Good Morning Mr. President! Have a Terrific and Blessed Tuesday, Sir!! :)

Federal judge overseeing key lawsuit relating to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein dies

https://www.foxnews.com/us/federal-judge-overseeing-key-lawsuit-relating-to-pedophile-jeffrey-epstein-dies

A U.S. District Court judge in New York who was presiding over a lawsuit involving a wealthy, Clinton-connected financier and sex offender died Sunday at the age of 96.

Robert W. Sweet died at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, while on vacation, The New York Times reported. He was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978. Politico reported that Sweet was presiding over the lawsuit that followed what many saw as an unusual plea deal for Jeffrey Epstein.

Alexander Acosta, the current U.S. Secretary of Labor, negotiated what critics called a sweetheart, potentially corrupt plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein when he was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida. The arrangement required Epstein to pay restitution to dozens of victims, but offered a variety of unusual concessions as part of a non-prosecution agreement.

Epstein, now 66, reached a nonprosecution deal in 2008 with Acosta’s office to secretly end a federal sex abuse investigation involving at least 40 teenage girls that could have landed him behind bars for life. He instead pleaded guilty to state charges, spent 13 months in jail, paid settlements to victims and is a registered sex offender.

Politico reported that Sweet was overseeing a suit leveled by one of Epstein's alleged victims against one of his longtime friends.

Acosta has defended the deal as appropriate but has not commented since the recent round of stories.

Facebook’s Fall and what it means for your business

https://everything-pr.com/facebooks-fall-and-what-it-means-for-your-business/https://everything-pr.com/facebooks-fall-and-what-it-means-for-your-business/

The Federal Trade Commission is negotiating a multi-billion-dollar penalty for Facebook’s violations of its consent agreement. In the UK, Parliament physically compelled the turnover of secret Facebook documents that show an astonishing disregard for user privacy- and a knowing, intentional effort to violate laws on the use of personal information. The UK has requested that the FTC assist in its investigation.

In Europe, Facebook is already under investigation for violations of the GDPR. Those investigations are coming along well. Facebook is already facing fines of €1.6 billion and has been fined £500,000 in the UK for its illegal activities. And there’s more to come.

In a meeting of state attorneys general in Washington recently, there was much discussion about ways the states can rein in technology companies, especially Facebook. Meanwhile, the attorney general for the District of Columbia went to court to sue Facebook over deception in its collecting and monetizing of user data.

The DoJ is still investigating Facebook with regards to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, an investigation that is likely to result in charges.

What is Facebook learning about your business? What are you turning over that would reveal your business processes? How about your customer list? Your products? Facebook has already been found to be using this information for its own purposes without permission, and in fact is actively working around the need to get permission. Can your business take this risk?

Considering the decay is already well under way, a business presence somewhere else would seem a necessary shift. A set of redundant cloud accounts (you need business continuity) with robust security protection can give your organization a level of stability and permanence that is no longer available from Facebook, and probably not at Google alone. Google, after all, is dealing with its own investigations and outages).

You can still accomplish everything you want with a presence on Facebook as long as you don’t do more than point people to the real business location in the cloud, where your risks are dramatically lowered. And when Facebook does fall, or is broken up, you won’t lose much during the uncertainty.

https://www.olisa.tv/facebook-deletes-accounts-from-russia-others-over-coordinated-inauthentic-behaviour/

Facebook Deletes Accounts from Russia, Others over ‘Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour’

March 26, 2019 emmanuelNewsNo Comment on Facebook Deletes Accounts from Russia, Others over ‘Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour’

Facebook said on Tuesday that it had removed more accounts from Iran, Russia, Macedonia, and Kosovo, citing what it described as “coordinated inauthentic behaviour’’.

A total of 2,632 pages, groups, and accounts were removed from Facebook and Instagram in the latest purge, the social media giant said.

According to the Facebook statement, 513 of those accounts were tied to Iran, while 1,907 were linked to Russia.

The accounts tied to Russia were largely removed for spam with a small portion of those engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour, the statement added.

Facebook also said the pages and accounts were removed for their behaviour and not content.

The American social media giant has recently been cracking down on such accounts in many countries after the hacking and data breaches scandal that rocked it in 2017.

https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/facebook-limiting-false-stories-india-election-61948479

Facebook says it's limiting false stories for India election

Facebook says it is preparing for Indian elections by working to limit false stories, videos and photos on its platform

Facebook is taking steps to reduce the spread of false information on its platforms ahead of India's general election, company officials said Monday.

Facebook listed a variety of measures it is taking, from blocking fake accounts to employing third-party fact-checking organizations, through the campaign and voting, with polling scheduled to take place in stages from April 11 to May 19.

Calling the Indian elections a "top priority," Samidh Chakrabarti, director of Facebook's Product Management for Civic Integrity division, said the company has put in a "tremendous amount of efforts over the last two years" to prepare for the polls.

He said Facebook has partnered with Indian media organizations to check and flag false stories in English, Hindi and some other regional Indian languages.

After a fact-checker flags a story as containing false information, Facebook reduces the number of times it appears in any individual user's newsfeed by about 80 percent, Chakrabarti said.

The social media giant came under immense scrutiny after it failed to prevent the spread of false information during the 2016 U.S. elections, when allegations of outside interference resulted in Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg testifying in the U.S. Senate.

Facebook-owned messaging applications such as WhatsApp have been repeatedly scrutinized by the Indian government and security agencies, and asked to prevent the spread of false information and rumors that have been linked to mob killings.

In 2018, at least 20 people were killed in India, mostly in rural villages, in attacks by mobs that were inflamed by social media.

In response, WhatsApp restricted the forwarding of messages to five recipients at a time, instead of the 256 previously allowed.

Although the move was India-specific, it was applied globally earlier this year, WhatsApp announced in January.

But social media have also become a critical tool for Indian political campaigns. Ahead of elections in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party used social media extensively for political advertisements and to interact with young voters.

The Election Commission of India is trying to rein in social media giants such as Google, Twitter and Facebook to prevent the release of user data and to curb the spread of politically motivated manipulative information.

Social media companies have presented a "Voluntary Code of Ethics for the General Elections 2019" to the election monitoring body, a new requirement this year.

"We are working hard to prevent bad actors from interfering with elections on Facebook," Chakrabarti said, adding that Facebook has tripled the number of people working on safety and security to 30,000.

India reportedly has the highest number of Facebook users in the world, with more than 300 million. That is about a third of the 900 million people eligible to vote in 2019.

The Indian elections begin April 11, with polling scheduled to be held across 543 constituencies in seven phases. Counting of votes is to be conducted on May 23, with results expected the same day.

7 days. 3 suicides. 1 tragic connection

https://www.kmov.com/news/days-suicides-tragic-connection/article_05108e7c-4fbe-11e9-ab27-57a9262894b4.html

(CNN) – In the span of a week, three suicides have devastated two communities that already shared a tragic connection.

Two were young survivors of the massacre at the school in Parkland, Florida, and one was a parent of a child who was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting. The two communities are facing a new facet of grief after three people connected to the shootings took their own lives in a matter of days.

Here's a look at their stories.

Jeremy Richman

Jeremy Richman, 49, was the father of 6-year-old Avielle Richman, who was among 20 children and six adults killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

After the shooting, Richman co-founded The Avielle Foundation, a nonprofit named for his daughter that focuses on violence prevention through research and community engagement.

He died of an apparent suicide and was found in his Connecticut office building Monday morning, Newtown police said.

"Jeremy's mission will be carried on by the many who love him, including many who share the heartache and trauma that he has suffered since December 14, 2012. We are crushed to pieces, but this important work will continue, because, as Jeremy would say, we have to," the foundation said.

Sydney Aiello, who survived the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, has died from suicide, people close to the family told CNN.

Sydney Aiello, a 2018 graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, survived the attack on Valentine's Day 2018 that killed 17 people at the Parkland, Florida, school. Aiello was reportedly close friends with Meadow Pollack, one of the 17 killed.

Aiello's mother said her daughter suffered from survivor's guilt and had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to CNN affiliate WFOR. She graduated just months after the shooting and was attending Florida Atlantic University.

She killed herself on March 17. Her funeral was Friday in Davie, Florida.

Unnamed Parkland student

On Saturday, a Stoneman Douglas student died in what police describe as "an apparent suicide." The student has not been publicly identified. CNN affiliate WFOR and the Miami Herald reported the student was a male sophomore.

It's unclear under what circumstances the student died, or whether the apparent suicide was related to last year's massacre.

The news of the student's death came as the Parkland community is mourning Aiello and prompted discussions among community leaders, the school district and parents about how to address what trauma survivors are facing.

If you or someone you know might be at risk of suicide, here's how to get help: In the United States, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. The International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide also can provide contact information for crisis centers around the world.

Parkland School Shooting Suspect Wants Names of Mental Health Experts Sealed

Published 49 minutes ago | Updated 46 minutes ago

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Parkland-School-Shooting-Suspect-Wants-Names-of-Mental-Health-Experts-Sealed-507662931.html

The suspect in last year's Parkland high school massacre will be back in court as his attorneys try to prevent prosecutors from learning the mental health experts they are consulting.

Attorneys for Nikolas Cruz will argue Tuesday that the names of the mental health experts who visit him in jail shouldn't be disclosed.

They say they are not required to tell prosecutors which experts they are consulting and don't have to say which will testify until 20 days before Cruz's trial next year. They said it would be unfair if prosecutors can learn the experts through jail visitor logs.

Cruz is charged with killing 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year. His attorneys have said he would plead guilty for a life sentence. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Damn, just noticing my id has the word "dead" in it. Not good.