Zuckerberg Denies Wrongdoing as Facebook Halts Anti-Competitive Policies

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded to a massive leak of internal Facebook documents earlier today, warning against coverage that “misrepresent[s] our actions or motives.”

The Facebook documents, released by British Members of Parliament in the course of their investigation into the social network, revealed widespread anti-competitive practices at the tech giant. These include the shutdown of Vine, formerly a competitor to Facebook Live, and plans to subject “strategic competitors” to special restrictions on the platform.

In a separate statement, Facebook’s press team said that the company plans to shut down this “out-of-date” policy.

In his personal statement, Zuckerberg failed to address concerns about competition, instead emphasizing his shutdown of apps that abused user data.

“Of course, we don’t let everyone develop on our platform.” wrote the Facebook CEO. “…We blocked a lot of sketchy apps. We also didn’t allow developers to use our platform to replicate our functionality or grow their services virally in a way that creates little value for people on Facebook. We restricted a number of these apps, and for others we asked developers to provide easy ways for people to share their content outside of their apps and to Facebook if they wanted.”

Read Zuckerberg’s full statement below.

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/12/05/zuckerberg-denies-wrongdoing-as-facebook-halts-anti-competitive-policies/

Mafia arrests: 84 detained in Europe raids

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — In an investigation that underscored an Italian crime syndicate’s role as a leading player in international cocaine trafficking, police in four countries arrested at least 84 suspected mobsters Wednesday in a series of carefully coordinated raids.

Those detained allegedly work for the Italian ’ndrangheta criminal network that traffics in cocaine on a global scale.

“It’s almost a cliche, but the operation carried out today confirms again the great danger of the ‘ndrangheta, not just in drug trafficking, where it’s the undisputed leader, but (also) in the financial sphere,” said Francesco Ratta, a top police official in the southern Italian region of Calabria. “It’s an evolved ‘ndrangheta, that we can say knows no borders … It’s an ’ndrangheta that day by day changes its skin … but still keeps ties” to its home base in Calabria.

European officials announced the arrests at the Hague headquarters of Eurojust, the European Union prosecutors agency set up to bolster the fight against cross-border crime in the 28-nation bloc. Eurojust and EU police agency Europol coordinated the raids.

“Today we send a clear message to organized crime groups across Europe,” said Filippo Spiezia, vice president of Eurojust, the EU prosecution agency that coordinated the raids. “They are not the only ones able to operate across borders; so are Europe’s judiciary and law enforcement communities.”

As well as arresting dozens of suspected mobsters in Italy, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, police seized drugs and around 2 million euros ($2.3 million).

It was the second significant mob takedown in as many days. On Tuesday, Italian authorities said they had dismantled the rebuilt upper echelons of the Mafia in the Sicilian capital of Palermo by arresting 46 people, including the man presumed to have taken over as provincial kingpin.

Wednesday’s raids were the culmination of a two-year investigation codenamed Pollino against the powerful ’ndrangheta criminal group on allegations of cocaine trafficking, money laundering, bribery and violence, Eurojust said.

The ’ndrangheta is Italy’s most powerful criminal organization, eclipsing by far Sicily’s Cosa Nostra or the Naples area Camorra.

Eurojust said the massive probe was the biggest of its kind in Europe. About four tons of cocaine were traced during the investigation. Cocaine and ecstasy pills also were seized in Wednesday’s raids.

https://www.apnews.com/1a6b91b27ea7404c9b29c77212e85f5c

What Hypocrisy?… Hey Tim Cook: Apple Is Banning “Hate Speech” but “Fck White People” and “Suck My Dck Hoe” Are OK?

Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke earlier this week and announced Apple will not permit ‘hate’ speech on its platform.

And by “hate speech” he means anything not liberal.

Cook was speaking at the former human rights group, the Anti-Defamation League. At one time the group defended Israel and Jewish causes. Today the ADL just trashes conservatives.

The ADL today refuses to defend Jewish reporter Laura Loomer after she attacked a Muslim lawmaker who supporters female genital mutilation.

The ADL will not stand up for Laura.

While liberals like Tim Cook and the ADL continue to block, attack and shadow-ban conservatives — Meanwhile, filthy rap songs are still allowed and promoted by Apple.

The “Fck white People” and popular “Suck my dck hoe” rap songs by Auntie AJ are still for sale on Apple.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/apple-hate-white-people–600x328.jpg

Hard Times: Left-Wing New Media Look to Mergers, Paywalls, Selling Companies

Vice, Vox, BuzzFeed, HuffPost, and other left-wing digital outlets are struggling in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

While smaller left-wing outlets, like Mic, Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter, Refinery29, Rookie, and the anti-Trump Weekly Standard are either closed, closing, or going through massive overhauls to stop the bleeding of red ink, the big players on the left – the aforementioned Vice, Vox, and Buzzfeed – no longer look like sure things.

Even HuffPost is looking at adding a paywall.

Vanity Fair writes that these “companies, which once heralded the dawn of a new media age—replete with massive valuations, large fund-raising hauls, and millennial sex appeal—now appeared to exhibit some traits of the brands that they once attempted to disrupt.”

Today they find themselves “large, less nimble, and increasingly vulnerable to Facebook and Google. They seemed virtually encircled by competitors familiar and new.”

“On one side” up-and-comers like “Axios, TheSkimm, Crooked Media, and the Athletic” are smaller, but have so far avoided relying on Facebook and Google “by monetizing their direct relationships with consumers.”

On the other side are “revitalized shit-kicking legacy players, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, who were converting subscribers at unforeseen levels in the Trump era.”

Of course, this is all about ad revenue, which Facebook and Google continue to try to swallow whole.

As a result, “BuzzFeed’s Jonah Peretti recently floated in the pages of The New York Times the quixotic notion of a multi-company merger between BuzzFeed, Vice, Vox Media, Group Nine Media, and Refinery29, as a means to rival the Facebook-Google ad duopoly.”

But in reaction to that idea, “one prominent founder and C.E.O. wondered whether there was ‘a problem for the whole space,’ or ‘a problem for a handful of companies that really over-raised and over-expected and are now trying to re-adjust.'”

He pointed out to Vanity Fair that “Consumer spending is up, and billions of dollars are being sunk into content, this executive noted, and yet ‘you have this little pocket of the universe looking desperate.'”

Part of the problem, although Vanity Fair does not mention this, is conformity. What do Buzzfeed, Vice, and Vox offer that you cannot get anywhere — everywhere — else?

The media world — meaning, all of it: digital, television, and print — is buried under left-wing progressives snarking at Trump, attacking the political right as backwards racists, and pursing socialism in the name of social justice. This social and ideological conformity, this cult-like adherence to the same talking points, has not only made all of these sites exactly alike, they have also become predictable and, by extension, uninteresting.

https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2018/12/05/hard-times-left-wing-new-media-look-to-mergers-paywalls-selling-companies/

Atrazine, a widely used herbicide in the U.S., has led to a shocking increase in birth defects

Traces of atrazine, a popular weedkiller, have been detected in 94 percent of water supplies studied by the USDA, making it a more common contaminate than any other pesticide. And for an estimated 7.6 million Americans, atrazine contaminates tap water supplies in amounts that potentially threaten human health. Now, new research has shown that atrazine is causing an uptick in birth defects.

Dr. Paul Winchester, medical director of the Neonatal and Intensive Care Unit at St. Francis Hospital in Indianapolis, recently led a study investigating why there is a higher incidence of birth defects in Indiana, compared to other states. And what Winchester found was that high concentrations of atrazine in the public water supply are to blame.

Atrazine linked to birth defects

The study, which was funded by the Gerber Foundation, was published by the journal PLOS One in 2017. As Eco Watch reports, Dr. Winchester launched his investigation into atrazine and birth defects after he noticed a markedly higher number of birth defects when he relocated from Denver, CO to Indiana. “I was used to the number of birth defects I should see in a community hospital, and I saw many more in Indiana,” he reportedly commented.

Past research has linked atrazine to an array of problems, including cancer and fertility issues.

In the study, Dr. Winchester and his team found the levels of atrazine contamination in public water is at its highest during the months of May and June, when farmers are spraying down their crops with the herbicide.

This finding also coincides with data the team gathered on birth defect incidence.

“We plotted water concentrations and birth defects, and they fit like a hat,” Winchester noted.

More alarmingly, the team also discovered that atrazine is capable of producing epigenetic changes to DNA. Epigenetics is a new area of science which suggests that human DNA is not immutable, and can be changed by environmental factors, like pesticides. These epigenetic alterations can be acquired by infants during pregnancy, according to Winchester.

https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-12-05-atrazine-herbicide-shocking-increase-of-birth-defects.html

Pesticide Damage to DNA Found 'Programmed' Into Future Generations

https://www.ecowatch.com/generational-harm-of-pesticides-2596453994.html

Ezekiel 11:19

I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.

Luke 11:21

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe.

>>4174275

Hand and glove

Mark 11:22

“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered.

23 “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.

>>4174227

>>4174360

>>>4174227 Hannity: John Soloman has breaking news on FISA tonight at 9pm. Pfff

TOP KEK BAKER