#ONLINE RECRUITMENT 2019

[aishavass]

The digital transformation is a key factor driving factor in the online recruitment market. The market for online permanent recruitment dominated the...

[evonnebaker]

The digital transformation is a key factor driving factor in the online recruitment market. The market for online permanent recruitment dominated the market. However, the part-time job recruitment market is expected to grow with the highest CAGR of 8.3% during the forecast period

[jobenter]

BSSC Stenographer Recruitment 2023 | बिहार स्टेनोग्राफर में निकली 232 पदों पर भर्ती

स्���ागत है आप सभी का आज के हमारे इस पोस्ट में, आज के इस पोस्ट में हम बात करने वाले हैं BSSC Stenographer Recruitment 2023. इच्छुक उम्मीदवार अपनी पात्रता की जांच कर सकते हैं और इस पृष्ठ के निचले भाग में दिए गए लिंक के माध्यम से ऑनलाइन आवेदन कर सकते हैं। BSSC Stenographer Online Registration की मदद से राज्य के बिहार राज्य के बेरोजगार लोगो के रोजगार क सुनहरा अवसर आय है | BSSC का फुल फॉर्म Bihar Staff…

[reasonsforhope]

Article Link

"Minnetonka first started selling its “Thunderbird” moccasins in 1965. Now, for the first time, they’ve been redesigned by a Native American designer.

It’s one step in the company’s larger work to deal with its history of cultural appropriation. The Minneapolis-based company launched in the 1940s as a small business making souvenirs for roadside gift shops in the region—including Native American-inspired moccasins, though the business wasn’t started or run by Native Americans. The moccasins soon became its biggest seller.

[Photo: Minnetonka]

Adrienne Benjamin, an Anishanaabe artist and community activist who became the company’s “reconciliation advisor,” was initially reluctant when a tribal elder approached her about meeting with the company. Other activists had dismissed the idea that the company would do the work to truly transform. But Benjamin agreed to the meeting, and the conversation convinced her to move forward.

“I sensed a genuine commitment to positive change,” she says. “They had really done their homework as far as understanding and acknowledging the wrong and the appropriation. I think they knew for a long time that things needed to get better, and they just weren’t sure what a first step was.”

Pictured: Lucie Skjefte and son Animikii [Photo: Minnetonka]

In 2020, Minnetonka publicly apologized “for having benefited from selling Native-inspired designs without directly honoring Native culture or communities.” It also said that it was actively recruiting Native Americans to work at the company, reexamining its branding, looking for Native-owned businesses to partner with, continuing to support Native American nonprofits, and that it planned to collaborate with Native American artists and designers.

Benjamin partnered with the company on the first collaboration, a collection of hand-beaded hats, and then recruited the Minneapolis-based designer Lucie Skjefte, a citizen of the Red Lake Nation, who designed the beadwork for another moccasin style and a pair of slippers for the brand. Skjefte says that she felt comfortable working with the company knowing that it had already done work with Benjamin on reconciliation. And she wasn’t a stranger to the brand. “Our grandmothers and our mothers would always look for moccasins in a clutch kind of situation where they didn’t have a pair ready and available to make on their own—then they would buy Minnetonka mocs and walk into a traditional pow wow and wear them,” she says. Her mother, she says, who passed away in 2019, would have been “immensely proud” that Skjefte’s design work was part of the moccasins—and on the new version of the Thunderbird moccasin, one of the company’s top-selling styles.

[Photo: Minnetonka]

“I started thinking about all of those stories, and what resonated with me visually,” Skjefte says. The redesign, she says, is much more detailed and authentic than the previous version. “Through the redesign and beading process, we are actively reclaiming and reconnecting our Animikii or Thunderbird motif with its Indigenous roots,” she says. Skjefte will earn royalties for the design, and Minnetonka will also separately donate a portion of the sale of each shoe to Mni Sota Fund, a nonprofit that helps Native Americans in Minnesota get training and capital for home ownership and entrepreneurship.

Some companies go a step farther—Manitobah Mukluks, based in Canada, has an Indigenous founder and more than half Indigenous staff. (While Minnetonka is actively recruiting more Native American workers, the company says that employees self-report race and it can’t share any data about its current number of Indigenous employees.) Beyond its own line of products, Manitobah also has an online Indigenous Market that features artists who earn 100% of the profit for their work.

White Bear Moccasins, a Native-owned-and-made brand in Montana, makes moccasins from bison hide. Each custom pair can take six to eight hours to make; the shoes cost hundreds of dollars, though they can also be repaired and last as long as a lifetime, says owner Shauna White Bear. In interviews, White Bear has said that she wants “to take our craft back,” from companies like Minnetonka. But she also told Fast Company that she doesn’t think that Minnetonka, as a family-owned business, should have to lose its livelihood now and stop making moccasins.

The situation is arguably different for other fashion brands that might use a Native American symbol—or rip off a Native American design completely—on a single product that could easily be taken off the market. Benjamin says that she has also worked with other companies that have discontinued products.

She sees five steps in the process of reconciliation. First, the person or company who did wrong has to acknowledge the wrong. Then they need to publicly apologize, begin to change behavior, start to rebuild trust, and then, eventually, the wronged party might take the step of forgiveness. Right now, she says, Minnetonka is in the third phase of behavior change. The brand plans to continue to collaborate with Native American designers.

The company can be an example to others on how to listen and build true relationships, Benjamin says. “I think that’s the only way that these relationships are going to get any better—people have to sit down and talk about it,” she says. “People have to be real. People have to apologize. They have to want to reconcile with people.”

The leadership at Minnetonka can also be allies in pushing other companies to do better. “My voice is important at the table as an Indigenous woman,” Benjamin says. “Lucie’s voice is important. But at tables where there’s a majority of people that aren’t Indigenous, sometimes those allies’ voices are more powerful in those spaces, because that means that they’ve signed on to what we’re saying. The power has signed on to moving forward and we agree with ‘Yes, this was wrong.’ That’s the stuff that’s going to change [things] right there.”"

-via FastCompany, February 7, 2024

[delusional-day-dreamer]

paige x olympian gymnast hcs!

‣ paige bueckers x olympic gymnast reader!

‣‣ synopsis: gymnastics has always been your entire life, and your dedication truly paid off when you made team usa for the 2016 rio olympics, but what happens after your injury while in the running for the 2020 tokyo olympics? #uneditedfornow

‣‣‣ a/n: just a few headcannons i have in mind for this story, if i were to make this a full blown series it MIGHT be a wattpad story with an oc or just a full tumblr series because of how long it would be... 👀

your life leading up to and including the 2016 rio olympics:

you've been doing gymnastics since you were three years old

at the age of thirteen your parents switched you to online school so you could train full time, but during this process it set you back a year, making your graduation year 2020 (same as Paige)

at the age of just fifteen you qualified for the rio olympics (meaning you were born in 2001)

your roommate that year was simone biles, and you competed at the olympics, taking home two golds (all around team and beam) and one silver (beam).

following the olympics, you became very popular for your skill at such a young age, leading you to signing many brand deals, sponsorships, photoshoots, etc.

it just so happens that your popularity reaches a certain basketball player, miss paige bueckers. in her slam interview in 2019, when asked about an athlete she admires outside of basketball, she says you. you have no idea who she is, but dm her regardless thanking her for her kind words. this is the only interaction you two have until uconn.

you continued online school for the rest of highschool, and throughout the next three years you received thirty recruitment offers out of the sixty-two schools that had a women's college gymnastics team.

your dream school had always been the University of Connecticut, but their gymnastics team didn't impress you throughout the recruitment process.

your graduation year is 2020, which happens to be the same year you got injured, right before choosing a college to commit to.

injury-related; 2020-2021:

in february of 2020, you got into a car crash while driving home from a late night practice.

you tore your left acl, dislocated your right shoulder, fractured your left collarbone, had a concussion, and suffered a left femoral fracture (ouchies i know)

thankfully you were mostly okay, but the accident completely put you out of the running for the 2020 (now moved to 2021 due to the pandemic) olympics, and doctors told you it would take at least two years to fully rehabilitate before you could even beginning training for competitions again.

your left leg had quite a few complications with the acl tear and the femoral fracture, and you had four surgeries in total on the leg.

during this time, you decided that since you couldn't compete in gymnastics, you might as well commit to the college of your student-life dreams, the university of connecticut.

UConn Era!!:

you commit to uconn for your undergrad in the sports management program, since you couldn't compete, you still wanted to remain in the athletic world.

your freshman year classes (2020-2021) was fully online due to your injuries and the pandemic, but it just so happens that you're placed as an intern with the women's basketball team for your sports management program.

you meet the team before the school year starts, and it just so happens that paige bueckers has remained a huge fan of yours.

the only reason the team recognized you immediately before you were even introduced is because of how much she has fangirled over you

you get your own apartment at uconn due to the program and your status (okay olympic privilege), which meant the team loved to hang out at your giant, well-furnished place.

you become extremely close with the team, and your first two years of rehabilitation seem to go well. it also happens that in your sophomore year, your best friend paige also fractures her meniscus, so the two of you are the resident cripples of the team!

paige has always had a huge fangirl crush on you, but over the years of you being friends, it seems those feelings develop into a little bit more...

one night while you were having a sleepover with her during her acl recovery she confesses, and the two of you start dating on the very down low

during your junior year is also when you are fully cleared to start re-training and you start getting back into gymnastics with a new coach (idk who yet!)

while balancing school and your duties with the wbb team, you start to train only four days a week, slowly getting back old skills on all four events.

you start competing in the 2023-24 season (i believe that’s how it’s measured?) and qualify for the 2024 olympics at the 2024 Xfinity U.S Gymnastics Championship

it’s safe to say your girlfriend and the entire wbb team were your biggest supporters apart from your family

Actual Olympics:

i can see you being roommates with Hezley Rivera, since she reminds you so much of yourself and you’re able to form a connection because of that.

Paige is unfortunately not able to make it to the first half of the Olympics, but she is your biggest supporter from home, constantly posting and hyping you up.

While competing, you definitely wear jewelry that she gifted you for good luck, and your hair has two braids going up into your bun, just to keep a piece of your girl close to you. Maybe even a purple ribbon braided into your hair at some point?

You also definitely took half of her closet of hoodies with you so that you could wear them and have her scent with you at night

the entire uconn wbb team, both current and players from your earlier college years, show support for you on social media, but paige’s is a little.. different than theirs

while all the girls post you on their stories or tweeting about you as, so proud of our husky 💙🐺, that’s my our uconn girly!!, etc. Paige’s are a little more special, hinting at your relationship, ex: so proud of my girl 🫶🫶

there were rumors about you and paige circulating since your freshman year, but you never bothered addressing them, and this only fueled them further.

You definitely text Paige as much as possible during meal times, facetiming at night, sending selfies all the time, etc.

The other girls definitely make fun of you if they overhear you on the phone with her, mocking you since you call each other baby as a term of endearment. They also make a tiktok cut together of a bunch of clips, basically every single time you were texting or atp with paige. the tiktok has over 50 clips!

“can you pass me that y/n?” suni asked you

“yea sure, here” you passed her the makeup brush

“thanks, baby,” she teased, making you blush

After the olympic athlete who ran straight to his girlfriend after breaking the Olympic record, I can definitely see Paige flying out to surprise you for a week or so in Paris.

Her flying out to come visit is when you guys actually hard launch, posting pictures of you at dinner with the captions, “my girl is finally here” or “yk i had to come cheer my girl on in person”

a/n: this is #uneditedfornow but that’s all i have for now yall! idk when i’m gonna make this a series but i have so many ideas for it i just might have to, but i also have two other unfinished series rn so… 😓😓

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Social media has been abuzz with details of Donald Trump's relationship with the late notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, but while the pair knew each other for decades, there are no new revelations in the so-called Epstein Files released this year.

Misleading and sensational claims about Trump and Epstein have percolated online this week, circulating on Reddit and TikTok. On X, the hashtag #TrumpPedoFiles trended throughout Wednesday, according to the website Trends24.in, which tracks the platform. The claims got a boost this week from Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California.

"Something I’ve heard that doesn’t seem to be being covered are the Epstein files. These files were released. Donald Trump is sort of all over this. There are pictures of him with Jeffrey Epstein. He’s taken multiple plane flights with Epstein, with young girls aboard. He’s in call logs with Epstein,” Lieu told reporters Tuesday, urging them to look into the "highly disturbing" allegations.

"It shows that Donald Trump is unfit for office," Lieu said.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded Thursday by calling Lieu a "loser who continues to beclown himself. He has let Trump Derangement Syndrome rot his brain."

WHAT ARE THE 'EPSTEIN FILES'?

Jeffrey Epstein was a New York and Florida-based financier who was awaiting trial on one count of sex trafficking and one count of sex trafficking conspiracy in 2019 when officials said he died by suicide in his jail cell. The indictment in his case alleged that he sought out minors, some as young as 14, from at least 2002 through 2005 and paid them hundreds of dollars in cash for sex at either his Manhattan townhouse or his estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

The "Epstein files," as Lieu referred to them, is a bit of a misnomer. The files and documents involving Epstein and his alleged accomplices are spread out across various state and federal investigations, numerous lawsuits by victims, and the criminal trial of Epstein's accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.

There has been no new information linking Epstein to Trump in years at this point.

Lieu shrugged off questions about the accuracy of his characterization in a brief interview Thursday with NBC News, saying people should "just Google" the links between the two. "Look at all the Epstein files, whether it was released three years ago, two years ago, it doesn’t really matter when it’s released," he said.

HOW DID TRUMP AND EPSTEIN KNOW EACH OTHER?

Trump was at one point friends with Epstein. “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002, before there were any public allegations of wrongdoing against multimillionaire money manager. “He’s a lot of fun to be with," Trump said then. "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."

A November 1992 clip from the NBC archives showed the two socializing at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, pointing out women on the dance floor. Trump is seen gesturing to one woman and appears to say to Epstein, “Look at her, back there. … She’s hot.” Epstein reacted with a smile and a nod. Trump then said something into Epstein’s ear that caused him to double over with laughter.

The footage was shot by NBC for Faith Daniels’ talk show, “A Closer Look,” and NBC News republished it in 2019, while Trump was president and Epstein was awaiting trial.

Trump was also photographed with Epstein at an event at Mar-a-Lago in 2000, along with future first lady Melania Knauss and Maxwell, who's now serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting and grooming teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein.

After Epstein’s arrest, Trump, who was president at the time, distanced himself from the disgraced financier. “I was not a fan,” he told reporters at a July 2019 news conference. “I had a falling out with him a long time ago.”

Trump had warmer words for Maxwell after her arrest in 2020. “I haven’t really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly,” Trump said.

“I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is,” he added.

Testifying at Maxwell’s 2021 trial in New York City, a woman identified by the pseudonym Jane said that she met the future president in the 1990s at Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Jane didn’t allege any improper behavior by Trump and didn’t go into further detail about why she was at the resort.

Another Epstein victim, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, said she was 15 and working at Mar-a-Lago as a locker room attendant when she was “recruited” by Maxwell. She’s testified that she’d met Trump but never witnessed him doing anything untoward.

What new information about Epstein was just released?

Grand jury records relating to the state investigation into Epstein in Florida in 2006 were made public on July 1. None of the newly released records involved Trump.

The state investigation contained an Epstein address book and a telephone message pad that were made public to NBC News and other news organizations over the past 10 years that did refer to Trump. It does not say why Trump was in those records. Trump was not implicated in the state investigation as having any sexual conduct with women associated with Epstein or with any allegations of illegal sexual conduct.

DID TRUMP FLY ON EPSTEIN'S PLANE?

"I was never on Epstein’s Plane, or at his ‘stupid’ Island,” Trump said in a social media post in January.

Flight logs released in 2021 as part of Maxwell’s trial, however, indicated Trump flew on the plane seven times. The logs don't include the ages of the passengers, despite Lieu's assertion there were "young girls aboard." The logs indicate that on one of the trips between New York and Florida he was accompanied by his then-wife Marla Maples and their daughter, Tiffany, and another listed his son Eric as a passenger.

According to the logs, others who flew on Epstein's plane included former President Bill Clinton, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Britain's Prince Andrew and actor Kevin Spacey.

WAS TRUMP EVER ACCUSED OF ANY WRONGDOING RELATED TO EPSTEIN?

Ahead of the 2016 general election, a woman who went by the name of “Katie Johnson” filed a suit naming Trump and Epstein as co-defendants. She claimed that Trump had raped her in the 1990s at a party at Epstein’s New York home. The case went nowhere: A federal judge dismissed the case, and then the woman dropped her lawsuit two different times — all in 2016.

Other documents unsealed in January relating to a defamation suit against Maxwell included allegations involving Trump that first became public in 2019.

Sarah Ransome claimed in emails to a New York Post columnist in 2016 that Trump, Bill Clinton and others were involved in Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking scheme. She'd claimed to have videos of some of the participants. Ransome recanted the allegations in a follow-up email to the columnist. The New Yorker reported on the emails in 2019.

Trump spokesman Cheung said in January that “these baseless accusations have been fully retracted because they are simply false and have no merit.”

WHAT HAS TRUMP SAID ABOUT THE 'EPSTEIN FILES'?

Trump was asked in an interview on "Fox & Friends Weekend" last month whether he'd "declassify the Epstein files" if he was re-elected, and indicated he had concerns about doing so.

He initially said, "Yeah, I would," before hedging. "I guess I would. I think that less so because you don’t want to affect people’s lives if it’s phony stuff in there, because it’s a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would," Trump said.

TRUMP'S EPSTEIN CONSPIRACY THEORY

Referring to Epstein's death, Trump told the show, "It’d be interesting to find out what happened there, because that was a weird situation."

Trump had previously sounded off on the conspiracy theories about the death. Officials in Trump's Justice Department said Epstein had hanged himself.

Asked by Tucker Carlson last year if he thought it was possible Epstein was killed, Trump said: “Oh, sure. I think it’s possible. I mean, I don’t really believe — I think he probably committed suicide. He had a life with beautiful homes and beautiful everything and all of a sudden he’s incarcerated and not doing very well. I would say that he did. But there are those people — there are many people. I think you’re one of them. Many people who think he was killed. He knew a lot on a lot of people.”

[dorka]

Most mar a garbage day is megirta (egybol ossze is omlott a site)

Over the weekend, the always-excellent John Burn-Murdoch, over at The Financial Times, posted an alarming bit of demographic analysis that has now gone very viral. It’s from a column Burn-Murdoch wrote titled, “A New Global Gender Divide Is Emerging,” which shows a tremendous political gap forming between young men and women around the world.

Burn-Murdoch followed up the column with a lengthy thread on X hypothesizing as to what may be causing this gap and thousands of other users have offered up their own diagnoses, as well: Smartphones, video games, economic inequality, lack of education, an over-correction post-#MeToo.

Interestingly enough, though, the bulk of Burn-Murdoch’s reporting focuses on South Korea, the US, Germany, the UK, Spain, Poland, China, and Tunisia. Which, aside from China and Tunisia, were all countries I worked in, covering elections and far-right radicalization, in and around the time period those countries’ respective political gender gaps began widening. I’m not saying I have a tremendously in-depth understanding of, say, Polish toxic masculinity, but I did spend several days there following around white nationalist rappers and Catholic fundamentalist football fans. And, in South Korea, I worked on a project about radical feminists and their activism against the country’s equivalent of 4chan, Ilbe Storehouse.

In fact, between 2015-2019, I visited over 20 countries, essentially asking the same question: Where do bad men here hangout online? Which has given me a near-encyclopedic directory in my head, unfortunately, of international 4chan knock-offs. In Spain, it’s a car forum that doxxes rape victims called ForoCoches. In France, it’s a gaming forum that organized rallies for Marine Le Pen called Jeux Video. In Japan, it’s 2channel. In Brazil, it’s Dogolachan. And most, if not all, of these spaces pre-date any sort of modern social movement like #MeToo — or even the invention of the smartphone.

But the mainstream acceptance of the culture from these sites is new. Though I don’t actually think the mystery of “why now?” is that much of a mystery. While working in Europe, I came to understand that these sites and their culture war campaigns like Gamergate were a sort of emerging form of digital hooliganism. Nothing they were doing was new, but their understanding how to network online was novel. And in places like the UK, it actually became more and more common in the late-2010s to see Pepe the Frog cosplayers marching alongside far-right football clubs. In the US, we don’t have the same sports culture, but the end result has been the same. The nerds and the jocks eventually aligned in the streets. The anime nazis were simply early adopters and the tough guys with guns and zip ties just needed time to adapt to new technology. And, unlike the pre-internet age, unmoderated large social platforms give them an infinitely-scalable recruitment radius. They don’t have to hide in backrooms anymore.

Much of the digital playbook fueling this recruitment for our new(ish) international masculinist movement was created by ISIS, the true early adopters for this sort of thing. Though it took about a decade for the West to really embrace it. But nowadays, it is not uncommon to see trad accounts sharing memes about “motherhood,” that are pretty much identical to the Disney Princess photoshops ISIS brides would post on Tumblr to advertise their new life in Syria. And, even more darkly, just this week, a Trump supporter in Pennsylvania beheaded his father and uploaded it to YouTube, in a video where he ranted about the woke left and President Biden. Online extremism is a flat circle.

The biggest similarity, though, is in what I can cultural encoding. For ISIS, this was about constantly labeling everything that threatened their influence as a symptom of the decadent, secular West.

(X.com/jeremykauffman)

Taylor Swift, an extremely affluent blonde, blue-eyed white woman who writes country-inflected pop music and is dating a football player headed for the Super Bowl. She should be a resounding victory for these guys. Doesn’t get more American than that. But due to an actually very funny glitch in how they see the world, she’s actually a huge threat.

Pop culture, according to the right wing, should be frivolous. Because before the internet, it was something sold to girls by corporations run by powerful men. Famous pop stars through the ages, like Frank Sinatra, America’s first Justin Bieber, or The Beatles, the One Direction of their time, would be canonized as Great by Serious Men after history had forgotten they rocketed to success as their generation’s Tumblr Sexymen. But from the 2000s onward, thanks to an increasingly powerful digital public square, young women and people of color were able to have more influence in mainstream culture and also accumulate more financial power from it. And after Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was able to connect this new form of pop influence to both liberal progressive politics and, also, social media, well, conservatives realized they had to catch up and fast. And the fastest way to do that is to try and smash the whole thing by dismissing it as feminine.

Pop music? It’s for girls. Social media? It’s for girls. Democrats? Girls. Taylor Swift? Girls and also a government psyop. But this line of thinking has no limit. It poisons everything. If Swift manages to make it to the Super Bowl, well, that has to become feminine too. And at a certain point, the whole thing falls apart because, honestly, you just sound like an insane loser.

[mariacallous]

This article contains descriptions of sex trafficking and abuse. Discretion is advised.

For years, nonconsensual deepfake pornography has been used to harass, silence, shame, and abuse women. Celebrities and influencers have their faces implanted into existing adult videos; men have used the technology to place “friends” into explicit videos; and boys have allegedly created “nude” images of their female classmates. However, among the ever growing harassment and abuse, deepfake creators have now, arguably, hit a new low: using videos of sex trafficking victims as the basis of the nonconsensual videos.

Over the past two months, an account on the largest deepfake sexual abuse website has posted 12 celebrity videos that are based on footage from GirlsDoPorn, a now-defunct sex trafficking operation that the US Department of Justice says its operators used to conspire and commit sex trafficking through “force, fraud, and coercion,” tricking five women—and allegedly hundreds more— into making sex videos that were subsequently posted online.

The dozen videos—which ran up to 21 minutes long and racked up tens of thousands of views before they were taken down following WIRED’s inquiry—used footage originally posted to the GirlsDoPorn website and had celebrity faces added using artificial intelligence. It appears that a startup’s face-swapping tool may have been abused to transform the videos into deepfakes, according to watermarks on the footage.

As deepfake technology has become increasingly capable of creating realistic imagery and easier to use, hundreds of websites and apps designed to create or host deepfake sexual abuse have appeared. Laws to limit the use of these tools and protect those targeted are lagging, even as the malicious use of AI has evolved to not just create new victims but to revictimize survivors.

From 2012 to 2019, the DOJ says, the creators of GirlsDoPorn worked by recruiting young women, using ads posted on Craigslist, for what they claimed were clothed modeling photo shoots. When the women responded, they were told the ads were for pornographic videos, and they were pressured into taking part, according to various lawsuits and survivor testimonies.

The individuals behind the scheme, according to the DOJ, told the women the videos would only be sold on DVDs outside of the United States and the footage would not be posted to the internet. Instead, they then posted short videoclips to online platforms, such as Pornhub, and full-length versions to their GirlsDoPorn website. The videos have circulated online since.

Multiple legal proceedings against the creators of GirlsDoPorn, people affiliated with the website, and Pornhub's parent company are ongoing or have been completed—with criminal charges being issued against several GirlsDoPorn organizers in October 2019.

Since then, 22 survivors have been awarded nearly $13 million in damages, and 402 victims were given copyright ownership of videos featuring them, making it easier to scrub them from the web. At the end of 2023, Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo Holdings, agreed to pay damages to women impacted by the sharing of the GirlsDoPorn videos.

Among those charged, Ruben Andre Garcia, a GirlsDoPorn producer and recruiter, was sentenced to 20 years in prison; Matthew Isaac Wolfe, who admitted to having a “wide range of responsibilities” at GirlsDoPorn, according to the DOJ, was sentenced to 14 years; cameraman Theodore Wilfred Gyi was sentenced to four years; and GirlsDoPorn bookkeeper Valorie Moser pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and is awaiting sentencing. Finally, in March this year, the alleged GirlsDoPorn mastermind, Michael Pratt, was extradited from Spain to the US to face charges linked to the operation. He has pleaded not guilty. In total, those involved in GirlsDoPorn have been ordered to pay more than $35 million in restitution.

Brian Holm, a managing attorney at the Holm Law Group and a longtime civil attorney for GirlsDoPorn survivors, confirmed that the videos posted to the deepfake sexual abuse website were originally from GirlsDoPorn. These include, Holm says, survivors who have been involved in the legal cases against GirlsDoPorn or against Pornhub.

“It’s a real double whammy for trafficking victims to see their videos used like this,” says Holm, adding that the videos are the tip of the iceberg. “From what I’ve seen on that site, I think there's 10 times the amount you sent me that I’ve seen on there.”

The 12 videos posted by the account seen by WIRED have received up to 15,000 views each, and several have a ‘girlsdoporn.com’ watermark on the footage. The account that posted the videos has a version of “GirlsDoPorn” as its username and included the sex trafficking site in the title of the videos.

WIRED is not naming the deepfake abuse website due to its role in spreading abusive content or the celebrities featured in the videos. The website is the largest website of its kind—hosting tens of thousands of videos and receiving millions of visitors. In April, the website blocked visitors from the UK after lawmakers in the country announced plans to make it a criminal offense to create nonconsensual explicit deepfakes.

“These creators of sexually explicit deepfakes have no regard whatsoever for the women and girls who are victims of sex trafficking and now being further abused through this deepfake sexual abuse,” says Clare McGlynn, a professor of law at Durham University, who works to counter image-based abuse.

“This website is actively choosing to share recordings of actual sexual assaults,” McGlynn says. “These are heinous acts, deliberately and knowingly causing life-shattering and life-threatening harms. The drive for profit, for fueling the trade in nonconsensual porn, knows no bounds. This shows a contempt for the rights of women and girls.”

Neither the account posting the deepfake GirlsDoPorn videos nor the site’s anonymous administrator’s replied to questions from WIRED.

At the end of March, another user on the website asked whether the GirlsDoPorn footage was allowed, saying it made them “feel sick.” They suggested some people may not know the history of GirlsDoPorn but pointed out: “This … one user clearly does tho, with branding themselves with a rape website.” A moderator replied saying they were not going to remove the videos but said if there was a “list” of videos confirmed to include sex trafficking victims they would notify the website’s administrators to take them down.

As well as the GirlsDoPorn watermark, the 12 videos hosted on the deepfake website also have a watermark of US company Akool, which offers generative AI services, including a “face-swapping” tool, to marketing professionals.

Jiajun Lu, the founder and CEO of Akool, says the company’s terms of service prohibit copyright violations, sexual and violent content, and it frequently bans accounts. “They are strictly forbidden on our platform, and we have multiple approaches to prevent it from happening, and more solutions are coming up soon,” he says. “We changed our watermarks a few months ago, and these videos might not come from our website.”

The CEO says that the company is working on new safety tools as it increases the security of its website: For instance, it is considering verifying the identity of people trying to use its face-swapping tool using face recognition, and initially the team is building more prominent warning notices about prohibited use cases.

Since 2016, Charles DeBarber, director of operations at technology firm Phoenix AI, has been undertaking the arduous task of discovering and trying to remove content from GirlsDoPorn that has been posted online. As part of Phoenix AI, this work—including building tools to automate online searches and using face recognition—has helped to remove around 60 GirlsDoPorn survivors’ footage from the web, DeBarber says.

“Not only does it open wounds of survivors already, but it's making new survivors and making new victims,” DeBarber, who has worked with GirlsDoPorn survivors for years, says of the deepfakes. The deepfake abuse website, DeBarber says, doesn’t take anything down when requests are made to it, and it is hosted by a company registered in the Seychelles.

Since deepfake sexual abuse videos appeared more than half a decade ago, those targeted by them have struggled to get them removed from the web, and US lawmakers have been slow to regulate or criminalize the abusive behavior. In many instances, including in wider cases of image-based abuse, people trying to remove abusive content from the web have had to resort to complaints made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. According to DeBarber, it’s not enough.

“Our laws are written in a way that protects intellectual property but not survivors, and it’s very demeaning for a lot of our survivors,” he says. “These are people that were treated like a commodity, and now we have to use intellectual property law to get it down.”

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Damita Menezes at NewsNation:

(NewsNation) — A man who allegedly pointed an AK-47-style rifle through the fence at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach on Sunday, while the former president was golfing nearby, has been taken into custody, authorities say. The man, identified to NewsNation by a law enforcement source as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, is described as a white male. He is believed to be the suspect who was crouched in bushes near the golf club perimeter, armed with a weapon equipped with a scope. Two backpacks and a Go-Pro camera were also found with the firearm near the perimeter from which the suspect had fled. Local authorities said the gunman was about 400 yards to 500 yards away from Trump. Routh was convicted in 2002 of possessing a weapon of mass destruction, according to online North Carolina Department of Adult Correction records.

Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg told NewsNation that the suspect was not previously on local law enforcement’s radar. Routh, who reportedly has ties to North Carolina and Hawaii, had made “bizarre” social media posts about Ukraine before the incident. Federal authorities have taken over the case, with Aronberg’s office standing down. The state attorney anticipates Routh will face charges related to domestic terrorism and weapons offenses, though specific charges have not been announced. At approximately 1:30 p.m. local time, authorities received a call reporting shots fired at the golf course where Trump was playing a round of golf. A witness told police the suspect fled the scene in a black Nissan and provided investigators with photos of the suspect’s license plate. Using that photo, authorities say they put out a “a very urgent BOLO (Be On the Lookout) for the suspect’s vehicle and plates. [...]

Routh’s social media posts

Social media posts allegedly belonging to Routh indicate he was a believer in COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and he had posted that he had voted for Trump in 2016 but was disappointed with him after the fact, expressing support for Tulsi Gabbard in various posts. Records show Routh moved in 2018 to Kaaawa, Hawaii, where he and his son operated a company building sheds, according to an archived version of the webpage for the business.

In June 2020, he made a post on X directed at then-President Trump to say he would win reelection if he issued an executive order for the Justice Department to prosecute police misconduct. However, in recent years, his posts suggest he soured on Trump, and he expressed support for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. In July, following the assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania, Routh urged Biden and Harris to visit those wounded in the shooting at the hospital and to attend the funeral of a former fire chief killed at the rally. Voter records show he registered as an unaffiliated voter in North Carolina in 2012, most recently voting in person during the state’s Democratic Party primary in March 2024. Federal campaign finance records show Routh made 19 small political donations totaling $140 since 2019 using his Hawaii address to ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic candidates.

Routh’s Ukrainian ties

The New York Times said it interviewed him for a feature on pro-Ukrainian foreign fighters last year. The Times said Routh traveled to Ukraine in 2022 to recruit ex-Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban to fight for the embattled nation. Routh frequently posted on social media about the war in Ukraine and had a website where he sought to raise money and recruit volunteers to go to Kyiv to join the fight against the Russian invasion.

The 2nd Trump assassination attempt shooter was Ryan Wesley Routh.

Routh has expressed political views across the spectrum, such as COVID conspiracies, support for Ukraine and Taiwan, and backing of Donald Trump in 2016 before turning against him in favor of Tulsi Gabbard in 2020 and this year, a Vivek Ramaswamy/Nikki Haley unity ticket.

See Also:

HuffPost: Authorities Begin Probing Life Of Suspect In Apparent Assassination Attempt Against Trump

The Guardian: Who is the man reportedly detained in the Trump ‘assassination attempt’?

Axios: What we know about the suspect in the Trump golf club shooting incident

[aishavass]

The digital transformation is a key factor driving factor in the online recruitment market. The market for online permanent recruitment dominated the...

[maryharrisk5]

The global online recruitment market was valued at 24.52 billion in 2025 and the market is expected to grow at a decent CAGR of 7.1% during the forecast period.

[somethingwittyandweird]

Indivisible (2019), Or, Coming To Terms With Maybe Not Liking Everything About A Game

A couple days ago, I finished playing through Lab Zero’s Indivisible- a game that’s been on my backlog for some time. And in playing it, I had enough Capital T Thoughts that I felt I needed to write them out. This game gave me mixed feelings to a degree I’m not sure I’ve had before- while ultimately also providing the solution to that conundrum.

I’ll preface this by saying I’m not a nitpicky guy. Just the opposite, in fact- a piece of media has to do a lot noticeably wrong before I’ll feel like I have to comment on it. I’ve played a lot of games that are generally regarded as “not great” and still come off with largely positive opinions on them. I can acknowledge flaws or places where potential improvements could be felt, but generally if a game is even mostly good or fun, I’ll play it through, and consider it totally worth my time to have done so. 

When I first got my hands on this game, I was excited, it seemed like there was so much to like. And, getting into it, there absolutely was. The game’s visuals were the sort of treat that only a studio with as much character animation experience as Lab Zero could deliver on. (Their other major title, Skullgirls, is packed to the brim with nothing but the highest quality 2D animation.) Visually appealing character designs, vibrant environment designs, heck, there was even dynamic shading applied with objects in the environment. The combat gameplay, too, presented itself extremely well, offering a really satisfying blend of, again, Lab Zero’s previous fighting game experience translated into action RPG battle mechanics. I could feel the system encouraging setting up long combo strings by chaining together a huge variety of party attacks, and each new party member I recruited offered something cool and new for their playstyle. 

But, despite these great things about it, I sort of fell off Indivisible after a while, and didn’t pick it up again for what felt like years. And it was only on my endless quest to shovel away the backlog that I remembered I’d never seen the rest of this game and wanted to give it a try. And, though everything I remember liking was still intact… This playthrough was where the cracks showed and I understood a bit more about what subconsciously would have spurred me to set it down.

The thing is that there are a lot of aspects of the game that do nail that satisfying gamefeel. But there are aspects of the game that don’t, and I encountered them often enough that I couldn’t ignore them. I wandered lost for a while because I couldn’t dig up a good walkthrough online (not the game’s fault, but its low amount of discussion and exploration on the net is telling in and of itself). Then the map exploration started to feel less polished, navigating obstacles felt janky in ways that took me out of it (I got the sense this is where the developers were more out of their comfort zone compared to the aspects more aligned with their prior experience).  And then I found out that some of the playable characters didn’t have full movesets. And then there were indicators on the map that I again had to resort to searching on the net, only to find out that nothing was there and, though there had been plans to put something there, it was all but impossible for that to ever occur.

It wouldn’t be fair not to acknowledge that Indivisible was screwed pretty majorly by its circumstances. Controversy sprung up around the studio head of Lab Zero, which led to multiple resignations, failed negotiations, and ultimately the closure of the studio, ceasing development for this game. The game I held, the one with notable gaps in the content, wasn’t the devs’ final vision, but now it wouldn’t ever be. And that was, again, no fault of the game, but it felt bad nonetheless. And all of my problems, it seemed, were like that- whenever I kept coming back to the game, I’d be impressed anew by the things that shone about it, but then I’d put it back down again, not out of frustration or the conscious thought of “wow this part of the game makes me want to quit”, but just a generalized disappointment that things had turned out the way they had.

So, where did that leave me? I’d already decided it was worth finishing the game. I just didn’t know how to come to terms with being so mixed. Again, it’s so rare that I play a game and don’t come away with a generally positive experience- or else I try a game, quickly decide it’s not for me, and move on. There was enough that was good about Indivisible that I absolutely liked the game. I just couldn’t quite like it as much as I wanted to- as much as I was used to. Still, I chose to see it through. 

I’m glad I did.

The ending of Indivisible involves confronting the creator goddess Kala, who wants to destroy and remake the world. She views her creation as imperfect and wants to begin anew. But, in dissuading her, you point out that no cycle before has ever been perfect either- that even if she feels she failed to completely realize her vision, that flawed things are still valuable, still interesting, still worthwhile. And though I know this ending wasn’t written to be self-referential… that’s how it resonated with me as I watched it. 

I’d been struggling to put words to how I felt- did I like this game or not, if I had this many reservations? But the ending helped me reframe that question. I didn’t have to like the whole game in order to like the game. It was okay that some things didn’t feel polished, and that there were holes where some content should be. I didn’t have to tally up the game’s positives and the game’s negatives and then only allow myself to feel it was worthwhile if the game ended up in the black. The things that I enjoyed about Indivisible- the colorful character designs, the treat-for-the-eyes animation, the engaging battle mechanics- were worth the time I spent playing the game through.

It’s not a game I’ll sing the praises of until the end of time. And it objectively sucks that it will never be the game it could have been if the devs had been allowed to see it to completion. But it’s still a game that has a lot going for it, whose merits are worthy of praise. I’m happy I decided to go back and finish it out. 

[open-hearth-rpg]

#RPGaDay2024

An engaging RPG Community

It won’t come as any surprise I’m going to mention the Open Hearth Gaming Community here. 

I (edige23 aka Lowell Francis) took over as community manager, under this community’s previous identity, back in mid-2019. I’d already been acting behind the scenes, as the go-to person for GMs and in some work started at the beginning of the year to fix some issues with the community. I won’t go into why the previous manager stepped away. 

The community had already changed my life– introduced me to people around the world, giving me a chance to play with tons of different gamers, giving me the confidence to try out new hacks & games, making me a better game facilitator, and providing me with many, many new friends. I’m a chronically shy person. Unless I’m in a social situation with a clear, defined structure– I have a really hard time. It’s something I’ve known about myself and tried to work on (joining groups, doing improv, theater, etc). 

So I would go to RPG conventions to run and feel absolutely terrified and sick to my stomach before each run. But being part of the community, feeling validated for my skills, talking with new folks helped change that at least a little. I remember the first con I went to where I didn’t feel that crippling anxiety. It shocked me. 

When I took over we looked to have more open discussion with the community and implement changes/ We worked through and revised our Community Code of Conduct back in 2020. I learned a lot about what mattered to people and we worked hard to find ways to support everyone. I’ve loved it when initiatives come from the community itself. 

For example, at the start of the Pandemic in 2020, a discussion started about what we could do to support people. We knew that many folks would be cut off from face to face gaming. At that time many people hadn’t played online, didn’t understand what it involved, or had a negative view of it. The suggestion arose that we could undertake something to help show folks what it involved. 

That started what’s become our Shared Hearth Open Gaming events. It would be a free online ttrpg convention aimed at new folks. We would offer one-shots so people could easily try out online play and see best practices. It would also allow us to show off great games, many storygames, which could easily be played online with basic tools. 

And it would be free– completely volunteer run. That was important to folks. We wanted to make sure we lowered the barriers as much as we could. While we would be introducing folks to the community, we also made that a strongly secondary element. We didn’t want it to feel like an opportunistic recruitment drive. We’ve done a bunch of these events since then, bigger and smaller, and folks have stepped up to contribute each time. 

Other initiatives came from the community itself. We talked about ways in which we could serve often marginalized players or those suffering economic hardship. That led to the Open Hearth Gameway. People in the community started doing GM support camps, which has led to ongoing Game Facilitator Camp workshops for new and veteran GMs alike. We also do a yearly podcast surveying community members’ favorite games. There’s lots more. 

While there’s some “gaming discourse” which happens here– more often than not it's about games we’re playing, games we want to play, advice for running & playing, and celebrating cool things at the table. 

There’s lots more for me personally. Playing online with Open Hearth in its various forms moved me away from an insular community of players. It has changed me, I know, for the better. And it allowed me so many experiences I wouldn’t have had otherwise. More than anything the community has been able to support people and give them a place. 

Many of them eventually move on when they find their own, stable ttrpg groups. Some head off to form parallel communities with a particular focus. I think that’s great. I don’t want a cult of personality community– I want one focused on play. And in that way it should support play of all kinds, even if it isn’t with us. 

I’ll admit I’m a little sad when I remember someone I played with who I haven’t seen for a while. But I’m happy when I see they’ve found a group, post their plays, talk about games they’ve developed, and seem to be in a good place.

It's bittersweet.

If you're interested, sign ups for our free online event (Sept 5th to 8th) opens tomorrow (8/20 at 1200 US Eastern)

[coochiequeens]

Ladies, always keep stickers on you

China’s Surrogacy Debate Extends to Women’s Toilets 

From universities to hospital toilets, women are finding themselves surrounded by small ads recruiting surrogacy candidates as well as customers. They, and some companies, are hitting back.

By Yang Caini

May 15, 20233-min read #gender#surrogacy

Women in China are covering up surrogacy ads in toilets with stickers and lipstick as they try to discourage other women from becoming surrogates or take up their services.  

In late April, a video of an anonymous woman covering up a surrogacy ad with stickers in a women’s bathroom in a hospital in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region went viral online.

Her actions were widely praised, with netizens sharing similar experiences about covering up surrogacy ads they encounter: “I erased these sorts of ads in the toilet of a movie theater.” “I’ve seen ads like this in dorms and school bathrooms.” “They can be found in all three toilets in a Changsha shopping mall.” 

These ads look to recruit surrogates as well as customers. They are usually made up of very few words, with a price and a contact number provided. Many also guarantee a son, the favored sex in China.  

Five university students from five different cities told Sixth Tone that they’ve seen the ads “countless times” in toilets. Zhao Yifei, a master’s degree student at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, said that these ads can be found in almost every toilet on campus. She sometimes feels conflicted when scratching them out with her keys. 

“On the one hand, I think (surrogacy) can help those families who cannot conceive because of physical reasons. On the other hand … the most likely result is that the rich use surrogacy in large numbers and exploit the poor,” said Zhao. 

Commercial surrogacy is banned in China, together with all sales of gametes, fertilized eggs, and embryos. The prohibition has led to the emergence of black markets and cross-bordersurrogacy services that target infertile and same-sex couples.

Surrogate mothers in China can receive up to 280,000 yuan ($40,282) for their services, while customers reportedly pay up to 1.1 million yuan for a surrogate baby with a chosen sex.

The question of whether to legalize surrogacy in China is a heated debate. In 2017, state-run media People’s Daily published an article that discussed legalizing surrogacy to ease the country’s falling birth rate and help infertile senior couples. Opponents, however, decry the practice for exploiting vulnerable women.

Li, who insisted on only using her surname, has kept a marker pen and anti-surrogacy stickers in her handbag since 2019, when she first erased a surrogacy ad in a shopping mall toilet with her lipstick in her hometown of Zhengzhou, the capital city of the central province of Henan.

“I’m embarrassed to say it, but I was thinking about whether the lipstick can still be used afterwards. But this was only for a few seconds — after all, this matter is much more important than lipstick,” Li, 26, told Sixth Tone.

Afterwards, Li purchased anti-surrogacy stickers in case she ran into the ads again. Some of these stickers mention that they are 30 centimeters long, the same length as a needle used for retrieving a woman’s egg. She hopes this scares women thinking about surrogacy by showing what it will mean in practice. 

Some women’s products manufacturers, including sellers of pads and skincare products, are supporting these anti-surrogacy efforts by gifting customers free anti-surrogacy stickers with their purchases.

SISCOM, an online vendor with over 40,000 followers on e-commerce platform Taobao selling feminist merchandise, began giving customers free anti-surrogacy stickers in 2021. “Surrogacy exploits women. It’s banned in China. You will be punished for it,” the stickers read, with a reporting hotline included. 

Qiqi, co-owner of SISCOM, told Sixth Tone that she has seen many of these ads herself. 

“Sometimes I can’t help but feel that the people who make these ads are so smart … The toilet compartments are so private that you can hardly catch them and ban them,” she said. 

Women’s public toilets have been in the news before. In 2020, advocates launched a campaign to install pad-sharing boxes in women’s toilets, which swept across the country. 

Editor: Vincent Chow. 

[ai-fandom-researchstudy]

can i just say... i was desperate to see someone in academia do something like this because all the talk i see in studies seem very disconnected from the actual discussions/concerns online, so thank you very much! looking forward to seeing what comes out of this.

P.S. i'd also be curious to see if the responses from a non-fandom crowd are different, and exactly where they differ.

hi! There's actually several academics working on these issues at the moment (I've connected with some other folks in the social sciences who are working on similar questions at the moment; in fact, another phd student in psychology is recruiting a broader range of queer artists for an interview study on GenAI right now, so go check that out if you like!).

There's also been some studies coming out of other fields too re: how people respond to works of art made by AI and by humans:

This report in Nature last year and this study from 2019 both come to mind off the top of my head, though I'm sure there's been some more recent work that's come out in the few months I haven't kept a close eye on it (AI art has been a thing well before Midjourney exploded, so folks have been studying this from even before that)

neither of these are in a fandom context but the work's definitely of interest to academia for sure.

update: forgot about this preprint released in january re: artists' attitudes towards AI https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.15497