By Michael Krieger: It continues to amaze me how people are completely ignoring what
appears to be an incredible amount of shadiness inherent in Facebook’s
business model. Whether or not this is intentional click fraud, it is
clear that advertisers are not getting what they think they are getting.
They won’t be fooled forever, and once they wake up to the money being
wasted on fake “likes” and “clicks,” I’m curious to see what happens to
their revenue.
The following article from SF Gate is a perfect followup to my post from a couple weeks ago: How Much of Facebook’s Ad Revenue is From Click Fraud?
Perhaps the most shocking passage from the entire article is the following:
Naturally, Brar began disputing his bill with Facebook.
He wanted his clicks audited by a third party, to see how many were
genuine. Then he discovered that Facebook’s terms of service forbid third-party verification of its clicks. That’s something all advertisers should be aware of before they spend a penny on Facebook.
The Israeli parliament has passed a new law giving Muslim and Christian Arab
communities separate representation on an employment commission.
UK BANNED Press TV: The law, which was passed on Monday, expanded the equal opportunities
commission from five to 10 members, and gave separate seats to
representatives of Christian and Muslim Arab workers' groups.
It was sponsored by Yariv Levin of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party.
The Israeli daily Haaretz quoted Levin as saying that
Israelis and Christians “have a lot in common,” adding, “They’re our
natural allies, a counterweight to the Muslims.”
The Palestinians slammed the new Israeli law with Palestine
Liberation Organization executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi saying
in a statement that the new law seeks to create a new division among
Palestinians “based on religion.”
The Israeli regime has been committing human rights violations and
pursuing a policy of systematic discrimination and genocide against the Palestinians
since 1948, and the latest move also bears similarity to the policy of the
apartheid regime of South Africa.
By Diana Davison: Conor Oberst made a mistake. On February 19th, the lead singer and founder of the band Bright Eyes
filed a $1M lawsuit against Joanie Faircloth for falsely accusing him
of rape. Faircloth had made the accusation in the comments section of an
XOJane article about domestic violence and on her Tumblr page. (All are now deleted)
She claimed that Oberst’s brother got her backstage after a concert
ten years ago and that the singer stole her virginity after ignoring her
protests when he started touching her sexually. Brief investigation
shows that Joanie Faircloth is an Oberst fanatic who, until recently,
claimed that attending the concert was the “Best memory ever!”
Either she’s lying about the assault or rape just isn’t what it used to be.
Faircloth refused to retract her statements after Oberst’s lawyers
contacted her, leaving Oberst limited options to clear his name. His
press statement, printed in Rolling Stone,
also announced that “Oberst intends to donate the proceeds of this suit
to charities benefitting the victims of violence against women.”
And there is the mistake. Not just the misspelling of the word “benefiting”.
Faced with false rape allegations you’d imagine Oberst would want to
help other men who have been falsely accused. Most likely, the idea was
to show that he cares about actual victims of rape but, as it turns out,
the women’s charities don’t care about him. And they don’t want his
money. Emily Davis, the spokesperson for Right to Speak Out demanded Oberst drop his lawsuit because he’s scaring the womenfolk. Her reasoning goes like this:
Transcript:
"Well,
I've sat here this morning feeling like the odd man out. I mean, to me
it's beyond parody for the Greek finance minister, Mr Kourkoulas, to
come along here and tell us our fortune.
By AVfM: “Remember
kids, privilege is the new original sin, and you must redeem yourself
in the eyes of the Mother Goddess if you hope to be saved. Convert your
local male to indefinite servitude in the name of equal treatment!”
Victor Zen encountered a real feminist promoting tyranny with a
smile. Zen oppresses her in the way only a ginger can: by hurling enough
bricks of logic to entomb her arguments on impact.
By JtO and Janet Bloomfeld: Sexual
Assault is a slippery phrase. Not simply due to the continued
misapplication of the words by gender ideologues, but because the
definition of sexual assault is subjective. Consider the question: When
has a sexual assault occurred?
If we are to ask social justice warriors or similarly
squirrel-brained solipsists – the answer might be: Sexual assault occurs
any time a female feels sexually assaulted.
This is, of course, stupid.
Consider a campaign from the university of Nova Scotia, called More Than Yes:
“Sexual consent is more than just a yes. It must be loud and clear.”
Do you get that, guys? Yes DOES NOT MEAN yes. It means maybe. Depends how she feels about it the next day.
If she wakes up and thinks, “Oh my god, what a whore I am!” then,
according to the squirrel factory, all her “okays”, “yeses” and “oh god,
uh, uh don’t stop’s “ will be re-imagined post facto in the legal
record as “No! Stop! I’m being raped! Police! Take him away!”
Continuing, the squirrels have more to say:
“Real consent is mutual and sure. It is not muted, frail, hesitant, or afraid. It is never uncertain, assumed, or silent.“
Have these people ever actually had sex?
Submitted by Tyler Durden: In the annals of internet conspiracy theories,
none is more pervasive than the one speculating paid government plants
infiltrate websites, social network sites, and comment sections with an
intent to sow discord, troll, and generally manipulate, deceive and
destroy reputations. Guess what: it was all true.
And this time we have a pretty slideshow of formerly confidential
data prepared by the UK NSA equivalent, the GCHQ, to confirm it, and
Edward Snowden to thank for disclosing it. The messenger in this case is
Glenn Greenwald, who has released the data in an article in his new
website, firstlook.org, which he summarizes as follows:
"by publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted
some of the key, discrete revelations: the monitoring of YouTube and
Blogger, the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they
accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “honey traps” (luring people
into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses. But,
here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by
all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are
attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online
discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the
internet itself." Call it Stasi for "Generation Internet."
By Charles Hugh Smith: If
we consider the Fed's policies (tapering, etc.) solely within the
narrow confines of the corporatocracy or a strictly financial context,
we are in effect touching the foot of the elephant and declaring the
creature to be short and roundish.
I have been studying the Deep State for 40 years, before it had gained the nifty name "deep state." What
others describe as the Deep State I term the National Security State
which enables the American Empire, a vast structure that incorporates
hard and soft power--military, diplomatic, intelligence, finance,
commercial, energy, media, higher education - in a system of global
domination and influence.
By
Martin Armstrong: There has been the typical strategy to label anything that questions government’s ethics as the “conspiracy theory” so
that it may still exist in plain sight. In most cases, there is a tool
to further that goal of disinformation to allow corruption to exist in
plain sight, yet denied. They use people who spin whatever real issue
there is into something much larger to discredit the actual practice
allowing it to still exist. We are all born ignorant, but it takes a lot
of work to keep looking the other way to remain stupid.
There is the “black box” in cars that
records where you have been and how fast you have ever driven. The abuse
of this is off the charts just as they can not only tap your phones,
but actually obtain data from your phone company that shows every call
you received and the number it came from. These things exist. Smart
phones not only tell Google where you are, but the police capture people
by knowing where they are based upon their cell phone location. That
sounds fine for violent people, but what about political prosecutions or
taxes? However, the existence of such tools opens the doors for others
to use them for nefarious reasons like hacking into your personal data
or robbing your home based on the fact they know you are not there.
Paul Elam: After a less than scrupulous attempt at "covering" the men's movement, a
backlash from that and an online petition urging the media giant to
start giving men's issues fairer treatment, ABC News 20/20 is now
reaching out again the men's rights community.
This time, 20/20
producer Sean Dooley wants to talk to men who have been in physically
abusive relationships. Dooley says they are "looking for a few brave
individuals to come forward and discuss their experience."
