Meta's news ban in Canada: screenshots win, local news loses, study shows - "National news outlets lost about 64 per cent of the engagement previously generated by users on their Facebook pages, the preliminary research shows. Local news outlets lost about 85 per cent of their Facebook engagement, the study says, and almost half of all local news outlets stopped posting on Facebook entirely in the four months following the ban. Some outlets "have gone dark entirely because they're no longer getting the ad revenue being driven from Facebook to their sites," said Aengus Bridgman, who directs the Media Ecosystem Observatory. "And so this is hugely consequential for both Canadians and for news outlets." Some outlets were able to maintain engagement on their Facebook pages because their news is still viewable outside Canada, and they have maintained an international audience. While news outlets suffered, Meta itself was seemingly unaffected. "One of the remarkable things we saw was the overall behaviour on the platform didn't decrease," said Bridgman... They saw a similar volume of posting within political discussion groups but instead of links to news articles, people posted screenshots of them, Bridgman said. That means readers are seeing the content, but outlets aren't seeing the revenue."
Time to blame Meta for refusing to be extorted
Facebook turned off the news in Canada. What happened next? - "Large publications, with their own apps and widely known brands, are well placed to weather the ban. But for some digital-only titles, Meta’s blackout has been “absolutely devastating”, says Paul Deegan, head of News Media Canada, which represents publishers. Adam Reaburn, editor of Energetic City, a site covering what he says is otherwise a “news desert” in rural British Columbia, says the news ban initially cut his readership by 30-40%. “I don’t understand why Google, Instagram and Facebook need to pay us when we use their platforms to share our articles,” he wrote in his final Facebook post in August... Canada’s communications regulator will decide later this year whether the fact that Meta has blocked news links excuses it from making payments. Ms St-Onge says Meta should still have to pay, because news content is still finding its way onto its platforms. If the regulator disagrees, then “we’ll see how it’s possible to amend that piece of legislation, because as long as we’re in government, we’re not going to give up,” she says. Any amendments would have to respect Meta’s freedom of expression and make sure that “we don’t infringe on that [by] obliging certain content to be shown,” she acknowledges. News Media Canada, which supports the new law, is attacking Meta on another front, lodging a complaint with Canada’s competition regulator, arguing that Meta’s link-blocking is an abuse of its dominant position. Canada’s difficulties may cause countries mulling similar laws to think carefully. When Australia wrung a reported A$200m ($130m) per year out of Google and Meta using its news-media bargaining code, passed in 2021, countries including Britain, Brazil and South Africa pricked up their ears. But Meta appears emboldened by its Canadian experience. In February it said it would not renew the deals it had earlier struck in Australia. “For now, Meta has left the building,” Jesper Doub, who was head of international news partnerships at Meta until last year, told a journalism conference in Italy in April. “If you want to measure the value [of news], take it away and see what happens. And they did in Canada …Nothing happened.” In future, whenever Meta faces demands for payment, “they will just walk away,” Mr Doub said. That will mean less news on the world’s biggest social network, and fewer readers for small publishers... “The act is supposed to help us,” she says. “But it’s hurting us.” ■"
When your extortion attempt fails and you're still scraping the bottom of the barrel to justify it
America's Elite vs China's Autocracy - "the abject failure of Obama’s environmental initiatives illustrates the considerable drawbacks of Friedman’s commonsense statist model in practice. Most famously, Obama’s Department of Energy awarded Solyndra, a California solar panel manufacturer, loan guarantees worth more than half a billion dollars only to see its investment go up in smoke when the price of a key ingredient used by Solyndra’s competitors dropped dramatically. At the same time, fracking ushered in the age of cheap natural gas, turning the United States into a net energy exporter and creating jobs for millions of Americans. It wasn’t bitter Republican fossils who thwarted Obama’s forward-looking green initiatives; it was reality... Americans tend to distrust the wisdom of government bureaucrats who believe they can decide which technologies are likely to succeed better than markets can. Maybe bureaucrats in countries like China or Germany are good at this kind of thing; American bureaucrats have been historically bad at it for at least the past half-century. If America could once afford vast, failed attempts at social engineering like Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, we can’t now. Californians have seen what the vision of central planning American-style looks like in practice—rolling electricity shortages, brownouts, even blackouts, in the country’s richest and most populous state. China, meanwhile, operating within a set of more pragmatic constraints, seems to have understood the limits of clean tech, which is why it ramped up coal production last year—equal to the European Union’s total capacity—while cutting its investments in renewable energy. So much for China’s fleet of driverless solar-powered electric cars. Friedman may be interested in innovative policies that inspire Americans to dream and build and lead, but that’s not what galvanizes the political, corporate, and cultural elites who quote him. For them, the goal isn’t to compete with China but to reshape America. So what exactly is their vision of the future? One-hundred percent clean and renewable energy—with half the country living below the poverty line? World peace—with Western powers implementing lockdowns pioneered by communist party apparatchiks? None of that makes any practical sense, but the architecture of their utopias is irrelevant, so long as those drawing the plans have the power to reward their friends and to punish anyone they identify as an enemy. Compared to the American elite, China’s one-party autocrats are at least clear about their aims: They want to destroy us, not their own people. So it’s not China that our establishment is actually modeling itself after. This is what democracies look like when the elites grow too powerful and turn against the people they believe themselves to rule by right. Beijing didn’t force Washington to sign a climate agreement that demanded more of American consumers and industry than it did of China. That was Barack Obama’s decision. He chose to do it for the same reason that the Biden administration plans to reenter the Paris Climate Accord and has prioritized returning to Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran. The American political establishment uses international agreements to force the people they govern to do things against their will. Americans opposed the Iran deal by a 2 to 1 margin, so did their representatives in the House and Senate. In reimposing sanctions on Iran, the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign showed that Americans were right and Obama was wrong—terror states are less threatening to America and its allies when they have less money to spend on terror and on building nuclear weapons. But real-world results don’t deter Joe Biden and his aides from promising to reenter the Iran deal at the first opportunity; the point is to shove the deal down everyone’s throats—Americans, Israelis, Saudis, Emiratis, the 80% of Iranians who hate their own theocratic government—to show who really has the power. Similarly, even though Obama was plainly wrong on clean tech, Biden’s term begins with promises that his Green New Deal will somehow create millions of new jobs. Yet it is certain that if he and Kamala Harris make good on their vows to end fracking, they will eliminate millions of real, existing jobs in the middle of a bad economy. “Environmental justice,” as the Biden team calls it, means laying waste to a vital economic sector in order to remake America—as what? As a place where people who say words like “Green New Deal” call the shots, and other people lose their jobs for being on the wrong side of history. Friedman’s 2009 article is important today because it marks the historical moment early in Obama’s first term when a segment of the country’s establishment defected en masse from the Republican to the Democratic Party—thus unifying the American elite under a single political banner, and enabling them to wage war on the rest of the country... “Globalization has neutered the Republican Party, leaving it to represent not the have-nots of the recession but the have-nots of globalized America, the people who have been left behind either in reality or in their fears. The need to compete in a globalized world has forced the meritocracy, the multinational corporate manager, the Eastern financier and the technology entrepreneur to reconsider what the Republican Party has to offer. In principle, they have left the party.” Democracy has always had its discontents... what has kept the peace, when there has been peace, is a set of unspoken agreements that manifested themselves in national symbols, heroic stories, and sentimental myths. And that’s why these were targeted in a campaign of desecration sanctioned by the establishment that began even before The New York Times’ 1619 project, the COVID lockdowns, and the George Floyd riots... It’s easier to control people when they’re scared and poor. If the goal is social transformation, which is the term that Biden and Harris use, then it stands to reason that the poorer and more desperate people there are, the better. How about a $600 check from the government in return for us taking away your business and your right to work with no legislative or judicial authority? And no more questions about why hundreds of elderly COVID patients were shoved back into nursing homes by order of New York’s Emmy-winning Gov. Andrew Cuomo... China isn’t the the problem. It’s us."
Over 75% of Americans say tipping culture has gone too far: study - "It’s not always humans tipping humans, though — half of CouponBirds’ survey respondents said they had been asked to tip at an automated, self-service checkout."
Korean BBQ joint posts now-viral revenge story billboard - "Chingu Korean BBQ, located in Caroline Springs, has yet to open but is already drawing attention from across the country thanks to the giant billboard attached to the front. “Hey Sophia, you broke up with me because I was poor,” it reads. “Now I have money to open a Korean BBQ, are you regretting it now?”... Others suggested it could just be a clever marketing ploy from the owner to drum up business and stir up interest before the restaurant’s opening... “I don’t think Sophia will be able to see that from her new boyfriend’s yacht,” another wrote. “He’s paying rent for his new business but sophia is still living in his head rent-fee,” one Reddit user jibed. In a more recent post, another local business has got in on the action, seemingly responding to Chingu’s dramatic sign. Gotham Doughnuts, also in Caroline Springs, put out a banner of their own. “Yo, Korean BBQ, don’t worry about Sophia,” their sign plastered to their shop front read. “We have all the dessert you need right here!”... “Dear Steve, I hope you’re happy with her,” the open letter read. “Now the whole town will know what a filthy cheater you are. From Jenny. “P.S. I bought this ad using your credit card.” At the time, the newspaper had been inundated with “dozens” of messages since the full page note went to print. “We do not know who Steve is, but apparently he’s been very, very bad,” a representative of the outlet said in statement. “We won’t be revealing any details about Jenny.” Sadly, the last of Jenny’s revenge seems to have been unsuccessful. “We have not charged the credit card in question,” the newspaper confirmed. Their sales manager Mike McCann told the “Today Show” it held off charging the credit card provided as it could technically have been card fraud. However, he was urging Steve to come forward to “cover the bill.” McCann said staff at the paper thought the ad was “just crazy” and the response since had been phenomenal... Some claimed Jenny and Steve did not exist at all, and the ad was a clever marketing tactic. “This has PR stunt written all over it,” one user wrote. “Good way of getting more likes and readers to your page,” another said."
Vegetarian ate 1 burger, got hooked and became butcher - "Tammi Jonas, a longtime vegetarian living in Victoria, Australia, had a surprising — but undeniable — craving for a hamburger while pregnant with her third child. Just one prime patty after many meat-free years. Now, she’s a professional butcher and a pig farmer... while carrying her third child, she also became “dangerously anemic.” After the iron supplements failed, she pondered if protein would be the best way to get healthy for her and her baby... Her foray into not only eating meat again, but actually producing it, comes from a motivation to make positive change. After a lot of research and planning, she and her husband, Stuart, decided to open a small, sustainable farm in Victoria’s Central Highlands, that promises to treat their porkers with respect."
Granddaughters left with £200,000 legal bill after arguing over £50 inheritance - "Five granddaughters who were each left £50 from their ‘disappointed’ grandad in his will are now facing a hefty legal bill. Frederick Ward Snr, who died in 2020, all but cut out his dead son Fred Jnr’s five adult children from his £500,000 will because he was ‘upset’ they didn’t visit him often during his later years... Now, following a new hearing, the five grandchildren have been left with a £220,000-plus bill to cover their aunt and uncle’s costs of defending the claim against them, as well as their own lawyers’ bills."
Ambulance collides with moose while responding to another moose collision: OPP
How ‘Not Too Sweet’ as an Asian American Meme Turned Into Stereotype - "no one is louder about good desserts being “not too sweet” than the Asian American diaspora. Perhaps you’ve seen a meme about how calling a dessert “not too sweet” is something almost every Asian American has heard from their relatives, and how it’s the highest compliment an Asian person can give a dessert. Or maybe you’ve seen that it’s the name of multiple Asian bakeries and pop-ups. The phrase is not just a marker of taste, but one of identity. For a dessert to be Asian, it must be “not too sweet.” And to be Asian, one must like it that way. Like any in-joke among a marginalized group, “not too sweet” is a defiant shorthand, and one that in its construction necessitates a binary: “too sweet” compared to what? Often, in the Asian American usage, it’s a contrast to Western desserts filled with milk chocolate, sticky caramel, and corn syrup. To say “not too sweet” is to say actually, I don’t want your frosted red velvet cupcakes or your sticky toffee pudding; I long for the subtlety of red bean, the freshness of mango over sticky rice. It’s to say that Asian dessert traditions and flavors — matcha, black sesame, jellies laced with lychee — are superior to flavors associated with whiteness... But while I relish in the sentiment, something sticks like taffy in my teeth. If this is emblematic of “Asian” tastes, then what of the trays of gulab jamun and jalebi at every wedding, sweeter than any sundae? What of Vietnamese iced coffees and Thai iced teas I could barely finish for the sugar, the coconut roti drenched in palm treacle I ate on my honeymoon in Sri Lanka, Malaysian honeycomb cake, or Korean dalgona, literally caramelized sugar candy, as sweet as English toffee?... There is some scientific data as to why people of Asian descent may prefer less sweet things. According to a 2020 study published in Food and Quality Preference, people of Asian descent are more likely to be phenotypically supertasters and “low sweet likers,” as well as more sensitive to sour and metallic tastes. There are also material reasons why sugar wasn’t around. Robert Ji-Song Ku, a food studies scholar and associate professor of Asian and Asian American studies at Binghamton University, says his parents grew up hardly eating sweets in Korea. “That generation went through war and famine,” he says. “Having really sweet foods was a rarity, sugar was really expensive.” Dalgona candy was something they’d eat on special occasions, but the flavor wasn’t pervasive. He notes that now, younger Koreans have embraced sweetness, adding the flavor to foods that didn’t used to be sweet, like fried chicken. “The older generations don’t like it.”... While the U.S. and Germany were the largest consumers of sugar in 2020, Malaysia and Thailand beat out both in per-capita consumption — 41.63 kilograms and 38.66 kilograms per year, respectively, compared to 33.17 kilograms in the U.S., and with Cambodia coming close behind at 32.21 kilograms... there are plenty of “too sweet” concoctions throughout Asian cuisines. Kung mentioned Hong Kong milk tea, black tea made with evaporated milk with loads of sugar, or Vietnamese coffee. Ho says that on a recent trip to Japan, they noticed many of the beverages they tried were incredibly sweet. “I was like wait, huh? And I was in Asia Asia,” they said. “I think that the idea that Asians don’t like things being too sweet is bullshit.”... Estimates put Asia as encompassing about 50 countries, and 4.7 billion people. Do you hear how silly it sounds to describe a cuisine, a behavior, literally anything as “Asian”? How dare you speak for everyone!... When someone says “not too sweet,” it’s not just about how much is “too” much, but what we’re even talking about when we say “sweet” — which may not be sweetness at all."
This is why "Asian" is such a shit term, and Oriental is much better - Southeast Asians and South Asians love sugar. But left wingers are never happy
Edmonton man who sex trafficked teen girl sentenced to 7 years in prison - "Fix sought a sentence reduction for Montasser’s time in remand, which he said included multiple assaults by other inmates and meals containing pork despite being Muslim. Fix painted his client as an unsophisticated “follower” desperate to fit in. While not formally diagnosed, Fix also suggested his client has a learning disability that is “organic and permanent.”... Prosecutor Susan Hughson asked for eight years, citing Montasser’s “predatory” behaviour and noting he was on probation at the time he trafficked the girl. His record includes convictions for failing to attend court, obstructing police, criminal flight, drug possession and possession of stolen property. Mandziuk ultimately reduced the seven-year sentence by six months to account for time Montasser spent on house arrest, as well as for conditions in remand. The judge credited Montasser 30 days for each time he caught COVID-19 in lock-up, as well as 30 days for the pork incident. The Crown conceded the remand may have failed to meet Montasser’s dietary restrictions, but said it may have been an accident."
Meme -Colonel Otaku Gatekeeper @politicalawake: "A Muslim woman who went on TV complaining about Japanese food having a lot of pork. I translated this amazing response by Cat Suzu into English so you Westerners can understand it "
Cat Suzu @Catsuzuchan_01: "Muslim: "Japanese food is all about pork." "You're a Muslim, right? Japan uses a lot of pork. If you ask me anything, I'll be told that it has (pork) in it, it does. Tempura udon doesn't have pork in it. So when I'm hungry, I have no choice but to look for udon."If you're going to complain about Japanese food, I think you should go back to your home country, a Muslim country, or go to a Muslim country. Japanese food has a lot of pork dishes, such as pork cutlets, pork shabu, ginger grilled meat, shumai, gyoza, pork bone ramen, chashu, pork buns, millefeuille hotpot with pork belly and Chinese cabbage, hamburgers, and minced beef and pork. School lunches also often contain pork dishes. Never compromise on Halal for Muslims when it comes to school lunches (angry). We don't need the multicultural coexistence that Japanese people are forced to endure in Japan (angry). Broadcast in January this year."
Imtiaz Mahmood on X - "When most Westerners, especially the secular ones, think of religion they think of something they have seen in their own cultures and societies, i.e., Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. And quite naturally, since most of them lack the insight and knowledge to understand Islam properly, they tend to lump it in with the other religions. That is a big mistake. Islam can be properly described as a totalitarian way of life and a highly effective system of conquest, disguised as a religion. Islam is totalitarian, not just in the sense of theocratic and dictatorial regimes, but also in the sense that there is virtually no part of a believer’s life that is not touched or influenced in some manner by it. Virtually everything a Muslim does is influenced or guided by his faith, by Sharia law, or both. In this sense, free will as Westerners and other non-Muslims understand it, is anathema to those inhabiting Dar al-Islam, the “House of Islam.” Likewise, there is no real analog to the Western notion of liberty or freedom. The Arabic word most closely corresponding to “freedom” is typically said to be “hurriya,” but this is false for the term does not correspond to “liberty” or “freedom” in the sense that an American, for example, would understand it. It instead means “freedom” to do as “Allah wills” for that individual. Many traditional religious faiths and systems have laws or codes of law which attach to them. What makes Sharia (Islamic) law unique, however, is that in theory, it applies not only to Muslims but to non-Muslims as well. At least that is what the Koran, the Hadith, and the Sira command. Non-Muslims or kafirs, also known as infidels, ~ are denied the most basic of human rights under Islamic suzerainty. They are most often akin to slaves, serfs, or supplicants, and even those non-Muslim dhimmis who serve a useful purpose to the sultan or caliph and survive on that basis, are still treated with inhuman brutality and can be beaten or slain at the whim of any Muslim male. Most Westerners are familiar with the history of slavery, but how many know that Muslims have been the greatest slavers in history? Which is to say, the most prolific takers, buyers, and sellers of slaves in history. Even today, in many parts of the Islamic world, the Arabic word for slave, “Abd,” is synonymous with the slang or informal word for a black man. Although the Muslims took many millions of black Africans as slaves, they likewise took many millions of Europeans and other peoples as slaves from temperate climates further north, venturing as far north as Ireland and Iceland on slave-taking raids. As some of you may know, the very first war fought by the United States as an independent nation was the Barbary War of 1801-1805 (with a brief flare-up in 1815), fought against Islamic raiders and pirates off the coast of North Africa. These nautical jihadists had been seizing American shipping and holding the passengers and cargo for ransom. President Thomas Jefferson grew tired of their demands and sent the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps to Tripoli to teach them a lesson. Various Islamic potentates, rulers, and warlords have infamously slain infidels by the multitudes down through the centuries. According to the work of historians and political scientists who have studied such phenomena, the greatest or largest single genocide in human history was committed by the Islamic Mughal Empire in what is now the Indian sub-continent over years in the 15th century. During that time, an estimated 270 million Hindus and other non-Muslims were put to the sword. So many were slain that the streets ran with blood and giant pyramids of human skulls were erected by the soldiers of Allah. Of course, many other empires and nations have committed acts of genocide, but such wanton bloodletting is impressive even by the standards of the worst tyrants of the 20th century, who had modern industrial warfare and weapons at their disposal but did not manage to even approach the totals of the Mughal Empire. Historians consider the Armenian genocide (1915-1921) to be the first “modern” genocide since it was the first such atrocity that was recorded by still and motion-picture photography. The Sunni Muslim Ottoman Empire in what is now modern-day Turkey was responsible for it and even today, under the government of Recep Erdogan, the president of Turkey, it is still a crime to speak or write of the extermination of the Armenians and Greeks, most of whom were Christians. Anyone who has seen the haunting photos of young girls, Christian virgins, crucified by their captors and slowly dying in the hot sun in the desert, will never forget them. These basic historical facts about Islam used to be widely known and taught across the West, but they have been politely airbrushed out of our history in recent decades, and now few people know of them …. or the danger presented by the soldiers of Allah."
Imtiaz Mahmood on X - "What did Muslims do to Hindus and Sikhs? The Biggest Holocaust in World History Francois Gautier in his book "Rewriting Indian History (1996)" wrote: “The massacres perpetuated by Muslims in India are unparalleled in history, bigger than the Holocaust or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and Portuguese.”"
🇺🇸Travis🇺🇸 on X - "Meet Laura Kavanagh, the Fire Commander of the New York City Fire Department and the woman who started the investigation into firefighters who booed Letitia James and chanted for Trump. She was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams and has never been a firefighter herself. She’s worked on many political campaigns for democrats and even oversaw the complete diversification of the FDNY. Her office has made it clear that anyone who was involved in booing James will be “educated” on proper conduct. Why is a woman who’s never served as a firefighter serving as the Commander?"
Allan on X - "Demoralization strategy. Same reason trannies are now in leadership positions in various military branches. With associated media platforms. Marxist Revolution tactics. Would love to hear, @Theo_TJ_Jordan's take on this."
Theo Jordan on X - "This is a letter sent down to NYFD for daring to defame a member of our Hunger Games royalty
"Members don't have a right to make a job related ceremony political"
No such cries for Adams' graphical communist manifesto
"We want the members to come forward"
Go Fuck Yourself! 🖕"
Meme - "Friendly reminder that there's a likely chance that the person you're thinking about going back and forth with who commented something ridiculous on your post didn't properly comprehend what you originally wrote."
"12. 21% of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th- grade level.
13. 19% of high school graduates in the U.S. can't read.
14. 42 million U.S. adults can't read past a 5th- grade level.
15. 50% of adults in the U.S. can't read a book written at an 8th-grade level."
365 days of paid leave won by Chinese man at company dinner sends social media abuzz with excitement discussing if winner should encash or enjoy prize | South China Morning Post - "A lucky Chinese man has become the envy of 250 million people on mainland social media after he won a year off work with pay at an annual company dinner. The April 9 event, in southern China’s Guangdong province, was the firm’s first annual party in three years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, the boss decided to surprise everyone with a special prize, a member of staff from the company’s administrative department, surnamed Chen, told Daxiang News. However, Chen said the boss was shocked when someone won it because he thought the odds were so low. Another member of staff, surnamed Song, said the chance of hitting the jackpot was one in a thousand... Chen said the winner held a management-level position in the company and said his only question after scooping the prize was: “Who is going to do my work?”... Lu said the company let him choose between taking the 365 days off with full pay or receiving an extra yearly payment without taking the vacation. After Lu’s story topped Weibo’s hot search ranking list and had been viewed 250 million times by April 12, many online suggested Lu take the cash instead of the vacation. Some worried that he “might find himself replaced or even out of work after resting for a year”. Lu said he was still considering his options, adding that he had found his job “tiring” in recent years and could use the prize as an opportunity to spend some quality time with his family. He said he trusted his company and did not fear they would use his good fortune as an excuse to kick him out. Lu’s success is one of the few happy workplace stories to hit the headlines in China recently. Earlier this month, a company in eastern China’s Zhejiang province reportedly awarded thousands of yuan to employees who show up for work first and stay the latest."
Meme - "American badgers look like they're about to drag you into a back alley and pull a shiv on you to demand money for their meth habit. European badgers look like they're about to invite you over for a cup of tea and some custard creams at their little cottage in the countryside."
Meme -
"you are *acute angle* *cup of hot tea* *pi*"
"A CUTIE PIE!"
"NARROW SCALDING AND IRRATIONAL"
Meme - "What if we hold hands at the Mcdonalds Gulag *McDonald's logo on dirty brutalist building*"