Facebook deliberately suppresses conservative news on its 'trending' feed

Facebook deliberately suppresses conservative news from its 'trending' section, former staffers claim.

The social network has never specified how trending articles are selected, but long implied it was generated by an impartial algorithm.

However, former editors of the news feed claim staff - or, 'news curators' - 'routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers.'

They were told to 'inject' certain stories to boost them on the list, regardless of their popularity, the staffers claims.

And the allegedly left-leaning team are given free rein to bury conservative articles if they have a bias against them, they said. 

The bombshell claims were made in a series of anonymous interviews former Facebook staff gave to tech news site Gizmodo on Monday.

One staffer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the site: 'I’d come on shift and I’d discover that CPAC or Mitt Romney or Glenn Beck or popular conservative topics wouldn’t be trending because either the curator didn’t recognize the news topic or it was like they had a bias against Ted Cruz.'

On Monday, Facebook hit back at the allegations insisting there are 'guidelines' to prevent bias, laying blame on employees.

The news feed was launched in 2014. It promotes 10 stories to its 167 million users, branding them as must-read topics.

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'Black men see gang-rape of babies, daughters and mothers as a pleasurable past-time'

A white South African judge was at the centre of a social media storm after Facebook comments emerged in which she suggested rape was part of black culture.

Political parties rushed to condemn the messages, which sparked fresh outrage after a series of recent internet postings underlined racial tensions in South Africa, 22 years after the end of apartheid rule.

'In their culture a woman is there to pleasure them. Period,' wrote Judge Mabel Jansen, who sits in the High Court in the capital Pretoria.  'It is seen as an absolute right and a woman's consent is not required.'

Jansen added: 'I still have to meet a black girl who was not raped at about 12. I am dead serious.'

The opposition Democratic Alliance party said it would report the messages to the country's Judicial Services Commission to be investigated.

Her comments were 'not only hurtful and demeaning', but undermined 'the dignity of our people,' the party said.

Jansen took to Twitter to defend herself, arguing her postings had been misrepresented.

'What I stated confidentially to somebody in a position to help has been taken completely out of context and referred to specific court cases,' she said.

'The real issue... is the protection of vulnerable women and children and an endeavour to cure the pandemic.'

Official statistics showed that 43,195 rapes were reported in South Africa between April 2014 and March 2015, though most rapes are not reported to police.

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From what I have seen and heard about South Africa, there is a lot in what she said.  I have visited South Africa both during Apartheid and subsequently. And the subsequent decline in civility was marked.  When I was in SA in the '70s, the affluent Jo'burg suburb of Sandton had very little in the way of fences.  Now all houses there have 8' high fences topped with razor wire. Does that tell you anything?

I also have South African correspondents who tell tales of woe -- JR

Wesley College newspaper under fire for publishing 'racist' cartoons drawn by a black student



The independent student newspaper of Delaware's Wesley College is under fire after publishing two cartoons that many students on campus found offensive.

The two cartoons in question were published last Friday. The first shows an African-American woman wearing a 'Black Lives Matter' t-shirt, looking at her watch as she remarks 'Would you look at the time...I'm late for my abortion!'

The second cartoon shows an exchanged between a black man and an animated garden hoe.

The garden hoe exclaims: 'Who is you calling HOE!!!'

'I'm sorry ma'am, you just look like a hoe!' the man responds.

The cartoons were drawn by student Bryheim Muse, who is black himself. 

The cartoons quickly generated controversy on campus, with many saying they were offended and found the cartoons racially insensitive.

'I just feel like it's inappropriate, and it kind of offends me,' Tymira Holman, a freshman, told WBOC. 'I know that we have student events where students that aren't minorities feel let out and discriminated again and then something like this is just not OK to me.'

School administrators and the Whetston's editor-in-chief held a forum on Monday to address the outrage over the cartoons, but some students said that wasn't enough.

As an independent student newspaper, The Whetstone is not officially or financially affiliated with the school.  

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Must not imply that blacks are lazy



It's very dangerous to find some things funny

An internal investigation with Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office probed Lt. Trudy Callahan, a 20-year-veteran of the police force, and her Instagram account where she posted an image of a black man lounging on a chain-linked fence.

“Yeah its almost Friday so get your Hood Hammock,” Callahan wrote in a caption from 2015. “Ready to chillax.”

The image went viral on Reddit well before Callahan’s Instagram post. It has been circulating on social media for more than two years without any indicator of where or when it was taken.

Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Lt. Trudy Callahan has been suspended for 10 days for violating the agency's social media policy.

In the wake of racist allegations, Callahan deleted her Instagram account and is now appealing her suspension from the agency, according to the Florida Times-Union.

She believed the posts were “taken out of context” and “twisted and turned to fit people’s agendas,” Callahan said defending herself in a report obtained by the Times-Union.

While none of the images were taken or created by Callahan, she re-shared the pictures with captions that were also interpreted as racially insensitive.

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Must not suggest that women have breasts



Newcomer "Doughnut Time" has tried to cover its social media tracks after an outrage at staff uniforms with strategically placed doughnuts.

Doughnut Time founder Damian Griffiths said the T-shirts with doughnuts printed strategically over the breasts had been dumped from its stores four months ago, but on Saturday it wiped them from social media accounts.

"Any imagery that was on our social media accounts and website has been removed based on the feedback from the community which we value greatly," Mr Griffiths said in a statement.

"We apologise to any of our current and past customers who may have taken offence to these T-shirts," he said.

The sprinkle of criticism from Collective Shout - a prominent campaigning movement against the objectification of women and sexualisation of girls - tarnished the company's free doughnut giveaway on Saturday at its store in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.

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Must not mention that Bob Marley was black



Snapchat's many filters and face swaps are usually pure fun (flower crowns, alien heads, axe-wielding vikings!), but today's 4/20 filter goes too far.

What at first seems innocent enough — a Bob Marley-themed image — quickly becomes disturbing. You can don Marley's trademark dreadlocks and Rasta Hat, sure. But the problem is what happens to your skin tone: The filter is clearly blackface.

Blackface has resulted in numerous Halloween controversies for famous celebs, and Snapchat users have already noted the obvious insensitivity of the platform's new filter, which brings this offensive issue to the masses.

In response to request for comment, a Snapchat spokeperson shared the following statement:

"The lens we launched today was created in partnership with the Bob Marley Estate, and gives people a new way to share their appreciation for Bob Marley and his music. Millions of Snapchatters have enjoyed Bob Marley's music, and we respect his life and achievements."

Marley does deserve to be respected and appreciated, but this was not an effective way to do so.

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Hate speech in the British Labour party

A Labour activist has been suspended from the party over yet another case of antisemitic social media posts.

David Watson, the fundraising co-ordinator for the Walthamstow Labour Party, has been suspended pending an investigation, a spokesperson told the Jewish Chronicle.

Watson shared articles on Facebook alleging that Daesh has used weapons produced in Israel, and accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinians.

News of the suspension comes soon after Ken Livingstone once again mentioned Adolf Hitler, this time in his latest interview with Sky News. The former London mayor was suspended by the Labour party last week for comments he made about the Nazi leader — but this hasn’t stopped him.

Asked whether his claim that Hitler was a Zionist was ill-advised, he said: “It is not an unguarded or ill-advised comment to answer a question honestly about historical reality.”

Once again, Livingstone’s remarks sparked a social media storm.

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Why hate the word 'moist'?

The English language is nothing if not descriptive.  But if you are looking to describe something slightly wet, you may want to steer clear of one word in particular - moist.

A study into the common aversion of the word has shown the general disgust it creates may be due to its association to bodily functions, and even related to the facial muscles used to say the word.

Dr Paul Thibodeau, a psychologist from Oberlin College in Ohio, looked at four possible reasons why the word elicited such a strong negative response from people.

One hypothesis is that people just don't like the sound of the word, or that it may be associated with sex and bodily functions.

While one of the more interesting, but controversial, ideas was that it creates 'facial feedback'. The act of saying the word uses the same arrangement of facial muscles as we use to show disgust.

More than 2,400 people were asked to complete questionnaires over the course of five experiments, with initial results revealing almost 18 per cent of people did have an aversion to the word 'moist'. Furthermore, the results showed that aversion was more likely to affect young, neurotic women.

When compared against strongly aversive words, such as 'murderer' or 'vomit', it was found to be fairly benign.

The initial findings indicate the word has become tainted with cultural references, with people linking the word with bodily functions contexts, and so contaminating it.

Dr Thibodeau wrote the findings suggest 'that the prototypical moist-averse person is a young, neurotic, female who is well-educated and somewhat disgusted by bodily function.'

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Canadian held for second day after social media criticism of Nepal government

Third world governments tend to be touchy, like Leftists

A Canadian computer programmer who has been vocally critical of the government of Nepal on social media has been held for a second day of questioning, a Nepali official said on Tuesday.

Robert Penner was taken to the Department of Immigration for questioning on Monday by police who arrested him at his office in southern Kathmandu, said Lalitpur Senior Superintendent of Police Pitambar Adhikari.

Penner lives in Kathmandu and works for Sound Cloud, an outsourcing company.

He criticized the Nepal government on social media during unrest that followed the passing of Nepal's constitution last year and he denounced the recent arrest and detention of Kanak Mani Dixit, a prominent journalist and civil rights activist.

"Yesterday we requested the police to bring him to the Department of Immigration for questioning," Prakash Neupane, director of immigration told Reuters.

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Teacher fired after using the word ‘vagina’ in art history class

A TEACHER spoke a word apparently so outrageous, so nauseating, that she was fired from her job. That word? Vagina.

Last week, substitute teacher Allison Wint was leading an art history class at Harper Creek Middle School — a job she had been in since January — while discussing the paintings by George O’Keeffe, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Some of O’Keeffe’s work does actually look like abstract portrayals of the female anatomy, and Wint recalled saying to her class: “Imagine walking into a gallery when (O’Keeffe) was first showing her pieces, and thinking, ‘Am I actually seeing vaginas here, am I a pervert? I’m either a pervert or this woman was a pervert’.”

Wint said she was trying to spark an insightful conversation with her teenage students, using the word vagina about 10 times — which she stressed was never in a vulgar way. But it was deemed inapproriate for 14-15 year-old ears, costing the Michigan woman her job.

She said she hadn’t wanted to use a euphemism, like the often used ‘vajayjay’ or ‘lady bits’, so as to not turn her lesson into a joke.

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"Provider" is a bad word

This Viewpoint discusses issues related to the use of “provider” to describe primary care health professionals with varying levels of training and certification and the effects of these issues on quality of care.

The term “provider” first appeared in the modern health care lexicon as a shorthand referring to delivery entities such as group practices, hospitals, and networks. More recently, its use has expanded to encompass physicians, nurse practitioners (NPs), physician assistants (PAs), and perhaps others, especially those engaged in delivery of primary care.

On one level, this expansion is both logical and convenient, as it reflects the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to modern primary care delivery, extending beyond the traditional dyad of patient and physician.

Being designated as a “primary care provider” also denotes qualifying for payment of services rendered, a designation long sought and highly valued by advanced-practice nurses and PAs.3

Although useful in these contexts, the term “provider” has the potential for adverse consequences for primary care, calling into question the wisdom of its expanded use.

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This appeared in a medical journal.  The rationale is that the term leads to confusion.  If both doctors and nurses are "providers", you might mistake a nurse for a doctor.  One would think such mistakes would be rapidly corrected but the writer seems to think not.

Hilarious black comedian (NOT)

But he gets let off because he is black -- which is pure racism

White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Monday defended the remarks of Comedy Central's Larry Wilmore at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Among the controversial remarks that grew the most condemnation, Wilmore said, “Welcome to Negro Night here in Washington. Or as Fox News will report, ‘Two thugs disrupt elegant dinner in DC.'” Wilmore closed out his monologue, saying, “So, Mr. President, I’m going to keep it a hundred. Yo, Barry, you did it, my n***a!”

American Urban Radio Network’s April Ryan asked Earnest what he thought about Wilmore’s use of the n-word.

“I think the first thing that I would observe is that any comedian who signed up to follow President Obama at the White House Correspondents dinner is assuming one of the most difficult tasks in comedy, and just by nature of the engagement, that’s a tough job following the president of the United States,” said Earnest.

“But he crossed the line. Many African-Americans in that room – to include civil rights leaders, black comedians - were very appalled, even members of the Republican Party. Black Republicans were upset. Black Democrats were upset.

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Britain to block 'extreme' broadcasters

Aimed at Muslims

The UK's broadcasting watchdog will reportedly be given more powers to gag programmes believed to include "unacceptable extremist material" as part of a new crackdown on hate speech.

David Cameron will apparently widen Ofcom's remit and also extend vetting rules so that employers will be informed of "known extremists" in a bid to stop them working with children and other vulnerable groups, The Times reported.

The measures, which also include an independent review of so-called "Sharia courts" in Britain, will make up an Extremism Bill. The draft legislation will reportedly be announced by the prime minister on 18 May and will be included in the Queen's speech.

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Clearly, something has to be done about Muslim hostility but kicking the hate preachers out would be preferable.  The Left call all sorts of things "hate" but Muslim hate is the real thing, and it does erupt into killings

Irishman uses the n-word.  Uproar!

American sensitivities are not universally shared

Gerry Adams has defended using the N-word in a tweet about film Django Unchained in which he compared the struggle against slavery in the US to the plight of Irish nationalists.

The Sinn Fein president said he had either been misunderstood by those who had taken offence at his use of the term, or they were misrepresenting the post.

The offending tweet about the Oscar-winning Quentin Tarantino film appeared on his profile late on Sunday night. It said: 'Watching Django Unchained - A Ballymurphy N*****!'

Although the tweet was removed swiftly it provoked a furious reaction.

The republican later issued a statement in which he said attempts to suggest he was a racist were 'without credibility'.  He said: 'I am opposed to racism and have been all my life.

'The fact is that nationalists in the north, including those from Ballymurphy, were treated in much the same way as African Americans until we stood up for ourselves.

'If anyone is genuinely offended by my use of the N-word they misunderstand or misrepresent the context in which it was used.

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There are some things you must not say, even in satire

A satirical essay by a North County High School student that calls for the destruction of black people is stirring student and community outrage.

In the Advanced Placement Language class at the Glen Burnie school, a teacher assigned students to write a satirical essay modeled after a 1729 essay mocking heartless attitudes toward the less fortunate. "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift asserted, satirically, that poor people should sell their babies to the rich as food.

One student's satirical essay for the assignment described blacks as "single-parent households, welfare recipients, unemployed citizens..." The essay calls for a nuclear missile to "wipe the cesspool of filth some call a 'race' from the earth."

The essay quickly circulated on social media, with some commenters accusing the student of racism and others defending the satirical intent of the assignment. Anne Arundel County Public Schools spokesman Bob Mosier said he did not know who first posted the essay.

North County Principal Julie Cares sent a letter to parents Tuesday explaining the assignment and said the student's essay was "ill-advised and insensitive."

On April 7, the student whose name is on the essay posted on his Twitter account "TO WHOEVER READ THE PAPER: I do not mean anything in it. I wrote it as a parody for an English assignment, and I apologize for it."

Mosier said the school system sent administrators and counselors Wednesday to help students work through their concerns and anger.

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That there was a considerable element of truth in the essay was probably behind much of the heartburn

"Reservation" is a bad word

The P.C. shame mobs that populate vast swaths of the internet turned their sights on an unlikely target this week: Hillary Clinton. As the New York Post notes:

Hillary Clinton drew ire from Native Americans on Saturday over her use of the phrase “off the reservation” in a CNN interview.

Activists pointed to the saying’s dark origins in late-19th-century laws restricting Native Americans to reservation lands.

“When reservations were first established, going #OffTheReservation meant you were going to be hunted down and killed,” Ruth Hopkins tweeted.

The social-media firestorm forced Clinton’s campaign to apologize — also on Twitter.

“Divisive language has no place in our politics,” tweeted Amanda Renteria, Clinton’s national political director. “Hillary Clinton meant no disrespect to Native Americans. She wants this election to be about lifting people up, not tearing them down.”

This is, of course, patently absurd. Language derives from human interaction. All words and phrases have an origin, and as time goes by, those words tend to soften in meaning. That is to say, no one says "off the reservation" with an eye towards slandering Native Americans.

Conservatives, and Americans with half a brain realize this, despite the best efforts of Hillary and her ilk to push a radical P.C. agenda. Perhaps now that she's had a taste of her own medicine, she'll see it for what it is: divisive poison.

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Farrah Abraham lashes out at Blac Chyna in racist Instagram post calling model a 'f***in monkey' and 'a nothing'

Farrah Abraham has come under fire after she lashed out at Blac Chyna with a racist comment on Instagram. The former Teen Mom star wrote a bizarre, seemingly unprompted comment on Blac's account on Friday.  'F**kin monkey ewe s**t come up 4 what she is a nothing,' the 24-year-old wrote after Blac shared a video showing off a new lace choker.

But Farah deleted her attack after it set off Blac's fans, who were quick to come to the beauty salon owner's defense.

'Before you degrade somebody else don't forget where you came from,' wrote one commentator. 'Not knocking you but you were Teen Mom, and then became a pornstar or if that's what you like to call yourself! You are no better than anyone, and for you to say something so degrading and so nasty just shows what kind of person you are!'

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Abuse answered by abuse.  That's how it should be.

But the use of "monkey" makes it clear that there was a racial element in the comment.  Abraham is a classically beautiful woman of Mediterranean ancestry and appearance,  whereas Chyna does have some pronounced African features which Abraham could well see as ugly.  See below:



I have read that most African men admire a very large bottom, so her appeal may be mainly to that audience

Redefining Deviancy: 'Justice-Involved Youth'



In a recent press release describing the Justice Department’s efforts to provide housing for rehabilitated juvenile delinquents, the department described the demographic as “Justice-Involved Youth.” From the very fist line of its message, the Office of Public Affairs wrote, “In an effort to help young people involved in the justice system find jobs and housing…”

And this is how we’re introduced to the most recent example of the Left’s newspeak, a strain of our vernacular that George Orwell described as “largely the defence of the indefensible.” Obtuse phrases such as “justice-involved youth” hide the true meaning of what’s happening. Which side of the law are these individuals on? As Investor’s Business Daily facetiously asks, “If these young people are ‘involved’ in the justice system, doesn’t that mean they already have jobs? Like, say, as a trainee in the dispatcher’s office, or a desk clerk in the attorney general’s office, or maybe a janitor at the local courthouse?”

Using the Left’s phrasing, it’s hard to have an honest discussion about the Justice Department’s program. While returning to society after paying a debt to it by spending time in jail is often a difficult task, citizens have the right to know how “involved” these youth were in this nation’s justice system. Are we simply giving out taxpayer funds to hooligans who will turn around and contribute to insecurity and instability of our society? As long as they vote Democrat, yes.

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Officials: Black students behind hanging stick figure, slur

So, what's new?

SALISBURY, Md. –  Officials at a Maryland university say black students are behind a drawing of a hanging stick figure with a racial slur found on a library whiteboard.

News outlets quote Salisbury University spokesman Richard Culver as saying the students are black. He declined to identify them, citing privacy rules. The image found April 10 on a whiteboard showed a stick figure being hanged. It was labeled with a racial slur and accompanied by the hashtag "whitepower."

Culver says university police consulted with prosecutors and decided not to file criminal charges at this time. He says if the university determines any of the school's policies were violated, the students could face disciplinary action.

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Muslim hate speech at Harvard

If there is any person or group of people that should understand the difference between free speech and hate speech, it is a Harvard Law student. Three years of legal classes at an elite institution along with basic human decency should be enough to not broadcast discriminatory views in public.

But that’s not the America we live in now. The false notion that everyone’s ideas are equally valuable—even if they’re chock-full of anti-Semitic conspiracy theory nonsense—now pervades higher education, hate speech, and it appears to be becoming more permissible. Perhaps it’s the fashionable white guilt or the faux self-awareness, but hate speech is creeping into (gulp) “safe spaces”.

Thus at Harvard Law School’s panel on Israeli-Palestinian relations last week, a third-year law student [Husam El-Qoulaq] asked veteran Israeli politician Tzipi Livni about her body odor.

“OK, my question is for Tzipi Livni,” the student asked. “Um, how is it that you are so smelly?” When the moderator of the panel asked for clarification, the student pressed on: “I’m [asking about] Tzipi Livni, very smelly.” The reaction seemed to turn from confusion to consternation. The implication of the question was painfully obvious: the student was indirectly calling her a smelly Jew. There’s no other conclusion that can be derived. Publicly asking about someone’s odor is obviously not a passing curiosity about hygiene. It’s an ethnic slur.

Fortunately the campus reaction was swift. Harvard Law’s dean Martha Minow released a statement that the question “violated the sense of trust and respect we expect in our community.” The student is a leader of the Justice for Palestine chapter at Harvard Law and made a public apology during which he said that he would “never, ever, call anyone, under any circumstances, a ‘smelly Jew’.” Of course, the apology does not explain why he felt compelled to ask about Livni’s alleged smelliness in the first place.

What’s disturbing about this whole scandal is that the student felt safe enough to ask such a ridiculous and personal question. Countless blogs and videos and articles about checking your privilege and hours of required diversity training didn’t stop him.

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Harvard was pro-Nazi in the'30s so plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose