Category Archives: Fascism

Twitter and White Supremacy, A Love Story | Dame Magazine – does anyone need another reason to leave Twitter? Encourage celebrities to leave as well!

Indeed, the kind of harassment Leslie Jones faced is exactly what Black women have had to deal with on Twitter, day-in, and day-out, for years.  But without the prominence of being Leslie Jones, one doesn’t get the benefit of personal intervention from Jack Dorsey.“It’s the gamificiation of hate,” says author Mikki Kendall. “I was going to leave Twitter at one point. It just wasn’t usable for me. I would log on and have 2,500 negative comments. One guy who seemed to have an inexhaustible energy would Photoshop my image on top of lynching pictures and tell me I should be ‘raped by dogs,’ that kind of thing.” When Kendall was living in Tennessee, she says she received a picture of her and her family in a photo that “looked like it had been sighted through a rifle.” She was also doxxed—that is, had her address posted online. She moved shortly thereafter. “I had two minor children in my home then. I had to do something different.” She lives on the southside of Chicago now and says she feels much safer.  “No one’s going to come for me here. If they do, I’d like to watch them try.”Kendall has been deft at figuring out tech-savvy ways to both document and battle online harassment. She did a “race swap” experiment with a white guy—they traded Twitter avatars. “For me, it was like, Oh my God, it’s so quiet! People told me how smart I was and perceptive,” she says. Kendall has also figured out how to turn the tables on the algorithms by coding her own auto-blockers that sniff out potentially harmful Twitter accounts and blocks them.When I asked her why she thought Twitter wasn’t more responsive to reports of abuse on the site, she said, “Being a white guy on Twitter is a whole other world. I think that what’s happening with Jack and Biz (Twitter executives) is they’re experiencing a whole other Twitter.”White supremacists have used Twitter to target Jews, as well, in ways both banal and life-threatening. In June 2016 several highly visible Jewish political reporters began to report a barrage of online harassment that involved a symbolic gesture: triple parentheses placed around their names, like (((this))). The ADL added the triple parentheses to their catalog of hateful symbols. One report called them “the digital equivalent of a yellow star,” intended to separate Jews from the rest of the population and pave the way for worse.

Source: Twitter and White Supremacy, A Love Story | Dame Magazine

Austria’s neo-Nazis finds friends in Israel | The Electronic Intifada

Europe’s new fascists and Israel’s right have also found an alliance in their common hatred of Muslims.In June, Strache welcomed to Vienna Likud lawmaker Yehuda Glick, a leader in the so-called Temple Movement, which aims to destroy Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque and replace it with a Jewish temple.A photo posted on Strache’s Facebook page shows the pair in a friendly meeting.European Jewish organizations have condemned Israeli outreach to Europe’s far right, including the Freedom Party. Last November, the leader of the Vienna Jewish community published a letter calling on Israeli politicians to shun such meetings and “to draw a very clear red line between us and those who represent hate, neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism.”

Source: Austria’s neo-Nazis finds friends in Israel | The Electronic Intifada

Agenzia Fides – ASIA/INDIA – Condemnation of the Bishops: Hindu leader offends Mother Teresa

According to the Hindu nationalist leader, “Mother Teresa organized the illegal trafficking of 50,000 women, making them work as nuns after converting them to Christianity”. Swami also said that the religious undeservedly received the highest national honor, the “Bharata Ratna” prize in 1980 by the Government of India.”Is this not an insult to the nation and to the President of India who recognized the services of the Mother to the poor, the needy, the terminally-ill, the elderly, the abandoned and the suffering?”, wonders Archbishop Bala.”The work of Saint Mother Teresa – continues the text – is recognized all over the world and in 1979 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Currently there are 5.161 Sisters of Mother Teresa in 758 Homes working in 139 countries. Besides, the comments of Paripoornananda Swamiji were not requested because the subject of the discussion was something different. It was not necessary for Swamiji to speak of the Pope and Mother Teresa”.The Archbishop notes that “Paripoornananda Swamiji’s comments and accusations on Mother Teresa not only deeply hurt the hearts and feelings of the Catholic Church and the Christian community, but also of people belonging to all regions and religions who respect her as saint and mother of the poor and the suffering”.The Indian Church condemns the attempts of those “who try to bring division in society”. Following the footsteps of Jesus Christ, “we can forgive Paripoornananda Swamiji”, the Archbishop said, recalling religious leaders of all faiths that “the primary duty of every religious leader is to foster harmony and peace in the community of our pluralist nation and safeguard the secularity and religious freedom guaranteed by our Constitution”. The Bishops ask the government to ensure that such incidents are not repeated in the future.

Source: Agenzia Fides – ASIA/INDIA – Condemnation of the Bishops: Hindu leader offends Mother Teresa

FBI terrorism unit says ‘black identity extremists’ pose a violent threat | US news | The Guardian – The FBI at risk of being arm for KKK

DeRay Mckesson, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist, likened the “black identity extremist” monitoring to the FBI’s highly controversial domestic counterintelligence program known as Cointelpro, which was used to target political groups and activists like the NAACP, Martin Luther King Jr, socialist and communist groups and anti-war protesters.“We knew that we were likely being watched,” said Mckesson, who has spoken out about being monitored by the US government and FBI. “This is confirmation that the work of social justice continues to threaten those in power.”

Source: FBI terrorism unit says ‘black identity extremists’ pose a violent threat | US news | The Guardian

Republican congressman floats conspiracy that George Soros funded neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville – U.S. News – Haaretz.com

Asked directly whether he thinks Soros funded the neo-Nazis, Gosar replied, “Wouldn’t it be interesting to find out?”Soros’ Open Society Foundation responded to Vice News in a statement, condemning Gosar for his remarks.“Such baseless allegations are insulting to the victims of the Holocaust, to all Jewish people, and to anyone who honors the truth. It is an affront to Mr. Soros and his family, who against the odds managed to survive one of the darkest moments in our history,” a spokeswoman wrote in a statement published by The Hill news site.

Source: Republican congressman floats conspiracy that George Soros funded neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville – U.S. News – Haaretz.com

New Russian Facial-Recognition Tech May Fight Crime But It’s Already Misused Against Opposition

Clearly, FindFace and similar programs will be used not only by cities in CCTVs to fight crime and terrorism, and intelligence agencies everywhere, but will be used by all sides in every conflict, for good and ill. The policy question then will likely becomes how to create remedies for misuse rather than deterrence.Devising remedies means a lot more research is needed on the misuse of the technology. But in the Russian setting, there are so many factors at work against the opposition already — including covert surveillance of their private lives by state TV and broadcasting without their permission —  that isolating the effect of FaceFind could be difficult.

Source: New Russian Facial-Recognition Tech May Fight Crime But It’s Already Misused Against Opposition

‘Leave UK immediately’: scientist is latest victim of Home Office blunder | UK news | The Guardian – A Prequel to what Trump would like to see in US?

Danaie holds Canadian-Iranian joint citizenship. He is an electron microscopy scientist who has worked since October 2016 at Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron, based at Harwell science and innovation campus in Oxfordshire. He has a work visa valid until September 2019 and previously worked at Oxford University’s department of materials.Danaie went public with his case after the Guardian highlighted the introduction of “hostile environment” immigration status bank account checks last week, and following an assessment by the chief inspector of borders that there was a 10% error rate in Home Office records used for some forms of enforcement action.“I happen to be in that 10% statistic. Despite having a valid work visa, I received this letter,” he said. “It hurts on so many levels. They even have a typo in my name. Such disarray is astonishing in an office responsible for security.”

Source: ‘Leave UK immediately’: scientist is latest victim of Home Office blunder | UK news | The Guardian

TBS Friday! Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos rescinds Obama-era guidelines on campus sexual assault – LA Times

“Those documents have led to the deprivation of rights for many students – both accused students denied fair process and victims denied an adequate resolution of their complaints,” the department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, Candice Jackson, said in a letter Friday. (Poor guy babies – raping and abusing females forever and getting away with it – one guy maybe falsely accused and the world has to stop being better? Total BS pimping for rightwing white guy votes!)

Source: Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos rescinds Obama-era guidelines on campus sexual assault – LA Times

NorCal Police Chief Abruptly Retires After Offensive Facebook Posts Come To Light: SFist

A recently hired police chief in the town of Seaside, in Monterey County, has fallen victim to what’s becoming a strangely common pitfall of public figures with insufficient social media skills and controversial views.

Source: NorCal Police Chief Abruptly Retires After Offensive Facebook Posts Come To Light: SFist