital, Madawaska Valley resident, co-founder and editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews, John Henry Westen, covered a gathering of convoy supporters in Pembroke, Ontario.
Opening his video coverage by highlighting that there were “many many families out here with young children, young children in the really bitter cold,” Westen interviewed a handful of convoy supporters, and described “this group” as having “come out from a single parish.”
Local newspaper, the Eganville Leader, reported the parish as being St. Hedwig’s Catholic Church in Barry’s Bay. St. Hedwig’s is the campus parish for the traditionalist Catholic Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College.
St. Hedwig’s’ administrator, Reverend Pawel Ratajczak, led the group — including Westen — in reciting the Holy Rosary.
Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke MP Cheryl Gallant live-streamed from the gathering, declaring “We’re having Canada Day today, since we didn’t have ours in July.”
One unnamed man responded, “We’re getting our country back!”
Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College co-founder and current theology professor, John Paul Meenan also attended the gathering in Pembroke and promoted it on Catholic Insight, his traditionalist Catholic online magazine. He described the demonstration a post on Catholic Insight, as “pilgrimag(ing) forth,” and claimed that “hundreds, if not thousands” were in attendance.
The Eganville Leader reported hundreds, not thousands, lined Highway 17 in support of the convoy.
Meenan is the editor of Catholic Insight, and in his post reporting back on the January 28 roadside demonstration, concluded, “Scripture warns us that this, ultimately, is a spiritual battle. We cannot return to ‘normal’, to a Canada immersed in immorality, which is what ultimately caused the mess we’re in. We must get back to God, to His laws, and re-build the Christian nation of this great nation’s forefathers.”
He was also present for the convoy’s descent on Parliament Hill, indicated by his self-attribution of a picture from the rally (an attribution he removed after CAHN contacted him for comment).
>A short drive from the nation’s capital, Madawaska Valley is home to multiple religious institutions promoting a far-right interpretation of Catholicism that has been boosting the convoy protests.
Meenan declined to comment provide comment for this article, thanked the Canadian Anti-Hate Network for its questions, which he would “ponder,” and quietly removed some of the statements CAHN asked about, including “overpaid foreigners” playing in the NHL, and the “Gestapo tactics” of “Trudeau’s overpaid police.”
Over the last eighteen days, Canada’s own megaphone for the far-right, LifeSiteNews, has published over sixty articles about the “Freedom Convoy,” the tone of which have been overwhelmingly supportive.
Many of the articles — including a statement of support for the convoy by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò; as well as a “Note from the Editor,” Steve Jalsevac — have employed antisemitic tropes, including ominous references to “globalists,” “ruling elites,” and a “New World Order.”
Jalsevac told readers “The only news media that will tell you the truth now is the alternative conservative media,” naming LSN itself and Tucker Carlson as examples, reasoning, “The media today are one with government. They are an extension of government power and propaganda overseen and directed by a small group of extremely wealthy and powerful, international business and political elites.”
LSN is also currently hosting a fundraiser to “Help Truckers at the Border with Missed Wages,” the goal of which has been increased twice so far — originally set at $50,000, the target is now $150,000. LSN identified “spokeswoman for the truckers,” Vanessa Nieboer, as being the one to “open” the LifeFunder campaign.
The same day the fundraiser opened, LSN published a blog post by Nieboer and identified her as an “undercover LifeSiteNews reporter.” The post speculated that Shane Getson, MLA for Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland, and another “three MLAs from the central Alberta area who met with these truckers” had “threatened [the truckers] with something.”
Nieboer provided no evidence for this speculation.
In another unsubstantiated claim, John Henry Westen said in an episode of his eponymously named show, that after cancelling the then-$10 million fundraiser, GoFundMe had “at first said that they were going to donate the 10 million to the charities of GoFundMe’s own choice, which were obviously against all of the donors who wanted to give the money to the truckers.” In fact, the platform’s original plan was to release the funds to “credible and established charities chosen by the Freedom Convoy 2022 organizers and verified by GoFundMe.”
Living in Madawaska Valley, Westen has himself provided on the ground — and in the air — coverage of the convoy. On January 31, before boarding a helicopter to try to capture aerial footage of the demonstrations, he claimed that recent airspace restrictions over downtown Ottawa were “to hide the truth of what’s happening from you, the Canadian public.”
Shortly afterwards, as Westen pursued his goal of “bringing [the Canadian people] that truth,” his pilot repeatedly violated the long-restricted airspace over Rideau Hall, incurring a Class F airspace violation.
Two hours west of Ottawa, near the mouth of the Madawaska River, on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg and Huron-Wendat Peoples, sits a cluster of communities that many Catholic locals sincerely believe are under special divine protection. In the shadow of the Canadian Shield, on the banks of Kamaniskeg Lake, with villages scattered through the deep woods, it’s not hard to imagine how many Catholics flocked to the area in preparation for a Y2K calamity that never materialized.
Twenty-one years later, the Madawaska Valley is reckoning with the response of many residents in the community to the very real calamity of COVID-19; namely, those involved in a trifecta of local traditionalist Catholic thought and action – Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College, LifeSiteNews, and Catholic Insight magazine.
In his piece in The Madawaska Valley Current, Mark Woermke voiced his concern that the area is “quickly becoming a centre of something – something more disturbing and damaging to our reputation than a child in the 1970s could have ever imagined – a centre of right-wing conspiracy theories.”
https://madvalleycurrent.com/2021/02/09/porch-views-the-madawaska-valley-hub-of-the-universe/
>If the ombudsperson had access to this information in real-time, they could, for example, issue a timely recommendation that the company has to undo the algorithmic changes that incentivized angry, divisive posts and misinformation.
yeah boii
yeah boii>>15641345
>Ericsson shares tank after CEO says telecom giant 'may have paid ISIS'
https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout
Ericsson, the Swedish telecoms giant, may have made payments to ISIS as part of its efforts to gain access to the Iraqi market, its CEO said.
Shares of Ericsson tanked on Wednesday after its CEO said the Swedish telecom giant may have made payments to ISIS in an effort to gain access to the Iraqi market.
CEO Borje Ekholm said in an interview that the company identified “unusual expenses dating back to 2018” when it purchased transport routes “through areas that have been controlled by terrorist organizations, including ISIS.”
Ekholm’s comments to the Dagens Industri newspaper, which were cited by Bloomberg, sent shares of Ericsson down by more than 14% during trading as of Wednesday afternoon Swedish local time.
The CEO said that the company hasn’t made a determination as to who was the “final recipient” of the money.
Ekholm’s comments come just a day after his company released a statement indicating that it would “continue to invest significantly” in an internal investigation that began in 2019 of company transactions that took place between 2011 and 2019.
Ericcson said it “found serious breaches of compliance rules” and the firm’s business ethics code that included “corruption-related misconduct.”
Company employees who were operating in Iraq broke rules by “making a monetary donation without a clear beneficiary…funding inappropriate travel and expenses, and improper use of sales agents and consultants.”
“The investigating team also identified payments to intermediaries and the use of alternate transport routes in connection with circumventing Iraqi Customs, at a time when terrorist organizations, including ISIS, controlled some transport routes,” according to the company.
In 2019, Ericsson agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle a Department of Justice probe into corruption, including the bribing of government officials that took place over many years in countries including China, Vietnam and Djibouti.
Ekholm said he was inhibited from commenting on whether Ericsson informed the DOJ of his company’s findings from its internal investigation.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
“If new facts come to light or new information, we will for sure reopen the investigation and run it full speed ahead to investigate those matters,” Ekholm said.
https://nypost.com/2022/02/16/ericsson-may-have-paid-isis-ceo-borje-ekholm-claims/
>The arrest of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández
https://nypost.com/2022/02/16/chris-cuomo-fired-after-cnn-learned-of-alleged-sex-attack-during-office-lunch-report/
Chris Cuomo fired after CNN learned of alleged sex attack during office ‘lunch’: report
Chris Cuomo allegedly attacked a female ABC News temp worker when she denied his proposition for sex during a “lunch” in his office, it was revealed on Tuesday.
The accusation was made to CNN lawyers in December hours after Cuomo was suspended for advising his brother, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, how to dodge his own sexual harassment accusations, according to the New York Times. The CNN host was fired days later.
The unnamed accuser had come forward after Chris Cuomo was suspended from the network on Nov. 30 for helping Gov. Cuomo try to beat back the multiple allegations that ultimately ended his political career, the report said.
“Jane Doe” had long been disgusted by the similarities between the Democrat’s accusers’ plight and her own, employment lawyer Debra Katz reportedly said.
Vice President of Honduras
https://twitter.com/SalvaPresidente/status/1493688494820102147
This awaits the accomplices of Juan Orlando Hernández who caused so much pain, emigration and death to the Honduran people. To the authors of the 2017 fraud. To the guilty Null judicial system that we have. Do you understand the importance of the alliance we made with @XiomaraCastroZ?
https://twitter.com/XiomaraCastroZ
https://www.newsmax.com/finance/streettalk/tesla-south-korea-penalties-exaggerating-mileage/2022/02/16/id/1057021/
South Korea Weighs Penalty Against Tesla for Exaggerating Mileage
South Korea's antitrust regulator is considering imposing penalties against U.S. electric car maker Tesla Inc over its findings the company exaggerated the specifications of its batteries, an official said on Wednesday.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) had sent a report to the electric vehicle (EV) maker stating that it had exaggerated the mileage of some of its models, including Model 3, in violation of the Act on Fair Labeling and Advertising, the official said.
"We plan to hold a general meeting to review and determine the extent to which the automaker has violated the law and decide the level of sanctions," an official at the KFTC told Reuters, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Tesla, on its website, says its Model 3 can travel 528 km (328 miles) on a single charge. The KFTC says however that the range may fall short of that should the temperature drop below freezing.
Analysts said most electric vehicles could generally experience some loss of driving range in cold weather.
Separately, the KFTC is also weighing whether to impose penaltiesagainst Tesla for not refunding deposits to customers who canceled online purchases before their vehicle orders were put in place for release.
In South Korea, Tesla requires customers to pay a deposit of 100,000 won ($84) when purchasing Tesla cars online, but deposits were not refunded upon customers' order cancellations, according to Yonhap news agency.
Tesla was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Reuters. ($1 = 1,197.0900 won)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/stunning-fall-honduran-president-wanted-us-82925174
A stunning fall for ex-Honduran president wanted in US
The arrest of former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández and the images of a leader shackled and paraded before cameras like a common criminal are a stunning reversal for a man who for years seemed impervious to growing allegations of corruption
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – The arrest of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández and the images that followed — a leader shackled and paraded before the cameras like a common criminal — were a stunning reversal for a man who for years seemed impervious to growing allegations of corruption.
While president from 2014 until last month, he had the support of U.S. officials waging the war on drugs and some diplomats who did not see a better option. But less than three weeks out of office, his utility exhausted, the U.S. government moved for his extradition and the chance to make him an example in a region wracked by corruption.
Hernández was scheduled to make his initial court appearance in Tegucigalpa on Wednesday. He was arrested Tuesday at the request of the U.S. government on charges of drug trafficking, using weapons for drug trafficking and conspiracy to use weapons in drug trafficking.
U.S. prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have accused Hernández in recent years of funding his political rise with profits from drug traffickers in exchange for protecting their shipments.
For years, images were Hernández’s crutch. Accusations of ties to drug traffickers would stream from a New York City courtroom and Hernández would soon pop up in the United States or at an event with U.S. Embassy officials in Honduras, reinforcing the idea that he had U.S. government support and it was just bitter drug traffickers telling stories to seek revenge for his efforts against them.
All the while, popular discontent with his government grew in Honduras. There weren’t enough jobs, street gangs controlled entire towns and neighborhoods, drought and hurricanes hit swaths of the country in a devastating one-two punch and Hernández began to symbolize all their troubles.
Hondurans fled by the thousands, literally walking out of the country with nothing but a change of clothes in their knapsacks. Migrant caravans drew international attention and never lacked groups of young migrants shouting “Get out JOH!” using his initials.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/trudeau-s-totalitarian-turn
Trudeau’s totalitarian turn
The Canadian PM is desperate for his own 6 January moment
It was the hot tub that did it. Photos of Canadian convoy supporters relaxing in a hot tub on a downtown Ottawa street last weekend were splashed all over the news. Now Justin Trudeau is mad and he’s gone and invoked war measures, known as the Emergencies Act. He wants that hot tub off the streets, pronto, and he needs wartime powers to get it done. Civil liberties remain 'temporarily' suspended… just for two weeks, while we flatten the protesters!
On announcing the 'state of emergency', (state of emergency piled upon pre-existing state of emergency), Trudeau’s government immediately declared that banks are allowed to freeze personal and business accounts on the mere suspicion of involvement with the protest, without obtaining a court order. They cannot be sued for such actions. Police, intelligence agencies and banks are authorised to share 'relevant information'. Banks are now required to report financial relationships of persons involved in the protests to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
The Act also allows the government to force businesses (such as tow trucks) to provide services against their will, to ban public assembly and travel, to forbid the use of a specific property, and to secure specific areas. Its implementation was opposed by four provincial premiers.
Judging by his behaviour, Trudeau has been hoping for some kind of violence ever since the truckers’ movement started. He needed something, anything that could serve as a Canadian 6 January moment so as to arrogate even more dictatorial powers than Canada’s existing state of emergency allowed. But despite constant provocation, truckers gave him nothing to work with. Even the efforts of Canada’s finest state-subsidised creative writers (the mainstream media) couldn’t spin this thing — in all its bouncy-castle, dance-party, hot-tubbified glory — into a believable insurrection.
Yes, there were and are border blockades — but peaceful ones (the most significant blockade to date, at Ambassador Bridge between Ontario and Michigan, was resolved before Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act). Peaceful civil disobedience is an established means of drawing attention to injustice when ordinary means of recourse have been exhausted. Theorists write of the need to reserve this method for cases of seriously entrenched injustice, where there is a reasonable chance that civil disobedience can attain the desired end.
If Ukraine isn't at war, who got Trudeau's money?
In these trying times, journalism may be the most underappreciated job on the planet.