#as earlier. which is a neutral outcome even if a very frustrating one. and there WAS a chance of him succeeding which is a postive outcome

[pulchrasilva]

Thinking about how the names of characters are introduced to us in EPIC, especially the gods. Most characters are introduced by either a character or the chorus saying their name.

Athena is introduced by Odysseus calling out her name and Aeolus is introduced by Odysseus speaking his name to address him. Hermes is introduced by Odysseus saying his name as he realises who he is. So all the "friendly"/helpful gods are introduced by Odysseus speaking to them, which automatically makes them a bit more familiar to the audience, more "human" if you will.

But Poseidon is introduced by the chorus (which is an audible representation of his divine power) chanting his name. It's a bold, terrifying introduction which emphasises his power and godhood above all else. And Zeus isnt introduced at all, his name is entirely up to the audience to infer, as if he knows his name precedes him (which it does, but is still arrogant. Especially alongside the whole "pride is a damsel in distress" speech). Both these introductions demonstrate the sheer power of the enemy gods, and a bit of a separation between them and the audience.

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) the only exception so far is Circe, whose name is first spoken by Hermes, a fellow god. It doesn't bring us super close to her, but also she's not present to demonstrate her power in that moment. And it makes sense for Circe to be the exception, because she's the only one who switches from enemy to friend

[nothing-but-dreamy]

CARD KISSING CHALLENGE

Pairing: FFXV! NYX ULRIC x GENDER NEUTRAL!READER

Words: 2.364

Warnings: none; fluff; drinking of alcohol but not too much

A/N: I know... the 'first kiss topic' again. But I can't help myself. I'm such a sucker for that...

Summary: After a rough day, you and your friends are chilling at Yamachang's. All of you start a silly game with an interesting outcome between you and a certain greyish-haired Glaive with blue eyes.

"Sometimes, I could-", Libertus stopped himself, clenching his fists and letting the sentence unfinished while he slumped down on a chair at a table of Yamachang's food stand.

Yamachang watched him and the others. Crowe, Nyx and Pelna, all of them had the same sullen facial expression as they took place in their usual spots. Frowning, he watched the group of friends before his eyes landed on you, who was the last to join.

You stopped at the counter, leaning against it and crossing your arms, "We need five glasses and a bottle of the good stuff, please.", you said, exhausted and with an apologetic smile.

"Something's wrong?", Yamachang asked, looking concerned at the group who seemed to be in a worse mood than usual while preparing your order.

You sighed as you saw Libertus' glance. You pinched the bridge of your nose because you knew what would follow.

"Something's wrong? You really ask if something's wrong?", Libertus said agitated.

But you stopped him, "Calm down finally, will you? It's enough. Your outburst won't change anything.", you said before turning back to Yamachang, "Our Captain, he… well … let me say, he made some questionable choices. It's not as bad as Libertus acts-"

"Excuse me!", Libertus called out and jumped up from his chair.

But you just looked at the tall Ghaladian with a challenging glance, crossing your arms unimpressed about his raging expression.

"It's enough, Libertus. YN is right. Calm down. Drink something.", Nyx said and offered him one of the glasses you had placed on the table a few moments before.

Drinking and the delicious food of Yamachang were able to lift the spirits of the group again and one hour later, the friends were laughing and joking. The Captain's decisions about the new hierarchy within the Kingsglaive were pushed aside till the next week. Now was a well-earned weekend for all of them.

Once again, Nyx filled your empty glass before you touched your glasses with each other to drink the next shot with him.

The warming effect of the booze was already spreading through your body: you felt calmer, everything someone said seemed to be funny and most of the time, you were giggling like a teenager. You were even bumping into Nyx as Pelna told one of his jokes.

Nyx steadied you as you were almost falling from your chair from laughing. He chuckled about your light mood which made him calmer as well. No matter what you had endured in the past, you were still able to laugh, to smile and to be happy. And you were even able to infect the others with your vivid mood.

Once again, Nyx caught himself how his thoughts drifted into a direction he usually banned from his mind. Not because the thoughts were bad - rather quite the opposite.

When he saw you frisky like this, his heart made a little jump. All he ever wanted to see was your smile and your sparkling eyes when you were laughing. Eos became a better place, the world became more colorful and all the bad things seemed to disappear into some shadows when you were happy. At least, this was how Nyx felt when he was with you.

Sometimes, when he thought about you like this, he considered pushing his doubts aside. All the things like relationships between Glaives weren't liked to be seen, or that you maybe weren't interested in him in a romantic way.

He knew you liked him but was he more than just another friend like Libertus and Pelna? Maybe Nyx wasn't even your type of man but then, he never had seen you with someone else. As if dating was out of the question for you. Nyx tried to be close to you and then, when his courage left him, he retreated himself again, cursing that he couldn't speak his mind.

But in Nyx' eyes, the last thing you should be, was to be alone. He wanted to be the one you would go to to seek comfort. Nyx would lay the world to your feet if you would just give him a chance.

"Oh, guys! I have an idea!", Pelna called out, dragging Nyx out of his thoughts while he was jumping up from his chair. He went to Yamachang and came back with a pack of cards.

"No, oh, come on! Not this silly game.", you said annoyed but also grinning because of the effect of the alcohol.

You grinned while Pelna explained the simple rules to the others: The person with the card must suck gently on it to keep it on their lips. While sucking, the card holder must attempt to pass it to the next person.

The card had to be pressed against the lips of the person next to you while keeping sucking. Keeping the card in place until the next person makes contact with it. Then blow gently on the card to release it to the next person. If a card dropped a shot had to be drunk.

It was a stupid teenage game and normally you were sure that your friends wouldn't agree to play it but now, with the right level, all of them played along.

The first round went well. All of you made an effort to play it right. The positions of you all changed for the next round and then, quickly, instead of playing together, Pelna was the first who told a joke to get Libertus and Crowe struggling to let the card drop.

It wasn't working with them. But as Crowe and you were trying to carry the card next, Pelna tried it again and this time, it was working: Crowe chuckled, the card fell down and you and Crowe kissed softly before you two were laughing.

"Pelna! Was that necessary?", Crowe asked, still chuckling.

"No, but it's more fun this way.", the dark haired man said with a charming grin.

You played with the card in your hands, taking the shot to drown it before you turned over to Nyx with a grin, "Ready, hero?"

Nyx matched your smirk, he even felt excited because he would be the closest to you since ever, "Of course.", he answered confidently with a racing heart.

You turned over to him, sucking the card to your lips before Nyx came closer to take the card from you. It was then that you took a look into his perfect, blue eyes you liked so much.

Nyx was able to let your heart skip a beat but the signals he gave you were so ambiguous it was frustrating. On the one hand, you had noticed that Nyx tried to get closer to you and when you tried the same, he retreated himself again from you as if he wasn't sure anymore.

You steadied the card and while Nyx came closer, you prepared yourself to let the card drop. It would be the best opportunity to feel his full, plump lips just for once.

Nyx watched you. Pelna told one of his jokes again but he was barely able to listen to his friend. Your eyes were drawing, your face was so close, your scent clouded his mind and he got himself ready to let the card drop to have the best shot to kiss you.

As the card slipped from your mouth, you met Nyx' lips framed by the stubble he sported. A sensational feeling like fireworks spread through your veins. You knew you didn't have much time and so, you kissed him a bit stronger to show him what you felt for him.

Nyx noticed that this wasn't just an accident. He felt your lips getting stronger against his own. For a moment, his breath hitched in his throat. His mind went blank, goosebumps spread across his skin but before he could react, your lips had left him again.

Libertus, Pelna and Crowe were cheering for the both of you while you chuckled, handing Nyx a next shot. Both of you touched glasses to drown the liquid but Nyx kept you in sight all the time. You, your delicious lips and your enchanting eyes.

One hour and some shots later, you called it a night for yourself. As you stood up from your chair, you were slightly swaying followed by soft chuckling.

Nyx steadied you once again, standing up as well, "Be careful, YN.", he said gently, making a decision within one second, "Alright, I will accompany you to make sure that you'll arrive at home in one piece.", he said, chuckling as he watched you giggling.

You leant against Nyx' side, covering your mouth with your hand to hide the stupid grin, "Might be the best idea, hero."

Libertus looked after you and Nyx before he turned his head back to Pelna and Crowe, "You think one of them will make a try tonight? I mean, since when do they like each other? Months?"

Crowe took another drink, "It feels like years actually. To play this game was a nice idea.", she said to Pelna.

Pelna grinned, bowing slightly, "Well, to be honest? I couldn't watch these two dancing around each other any longer. Obviously, it worked. I just hope one of them will be smart enough to take this chance."

**

You and Nyx walked side by side through the streets of Insomnia's underground to reach your place. It wasn't far away from Yamachang's and not even far away from Nyx' own place but you were glad to have Nyx by your side. Although you had noticed how silent Nyx had become.

"So, thanks a lot for bringing me home safely.", you said, turning around to Nyx as you reached the entrance of your apartment complex.

Nyx watched you and how your eyes were sparkling, "No problem. It… it was a nice evening, tho."

"Yeah, it was indeed very nice.", you admitted. You wanted to say more, mentioning the kiss again but you didn't know how.

Nyx grinned and stepped forward, pulling something out of one pocket of his pants. The courage had been back, he just had to use it, "What do you think? Wanna try it again? I'm sure we can do that better.", he said, raising a card between his index finger and middle finger.

You grinned, raising one eyebrow, "Ulric, you're so competitive? I had no idea."

"Well, I just hate to lose.", Nyx answered with a lopsided smirk. This time, he prepared the card with his mouth but as you came closer, he let it drop how you had done it earlier. And then, as he felt your lips, Nyx leant in even more. He closed his eyes and deepened the kiss before you could back off.

He cupped your face, knotting his fingers with your hair and pulling you closer, working his mouth against yours in a gentle but hungry way. He felt that you moved along. Your hands were clinging to his shirt and you even pulled him closer.

Nyx just broke the kiss as his lungs demanded fresh oxygen. He leant back to look insecurely into your eyes what your reaction might be after this second kiss.

"I- I thought you hate to lose...", you breathed against Nyx' mouth.

"I never was talking about the card. I didn't want to lose another moment with you after I could taste you.", Nyx whispered with a racing heart.

"Oh, is that so? Then, do us both a favor and stop talking.", you said with a grin, pulling Nyx back to you for another kiss.

Nyx was startled. He had just hoped it would work to kiss you again and now, you took him by surprise as it actually worked. So, before your lips connected again, he stopped you, "Wait a sec... y-you mean, you want this? You... you want me?", he stuttered.

"Why so shocked, hero? Or were you just joking?", you asked, half amused and half concerned that he just had made fun of you.

Nyx shook his head as he saw doubts in your eyes, "No! No, I wasn't joking. I just... I... you never showed much interest in me."

"I know. I tried but... It was just... I wasn't sure about your feelings for me. You showed so many different reactions towards me. You came closer. Then, you retreated yourself again. I was a bit confused about your signals and decided to wait for your next step. You're so good at hiding what you really want. But trust me, I would have talked to you soon."

"Really? Why?", Nyx asked surprised.

"Because you… Nyx, you ... you drive me crazy. Every time when we're together, I want to hold your hand so badly. I want to kiss you. Be close to you. Feeling your arms around me. I was just waiting for you to make a step or to show a sign. Anything.", you explained softly.

"You mean a sign like the kiss back at Yamachang's?"

"Well yeah, I... I tried to show you how I feel about you...at least, I hoped you would understand."

"You did a great job. I felt a lot of things at this moment. That was... the kiss was the reason why I found the courage to make this step.", Nyx admitted with a shy smile.

You stepped closer, roaming slowly over Nyx' chest where you felt his increasing heartbeat underneath your touch. Slowly, you looked up, meeting his eyes, "Well, now, where we have sorted this out could you... fuck damnit, Nyx!", you scolded him impatiently but with a small chuckle, "Could you please just kiss me?", you begged before you gnawed on your lower lip.

Nyx watched your moves closely. How your teeth dug into the soft skin, how sexy you were when you looked at him through your lashes. He cupped your face once again, caressing your cheeks softly with his thumbs before he leant forward, "Oh, trust me, nothing would please me more.", he answered grinning with a pounding heart before he kissed you as passionately as he could.

It was the first real kiss. The next step into something bigger between you and the hero with the soft blue eyes.

[anika-ann]

Attached - Pt.1

The Words of Doom

Type: (mini)-series, college AU, professor AU (technically)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader   Word count: 1880

Summary for the series: You messed up. Your very sleep-deprived Self attached the wrong document when emailing a professor and sent him one of the stories you wrote instead of an assignment. It should be embarrassing, really, but it wasn’t. It was worse.

Why did it have to be the smutty one? Why did it have to be the one starring his best friend, Professor Rogers? You were so screwed.

Aka the ‘you sent the wrong attachment to hot professor A that just happens to be about his friend hot professor B and now professor A is not able to look at professor B without wheezing in laughter anymore and you are unable to look at either of them’ AU

Warnings: swearing, literally one mention of a possible daddy kink, double entendre

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Your eyes felt like on fire, burning hotter than the sun above Sahara Desert; the metaphor your sleep-deprived mind came up with was only perfected by the huge dunes of the bags under your eyes.

You were running on disgustingly strong coffee and three energy drinks, but you summoned the rest of your strength and clicked on ‘send’, slumping so heavily into your chair that when your back hit the backrest, it almost toppled over—but never mind, you made it!

Penny, your gracious roommate, would inform you that had you started earlier and were writing the actual essay instead of wasting words on steamy stories that somehow filled the desired wordcount with considerably less effort, you wouldn’t have been turning into a zombie sending assignments several minutes before eight a.m., the actual deadline.

Yeah, well, sue me, I prefer romance to the World War II., no matter how important history is.

You were certain Professor Barnes would understand if you told him that anyway – he was a pretty easy-going guy for a scholar after all. Then again, you sure as hell didn’t want to test the theory out and so you tended to hand in your homework perhaps ‘minute to midnight’, but still in time.

You grinned as you checked the sent e-mail, proudly reading it had been sent at 7:56. You mentally patted your back, not having the energy to actually move to do that.

And then your Sahara-dry eyeballs fell lower on the screen and you let out a shriek of horror.

Your heart stopped in your chest before kicking in faster than it had been pumping after three Red Bulls.

The attachment.

Oh no.

OH FUCK, the attachment!

Now, it happened on occasion that people forgot to attach the files they spoke of in an e-mail, right? Sometimes shit like that happened.

But this… this was so, so much worse.

“Oh no,” you uttered under your breath, shooting up and suddenly sitting with back straight as a ruler just to look at the screen from shorter distance to-- nope, still there. “Oh fuck.”

You quickly scrambled to send another e-mail with similar text but the right file, along with a swift apology.

Sent 7:59.

You should be relieved. Perhaps Professor Barnes would notice the correct one first and automatically deleted the one that obviously must have been wrong.

So why couldn’t you find it in you to think you would have such luck?

At least if he opened the wrong document, he would understand very quickly that it was not what he had asked the students to do and would delete it before diving in fully, right?

But a worm of doubt – or intuition, whatever you wanted to call it – told you that it wouldn’t be the case.

You covered your mouth with your palms and screamed at the top of your lungs.

Penny, sleep-deprived considerably less than you because she was an actual responsible human being, walked from her room to the bathroom and blatantly ignored you, probably thinking you had missed the deadline by a minute and were now freaking out.

Oh, you wished.

“Pennyyyyyyyyy!” you cried out in a whiny tone, but she clicked the door shut as if nothing was happening. As if your whole life wasn’t in shambles because of one single e-mail. “Penelope, you get your ass back here! I need to know how to switch schools without having to repeat a year!”

Her wild black curls peeked from the bathroom, followed by an annoyed sleep-raspy voice. “Why? You accidently called Barnes a daddy in your message or somethin’?”

Your heart was still beating its way out of your chest, a low ominous hum in your ears. Gods above, you wished. Still would be easier to explain, like… you could claim it was a dare or something.

No, this was much, much worse.

Penny, apparently taken aback by the lack of your response, left the safety of the bathroom and approached your lair (probably stinking of sugary drinks and caffeine) and peeked over your shoulder, searching an explanation for your antics.

You only gulped, moved the cursor to the title of the document you had sent in your first e-mail and closed your eyes, actually feeling tears of humiliation stinging in them.

The silence that followed spoke volumes until-

“OH SHIT.”

You had just shared your smutty one-shot with your history professor, but that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was that it was starring his rumoured one and only best friend he shared an office with. One who had acted like a substitute for two weeks when Professor Barnes got a particularly bad case of cold, but wouldn’t leave you without a lecture. Needless to say, Professor Rogers had also starred several of your steamy dreams after that and became a source of inspiration for your occasional writing streaks.

And now your history professor could read all about it and, god forbid, share it with the man who was the template of the main character of the story. You weren’t dumb; you alternated the names, just in case of you didn’t even know what (and it might have made you feel better about writing filthy stuff about a prof), but you went with the same looks including hair and skin colour, hairstyle, Rogers’ glorious beard and you certainly didn’t omit his surprisingly ripped body.

So, yeah. Penny’s ‘OH SHIT’ was pretty accurate.

You were so screwed.

Yes, once again, you wished.

⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰

You had handed in your work on Friday morning and had been jittery all weekend, practically unable to focus on any of the studying you desperately needed to do. Normally, you might write some comforting piece to relieve your frustration, but that was not an option right now as simply opening a text editor gave you palpitations.

The all-nighter you had pulled didn’t exactly help your already non-existent ability to get your head on straight either.

You were looking forward to Monday and dreaded it at the same time – Professor Barnes was to give your assignments back with a mark and commentary. You were praying for Monday to come already, because you just needed to know the consequences of your actions. You were freaking out about Monday for very obvious reasons.

You had no idea what was happening in your first Monday class. Your lunch consisted of half bottle of coke.

And now here you were, seated in the second row of three, because that seemed like the safest place, a seat where Barnes couldn’t approach you from any angle.

When he entered the class, you decided to stubbornly watch the desk in front of you. Under any circumstances, you would not make eye-contact, wouldn’t raise your gaze. There was no fucking way anything would force you look his in the eye.

Or you thought so.

You hadn’t realized he would call out each of your names and would say the necessary commentary about doing well, missing something, excellent work, this one feeling a bit sloppy… out loud, which would made it truly impolite to keep staring ahead. With each work sent through the sea of people to hand it to those in the second row, your stomach was turning heavier, your heart beating faster.

And then Professor Barnes said your name and you winced in your seat, squeezing your eyes shut on instinct, the childish if I can’t see you, you can’t see me either kicking in.

He called out your name again as if there was a chance you missed it the first time and with a huge lump of panic in your throat, you blinked your eyes open and raised your gaze, only to meet his neutral face with just the tinniest twitch to the corners of his lips and a barely visible twinkle to his eye.

Your stomach dropped to the floor, your face burning with embarrassment and humiliation.

He held out the papers to the person in the first row in front of you, whose name you didn’t care for at the moment, and nodded his head.

“Not bad at all,” he said and that was the end of it.

Your essay landed in front of you and you finally breathed in properly, your hand trembling slightly as you noticed the circled B+ in the corner.

You were deaf to his next words, your heart jumping as you read the note by the mark.

B for the cliché used, + for the originality.

Huh. What a strange way to word an evaluation… but hey, you wouldn’t complain. For one, no one had filled a harassment complaint for your stupid ass so far and you had written this shit during an all-nighter and still got B+. This was the best outcome you could hope for; Barnes didn’t even give you shit about your... error.

A smile slowly found a way to your lips, a shy little thing, but definitely present, your mimic muscles, so stiff from trying to keep a poker face, relaxing.

You browsed over the other notes in red ink scattered over the pages, some sentences and phrases unlined and commented on, sometimes corrected, sometimes complimented to.

It wasn’t until you reached the red note that had one word from it actually crossed out and replaced.

Really hits the spot mark.

Your smile froze on your lips, your heart ceased to beat before kicking in with furious pace, loud pounding humming in your temples.

Oh god. Oh no.

Hitting a spot? He could have written it was ‘spot on’ or that it ‘hit the mark’… he made the mistake deliberately, you were certain of it – all of his other notes were so neat and thought through-

You checked the individual notes, your stomach twisting when you re-read them in a new light.

Nearly all the wording he had used was referencing to your… special assignment you had handed in.

Oh god, please, let the lightning hit me. Let the floor swallow me. Let the cardiac arrest momentarily trying to kill me actually kill me.

Interesting work for certain with a winky face?! Really? That would be innocent enough on its own, but it was feeling like a conspiratorial wink. The I know more than I let on and you know what I’m talking about wink.

The next one was a blatant double-entendre and you could bang your head against your desk for not realizing it first time reading it. Good writing, nice flow, clearly heading to the climax.

Your face was set aflame once more and despite your better judgement, you glanced at the professor momentarily showing whatever in his presentation.

He caught your gaze and had the audacity to wink.

You snapped your head away and silently whined, sliding down your chair nearly enough to lie on the floor.

OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD.

Why did it have to be the smutty one you sent? Why couldn’t it be a cute one at least? You had loads of those! Why did it have to be the one about Steven damn Rogers, his friend?

Why, just WHY?!

Professor Barnes had definitely read it. And for some reason, you had a hunch that he had showed it to his friend slash colleague he shared an office with too.

You whined some more and pretended that this day was the apocalypse and that you would never have to face either of the professors ever again.

Of course, you could not have such luck.

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Part 2

⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰

There it is! Shorter chapter for starters. Just you wait ;)

I’m pretty sure something like this have been written before, but plot bunnies are little shits that refuse to leave no matter how much you kick them and beg them to go away.

I blame @pies-writes-and-more @kayteewritessteve and @queen-kass-the-writer for supporting bad behaviour, but they are not the only ones. You know who you are, don’t YOU? I am a weak human being and you are corrupting me. Thanks, sweeties ;)

Thank you for reading! 

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Tags: @scentedsongrebel @patzammit @donutloverxo @annathesillyfriend  @orions-nebula @iheartsebastianstan @wxstedhexrt

If anyone wants on the taglist or out, lemme know via DM or an ask :)

-.-.-

ALSO. A friend of mine created a perfect artwork for this chapter/series and I wanted to share 😍🥰🤩:

Thank you, @chase-your-dreams-away 🥺

[feminaexlux]

Dragon, Viper, Tiger

Tossing my hat back in the ring for @lovebugs-and-snakecharmers AU sprint challenge!. I went with the Thief/Heist AU since I’d been kicking this idea around for a while.

I gave myself an arbitrary editing deadline of 6pm so I hope it both makes sense and reads alright, but shrugs

Hope you enjoy! Find on AO3 here :)

⁂

Viper was sometimes glad he had a longer running gait than the woman on his tail only a few meters behind. He put his long legs to use and leapt up onto a couple of filing cabinets, scrambled up to the bare industrial support beams of the so called modern office building he’d broken into, and jumped over the dividing wall via the exposed ceiling.

Post-Modern styled offices just lent themselves so well to the good old B&E.

The wiring crisscrossing through the exposed ceiling allowed him to occasionally cut the telecommunication lines in his hasty exit, which was great in trying to prevent any of the security cameras from tracking him. If he also took out the internet lines that was just an added bonus, since that’d probably slow down anyone trying to access the proprietary blueprint he pilfered. He just needed to buy some time.

He probably could have gotten out a few minutes ago since he already had the memcube in his pocket, but this was really the only opportunity he had to see Officer MDC in action. Oh, nice, there she was, waiting for him in her combat stance at his specified exit point. Even at 5 foot nothing she’d landed him on his ass waaaay too many times, but honestly he loved the challenge of facing her. She always had new tricks up her sleeve.

But so did he, with some of the info that Tiger kept leaving him. Like, for instance, even if MDC had gotten the EMP disruption lace installed in her gloves, it could easily be counteracted and redirected by the additional aluminum alloy mesh Dragon had added as the inner lining to his wetware, so the memcube wouldn’t be completely fried if MDC did manage to land a hit (and she usually did). The only problem was trying to find where to ground the pulse… But the priority order was, as ever, keeping his identity safe, then getting the payload, then trying to escape unscathed. Paris PD’s Special Circumstances wasn’t ever going to figure out his identity (unless he died), nor would they get to know that the same general producer for their own tech was his boss (unless he died).

Viper didn’t relish the idea of dying, so he’d been doing his best at avoiding that particular outcome. He’d done well so far, even if he did come out of MDC encounters with more bruises and scars than when he went in. He had landed in front of Marinette and smiled. She rolled her eyes at him. And before he knew it, she had launched herself at him with her classic opener: a roundhouse kick to his solar plexus.

⁂

Viper slid underneath the food truck and unlatched a hidden panel, hauling himself through the opening feet first as quietly as he could. He toed the hatch closed behind him but caught it with his fingers before it made impact. He couldn’t give up the game now by being loud, that’d be so, so lame. He heard the gravel get scraped below his temporary entombment and he knew it was Marinette. She felt at the truck’s undercarriage and probed for any particular weaknesses or different materials and he heard her muffled voice as she worked with her TIKKI AI to scan any infrared signals and find any potential structural modifications done to the vehicle.

Here’s to hoping that Markov did its job correctly, he thought. Otherwise they’d be out of a job… and a food truck.

A few minutes later he heard her curse and slam an open palm against the undercarriage in frustration. “I know you’re in here, Viper!” she yelled.

“Ma'am?” He heard another voice chime in. “Why are you under our truck?”

⁂

A very cramped 3 hours later after a thorough inspection and nearly complete teardown of the food truck, Viper finally popped the floor panel and took in some fresh air. Well, relatively fresh, it smelled like greasy food all around him. The truck was already on the highway, having been released from the PD’s temporary impounding for being present at the scene and potentially housing a wanted criminal. The scans came up with nothing, the truck’s workers came up clean through the ID system, the truck’s visit and movements were tracked and scheduled and above board.

The actual food truck owners were unaware of his presence, which was just the way he liked it. He stretched his legs out a bit after being folded up into such a tiny space for so long. It was the sole disadvantage of having long legs, but he was the best in class at his job for all the contortion required. Plus he wasn’t claustrophobic like Tiger was. Speaking of… he checked his watch.

ur late, asshole

cg again? u simp

special 4u 0xdeadbeef

Oooof course. He could always count on his sister for ribbing on his infatuation with Cafe Girl, their codename for Marinette. He took one last relatively fresh breath of air and went back into hiding, sealing the latch shut. He listened for the engine knock signature: 4, 5, 1, 4, 2, 5, 5, 6, opened the bottom panel, dropped onto the street with his camouflage on, and kicked the panel closed before the truck took off. A bus drove over him and he hitched a ride, holding on underneath for 4 blocks, then rolled into the gutter drain.

⁂

It was a pretty quiet evening at Cafe Orriko, a cozy little cafe that had some steadfast regulars. One of Luka’s favorite hangouts due to the owners letting him lounge around and play his acoustic without complaint. There’d been another reason Luka loved this particular cafe, though.

Nathaniel heard the door chime and looked up, smiling at the newcomer. “Hey welcome to–oh hey Mar–oh shit MARC WE HAVE A CODE PINK!” There was a hastily tossed pillow from Marc that Nathaniel covered with a tea towel and passed to Marinette. She pulled up the pillow to her face and screamed into it for a good 20 seconds. Nath grimaced. “Bad day?”

She lowered the pillow. “Stupid fucking Viper I swear I will rip him in half and tear him to fucking shreds once I finally get my hands on him!”

Luka chuckled, having stopped playing his guitar when he noticed that Marinette had come in. “Careful, sounds like he might like that,” he winked.

“Uuuuugh,” Marinette groaned. “Thank you, Nath. Just… just gimme my usual, please.” She looked pretty dejected this time, handing back the pillow and tea towel, walking to Luka’s couch, and plopping down next to him. “Please, Luka, could you play me something soothing?”

“Anything for you,” he said, starting up an easy tune. “I know you can’t talk a lot about your work, but… what went wrong today?”

“Nnng, just… just I knew where he was and we still didn’t get him. He’s like a fucking ghost, he just… disappears! Poof!” She usually discussed what was already covered on the nightly news broadcasts, just to be safe.

“Then he’s pretty good,” Luka said neutrally enough, but hid a smirk behind a cough when Marinette gave him the stink eye.

“He only needs to fail once,” Marinette huffed. “He can’t always have luck on his side.” Marc came by with her salted caramel hot chocolate. “Thanks, Marc,” she sighed, relaxing a little bit as she took a sip of the steaming hot drink.

Luka set a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “You’ll get him one day, I know it.”

“I’d still have my work cut out for me. I have to find the Dragon after him,” Marinette groaned again. “And Adrien’s still obsessed with that stupid Fencer lady so he’s no help.” Marinette shut her eyes tight and shook her head. “But enough about that. How are you, Luka? I’m glad I was able to run into you today.”

Luka wasn’t going to mention that she’d already run into him earlier as the one and only Viper. “It was going alright, but it’s better now that you’re here,” he smiled. Marinette blushed a little and smiled back, nudging his shoulder with hers. “Sorry about your rough day though,” he added quickly.

Marinette shrugged. “It’s work. It’s… it’s so weird what the Syndicate goes for, it’s not even like… anything really valuable? I swear they’re doing it just to mess with us and wreak havoc.”

“You haven’t figured out a pattern?” Luka asked. Marinette made a zipping motion across her mouth. “Oh, right. Sorry.”

She shrugged again. “No more talk about work, please. I’d just… like to hear you play, if that’s alright?”

“Yeah, no problem,” he chuckled.

She closed her eyes as he started playing the guitar again, something soft and pleasant that reminded him of her. She leaned her head against his shoulder while he played and he felt his heart beating faster.

One day, when the jig was up, he’d love to take her out for dinner. Assuming, of course, that he hadn’t been torn to pieces by her hands.

[buckybabybaby]

Not So Bad

A/n: this is my one shot for @firefly-in-darkness's summer challenge. It's a couple of days late, I'm so sorry!! I wrote most of this in one go on Friday, which is the most I've written in months, so hopefully I can keep that up.

Proof read by way of a text-speech device.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/reader (gender neutral)

Word count: 1998

Warnings: none :)

Plot: stuck on a beach awaiting pick-up after a mission, you and Bucky have an interesting conversation. (Enemies to friends (to implied maybe lovers later))

Masterlist

*****

The steady lapping of the waves washing up onto the sand below is the only sound breaking the silence between you and Bucky. Seated at opposite ends of the last bench on the promenade, you are seriously considering typing up your notice the minute you get back home and walking away from The Avengers if this is the way you're going to be treated. Not only have you had to spend the last two weeks acting all lovey-dovey with Bucky for the sake of a mission, but now it's over you're stuck on a beach with him as you wait for a pick up. Because, apparently, a domestic flight back home would be too risky.

A light flickering in the distance catches your attention, and you raise your head to watch as the illuminations strung along the closest pier are extinguished one by one, until only the hazard warning at the very end remains lit, plunging the beach further into darkness.

“That'll be midnight then.”

It shouldn't, but Bucky's voice coming from beside you for the first time in hours makes you jump. Sitting up straighter, you attempt to hide your shock as you ask, “What will be?”

“The lights. The pier closes at midnight. I guess it's just you and me now.”

Looking away, you roll your eyes; this mission hasn't been easy for you, and you've had to hold yourself back from repeating that action many times during the last fortnight. Normally working with world-saving heroes is the dream job, but normally you're not sent out undercover with the formal Winter Soldier, forced to act like a honeymooning couple to infiltrate a people smuggling ring operating out of an exclusive Floridian beach resort. Though it wasn't hard to get people to talk and the mission was a success, you feel little joy in the outcome.

The reason is currently huffing next to you.

“Stop that!”

Bucky looks across at you, raising his eyebrows at your outburst. “Stop what?”

“Breathing so heavily!”

“Oh, you want me to stop breathing?”

“I wouldn't complain.”

“That'll be a first.”

Refusing to rise to the bait, you turn back to staring out to sea. How you survived pretending to be married to this man for fourteen long days, you may never know. Maybe you were an actor in another life, because every time you're alone with him it usually leads to petty squabbling, but you somehow managed to fool multiple people into believing that he was your 'amazing husband' who you were madly in love with.

To be fair to Bucky, he was very good at pretending too. The little glances and touches that made it convincing, the way he memorised your back story perfectly and never slipped up when questioned, how he succeeded to completely hide his disdain for you the whole time, it was all truly impressive. Even in private he didn't drop the act, on the slim chance of being caught out, leaving you flustered and confused.

Hence why you're sitting as far away as possible on this weather beaten bench.

As soon as the all clear had been given that you could go home, you couldn't get out of there fast enough, desperate to sleep in your own bed alone and not share one with the furnace in human form that is Bucky. Apart from the comment about the pier, he's been completely silent as you waited for the rescue boat to arrive, a jarring contrast to earlier in the day as you checked out of the hotel.

You don't like the way you miss his gentle hold and soft words. A fortnight living together has warped your emotions beyond recognition, and the return to normal life is most welcome.

From somewhere deep in the pile of luggage on the beach your phone buzzes twice, and you jump up to grab it, groaning in frustration at the message it contains.

Bucky senses the cause. “Delayed?”

“Hmm.”

“Cool.”

He says it so casually and it's like you snap. It's been ages since the two of you have been alone without the threat of eavesdroppers, all that pent up tension exploding in a mini rant.

“Well it might be cool for you, but excuse me for being annoyed. Not everyone wants to be stuck on a beach in the middle of the night.”

He shrugs, unaffected. “You kept saying you wanted to go to the beach.”

“Yeah, but not at midnight! And certainly not with you!”

“Wow, ouch.”

The genuine hurt on his face surprises you. He has always given as good as he gets, never seeming fazed by the verbal abuse you throw his way. “What, Bucky? Don't act like we get along. You hate me!”

If anything, the look of hurt deepens at your words. “Hate? I don't hate you.” He rises to stand with you on the sand. “Y/N? Is that what you think?”

You can't keep eye contact. “Why would I think anything else? We can't spend ten minutes together without arguing.”

“It's just friendly bickering.”

“Friendly?” Scoffing loudly, you walk back up to the bench, flopping down in a slouched position and resigning yourself to the wait. “If that's your idea of friendly I worry about your actual friends.”

Bucky's stood frozen where you left him but you pay him no mind. As the clouds clear above and the stars become visible, the temperature starts to drop. Shivering, you curl into a ball on the seat, too lazy to search through your suitcase for warmer clothes.

“Here.”

Blinking, you're met with Bucky's outstretched hand and the offering of his coat.

“What.” You say flatly.

“So you don't freeze,” He explains, shaking the jacket a little in your face.

You snort at his act of chivalry. “Oh, please. It's okay, the shows over. You don't need to pretend any more, we haven't got an audience here.”

He visibly holds his tongue. “Will you just take it? Stop being so stubborn.”

“Well, what about you? Don't you need it?”

“Super soldier, doll. We tend to run hotter.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” You mutter under your breath, not quietly enough.

“Oh, you did? Must have kept you nice and warm huh?”

The smirk you know so well is back and you fight your smile at the familiar tone in his voice.

“More like sleeping with a damn heater. You're lucky I didn't kick you out every night.”

“As if you could.”

“You know I could.”

He nods in agreement, remembering all the times you've beaten him in combat training. “Suppose you could've. But you didn't. That's something.”

Placing the jacket over your shoulder when you sit up, Bucky pulls it round to the front to fasten the top button, allowing you to do the rest yourself as he takes his place back on the bench. You are much closer now as you chose to sit in the middle of the seat, but you stay put as it feels rude to move away when he's been so nice.

The air is once again full of only the sounds of nature. It was true you had wanted to visit the beach during this mission, the long stretches of white sand calling your name from the hotels bedroom window, but you hadn't got the chance as the suspects you were tailing stayed around the bar and pool. As you breathe in the salty air, you decide the pain of the last fortnight was worth it for this moment, even in the middle of the night and without the longed for ice cream.

Glancing over to Bucky's relaxed form, you study his profile. Whilst you've seen it a lot recently, it still shocks you how defined his face is and the way his hair always seems to fall perfectly, no matter the time of day or weather. Even his early morning bed-hair could be classed as a tousled style others would take hours to achieve, and you can't believe you've never noticed how attractive he is. And it's not just his looks, if the way he acted his role is anything to go by. This mission has taught you one thing; who ever Bucky does end up marrying will be the luckiest person in the world.

You think of your previous conversation, still lost. Since your first meeting it's been the same, sharp tongues flinging insults at each other whenever you meet, and the others in the tower have learnt to avoid the two of you when you get going. Does Bucky really think that that's all been in jest?

Eventually, the curiosity gets the better of you. “Do you really not hate me?”

He takes a few seconds to reply, not looking at you as he says quietly, “No, of course not.”

“Okay.” You don't bring up your regular fights as evidence to the contrary, instead asking, “And you actually enjoy my company?”

“Why do you think I volunteered for this?”

“Volun-what?” That really wasn't what you expected when you started on these questions. You stare at him wide-eyed with disbelief, sure you've misunderstood. “I thought we were assigned? I definitely didn't choose to be here.”

“You were assigned. They thought you'd blend in well with the crowds here, they just needed someone to be your husband and... Here we are.”

“Huh.” You blow out a breath, overwhelmed.

“I thought it would be a way to spend time together without the usual spats.”

“That's an extreme way to spend time with someone.”

He sighs. “I know.”

“But why? With me?”

“'Cause you're fun to be with?”

“Are you telling me or asking?”

“Telling. I want to be better, nicer to you, but any time we're together, you get all defensive, and I can't help returning the sentiment.”

“So, it's my fault?”

“That's not-” He cuts himself off, stopping the argument before it can begin. “I'm sorry.”

“No, I'm sorry.” You smile at him for the first time. “You're going to have to give me a while to get used to this. I'm finding it kinda hard to believe you don't actually hate my guts.”

His own smile drops. “I'm so sorry.” Dragging a hand through his hair, he gazes at you intensely. “This is... I honestly had no idea you thought our arguments were serious. I thought-” He swallows, a self conscious grin tugging at his mouth. “Is it awful that I thought we were flirting?”

Your cheeks heat up, but you shake your head to reassure him. Thinking back, you can see why he believed that. There is a fine line between hate and love, and it makes sense now why you sought him out so often, why you gravitated to him even when it would be so easy to avoid contact, and why, if you're being honest with yourself, you didn't despise the last two weeks at all.

“So, where do we go from here?”

“First, we go home.” He gestures to the vessel you hadn't noticed bobbing in the surf, waving at the captain as the speed boat is launched to retrieve you and your belongings. “And then? Whatever you want.”

“Can we start just being proper friends?”

He reaches for your hand to help you up. “I'd like that.”

Stretching, you follow him across the beach in the gloom. Picking up your holdall and rucksack on the way, you dump them into the bottom of the boat and climb in, sitting close together on the narrow bench. The crew shout at each other over the engines roar once you're both safely on the yacht, but you tune them out, choosing to stay on deck and admire the lights along the coast. Bucky joins you after you tire of his hesitation and tug him down into the seat to you. 

As the boat starts the journey back north he glances at you through the spray of salt water, the small smile you share feels so much bigger, and your letter of resignation couldn't be further from your mind.

[sariasprincy-writes]

Hollow Point 34

One // Two // Three // Four // Five // Six // Seven // Eight // Nine // Ten // Eleven // Twelve // Thirteen // Fourteen // Fifteen // Sixteen // Seventeen // Eighteen // Nineteen // Twenty // Twenty-One // Twenty-Two // Twenty-Three // Twenty-Four // Twenty-Five // Twenty-Six // Twenty-Seven // Twenty-Eight // Twenty-Nine // Thirty // Thirty-One // Thirty-Two // Thirty-Three // Thirty-Four (here) 

Chapter Thirty-Four The Last Hour

The soft tinkle of a piano filled the room. It reached every corner, softening the harsh silence and giving life to the otherwise still night. The clock on the wall displayed the early morning hour, but Sakura didn’t pay it any mind as her fingers tumbled across the keys.

Kakashi hadn’t answered any of her phone calls since their argument the previous night. It seemed sleep was no longer her friend either for it seemed disinterested in keeping her company as well. Instead, Sakura occupied herself with the familiar instrument, the music in her head distracting from the thoughts that chased sleep away to begin with.

The notes under her fingers seemed to stretch on for hours. She lost track of time, nearly lost track of the day, and perhaps would have sat there for years had the floorboards behind her not creaked.

Itachi closed the distance between them and her eyes fluttered shut when he swept her hair away from her neck and pressed his face to the place where her shoulder met her neck. He inhaled softly before placing the barest of kisses to her skin. Her breath faltered but her fingers did not.

“Come to bed,” he murmured against her skin.

“I can’t sleep.”

She felt him chuckle faintly. “Perhaps because you are not in bed.”

A smile crossed her face, but her fingers never lost their tempo even as he pressed more lingering kisses to the column of her neck.

Eventually Itachi pulled away with a sigh. Without a word, he lowered himself onto the bench beside her until his leg was pressed against hers, his hand resting against her lower back. “Where are you?”

“I’m right here.”

“I meant in your head.” When Sakura pursed her lips, Itachi reached up to brush her hair over her shoulder. “Is this about Hashirama? I heard he was assassinated.”

She kept her expression neutral as she glanced at him, briefly taking in the sweats and white wife beater he had slipped on. She liked the way it emphasized the muscles of his chest.

“No,” she said. “I may have known Hashirama most of my life but he was nothing but a mobster. In the end, he got what he deserved.”

If her cool tone surprised Itachi, he said nothing. He simply watched her fingers skim across the keys as she tried not to recall the moment she had pulled the trigger and embedded a round of metal between Hashirama’s eyes. The taint of smoke and blood lingered in her nose.

“Then where are you?” Itachi murmured again. 

Sakura blinked. She played another few measures of her song before finally saying, “Newark.”

“Newark?” he repeated curiously. “What’s there?”

“Madara. He’s regained traction.”

Itachi’s brows furrowed. “But Kisame said the shipment was going to Brooklyn.”

Sakura shrugged one shoulder. “Perhaps it was, but word somehow got out that I took control of that warehouse so they’ve had to relocate.”

“You don’t think…” Itachi began slowly. “Kisame wouldn’t have said anything.”

The flat look she shot him said she believed otherwise. “Kisame is loyal to you, Itachi, and you alone.” Then her expression cleared. “It doesn’t matter now anyway. It is what it is.”

Itachi still didn’t look happy about her distrust of Kisame, but he said nothing as he thought, his fingers unconsciously caressing the small of her back through the thin material of her shirt.  Or rather it was his shirt, wasn’t it. She had pulled it on after showering, leaving the rest of her clothes forgotten somewhere on the bedroom floor.

“Are you able to intercept Madara?” Itachi asked.

She opened her mouth only to close it once more. She didn’t look at him. Instead, she watched her fingers dance lightly over the keys, the notes filling the silence.

Her silence confused him. “What is it?” he asked.

But Itachi was smart. And it quickly dawned on him.

“You need the CIA to hit the port in Newark.”

“I don’t have the manpower to do it myself,” Sakura said, her tone coming out a little sharper than she intended.

It was a fact she had known for a while now, but it still left her feeling vulnerable. This was the one variable in her plan. She had everything else planned to a ‘T’. The risks, the consequences, the possible outcomes. All except this. She needed the CIA’s help. And that all weighed on Itachi’s next decision.

Sakura glanced at him, but he was no longer looking at her. His eyes were downcast, staring without seeing at her hands, though they had paused upon the black and white keys. His own fingers had fallen still against her back. She could see the thoughts running through his head, could see him weighing the options. He had made the offer before, but she knew it was still difficult for him. She would need to sway him a little more.

“Kisame said the shipment will be here tomorrow night,” Sakura murmured, carefully breaking the silence. “It’s Akatsuki’s largest one ever. Madara will be there. He has to be. It might be the CIA’s last opportunity to capture him before he takes control of the Underground.”

The lie burned her tongue as it came out of her mouth. Like acid, making her feel hot and cold as her heart shriveled up in her chest until it was nothing but dirty ash. She was fully aware how she was a terrible person, but this was on a new level entirely. Pushing Itachi to take down Akatsuki, knowing full well that Madara was long out of the country.

She sat with bated breath until Itachi finally nodded, “I’ll do what I can.” Then his eyes found hers, searching. “But that means you can’t be there.”

“I know,” Sakura said, releasing her tight breath. She relaxed further under his touch as his fingers resumed their gentle caress. “I’m going to try and draw Izuna to Brooklyn, in the meantime. It’ll be easier to bring Akatsuki down if we separate them.”

Itachi’s face pinched with a frown. “Izuna will try to kill you.”

Sakura simply shrugged. “Which is exactly what he’s been trying to do for months. It’s time he and I finished our little game.”

The fingers on her back suddenly dug into her skin. “This is not a game, Sakura.”

The intensity behind his voice gave her pause. She was quiet as she scanned the wall above the piano where a single picture hung. It was the first time she had ever noticed it, she realized. It was an old, weathered sheet of music. Though the song was one she didn’t recognize.

“No, it’s not a game,” Sakura repeated. “But it needs to end nevertheless.”

Itachi held his frown for a moment longer before he let it go with a sigh. Silently, he faced forward, his shoulder pressing into hers. With her own hands resting on her bare thighs, his fingers ghosted over the keys of the piano. Gingerly, he played a few notes. They were off-tempo and the pressure not quite right, but Sakura would recognize them anywhere. It was her song.

Her entire being down to her very soul froze. Her gaze dropped to his hands as she stared intensely, as if expecting him to play more. However, he wasn’t a musician and his hand fell away. Her eyes sought his face sharply, only Itachi wasn’t looking at her. He was frowning at the keys. As if frustrated he didn’t know more.

That look of surprise was still on her face when he finally picked his head up and met her gaze. It was then that she realized it had been no accident. He had learned part of her song.

She wondered how long he had sat here in the living room behind his piano and tried to recreate the music. Tried to recall from mere memory the notes he had heard her play time and time again.

Something swelled within her. Powerful and all-encompassing until she thought her chest might explode. Sakura’s body moved before her mind did.

In one second, she was sitting there, staring wide-eyed at Itachi and in the next, she was in his lap, her mouth pressed tightly against his. With their position, she towered over him and she raked her hands through his hair, forcing his head back as she angled his mouth to hers.

She kissed him hungrily. Kissed him like she was dying. Because in that moment, that’s what it felt like. There was so much emotion in her chest, she felt full, bursting. Like she was coming apart at the seams. And she didn’t know what to do with all of it, so she channeled it into that single kiss. Saying without words everything she didn’t know how to voice.

Itachi hesitated for one split second. Then he was kissing her too.

His fingers slipped under the hem of her shirt and dug into her bare hips. He pulled her flush against him, her bare sex rubbing against the thin material of his sweats where she could already feel his member stirring. White hot arousal shot straight into her core and Sakura was grateful she had been too lazy to find her panties earlier.

Her hands fell to his shoulders as he tangled one hand into her hair and urged her head back. A low moan escaped her as Itachi pressed a row of kisses from her jaw, down her throat until he reached the collar of her stolen shirt, her voice echoing towards the ceiling. He pulled the neckline away, licking and sucking at the skin there too until he grew tired of the offending material.

Pulling back, Itachi grabbed the hem of her shirt before he jerked it over her head, leaving her deliciously naked in his lap. His mouth descended upon her breasts, drawing little sounds of pleasure from her as he suckled a nipple into a tight bud before nipping it lightly with his teeth.

Wetness was already pooling between her legs, dampening his sweats and tainting the air between them with sex. Her hands fell to his stomach, feeling the muscle flex there as he ground his hips up against hers. She tilted her head back further, a breathy moan leaving her as he switched to her other breast.

But it wasn’t enough. That emotion was consuming her, spreading through her veins like fire until she could barely think.

Grabbing the hem of his white beater, Sakura ripped his shirt over his head before she grabbed the back of his neck and jerked his mouth back to hers. Her hands raked through his hair, glad that he had left it down. She liked it more like this. She liked the way the silky strands carded through her fingers, liked how it framed his face. Liked how much easier it was to grip. She forced his head to the side to suck the underside of his jaw as she ground herself down into his lap.

“Slow down,” Itachi whispered hotly in her ear.

She didn’t. “I can’t.”

Itachi’s arms slipped away from their encircling embrace so his hands could grasp her wrists. He pulled her hands away before he leaned back to look at her. Really look at her. She wasn’t sure she liked how thoroughly he searched her face.

“Sakura-”

“I need you,” she said before he could finish.

As if he understood she meant more than physically, Itachi’s mouth froze, whatever he was about to say falling forgotten. His expression softened before he released his grip on her wrists. One arm snaked around her waist, his easy strength pulling her bare chest flush against his before he cupped her face and kissed her again, this time gently.

Sakura melted into his embrace, allowing them one moment of nothing but emotion. Their heartbeats fell into sync, their lungs inhaling and exhaling as one as he kissed her thoroughly, his lips so, so soft against hers.

Then Itachi was moving again. Sakura couldn’t contain her cry even if she tried when his fingers finally slipped between her legs. He spread the wetness there, most of it likely his own essence from their earlier round, before he teased her with gentle fingertips. When his fingers finally slipped inside, Sakura couldn’t help her throaty moan as she ground herself against his palm. And he let her.

“Come on, Sakura,” Itachi murmured, his voice thick with lust. “That’s a good girl.”

She sucked in a heavy breath, only for her lungs to dispel it again. She could feel her orgasm building, but it was just beyond her reach. She needed something bigger, something thicker to calm the raging fire of her arousal.

“Please, Itachi.”

She didn’t wait for him to give it to her. Pushing herself onto her knees, Sakura pulled the string of his sweatpants and yanked the material down until his manhood sprung free. She pumped him a few times before she forced his hand away and lined the head of his member with her center. Then she slid down until he was buried fully inside her.

They moaned simultaneously, enjoying the feel of the other, before Sakura began to move. She raised her hips slowly before she sank back down. With the narrow bench beneath them, it took her a minute to find her rhythm, but then she was moving.

The room filled with the sound of lust. The slap of skin-on-skin, the groan of the wooden bench below them, the panting of her breath and the low moans that escaped Itachi’s throat. He wrapped a secure arm around her waist as she leaned back, her hand finding purchase on the piano behind her. It let out a horrible mash of notes as her hand fell on the keys, but she gave it no notice. All that mattered was the man beneath and inside her.

Itachi found rhythm with her and he helped her take her pleasure until she tightened around him, crying his name. The arm around her middle kept her from falling back and he let her rest against him for a minute before he picked her up and set her against the plush rug in the middle of the room.

There Itachi’s pace was hard and deep, but there was a tenderness in which he held and kissed her. That emotion swelled within Sakura again and she arched under him as his pelvic bone ground against her sensitive bundle of nerves until she was coming apart again.

Itachi finished soon after before he laid beside her. Only once their heartbeats had slowed again did he wrap his arm around her waist and curl into her back. “Now will you come to bed?” he asked against her shoulder blade.

When she finally rolled onto her back, he braced himself up on one elbow. A smile played on her lips. “Are we going to be sleeping or doing something else?”

“You want another round?” he asked incredulously.

She laughed at the expression on his face, but wasn’t given the chance to answer when her phone suddenly rang on the counter across the room. They both glanced in its direction and waited for it to fall silent before their gazes found one another again.

Sakura opened her mouth, ready to answer his question when her phone went off for a second time. A frown crossed her lips. “I should probably get that.”

Itachi said nothing, but the arm around her waist fell away as she pushed herself to her feet. Quickly Sakura crossed the living room to catch the call before it went to voicemail.

“What is it?” she nearly demanded.

On the other end, Ino’s voice was grim. “We have a problem.”

Sakura listened intently, the furrow between her brows becoming deeper and deeper until she finally hung up. It took her a long moment to turn around, but when she did, she found Itachi standing on the other side of the kitchen watching her. He had pulled his sweatpants back on and gathered the rest of their clothes.

He read her expression immediately. “What happened?”

When she spoke, her voice was grim. “The ship that’s carrying Akatsuki’s cargo just entered the Lower Bay. It’ll be in port within the next few hours.”

As soon as those words were out of her mouth, Sakura was in motion. She turned and hurried upstairs where she picked her clothes off the floor. She slipped her underwear over her hips before she pulled her sports bra on. Itachi entered the room as she stepped into her jeans.

“Sakura, wait.”

“I can’t,” she said without pausing. “The shipment is here. We have to move. Now.”

He tossed the shirt – his shirt – the one she had worn onto the unmade bed as she found her own shirt and jerked it down over her head. She made to grab her keys and her wallet from the nightstand when Itachi grabbed her by the elbow and stopped her.

“Sakura.”

But that was all he said. Everything else was clearly written on his face. The tension in her form fell away. She gave him a small, sad smile. “Our time is up, Itachi.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

I don’t want to lose you.

He didn’t say the words, but she heard them clear enough. Because neither of them knew what the future held. They were both headed to battle. Casualties were not only possible, but expected. There were no guarantees that either of them would survive.

But Sakura had been in this war long enough that she had to see it through to the end. She just hoped she wouldn’t drag Itachi down with her.

“I’ll be okay,” she said with a smile she didn’t feel. “And you will be too. We can do this.”

Itachi’s response was a slight frown before he bent his head and pressed his lips to hers. Automatically her hands came to rest on his chest, her palms smoothing over his collarbone until her fingers curled over his shoulders.

Then she pulled away, her eyes searching his.

Itachi met her gaze evenly. “I’ll will make the call,” he promised her.

She nodded, willing the sliver of guilt in her chest to subside before she grabbed her things and made her way out of the room. As she grabbed her phone from the kitchen counter, she couldn’t resist glancing at the piano one last time, her memory repeating over and over those shaky, uneven notes he had played for her. In that instant, she knew she would never get that sound out of her head.

Then Sakura forced herself to turn away. She had a battle to prepare for.

xx

Less than twenty minutes later, Sakura was back in her apartment. In the back of her closet, she pulled up a floorboard. Inside, there were half a dozen different guns with over three hundred rounds of ammunition. Quickly, she went through the process of loading her weapons and double checking that they were functioning properly.

Tossing them on her bed, she retrieved a fresh change of clothes from her dresser. She pulled on a black tank top and a new pair of jeans, ones that had a waistline big enough for her to tuck her guns into. She holstered a gun on either side of her hips and a third at the small of her back before she strapped a backup onto both ankles and jammed her feet into her boots.

After piling her hair into a high ponytail, she slipped on her leather jacket and peeked in the mirror. She gave herself a quick onceover, ensuring her weapons were within easy reach but well-hidden. Her reflection smiled proudly. A warrior disguised as a queen.

Turning away, Sakura grabbed her phone from her bed before she left her apartment and headed downstairs to her car. In the elevator, she texted Ino, asking for Kisame’s whereabouts and the status of everyone else. She needed to know where Tenten and Tobirama were. They only had so much time before the Akatsuki members would be summoned to the warehouse. Sakura needed them all taken out. Now.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, Sakura stepped out. Only to still when she rounded the corner.

Kakashi was leaning against the trunk of her car, his arms and ankles crossed. He was dressed as usual in dark jeans and a black leather jacket. She resisted the urge to laugh at their similar attire, the memory of their last conversation still so fresh and raw.

The only reason she felt comfortable approaching him now was because the mask he occasionally wore over his mouth and nose was pulled down around his neck. If he was looking for another fight, he would have left his face covered. It made him so much harder to read.

Taking a deep breath, Sakura forced herself forward. He looked up upon the sounds of her footsteps but didn’t speak. She stopped a good five feet away from him. Kakashi noticed.

She swallowed thickly. “What’re you doing here?”

He shot her a look like she had just asked the dumbest question in the world. “What do you think I’m doing here?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” she said with a small shrug. She tried to sound nonchalant, but the bitterness and hurt crept into her voice.

It was enough to make Kakashi’s expression soften and he lowered his crossed arms. “Did you really think I would abandon you just like that?”

Sakura opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Because the answer was yes, she did think she had been abandoned. And she was ashamed she had thought so low of Kakashi. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder why he was here now. After everything, why he still held such loyalties to her. And she asked.

“Why are you still here?” she murmured, unable to keep the waiver out of her voice. “After everything I’ve done, why do you keep coming back?”

There was a flicker of a smile across his lips. “I told you I always have your back, Sakura.”

“But why?”

He seemed to consider her for a moment, as if he suddenly understood she really didn’t know the answer. He let out a soft sigh.

“Do you remember when we were in Syria? How you saved me and tried to save my men?” he asked.

Sakura’s brows furrowed as her mind filtered through her memory. It had been after their initial meeting, after she had freed him from Gaara’s captivity and after he had found her the night she had put two bullets through Gaara’s head. Sakura had thought she and Kakashi had gone their separate ways. Only to unintentionally reunite in Syria.

That part of the world had been in the midst of a war with the United States. There was so much gunfire and so many bombs. Civilians and soldiers alike were dying left and right. The land was horribly scarred and the people that survived were even more so.

Sakura had been there buying arms from both sides. It wasn’t her war and she didn’t care where the weapons came from as long as she refilled her stores. At least until she had accidentally run into Kakashi. Literally.

She’d had two automatic weapons strapped to her back when she had taken shelter in an abandoned building as gunfire rained down on the city. Inside, Kakashi and his team had been doing the same and they would have shot her head off had Kakashi not ordered them to stand down.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” they had asked each other at the very same time.

Kakashi had been mum on the word, but Sakura had heard the rumors about a group of terrorists on the United States’ watchlist nearby. Only they were just that. A rumor. To lure American soldiers in.

Sakura had weighed her decision carefully to help Kakashi and his team. She had already helped him once and he had her. They didn’t owe each other anything. But there was nothing to gain from a group of dead soldiers. And the United States military weren’t answering their calls for help.

It was all a blur. Only Sakura and Kakashi had made it out alive without being gunned down. Sakura herself was amazed she had gotten away unscathed. Kakashi had been less fortunate with a bullet to the stomach. She had dropped him at the closest hospital, fully expecting him to die. She never expected to see the American Marine again. Nevertheless for him to show up on her door less than a year later.

Sakura hadn’t been entirely sure why he had sought her out. She figured it was something to do with her saving his life and he would leave as soon as he saw what it was she really did. Only he had stuck around. Time and time again.

Kakashi never spoke of the teammates he had lost that day and she didn’t ask. She knew it had fucked him up. It surprised her now that he had even brought it up. Though if she were being honest, she could see the parallels of then and what lay before them now.

“I didn’t think I was going to survive that day,” Kakashi continued quietly. “My own country abandoned my team and left us to die in that desert. Did leave them to die in the desert. They thought we were a lost cause. But not you. I should be dead. I would be dead if it wasn’t for you. So even if I do die, if it means I help or save you, I would do it. No questions asked.��

Even after everything she had been through, his sincerity touched her to her core. Her chin tremble and tears pooled in her eyes faster than she could blink them back. She could count on one hand and have fingers left over the number of times they had hugged, but neither of them held back now as Sakura stepped into the circle of his embrace.

Kakashi held her tightly against his chest, his arms wrapping tighter each time her shoulders trembled. He was all strength and support and unwavering loyalty. Exactly what she needed at that moment. She made a mental note to remember this moment forever.

Then Sakura wiped at her face and stepped away.

“I’m going after Kisame,” she told him. Because she knew that Kakashi deserved her full honesty. He deserved to know she was going after a federal agent.

Unperturbed, Kakashi nodded once. “Are you going to kill him?”

“That depends,” she said darkly.

“On?”

“If he’s betrayed Itachi or not.”

Kakashi didn’t immediately replied. His gaze looked her over, as if he was seeing every way Itachi had ever touched her. Physical and otherwise.

To her surprise, Kakashi didn’t question her. He simply patted the side of his jacket where she was sure he had a full-loaded weapon hidden. “And I am going with you. If you’re going after a Mossad Operative, you’ll need to scrub the room. You can’t leave a trace behind.”

It amazed her at how much she needed to hear those words. To know that she wouldn’t be going in alone against Kisame. The man was like a shark. He had been circling her for some time, just waiting to go in for the kill.

Sakura released a silent breath before she gave him a small smile.

Kakashi returned it before he straightened his spine. The soldier in him coming out full force.

“Now put your game face on. We’re going to war.”

tbc…

[gingermcl]

What is a light worker?

If you’re familiar the online spiritual world you’ve probably seen the term lightworker for it has been increasingly used in recent years. The term lightworker was first coined by author and teacher Michael Mirdad in the early 80s. Later, in 1997, Doreen Virtue released the book The Lightworkers Way.

The simplest way to describe lightworkers would be as ones who feel an enormous pull towards helping others. Lightworkers are also called crystal, rainbow, or indigo children, Earth angels, and starseeds. These spiritual beings volunteer to maintain a high frequency for the Earth and commit to serving humanity. There are separate definitions for each of the types of lightworkers listed here and I will discuss. Each type is slightly different. Some people that use these labels do not like being called lightworkers yet may be fine with star seed. This kind of stuff is silly and why I don’t like the use of labels. I don’t like the idea of putting myself in a defined box.

I prefer an umbrella term like lightworker to the specialized terms that divide us further. I see labels as are guidelines and not hard fast rules. Too many individuals see the world as black and white when things are actually typically a shade of gray. At the end of the day each situation and each person is fully unique. This is a good thing and we must learn tolerance. Earth is big enough for all of us to live here together peacefully.Lightworkers are the people that incarnated here to change the world. It is time to act.

Lightworkers often feel greater kindness and compassion towards others from birth – chances are that they’ve helped several animals and other living beings in distress from a very young age. Lightworkers tend to be sensitive and empathetic. Hence they feel sadness and anguish for the misery that dwells in the world. They do best in professions wherein their empathetic nature can be used to assist those in need, like nursing, therapy, rehabilitation, healing, care-giving, veterinary services, etc.

Lightworkers are intuitive and driven by their internal guidance. They can often perceive the emotions and needs of other living beings, which enables them direct their healing powers towards those who need help. They believe in carrying out coordinated efforts to dispel or chase away negative energies and consciousness by using their positive energies and healing powers.

Not all lightworkers realize the nature of their spiritual calling right away. It often takes some intuitive guidance – as well as going through the process of self-realization and discovery – to realize that their mission on Earth is to make a positive impact in whichever way they can. Given that they're faced with the same limitations and obstacles as other mortal beings, this manner of spiritual awakening and tuning into their inner light can sometimes take years for a lightworker. Odds are good the lightworker has always felt different from his or her peers.

 

If you’ve read about lightworkers and wondered if you could be one, you can only find the answer through introspection. Lightworkers can possess strengths and core abilities in one or more areas of service. Tuning into your inner self will help you understand what your unique gifts are and the kind of lightworker you may be.

The following types may help someone identify where their inner calling lies: 

Spiritual guides and healers

Lightworkers who are driven towards serving living beings and the Earth through healing using mental, physical, emotional or spiritual approaches fall under this category. They are often highly perceptive of feelings and emotions in others, and characteristically can alleviate pain and hurt within a few minutes of time spent with people or animals. 

Their sensitivity towards pain could often render them fatigued or overwhelmed, and it takes some conscious moderation to keep this tendency in check. Professions such as doctor, nurse, or reiki practitioner would fall under this category.

 

Psychics and seers

Using their elevated awareness and intuitive powers, one can develop psychic sights to be able to see beyond the material form and illusion. Many lightworkers can predict future events and tend to concentrate their efforts on positive outcomes, with the end goal of world peace and harmony. 

Gridworking and gatekeeping

A grid here refers to a unit that connects all awakened hearts and sacred sites on Earth using lay lines. Gridworkers and gatekeepers are advanced lightworkers who specialize in clearing work, their main role being opening of inter-dimensional grid lines to let light and love flow through. Gatekeepers encourage peace, kindness, positive energy, and fairness for all living beings.

 

Manifestors

Also known as divine blueprint creators, manifestors are a type of lightworker that are expert at channeling their intrinsic energy to attract what they want. Their mission to make the world a better and peaceful place enables them to manifest awakened collective consciousness for humanity.

 

Guides and messengers

Some lightworkers possess a unique flair for spreading important messages to the world. They concentrate their efforts in areas where their inner light and magnetic presence can make greatest impact on others by communicating messages of love, peace, spiritual awakening and enlightenment. 

Motivational speakers, bloggers, artists, teachers, writers, life-coaches; those who strive to serve humanity through their words, actions or work can be categorized as messengers.

 

Transmuters

Also known as neutralizers, these lightworkers specialize in dispelling negativity, thus restoring neutrality and balance back into the world. Neutralizers may work in favor of the entire collective consciousness, or even help people release or heal negative karma from their ancestral lines. 

 

Dreamers and travelers

These lightworkers can never accept the status-quo, and always strive for new solutions and adventure. They learn to push limitations and manifest light during dreamwork, creating boundless capacity for change along multiple dimensions of the Earth.

 

Adventurers and ascension guides

Adventurers are always on the lookout for newer possibilities, driven by belief that better things await if one just looks beyond the obvious. Along with ascension guides, they work towards creating higher inter-dimensional possibilities and broadening mankind’s vision for future.

 

You can be more than one of these. I myself identify with transmutor, guide and messenger, dreamer and traveler, healer, and occasionally a manifestor. I identify most with transmutor and guide and messenger.

The specific kinds of light workers I said I would address earlier are indigo children, rainbow children, Earth Angel, Starseed, and I’m going to add in crystal children. To my knowledge these are the most common, if not only, specific kinds of light workers. They’re the only ones that I know of and the ones that I found information easily about.

Earth angel

Earth angels want to align with pure, loving energy, and by doing so, help others to find their highest self in this lifetime. They want to transcend the problems and heartache, and live in true harmony with the Divine. They have good intentions for themselves and the planet, but often get frustrated with our current state of affairs.

Starseeds

StarSeeds is the umbrella name for a group of people who are said to have been sent here from all areas of the universe to help the Earth and humanity. They are reported to possess psychic, spiritual, and other extrasensory abilities, and are bringers of peace, topplers of corrupt systems, and shifters of dimensional consciousness, now and in the future. Some feel these children have come here on special assignment to assist in this rebirth into a higher dimensional Earth.

Starseed children may be divided into the three categories of indigo, crystal, and rainbow individuals. Star children have chosen specific family and/or parents who will help them develop their natural abilities and heal ancestral lines.

Common traits of starseeds are said to include clairvoyance, claircognizance, clairaudience, clairsentience, the propensity to trip electricity, manipulate the environment with the mind, telepathy, high intuition, heal with energy, detect danger, travel out of the body, act as channelers, and the ability to download information from other planets. Also listed as traits are talents that a great many would still be resistant to believe, including the ability to levitate and teleport.

Indigo children

Indigos get the name from their indigo colored aura. Indigo children began appearing en masse in the 1980s. The indigo aura hadn’t ever been seen before.

Indigo children share traits that include a strong calling to make the world a better place, an innate knowledge of better ways to do things. They are natural “system busters” with a non-responsive attitude toward controlling and/or authority figures, a feeling of natural superiority, and an innate love for nature, plants, and animals.  Indigo children are naturally intuitive, have a desire for a fair and just world, stand up (maybe alone) for what they believe in, have an interest in living a life of meaning instead of just making money, are sensitive in both a physical and emotional sense, and regularly have unusual things happen to and around them.

Other Indigo traits have been described as having a high IQ, self-confidence, resistance to authority, “old soul” qualities, sensitivity to chemicals and fluorescent lights, and disruptive tendencies.

Crystal children

Crystal children are another category of human beings known to follow their hearts as idealists in a world limited and troubled by materialists. This means that crystal children are apt to flow with consciousness, rather than forcing their way through life and hardships in search of material success. Their ultimate goal seems to be firmly established in making the world a better place. Like Indigo children, crystal children also exude an “old soul” persona.

Crystal children are the offspring of indigos and began to incarnate in greater numbers at the turn of this century. They commonly have a penetrating gaze, sometimes possess usual-colored and often round eyes; are sensitive, both mentally and physically; suffer from allergies and sensitivities caused by environmental factors; are spontaneous, and sometimes act without thinking through the consequences; love to climb; have a good sense of balance; are natural huggers (even with people they only just met); have no awareness of personal boundaries because they feel connected to all of humankind and, indeed, all living things; are healers and psychics; love music and singing, but hate loud noise; aren’t comfortable in noisy, over-crowded places and suffer from sensory overload; are badly affected by negative events, both in their personal sphere and worldwide; exude love for their family, pets and their friends; and are autodidacts — preferring to teach themselves what they want to learn (rather than what they’re told to focus on).

They appear to function as a group consciousness rather than as individuals and live by a law of oneness. They are advocates for love and peace on this planet” and “are mostly born with access to psychic gifts such as clairvoyance or healing.

Rainbow children

The rainbow children are the third generation of special children that have come to help humanity evolve. The Rainbow children are generally born in the year 2000 and above. The few Rainbow children that are here today are born from early Crystal scouts that were born in the 1980’s. As the name implies, the Rainbow children come to earth with a rainbow aura.

The Rainbow children bring joy and harmony to their families. Unlike the Indigo and Crystal children, the Rainbow child is born to smile, which is accompanied by their huge hearts that are full of forgiveness. The Rainbow child generally recovers from the state of negative emotion quickly. This is also an important key that they hold, emotional mastery. Rainbow children are psychic and have the ability to read people’s feelings. They have strong wills and strong personalities. Their gifts do not stop there. They are known to be natural healers and instant manifesters. It is said that whatever they need or desire they can instantly manifest. The Rainbow children are thought to be the builders of the New World, using Divine will.

I’m an indigo, my son an indigo, and my youngest a rainbow. (Her dad is a crystal and I’m an indigo)

If you feel that you are a light worker you should learn how to maintain the highest frequency you can, protect yourself from negative energies in this world, and work to learn and use whichever type of light work you identify with the most. The world at times feels as if it is being consumed by negativity and we lightworkers need to help uplift the consciousness.

I prefer to say those of us with heart centered consciousness is who light workers truly are. It does seem as if the star seeds are the ones that have woken up. I feel if this video applies to you will probably be drawn to watch it and whatever label you choose doesn’t matter. We are in need of uniting and it’s more important that we live our best life to help the earth and humanity as a whole.

[bstcanswerkey2020]

Challenges in Introducing Value Education at Higher Education in India

Valuation Education is the much debated and discussed subject in the plethora of education in India. Of course it can be true that the main purpose of any education will go with Value orientation. More concentration on Value education may be given at the primary and secondary level of school education than in higher education in India. Values may be effectively imparted to the young minds rather than to the matured ones. It may be the important reason for this prime relevance given at the school level. There are so many modules designed with the help of agencies like NCERT and others for properly imparting the value education to the school students. In this context, many innovative educational practices are being identified by way of the experts. Good number of experiments and studies are being conducted in the recent days on the effectiveness of showing value education at school level. Some schools have very innovative and radical course designs to help you impart the values. Effective teaching practices in imparting value education ranges from story telling, displays, skits, one act play and group discussions to various other formats. New methods have been evolved just by educationists to create an effective learning sphere. The usage of electronic gadgets also gains importance in the teaching-learning practices about value education. But at the higher education level, due to various reasons, the importance given to value education is not even though it is given at the school level. The curriculum and the teaching methods also could be subjected to scrutiny. It can be true that colleges are meant for a kind of specialization in some field of education. But in the Indian societal context, the youth require direction and counseling at this stage. They have been exposed to various challenges at this stage which necessitates the intervention of educationists for his/her betterment. His/her character building also strengthens at this juncture. Students' perception on various life factors and events are getting shaped at this stage. On the whole they evolve their own approach of life. Their sensitivity and knowledge are getting direction at this stage. Hence, an effective value orientation becomes certain to the students of colleges. Keeping this requirement in mind, States like Tamilnadu introduced a compulsory paper/course on value education to undergraduate students of all colleges in the State under the choice based credit program. Though this kind of effort is made with the good intention of imparting values to the youth, many limitations around bringing out the expected outcome could be identified. The problem mainly begins with the definition of values. Defining the concept 'value' poses a challenge to all scholars. The term value is loaded with varieties of meaning. Each meaning reflects its very own philosophical position. Generally the term value is spontaneously associated with religious values. It is believed by many Indians that values are nothing but the religious and spiritual guiding principles of life. Hence, it is thought that the path is already been laid for the life journey. But in the context of modernity and modernism there rises a fundamental question of whether value education is required at all in a modern state. There are people argue that modern life is based on science and technology, and both are value neutral. They see that the values are bugbear held out by people living in the past, glued to outdated religious basics that have no relevance to the 21st century. At this point, there is also another group of modernist who propagate the necessity connected with value education at learning centres in order to safe guard the democratic state and its values. The beliefs they wish to cultivate are modern secular values such as honesty, respect to other, equality, collectivity, democracy, improving the human rights, sharing equal space in the public sphere and so on. These values are considered as the solutions of enlightenment period. Hence, four positions could be arrived at on the basis of the above understanding. The are: 1 . There are actually religious values which are very much essential for every one and must be included in the curriculum. 2 . The religious values should never find place in the educational system. They may operate at the private sphere. 3. There are nonreligious secular figures and they must find space in the education. 4. There is no need for teaching value education in the academics as they cannot be cultivated through formal learning and such value cultivation will make the individual biased. In consequence so that you can these positions, following questions arouse. 1 . Whether value education should find place in the educational product? 2 . If it is required, then what sort of values should be given preference in the curriculum? 3. What is the importance being given to the religious values which are primarily developed on the basis of scriptures? 4. Can modern values alone are generally sufficient enough or is there any possibility of blending the values of modernity with religious values? 5. If religious values are to be given importance in the curriculum, which religion will find prime place? If there are actually contradictory propagation on a single virtue by two religions, then how are they to be handled? 6. Equally religions differ on the practices also. Right from eating patterns, dress mode, marriage systems, war tactics, destroying, punishments to various other aspects, religions differ on their outlook. In this situation, what sort of perceptions need to be taught? Furthermore these questions, another billion dollar question would be raised on the methodology of effectively imparting those worth. Then again as it is mentioned earlier, the school education can very well include this education easily because the model itself is advantageous for it to accommodate. But at the college level, the system finds it very difficult to work out. Which means this study could analyse the theoretical problems relating to the identification of values to be included in the curriculum with the one side and the problem of effective designing of the curriculum and imparting those values on the other side. II The necessity for imparting values to the students of all levels has been felt by everyone. The world today is usually facing unprecedented socio-political and economic challenges. Problems of life are becoming increasingly intense and complex. Standard values are decentered. 'An environment of strife pervades all countries and broken homes have become well-known. An insatiable hunger for money and power, leads most of people to tension and absence of peace of mind and a myriad of physical and mental ailments have become common place" 1 . In the present day context of frequent and often chaotic social upheavals, we have to look at the problem of restlessness of the youth, their frustration born out of futility health of their search for meaning of life and the purpose for which they are living, often leading to evil and wickedness. The following calls for a new approach to, and a new vision of education. It is obviously felt that the present educational procedure promotes rat race and keep the student community in a sense of insecurity. Educational institutions have become the pressure cookers building pressures in the minds of youth. Also a loft sided educational pattern which insists with instrumental and technical rationality for the successful life in terms of gaining money and power has invaded this educational system of India. The person who is deemed to be unfit for this survival race becomes disqualified along with ineligible to live in this market economy based life. The spate of industrialization and economic growth inside developed nations has brought about a perceptible change in this scenario. And developing countries including India are experiencing the ripple effects of this development. Values earlier considered essential by all societies have been eroded and get given way to unethical practices around the globe. Where honesty and integrity were loved and appreciated, greed, problem and red tapism have come in, bringing in their wake, unethical responses which have pervaded all walks for life and are thwarting efforts of a few enlightened individuals to promote value based society. 2 Hence, guidelines of well structured education is the only solution available with all states. With growing divisive energies, narrow parochialism, separatist tendencies on the one hand and considerable fall in moral, social, ethical and even national values both in personal and public life on the other, the need for promoting effective workshops of value orientation in education has assumed great urgency. Development of human values through knowledge is now routinely seen as a task of national importance. Value education though supposes to be the part not to mention parcel of the regular education, due to the market influences, it could not be so. Hence, it has become a particular inevitable need to include an exclusive curriculum for value education at all levels. Now the next question would be concerning nature of value education. What sort of values should be given preference in the curriculum is the prime problem inside introduction of value education. This problem surfaces because we can find varieties of values prescribed on the basis of various scriptures and theories. Sometimes they are contradictory to each other. This issue has been thoroughly discussed earlier. But the solution to the problem in the nature of value education is primarily dependent on the social conditions that prevail in the state. Truth be told there need not be an imported value educational pattern to be prescribed in India. The burning social factors would demand the required value education. Though India is considered to be the land of divinity and perception, the modern value system throws challenges to the ancient value pattern. Right from the Gurkula pattern to the varna ashrama values, all values are under scrutiny by modern rationality. Hence, the relevance of the senior values prescribed by the then society is questionable in the present situation. On the other hand, the so called modern character which have been listed earlier also subjected to criticism by philosophers like post modernists. They question the very dynamics of the rationality of the enlightenment period. Because critics of modernity strongly declare that the modern rationality 's the reason for the deterioration of human concern in the world and they paved the way for inhuman killing and escalation in values. The reason of the modernism is considered as the root of power politics which leads to inhuman behaviour of the electrical power system, according to them. Hence the modern values like democracy, civil rights, environmental ethics, professional ethics, concentration and all such values are found useless in bringing harmony in the society. The values like control, tolerance, peace bears the negative connotation in this context. Hence, what sort of modern values are to be included in the resume is a challenge thrown towards the educationists. At one side the fanatic and fundamentalist features of religious values and on the other side the modern values based on the market economy and other factors are to be excluded and a well balanced curriculum using genuine worthy values suitable to the society has to be identified and included in the educational system. In this context, the idea becomes obvious that there cannot be any universal pattern of values to be prescribed in the system. Each time a suitable blend of religious and modern values is to be done, the designing of such course demands some sort of unbiased, scrupulous, intelligent approach on the part of the academician who designs such course. Thus the spiritual principles of sensitizing the youth for happy world and rational values for a just world are very considerably required. Religious values can be taken but not with the label of any particular religion, democratic values need to be included but not with its dogmatic inhuman approach. Thus there need a perfect blend of both. This is the real test thrown to the Indian academicians. After the identification of these values, they need to be inculcated not to be informed to your students. Mostly listing the values is done very easily, but imparting them effectively requires genuine spirit and also innovative educational practices. In the Vedic period, the gurukula system prevailed in which the student has to thoroughly undertake a pattern life with the guru shishya hierarchy. Whatever the guru declares are the values of life. , in the modern context, which is supposed to be the democratic sphere, a sense of equality and freedom has to prevail the training situation. Also the values identified cannot be preached on the basis of the religious faiths. So the teacher has to see effective working module to internalize the values in the minds of the youth. The teachers' understanding for the values prescribed and his/her commitment in imparting them also play a crucial role here. How to sensitize the teacher before carrying the values to the students is also a challenge to the educationists. The value education category room, if it is dealt with full seriousness and sincerity would be very interesting and challenging sphere for scholars and teachers. At times they need to sail at the same level with the students. The hierarchy may get disappeared. Price education demands a total responsibility from the teachers. They become more accountable. On the other side, a teacher who is committed to a few values would always like to preach and impose them on the young minds. That extreme should also to become avoided with a balance of mind. Value education cannot be done by just delivering lectures and screening flicks. It requires a strong interaction between the students and the society. A lot could be experimented at this sphere. For which the better value 'integrity' is expected from the educator. It is observed that many modules of teaching values have been engineered and tested. Some are seemed to be very effective. In Tamilnadu, especially in aided colleges, with just about all good intention the government has introduced the value education as a compulsory scheme at the undergraduate level. But just about every university has its own syllabus for the same. The scrutiny of those syllabi also reveals a lot of variations for conceiving the value education. In some universities, some religion based institutions are given the responsibility of designing and even conducting the course. Similarly the teachers who have not been exposed to any such type of training in value education get the responsibility of teaching values. The introduction of value education for all under graduate courses is done for the cost of a core paper of that course. The teachers who have been handling their hardcore subject papers must meet the shortage of workload due to this programme and to solve this problem, they have been entrusted with the job of illustrating value education paper. This is done with the aim of avoiding the workload problem of existing teachers. The most vital and sensitive part of education has been made like a mechanical dogmatic part. At this juncture, the fate regarding value education at the college level could be imagined. How to solve this issue is again a challenge to the educationists of Tamilnadu. The same fate could be observed in many other states of India. Hence, two important problems floors here, one at the syllabus level and the other at the teaching level. As it is discussed earlier your syllabus could be designed by way of paying attention to all aspects but imparting the same requires not only innovative teaching options, but also innovative training method of the educators. It is as good as training the driver to drive the car; the educator needs to be trained in imparting the values. The technical education employs teachers with sound knowledge in the issue, similarly it is essential to have teachers with sound mind and creative teaching skill to teach value education. Significance education is definitely not to be dealt with compartmentalization but it should be taken as a part of the whole educational system. As Nietzsche puts it, the society requires masters to create and impart values, not the slaves who take all the values imposed on them without any critical understanding.

[blackestdespondency]

Most people recognize that human lives can sometimes be of an appallingly low quality. The tendency,however, is to think that this is true of other people's lives, not one's own. When people do think their own lives are of low quality, this is typically because their lives are in fact unusually bad. However, if we look dispassionately at human life and control for our biases, we find that all human life is permeated by badness. Even in good health, much of every day is spent in discomfort. Within hours, we become thirsty and hungry. Many millions of people are chronically hungry. When we can access food and beverage and thus succeed in warding off hunger and thirst for a while, we then come to feel the discomfort of distended bladders and bowels. Sometimes, relief can be obtained relatively easily, but on other occasions, the opportunity for (dignified) relief is not as forthcoming as we would like. We also spend much of our time in thermal discomfort - feeling either too hot or too cold. Unless one naps at the first sign of weariness, one spends quite a bit of the day feeling tired. Indeed, many people wake up tired and spend the day in that state. With the exception of chronic hunger among the world's poor, these discomforts all tend to be dismissed as minor matters. While they are minor relative to the other bad things that befall people, they are not inconsequential. A blessed species that never experienced these discomforts would rightly note that if we take discomfort to be bad, then we should take the daily discomforts that humans experience more seriously that we do. Other negative states are experienced regularly even if not daily or by everybody. Itches and allergies are common. Minor illnesses like colds are suffered by almost everybody. For some people, this happens multiple times a year. For others it occurs annually or every few years. Many women of reproductive years suffer regular menstrual pains and menopausal women suffer hot flashes. Conditions such as nausea, hypoglycemia, seizures, and chronic pain are widespread. The negative features of life are not just restricted to unpleasant physical sensations. For example, we frequently encounter frustrations and irritations. We have to wait in traffic or stand in lines. We encounter inefficiency, stupidity, evil, Byzantine bureaucracies, and other obstacles that can take thousands of hours to overcome - if they can be overcome at all. Many important aspirations are unfulfilled. Millions of people seek jobs but remain unemployed. Of those who have jobs, many are dissatisfied with them, or even loathe them. Even those who enjoy their work may have professional aspirations that remain unfulfilled. Most people yearn for close and rewarding personal relationships, not least with a lifelong partner or spouse. For some, this desire is never fulfilled. For others, it temporally is, but then they find that the relationship is trying and stultifying, or their partner betrays them or becomes exploitative or abusive. Most people are unhappy in some or other way with their appeareance - they are too fat, or they are too short, or their ears are too big. People want to be, look, and feel younger, and yet they age relentlessly. They have high hopes for their children and these are often thwarted when, for example, the children prove to be a disappointment in some way or other. When those close to us suffer, we suffer at the sight of it. When they die, we are bereft. We are vulnerable to innumerable appalling fates. Although each fate does not befall every one of us, our very existence puts us at risk for these outcomes, and the cumulative risk of something horrific occurring to each one of us is simply enormous. If we included death, as I argue in the next chapter that we ought to do, then the risk is in fact a certainty. Burn victims, for example, suffer excruciating pain, not only in the moment but also for years thereafter. The wound itself is obviously painful, but the treatment intensifies and protracts the pain. One such victim describes his daily "bath" in a disinfectant that would sting intact skin but causes unspeakable pain where there is little or no skin. The bandages stick to the flesh and removing them, causes indescribable pain. Repeated surgery can be required, but even with the best treatment, the victim is left with lifelong disfigurement and the social and psychological difficulties associated with it. Consider next those who are quadriplegic or, worse still, suffer from locked-in syndrome. This is sheer mental torture. One eloquent amyotrophic lateral sclerosis sufferer describes this disease as "progressive imprisonment without parole" because of the advancing and irreversible paralysis. Dictating an essay at the point when he had become quadriplegic, and before losing the ability to speak, he describes his torments, which are most acute at night. When he is put to bed, he has to have his limbs placed in exactly the position he wants them for the night. He says that if he allows "a stray limb to be misplaced" or "fails to insist on having his midriff carefully aligned with legs and head" he will "suffer the agonies of the damned later in the night." He invites us to consider how often we shift and move during the course of a night and he says that "enforced stillness for hours on end is not only physically uncomfortable but psychologically close to intolerable. He lies on his back in a semi-upright position, attached to a breathing device and left alone with his thoughts. Unable to move, any itch must go unscratched. His condition, he says, is one of "humiliating helplessness". Cancer's reputation as a dreaded disease is well deserved. There is much suffering in dying from this disease, but at least as much in the treatments that are usually necessary to cure the patient of the malignancy. In the worst scenarios, the patient suffers from both the treatment and its failure. When symptoms have not precipitated the diagnosis, the first blow is the diagnosis itself. Arthur Frank says that on receiving the news that he had a malignancy, he felt as thought his "body had become quicksand" in which he was sinking. But that is only the beginning. For example, radiation treatment for esophageal cancer left Christopher Hitchens desperately attempting to avoid the inevitable need to swallow. Every time he did swallow, "a hellish tide of pain would flow up his throat, culminating in what felt like a mule kick in the small of his back. Ruth Rakoff, after receiving chemotherapy for breast cancer, described her "insides as raw". Treatment can result in nausea, vomiting, constipation, diarrhea, and gum and dental soreness. Food tastes bad and appetite is lost. Unsurprisingly, all this results in weight loss and fatigue. Neuropathy is another common side effect, as is hair loss. Many of the same symptoms can be experienced even in the absence of treatment of after treatment has been ended. Moreover, tumors pressing on brains, bowels, and bones can cause excruciating pain. When the pain can be controlled, it is sometimes at the expense of consciousness or at least lucidity. Cancer is an an appalling fate, but is also a common one (in those countries where people do not typically die earlier from infectious diseases). In the United States, it has been estimated that one in two men and one in three women will develop cancer, and one in four men and one in five women will die from it. It has recently been suggested that estimates of lifetime risk of developing cancer may by exaggerated by the fact that some people develop cancer more than once. However, even if we opt for the more conservative estimate of lifetime risk of first primary, we find that 40% of men and 37% of women in the United Kingdom will develop cancer. Those who do not get cancer are still at risk for hundreds of other possible causes of suffering. It is, of course, more commonly, older people who get cancer. However, although it is, all things being equal, generally worse to die when one is younger than when one is older, the physical and psychological symptoms of life with cancer and drying from cancer are no less appalling at older ages. Pain accompanies many conditions, but we should remember that much of it is not attendant upon visible conditions. It is often hidden from those not experiencing it. One sufferer from chronic pain describes it as "debilitating" and observes that it "can take over one's life, sap one's energy, and negate or neutralize joy and well being." Not all suffering is physical, although psychological ailness can certainly have bodily symptoms, William Styron, describing his depression, said that ultimately, "the body is affected and feels sapped, drained." He wrote of his "slowed-down responses, near paralysis, psychic energy throttled back close to zero." Sleep is disrupted, with the sufferer staring "up into yawning darkness, wondering and writhing at the devastation" of his mind. The sufferer from depression, we are told, is "like a walking casualty of war." In addition, there is an atrociously diverse range of harms that people suffer at the hands of other humans, including being betrayed, humiliated, shamed, denigrated, maligned, beaten, assaulted, raped, kidnapped, abducted, tortured and murdered.

David Benatar, The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions, P. 71-76

[kenshaandrea-blog]

The circus that they call Politics.

Right now, I'm pretty sure a lot of us are enduring stress from all kinds of issues that we can think of. We may be worried about this pandemic and anxiously waiting for the day that this will be over, or we may be also annoyed by the current problems that the world is facing. Of course, politics is never out of the question, and in my view this is certainly something that keeps on bugging my consciousness. Even if we are privileged to live in a democratic country, it can be toxic, and it can bring out the worst in all of us. Having said that, it may be proper to think about ways on how we deal with this while navigating this so-called life. Given this platform I may as well share some of my thoughts to ponder on.

Back when I was in college as an undergrad, our professor in Political Science was so good that I never forgot her best bits. I still remember her discussing the three types of people who deal with politics. There are what we call the political gladiators, who are the ones who viciously attack their opponents just to prove their point. They are commonly visible in the media, like the activists, politicians, and the like. The second type are the political spectators, who hate to show their views out in the open but they love to talk about it when they have to. Ironically, I notice some journalists who belong to this type merely because they just blabber about it in their own terms but they don't sound confrontational. Then the third are the political apathetic, who simply just do not take interest and walk away from it. I used to think then that these apathetic people do not care less about these issues but I have gone a long way to realize that they are just probably tackling more important matters than wasting their time giving a fuss about it.

I have always wondered where I belong among these three, and I admit I get indecisive about it most of the time. There are times when I am sure I am a spectator, but there are also times where I want to be apathetic. Every time I encounter a debatable political topic I try so hard to put things into context, but I cannot help but jump at a conclusion and give my verdict on it right away. I tend to chastise a political figure for being irrational with their take on things, while I also adore those figures who are brave enough to make a stand and work their way through being successful at defending it. So every time I readily voice out my opinion to people, I get disappointed at times because I feel like I end up opposing my initial thoughts and regret blurting it out wishing that I should have read more, or I should have thought about it first before I get caught in an argument that I end up losing at the very least.

I really hate engaging in arguments and heated discussions, but I tend to be vocal on certain issues with the afterthought that I get unsatisfied if I got the message across to those that I speak to. I always end up wondering if people understood my point or they'd probably just pretend that they do but in reality they think that I am just a hopeless person trying hard to be agreed upon. What makes it worse is those who totally disagree with my take and then belittle my opinion implying that mine does not count in the mix.

But what is more frustrating is that when I try to be neutral on a certain political issue, people will still concur that I am picking on a side just because my thoughts does not mesh with theirs. I try as hard to convey my objective views but they just take it as the opposite. Whenever this happens,  I just retreat and suppress my emotions hoping that someday they get to be in a position where I am in so they would know how it feels be that way. This is where I am convinced that I would rather be apathetic and look into other more important things to do.

I remember when I used to work in Manila with a superior who is a foreigner. We had a conversation about various topics when it came down to "Why are Filipinos so personal?" It was a thought that surprised and amused me at the same time because he was being honest yet brutal for calling out our behavior. I understood him though because our attitude can really affect the results of the job that we were doing. I did not give him a word or an elaborate answer, I just shrugged and gave a notion that I agreed with what he said.

Then I also recalled a time where I was in a conference when one of the resource speakers said that "there is no such thing as it's nothing personal, because personal is political". I refused to agree with what she said at that time because when we put things into context we can actually set aside our personal views and focus on our task at hand to deliver better results. Obviously as a participant I just listened on with her speech, but at the back of my mind I was like "oh here we go again".

Both of these moments still linger with me up to this day whenever politics comes up in the table for discussion. It may be easy to say that we just keep quiet and move on, that we don't have control over politics. But no matter how hard we try to avoid it, there is always something in us that compels us to engage in it. Maybe because we care too much about what's happening around us, that we subconsciously ride along with the razzmatazz just so we can prove to others that our opinions are part of the equation too, and that we have the right to do so. But the real question is not how we convey our thoughts, but how do we handle the feedback and repercussions of it.

These are all in the realm of opinions of course. I never mentioned the word "fact" or "evidence" at the earlier paragraphs, because I believe that politics live and depend on the mouths of various views or judgements, and not necessarily based on facts or bodies of knowledge. This is where the drama comes into play, and where it gets interesting by the minute. Sadly, the danger comes in when these opinions overshadow the facts, which means that it gets further away from the truth. Once it gets too far, it makes our inherent biases resonate, which would ultimately drive us crazy.

In politics, I believe that it is everybody's game. Whether you are a gladiator, spectator, or apathetic, you get to a point where you get challenged because you couldn't figure out where you belong in a certain issue. But my advise it this, in my years of dealing with a lot of people with different opinions on politics, try to be empathetic. Put your self into the situation of all parties involved and take it from there. Then if you have decided to agree, disagree, or abstain from it then do not be apologetic to convey your honest take on it. But know that whatever the response may be, you should take it as something that is a continuing part of the conversation and not as a conclusion. It will still be up in the air whatever the outcome is. You may choose to go on and argue about it until you prove your point, or you may just shrug it off and suppress whatever you feel about it and work on other meaningful matters to do. Be aware that it could be brought up again time after time, and be prepared mentally and emotionally when it does.

I also believe that when we choose to be in the middle of a political spectacle, it is better for us to arbitrate, not to instigate. It is better to point our moral compass to the facts and not to our inherent biases. When we become mature about such matters, we may become flexible about our views because we know that these can change over time as facts do change over time. For sure this is not easy to do, because we may be perceived to be inconsistent or incoherent. But as long as we stay on course and include our conscience with it we are assured that we firmly adhere to our opinion while ensuring that people respect it whatever it may be.  

Just recently, I happen to watch a show where Mr. Neil deGrasse Tyson said this, "You don't have to like my science, but that doesn't make it wrong because you didn't like it". In closing, I paraphrase this quote in my own words, you don't have to like my opinion, but that does not make it any less true. It sounds like a clap back, but it will help keep your sanity intact while riding in this circus called politics.

[dontkillthecharacters]

Despite public outrage, web access for prisoners

My research shows that digital progress in prisons allows offenders to order their own meals, book visits, contact home, undertake e-learning, manage their finances, improve their health and prepare for release.

Prisoners using web-based tools to manage their daily lives is good for society. It's also an opportunity for prison staff to work with inmates to help them rehabilitate.

However, prisoners' relationships with technology isn't neutral and there are challenges in this changing landscape. I have observed that, when granted access to TV in their cells, they withdraw from their surroundings and are less dependent on fellow inmates.

But it also resonates beyond prison walls. Gary, one of my respondents, explained how he feels cut off from the outside world now that digital communication dominates so many of our lives:

"Emails now rapidly replace letters and very few people even consider letter writing any more. I have been in the prison system for six years so far with another 16 to go … I am in the position where I can watch as everything changes … Some of us even find those people you grew up with or once were so close to, forget you're there because you're no longer around digitally."

Gary's "digital lag" experience could have adverse effects once he is released. But while the "digital prison" could potentially save taxpayers' money, it is still undecided if it will improve life behind bars.

Lockdown: the e-prison

There are small pockets of progress in countries experimenting with digital offerings for inmates. In Belgium, a "secure" digital service called PrisonCloud is used in prison cells. It looks and feels like a typical setup, with access to a range of software, television and film, telecommunications, desktop programmes and e-learning gateways.

The service "offers web access through different categories like healthcare, job search, e-learning and others, where security is key", said Benny Goedbloed, chief developer of PrisonCloud.

"The inmate has no url bar, the solution is able to block all buttons and form fields without denying the ability to read, listen or view videos on the selected web pages."

In Australia, e-learning opportunities are taken seriously and many jails provide tablet devices where inmates can access online courses and reading materials.

Like Belgium, these devices are locked down. While prisoners have digital access, freedom to surf the web is denied. Instead, secure systems prevent them reaching the outside world with access limited to a walled garden.

Devices are linked to a prison server and guards are alerted if an offender – whose every finger stroke is recorded – attempts to hack the system or use a tablet or laptop for nefarious means.

Such security measures have led to some countries gaining confidence in moving towards digitisation behind bars.

Read more at:

https://phys.org/news/2017-12-outrage-web-access-prisoners-isnt.html#jCp

In England and Wales, a project is underway to implement and test a model similar to the one in Belgium. In-cell telephony and self-service kiosks where prisoners can manage their visits, order things from the prison shop and make requests have been established for some time now. However, there is a systematic plan to enable digital opportunities in all prisons.

HMP Berwyn, which opened earlier this year, is giving prisoners basic and securely locked laptops allowing them to access self-service rehabilitative programmes and support in custody. But use of these devices isn't widespread: they appear in a very small number of UK prisons with few inmates gaining routine access.

It's worth noting, however, that the government – perhaps wary of a potential public outcry – has declined to reveal how many digital devices are being used across prisons in England and Wales.

Eventually, one can expect that digital services in British prisons will become the norm – driven by priorities to keep the public safe and rehabilitate the prisoner. But nationally and internationally, the e-prison is yet to be adopted at scale.

Boredom is mental poison

Being online is, for most people, part of their everyday lives from watching TV to communicating with friends and family to applying for jobs and managing money. A prison sentence disrupts digital literacy, which can lead to increased isolation, loneliness, boredom, frustration and anger. My earlier research on in-cell TV found that prisons are poor on communication and this leads to boredom.

Leon, another research respondent, told me:

"Boredom is poisonous, it is mental poison. You can easily get distressed and suicidal in here. TV keeps you occupied. Even just changing the channels using the remote, it keeps you focused."

Such an emotive response can be detrimental to prisoners serving time productively and safely.

My research indicates that television, radio and digital services result in therapeutic outcomes for many inmates. Coping and surviving prison is a key part of rehabilitation and digital technology can help them achieve this.

But it also helps prisons run more efficiently by making systems and processes easier, saving time and reducing incidents. Recent findings by Professor McDougall and colleagues support my research.

Public opinion

A perceived anxiety and fear persists that prisoners will use laptops and tablets to commit criminal offences. While this is a valid concern, it has also been argued that they should be denied luxury, pleasure or even basic opportunities.

The idea, previously floated by then justice secretary Michael Gove, that iPads should be dished out to prisoners is distasteful to some. But such opinions hinder digital progress.

My recent survey on the acceptability of digital technology in prisons revealed that the British public was largely supportive of this progress. As long as security assurances are maintained, time in prison should help people return to society better prepared to live a life free of crime.

Notably, prisoners aren't getting unfettered digital access and the benefits extend beyond the walls of the prison and have the potential to help us all. But, for now, uptake of digital services in UK prisons is a postcode lottery.

[clubakashi]

Chapter 17

a cute story of Akashi and his mini-bokushi by @active-mind-15​

Link to: Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14 - Chapter 15 - Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Morning came faster than Bokushi would have like it to. As he slowly woke up, he heaved a sigh and rolled over on his side, looking at the clock on his bedside. It was 9:13, later than he usually woke up, perhaps because of how many hours he had spent the night before freaking out (well, as much as someone like Bokushi could freak out, anyway) before his body couldn’t take it anymore and shut down. Rolling out of bed and going to the bathroom, he stood in front of the sink and turned on the faucet, blocking the drain and watching the water collect in the basin. He took a moment to look at himself in the mirror. Lucky for him, he didn’t look as stressed out as he actually was, which was good, because he was trying to mask how badly this current situation had messed him up. He switched off the faucet and scooped the cold water into his hands before splashing it on his face.

Even though he had a several hours after dinner last night to think about it, and then another eight hours to sleep it off, he was still in denial that Miyoko would be staying at his house this weekend. Yes, yes, he knows that someone staying over was not that big of a deal, and if it was, it shouldn’t be. It was just that for as long as he’s been around he had kept his life with friends and his life with his family two completely different things. Not even his teammates have been to his house, both former and current. Well, part of that was due to paranoia that they might do something disastrous and his father would lose his mind, but the other was simply because he just preferred not to. He would rather keep everything separate.

This particular arrangement, however, was a different story altogether. First of all, it was weird because it was his father, not him, who invited Miyoko. The next thing is that she was staying for more than a few hours, she was staying for a few days. The third is that when his father was giving his reasoning as to why he was doing this when he had called Akashi last night, Bokushi had the feeling that his father still has some ulterior motive, some reasoning that he hasn’t told him yet. And that irked the redheaded boy to no end. Why was it? Why was he so frustrated about that? His hands paused mid-way between the sink and his face as he finally came up with the answer.

It was because he didn’t know.

Bokushi used to be able to know everything. He could look at the information on any given individual, narrow down the results and predict the outcome; that’s what he was known for. But his father… His father was a complete anomaly. It didn’t matter how much information Bokushi had on that man, he was an ever-changing variable. How ironic that the person he knows least about is his own father.

Because of that, Bokushi gets frustrated when he tries to figure out what his father might be thinking and fails. His father is too complex for a person to understand. The only one who ever managed to crack the code was his mother.

Perhaps this was why he had such an uneasy feeling about Miyoko coming over today. He didn’t know what his father was going to do, and so that caused an uneasy feeling of dread. Bokushi has never had this many instances where he hasn’t known something before, and he wasn’t sure if he was okay with that yet. At the moment, he didn’t know, and he hated not knowing.

He splashed water on his face three more times for good measure. Just shake it off, he told himself. This visit is about Miyoko, not father. He nodded to himself in assurance before picking up a small towel and drying his face. Surely if he focused on just Miyoko, he would be fine.

…Right?

~O~

“Are you excited for your friend to visit, Young Master?”

Once Bokushi was dressed and ready, all that was left for him to do was wait. Apparently, from what his father had told him the night before, Miyoko was to come at four, so he was to wait until then for her arrival. He was in the library for most of the morning, trying to read something to take his mind off things, but the longer he continued to read the book he was on, the more uninteresting he became. It wasn’t because of the plot, because if the book was that bad then it wouldn’t be sitting in the library in his house, but for some reason, he just wasn’t in the mood to read. This was strange because he was always in the mood to read, but his mind just wasn’t focused enough for it. It got to a point where he was skimming the words on the pages, but nothing was actually going into his head. He had sighed and closed the book, standing up from the chair to put it back where he found it and walking out of the library to find something else to do.

After a few hours of trial and error doing various activities to keep him occupied, he ended up wandering the house. Wandering the house by himself seemed to be another thing he did more often. He didn’t really have a need to do it, but sometimes he got so bored that he had to do something. He was usually never bored since before this whole ordeal of becoming his own person, he at least had lessons or extracurricular activities to keep him busy, but now his schedule had been freed up completely, it was practically nonexistent these days. It’s not like he liked having his day piled up with endless classes and other things to do on the side, but he did prefer having a schedule to follow. Now that he didn’t have a schedule anymore, he felt purposeless, just wandering through life. Sure, it was probably way less dramatic than he made it out to be, but the same feeling still applied. So when it was half-past three in the afternoon and Bokushi flopped onto the couch in the living room, he just let himself be useless for just a little while as he waited for four o'clock, staring at the small antique clock on the mantelpiece. But, as time progressed, his nerves began to work up again, because for some reason his subconscious refused to get over the fact this was going to be too awkward for words, and Bokushi became more restless. The maids, who were making sure that the living room was clean five minutes to the hour, spotted Bokushi and sat down with him to pass the remaining time that was left. The young boy glanced off to the side, putting his hands in his lap.

“I suppose…” he trailed off, not even sure what to answer anymore. He fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat, trying to ignore how close it was to four o'clock. The two maids exchanged looks with each other, both looking at Bokushi with sympathetic smiles.

“Young Master, I’m sure everything will be fine,” the younger maid told him. “There is no need to be nervous for anything.” Bokushi took in her words and grimaced.

You naïve staff members, he thought solemnly. I’m nervous for Miyoko’s sake, not mine.

He didn’t care what Miyoko thought of his house, he didn’t care if after this she would like to come back or not, he just cared what his father was planning to say to her, the types of questions he would ask, and et cetera.

He had been theorizing all day and still, he came up with nothing. Even when he had lunch with his father earlier in the afternoon, he couldn’t make out anything from the faces his father was making, because he was always wearing that impossibly neutral expression. He just hoped that his father wouldn’t do anything, what, stupid? That wasn’t the right word. Nothing his father ever did was stupid. Embarrassing perhaps? No, that wasn’t quite right either. What was that word that he heard being used from time to time? Like in those instances where Mibuchi, despite his elegant nature would accidentally trip in the hallway, or when Hayama made an exceptionally bad joke…

Ah yes. Cringey.

The thought of his father trying to be amiable to a five-year-old little girl, behaving the way other adults behave around small children, fawning over them and such, it made Bokushi cringe. Just thinking about it at times could make him tremble all over, enough for someone to mistake him for having an epileptic fit. He knew his father would never behave like that, but Bokushi still felt like he was going to show some type of weird behavior. He wondered how correct his intuitions would be.

His thoughts were interrupted when the doorbell rang. Bokushi’s eyes widened as he perked up to the sound like a vigilant animal. Oh God, she’s already here.

Wanting to make sure that his face was the first Miyoko would see when the door is opened, Bokushi had already slid off the couch and ran out of the living room before the maids could react, adamant on answering the door himself. He didn’t know why he wanted it that way, but he put that aside when he stopped in front of the door and unlocked it, twisting the door handle and pulling it towards him. As soon as the door opened, a pair of arms had already circled around his neck and a body crashed into him full force, making him stagger back a few steps. His vision was completely blocked by green, and it took his a few seconds to register the fact that this was actually Miyoko who had just virtually tackled him. The young girl giggled happily.

“Hi, Bokushi-kun!” she greeted, releasing him from her grip. “It’s been so long since I last saw you!” Bokushi quirked a brow.

“You mean five days?” He chuckled at her excitement. “It’s nice to see you. And it seems that you’ve brought a plus one.” His eyes swiveled up to the tall bespectacled teenager behind Miyoko carrying her overnight bag in one hand and a red rosary (his lucky item) in the other. “Hello, Shintarou. I was not aware that you wanted to sleep over as well. Did you miss me that much?”

“Very funny,” Midorima huffed, folding his arms. “I am simply here to drop Miyoko off, nanodayo. I am surprised your father suggested she stay over.” Bokushi paused, looking left and right to make sure he was out of earshot before leaning a bit closer.

“Believe me, I know,” he responded in a hushed tone because finally, someone was on the same page as him with this whole ordeal. “Everyone else seems to find nothing wrong with this arrangement except me. Even Seijuro-nii sided with my father. It felt like I was talking to a brick wall.”

Bokushi was silenced when they heard a distinctive set of footsteps approach the door. By the time they had reached the area they were standing, Masaomi’s figure was standing over Bokushi, eyeing the two siblings standing at the doorway.

“It seems our guest has arrived,” he said, his deep voice smooth as always. “I am Akashi Masaomi. I welcome you to our home, Miyoko. And Midorima Shintarou, it has been a while since I have last seen you.”

Midorima immediately tensed (because that was everyone’s involuntary reaction when they see Akashi’s father) but he bowed politely all the same.

“It has truly been a while, Akashi-san. I thank you for allowing my younger sister to stay for the weekend.” He nudged Miyoko lightly and she perked up, remembering her manners.

“Um, thank you for having me, Akashi-san,” she said to the man, her speech equally as polite, imitating her brother and bowing. Masaomi gave a low hum of approval as he nodded in acknowledgment.

“Of course.”

The first and last time Midorima had seen their father was at their graduation ceremony at Teiko. He had approached his family with Akashi (who he realized was really Bokushi at the time but details) following behind as both their parents exchanged names and details and discussed many occupational topics. When Midorima had to introduce himself the first time to his father, he felt an enormous sense of pressure when he looked Masaomi in the eyes that day. While neither Akashi nor Bokushi looked that much like their father, the one thing they most definitely inherited from that man was the innate ability of intimidation. Yeah, sure, he could sometimes feel tense around Akashi or Bokushi, but their father was on a whole different level. Even now, being in the vicinity of their father and greeting him like this still made the green-haired Shooting Guard feel like he couldn’t breathe. During his first encounter with their father, Bokushi had felt the need to point out with traces of amusement in his voice that when he was speaking to his father, he left out his trademark sentence ending. If he could fear for his life that much just from exchanging a simple hello, he could only imagine what was waiting inside the house for Miyoko. The more Midorima thought about Miyoko staying in the Akashi household for the whole weekend, the more he saw it as a lamb being lead to a slaughterhouse, to which he immediately took the time to silence his thoughts because Jesus Christ this was his sister he was using in this comparison and she was not going to be slaughtered. Well, at least he hoped she wasn’t.

“Oh! I almost forgot,” Miyoko says suddenly, pulling herself up from her formal bow and unzipping the overnight bag Midorima was holding before taking out a mahogany brown box. “Please accept this, Akashi-san.” For the most part, Masaomi seemed unfazed, bending down to retrieve the box from the girl’s extended arms before carefully turning the elegantly designed package in his hands, taking note of the golden characters that spelled out the name of a high-end sweets shop in the downtown area.

“It's ichigo daifuku,” she clarifies, because she seemed excited to tell him what is was. “I picked it myself.” Midorima adjusted his glasses.

“She was adamant in bringing something.” He seemed hesitant to answer as if he wasn’t sure whether their father even wanted to hear his answer, but he took it all in stride and simply nodded in understanding.

“Is that so?” Masaomi said. “I thank you for the gift.” Miyoko smiled.

“You’re welcome!”

Bokushi looked between his father and Miyoko as they exchanged words. It was weird, seeing him mellow like this. This type of behavior is what he’d expect his father to put on for potential business partners. The fake smiles and honey-laced words were merely tools that people in the business world such as his father use to their advantage to make others follow him. They would seem nice and friendly when you first encounter them, but behind closed doors, they could be the coldest person in the world. Bokushi, in a sense, used to be like that, but now that part of him has been almost completely dulled. But for someone like his father to be like this towards a child, it felt so uncomfortable and he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps because this one time, he probably wasn’t faking it.

Masaomi finally stepped aside and gestured into the house.

“You should both come in,” he said. “It would be discourteous of me to let you stand outside for so long.” Midorima suddenly twitches, not enough for anyone to really notice, but Bokushi most definitely saw it.

“Ah, I was only here to drop Miyoko off,” he says quickly. “I couldn’t possibly intrude.”

When one is offered something, it was common courtesy to politely refuse the first time, but Bokushi was beginning to think that Midorima was refusing because he didn’t actually want to come in. He wouldn’t blame him, his father could be quite intimidating at times, even if it was unintentional. He watched as his father continued to look over at Midorima, his face unchanged as he insisted once more.

“Do come in, Midorima-kun,” he said to him. “For the trouble of bringing your younger sister here, it would only be fair to offer you tea.”

“Yeah, come inside the house, onii-chan!” Miyoko chimed, grabbing a hold of his hand and trying to pull him towards the entrance. “You could talk with Akashi-san!” Now Midorima had more visibly twitched at the notion of having a conversation with Bokushi’s father, and Bokushi was beginning to think that psychologists everywhere should start adding ‘Akashi Masaomi’ to the official list of phobias.

“W-Well…” Midorima took his glasses off and began to clean them with a cloth that he took out of his pocket. If Bokushi still knew Midorima’s quirks like he used to, then his glasses didn’t really need to be cleaned. He was cleaning them to buy time; and with that time, he would weigh out the options in his head. Slowly… Carefully… Then, he put the cloth back in his pocket and slid the glasses back on his face before answering.

“I suppose…” Midorima paused, trying to make sure he could convey his thoughts properly before continuing. “I have a bit of time before I should be home. Thank you, I will accept your invitation.” He bowed his head towards the older gentleman, looking up at him afterward to ensure he had said the correct thing. Masaomi was smiling, but not in a kind-hearted way, necessarily, but it was one of those smiles that one would make when a certain event would turn out exactly how they predicted. Midorima has seen that smile many times before when Akashi or Bokushi would beat him in a game of shogi and sit there with that smile on their face that said: ‘I knew it would turn out this way’.

How infuriating…

“Excellent,” said Masaomi. “Bokushi, please go and take Miyoko’s things up to your room. Midorima-kun, if you would please come in, we can go to the living room and talk.” Midorima took in a sharp inhale and nodded once.

“Of course, Akashi-san.”

As Masaomi began to turn around and go back into the house, Bokushi went over to Midorima and reached his hand out, taking Miyoko’s bag from him but patted the Shooting Guard on the arm as if to give his sympathies.

“It’s fine, Shintarou, he won’t bite,” he said. “Also, stop holding that rosary so tightly as if it’s going to help you. You’re not even Catholic.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, nanodayo. When faced with a situation like this, I’ll seek help from whatever god is out there,” he muttered under his breath. “Anyway, you better hurry taking her things upstairs. I refuse to be left alone here, nanodayo.”

“I make no promises. Enjoy your tea, Shintarou.” Bokushi walked ahead, joining Miyoko who had already started going up the stairs, leaving Midorima to reluctantly follow his father as a maid finally shut the front door.

[tig-donovan-blog]

On Grace and Beauty and Not-Those, Also

I spent yesterday morning reading interviews with Jenny Zhang.

My writing courage was decimated earlier this week, which is okay. That made it a normal day in the write life. It happened because I finished The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro, a book that I neither thought was structurally satisfying nor whose style I necessarily liked overall, but whose last 20 pages absolutely decimated me. It made me remember the kind of thing I want to do, and have no idea how to do, as a writer. Those are good feelings. They give the impression of a sudden springboard, a new starting-off point. I like moments like those.

But I never know how to start again after a reckoning like that. Reading other writers talk about writing pulls me out of that lack of confidence. Jenny Zhang talks a lot about subverting certain narrative structures: omitting the conflation of progression with growth, among others. I’m putting words in her mouth. Here is what she actually says:

I’m writing against oversimplification, I’m writing against crude stereotypes…. I’m not interested in perfect villains and perfect victims. I didn’t want my characters to have to be “good” immigrants in order to be worthy of having their stories told. Their stories cannot be reduced to: we came, we suffered, we persevered. In these stories, the American dream, if achieved at all, is achieved at great cost, only after immense casualties. There are entire stories that can be told in the humble interstices of the more well-known stories about immigrants and young girls. The English canon is full of vile protagonists, narcissists, con-men, despicable anti-heroes, but once we turn the gaze to what is considered “ethnic” literature or “immigrant” literature, we are less willing to be challenged. I wanted these stories to be truthful about the misery of immigrating and starting over, but I also wanted these stories to be plump with humor, adventure, and daring. Some of these characters are too confident to be lost to a singular narrative of victimhood. Other characters are too overflowing with familial love to be purely pitied. Some of these characters victimize others but are too young to be fully held accountable; nonetheless, they commit acts that are too heinous to be forgivable. It’s easy to root for the helpless and the wretched, but in real life, we aren’t cleanly divided into good vs. bad, giving vs. needy. Everyone is flawed, but some of us are punished lethally for it, and others get away with it ad infinitum. The characters in these stories pay dearly for their missteps, but they are also afforded opportunities. I wanted to create narratives that resist crass moralizing and instead demand to be engaged on a more difficult, nuanced level. [x]

Wow. That really gets to the heart of what writing is for me—to tell stories that are complicated, about complicated people, that deal with the notions of justice and mercy but don’t necessarily fall on an easy judgment.

It also gets to the heart of what leads me to peel away a little bit from certain reader-oriented spaces, where I carry a perception, either real or imagined, that there is a fairly large contingent of readers who are sometimes less or altogether not interested in complicated characters or characterizations. They prefer a world where justice and mercy are upheld as paramount—and this is completely fine. Sometimes these transformative values are the point of a story or of its interpretation. Stories are and often should be transformative; it can bring discord, discomfort, discriminations and traumas to a resolving chord, to something that does not hurt so much.

I feel myself, in my writing, both writing dissatisfactory situations and the flawed characters in them and trying to bring them solace, unsure how to do both. When characters try to reckon with the complicated nature of themselves and their pasts, when they fight for peace whether they “deserve” it (objectively or subjectively) or not… these are two concerns that don’t fit so neatly together, and often the outcome of my stories balance dissatisfaction and catharsis in a way that makes even me feel unresolved. In trying to balance two concerns, I worry I do neither satisfactorily. Sometimes a reader floats by who makes it clear that my writing is not what they wanted to read. This is okay! I am aware that my writing is not everyone’s cup of tea. God knows my taste is sometimes excruciatingly narrow. I believe in a freedom to read and freedom to abandon. Writing can be experimental, and sometimes experiments fail. That reality is as value-neutral as abandoning a story because it doesn’t do what you’d hoped or expected it to.

Sometimes, though, I reread some of my old stuff and realize I’ve been trying to do the same thing over and over and over, and I realize I’m obsessed with this balancing of the vulgarity of life with hope about its future. I look at characters who are hard and who are four-alarm fires and indecipherable scribbles of emotion who are actively fusing TNT to the piles of bridges in preparation to destruct their whole lives in pursuit of whatever truth they’re trying to find, and I think, exactly. I want the best for them, but God, I love their flaws. Sometimes a character’s journey is fraught; people’s journeys are fraught. Sometimes these bonfire people scream and fuck up someone else’s life and have to try to piece together what happened later, whether they’re gonna try to redeem themselves for it or not. They’re just trying to get to the next place where they can stop for a second and peer a little bit ahead and try to find the next platform to climb to, and that is both the exact story I’m trying to tell and the same story that leaves an unsatisfied feeling in my life when not everything about their journey gets resolved.

Jenny Zhang, again:

I think grace is something you had to work for, something you had to labor and learn, and practice. And I thought beauty was something inherited. [x]

I think the thing I am trying to put into words is the grace of ugly journeys. Sometimes the people on them are ugly as hell, too. Sometimes they fuck up and do horrible things along the way. I’m not writing about bad people; I’m just writing about people, sometimes quite good people, who sometimes do bad or ugly things. I think there can be grace in that, even when there’s no fucking beauty.

But sometimes there’s beauty, too. Sometimes it’s a matter of finding beauty in the ashes, between those scribbling lines. I make that finding my business. Sometimes it takes a while for my characters to find it, too. I have very little desire to write about things with no redemptive features; there are enough things like that. But sometimes the balance looks bad on the face of it. Sometimes it does not look beautiful, or good, or easy to understand. The thing that frustrates me is when I, when my work, is not given enough of a chance to explain.

I think of The Buried Giant, which confused me for 315 pages until the last 20 made me understand, and hope to be afforded, much of the time, at least that much trust. Unfortunately for me but fortunately for readers, that is not my prerogative. Readers are free to curate and adore and abandon whatever they want. I am also not convinced I’m good enough yet at the kind of balance that deserves to be given a chance. I have to make the payoff worth it; I struggle with the values of this. I have to tell a story actually worth the cost of the journey. I’m still learning, often imperfectly. Some experiments fail. They must. I have to make peace with that, too.

It has to become okay to me if, even when I succeed at what I’m trying to do, the way I try to balance these concerns isn’t people’s cup of tea. I think I’m starting to find gratitude for the people who show frustration with, or misunderstanding of or lack of resonance with, what I write about. It says that I am, in part, succeeding at telling a complicated story, at trying to sell a journey that is not always generous to the people who are on it. This is good feedback, too. These words can afford grace, even if ugly.

A Kazuo Ishiguro quote often occurs to me: “Stories are about one person saying to another: This is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I’m saying? Does it also feel this way to you?” [x]

This is how humanity feels to me. Does it also feel this way to you? I hope, some of the time, it does. I hope to become better at telling the kind of story that feels real enough to say yes about.

[endenogatai]

What we learned from Facebook’s latest data misuse grilling

Facebook’s CTO Mike Schroepfer has just undergone almost five hours of often forensic and frequently awkward questions from members of a UK parliament committee that’s investigating online disinformation, and whose members have been further fired up by misinformation they claim Facebook gave it.

The veteran senior exec, who’s clocked up a decade at the company, also as its VP of engineering, is the latest stand-in for CEO Mark Zuckerberg who keeps eschewing repeat requests to appear.

The DCMS committee’s enquiry began last year as a probe into ‘fake news’ but has snowballed in scope as the scale of concern around political disinformation has also mounted — including, most recently, fresh information being exposed by journalists about the scale of the misuse of Facebook data for political targeting purposes.

During today’s session committee chair Damian Collins again made a direct appeal for Zuckerberg to testify, pausing the flow of questions momentarily to cite news reports suggesting the Facebook founder has agreed to fly to Brussels to testify before European Union lawmakers in relation to the Cambridge Analytica Facebook data misuse scandal.

“We’ll certainly be renewing our request for him to give evidence,” said Collins. “We still do need the opportunity to put some of these questions to him.”

Committee members displayed visible outrage during the session, accusing Facebook of concealing the truth or at very least concealing evidence from it at a prior hearing that took place in Washington in February — when the company sent its UK head of policy, Simon Milner, and its head of global policy management, Monika Bickert, to field questions.

During questioning Milner and Bickert failed to inform the committee about a legal agreement Facebook had made with Cambridge Analytica in December 2015 — after the company had learned (via an earlier Guardian article) that Facebook user data had been passed to the company by the developer of an app running on its platform.

Milner also told the committee that Cambridge Analytica could not have any Facebook data — yet last month the company admitted data on up to 87 million of its users had indeed been passed to the firm.

Schroepfer said he wasn’t sure whether Milner had been “specifically informed” about the agreement Facebook already had with Cambridge Analytica — adding: “I’m guessing he didn’t know”. He also claimed he had only himself become aware of it “within the last month”.

“Who knows? Who knows about what the position was with Cambridge Analytica in February of this year? Who was in charge of this?” pressed one committee member.

“I don’t know all of the names of the people who knew that specific information at the time,” responded Schroepfer.

“We are a parliamentary committee. We went to Washington for evidence and we raised the issue of Cambridge Analytica. And Facebook concealed evidence to us as an organization on that day. Isn’t that the truth?” rejoined the committee member, pushing past Schroepfer’s claim to be “doing my best” to provide it with information.

A pattern of evasive behavior

“You are doing your best but the buck doesn’t stop with you does it? Where does the buck stop?”

“It stops with Mark,” replied Schroepfer — leading to a quick fire exchange where he was pressed about (and avoided answering) what Zuckerberg knew and why the Facebook founder wouldn’t come and answer the committee’s questions himself.

“What we want is the truth. We didn’t get the truth in February… Mr Schroepfer I remain to be convinced that your company has integrity,” was the pointed conclusion after a lengthy exchange on this.

“What’s been frustrating for us in this enquiry is a pattern of behavior from the company — an unwillingness to engage, and a desire to hold onto information and not disclose it,” said Collins, returning to the theme at another stage of the hearing — and also accusing Facebook of not providing it with “straight answers” in Washington.

“We wouldn’t be having this discussion now if this information hadn’t been brought into the light by investigative journalists,” he continued. “And Facebook even tried to stop that happening as well [referring to a threat by the company to sue the Guardian ahead of publication of its Cambridge Analytica exposé]… It’s a pattern of behavior, of seeking to pretend this isn’t happening.”

The committee expressed further dissatisfaction with Facebook immediately following the session, emphasizing that Schroepfer had “failed to answer fully on nearly 40 separate points”.

“Mr Schroepfer, Mark Zuckerberg’s right hand man whom we were assured could represent his views, today failed to answer many specific and detailed questions about Facebook’s business practices,” said Collins in a statement after the hearing.

“We will be asking him to respond in writing to the committee on these points; however, we are mindful that it took a global reputational crisis and three months for the company to follow up on questions we put to them in Washington D.C. on February 8. 

“We believe that, given the large number of outstanding questions for Facebook to answer, Mark Zuckerberg should still appear in front of the Committee… and will request that he appears in front of the DCMS Committee before the May 24.”

We reached out to Facebook for comment — but at the time of writing the company had not responded.

Palantir’s data use under review

Schroepfer was questioned on a wide range of topics during today’s session. And while he was fuzzy on many details, giving lots of partial answers and promises to “follow up”, one thing he did confirm was that Facebook board member Peter Thiel’s secretive big data analytics firm, Palantir, is one of the companies Facebook is investigating as part of a historical audit of app developers’ use of its platform.

Have there ever been concerns raised about Palantir’s activity, and about whether it has gained improper access to Facebook user data, asked Collins.

“I think we are looking at lots of different things now. Many people have raised that concern — and since it’s in the public discourse it’s obviously something we’re looking into,” said Schroepfer.

“But it’s part of the review work that Facebook’s doing?” pressed Collins.

“Correct,” he responded.

The historical app audit was announced in the wake of last month’s revelations about how much Facebook data Cambridge Analytica was given by app developer (and Cambridge University academic), Dr Aleksandr Kogan — in what the company couched as a “breach of trust”.

However Kogan, who testified to the committee earlier this week, argues he was just using Facebook’s platform as it was architected and intended to be used — going so far as to claim its developer terms are “not legally valid”. (“For you to break a policy it has to exist. And really be their policy, The reality is Facebook’s policy is unlikely to be their policy,” was Kogan’s construction, earning him a quip from a committee member that he “should be a professor of semantics”.)

Schroepfer said he disagreed with Kogan’s assessment that Facebook didn’t have a policy, saying the goal of the platform has been to foster social experiences — and that “those same tools, because they’re easy and great for the consumer, can go wrong”. So he did at least indirectly confirm Kogan’s general point that Facebook’s developer and user terms are at loggerheads.

“This is why we have gone through several iterations of the platform — where we have effectively locked down parts of the platform,” continued Schroepfer. “Which increases friction and makes it less easy for the consumer to use these things but does safeguard that data more. And been a lot more proactive in the review and enforcement of these things. So this wasn’t a lack of care… but I’ll tell you that our primary product is designed to help people share safety with a limited audience.

“If you want to say it to the world you can publish it on a blog or on Twitter. If you want to share it with your friends only, that’s the primary thing Facebook does. We violate that trust — and that data goes somewhere else — we’re sort of violating the core principles of our product. And that’s a big problem. And this is why I wanted to come to you personally today to talk about this because this is a serious issue.”

“You’re not just a neutral platform — you are players”

The same committee member, Paul Farrelly, who earlier pressed Kogan about why he hadn’t bothered to find out which political candidates stood to be the beneficiary of his data harvesting and processing activities for Cambridge Analytica, put it to Schroepfer that Facebook’s own actions in how it manages its business activities — and specifically because it embeds its own staff with political campaigns to help them use its tools — amounts to the company being “Dr Kogan writ large”.

“You’re not just a neutral platform — you are players,” said Farrelly.

“The clear thing is we don’t have an opinion on the outcome of these elections. That is not what we are trying to do. We are trying to offer services to any customer of ours who would like to know how to use our products better,” Schroepfer responded. “We have never turned away a political party because we didn’t want to help them win an election.

“We believe in strong open political discourse and what we’re trying to do is make sure that people can get their messages across.”

However in another exchange the Facebook exec appeared not to be aware of a basic tenet of UK election law — which prohibits campaign spending by foreign entities.

“How many UK Facebook users and Instagram users were contacted in the UK referendum by foreign, non-UK entities?” asked committee member Julie Elliott.

“We would have to understand and do the analysis of who — of all the ads run in that campaign — where is the location, the source of all of the different advertisers,” said Schroepfer, tailing off with a “so…” and without providing a figure. 

“But do you have that information?” pressed Elliott.

“I don’t have it on the top of my head. I can see if we can get you some more of it,” he responded.

“Our elections are very heavily regulated, and income or monies from other countries can’t be spent in our elections in any way shape or form,” she continued. “So I would have thought that you would have that information. Because your company will be aware of what our electoral law is.”

“Again I don’t have that information on me,” Schroepfer said — repeating the line that Facebook would “follow up with the relevant information”.

The Facebook CTO was also asked if the company could provide it with an archive of adverts that were run on its platform around the time of the Brexit referendum by Aggregate IQ — a Canadian data company that’s been linked to Cambridge Analytica/SCL, and which received £3.5M from leave campaign groups in the run up to the 2016 referendum (and has also been described by leave campaigners as instrumental to securing their win). It’s also under joint investigation by Canadian data watchdogs, along with Facebook.

In written evidence provided to the committee today Facebook says it has been helping ongoing investigations into “the Cambridge Analytica issue” that are being undertaken by the UK’s Electoral Commission and its data protection watchdog, the ICO. Here it writes that its records show AIQ spent “approximately $2M USD on ads from pages that appear to be associated with the 2016 Referendum”.

Schroepfer’s responses on several requests by the committee for historical samples of the referendum ads AIQ had run amounted to ‘we’ll see what we can do’ — with the exec cautioning that he wasn’t entirely sure how much data might have been retained.

“I think specifically in Aggregate IQ and Cambridge Analytica related to the UK referendum I believe we are producing more extensive information for both the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner,” he said at one point, adding it would also provide the committee with the same information if it’s legally able to. “I think we are trying to do — give them all the data we have on the ads and what they spent and what they’re like.”

Collins asked what would happen if an organization or an individual had used a Facebook ad account to target dark ads during the referendum and then taken down the page as soon as the campaign was over. “How would you be able to identify that activity had ever taken place?” he asked.

“I do believe, uh, we have — I would have to confirm, but there is a possibility that we have a separate system — a log of the ads that were run,” said Schroepfer, displaying some of the fuzziness that irritated the committee. “I know we would have the page itself if the page was still active. If they’d run prior campaigns and deleted the page we may retain some information about those ads — I don’t know the specifics, for example how detailed that information is, and how long retention is for that particular set of data.”

Dark ads a “major threat to democracy”

Collins pointed out that a big part of UK (and indeed US) election law relates to “declaration of spent”, before making the conjoined point that if someone is “hiding that spend” — i.e. by placing dark ads that only the recipient sees, and which can be taken offline immediately after the campaign — it smells like a major risk to the democratic process.

“If no one’s got the ability to audit that, that is a major threat to democracy,” warned Collins. “And would be a license for a major breach of election law.”

“Okay,” responded Schroepfer as if the risk had never crossed his mind before. “We can come back on the details on that.”

On the wider app audit that Facebook has committed to carrying out in the wake of the scandal, Schroepfer was also asked how it can audit apps or entities that are no longer on the platform — and he admitted this is “a challenge” and said Facebook won’t have “perfect information or detail”.

“This is going to be a challenge again because we’re dealing with historic events so we’re not going to have perfect information or detail on any of these things,” he said. “I think where we start is — it very well may be that this company is defunct but we can look at how they used the platform. Maybe there’s two people who used the app and they asked for relatively innocuous data — so the chance that that is a big issue is a lot lower than an app that was widely in circulation. So I think we can at least look at that sort of information. And try to chase down the trail.

“If we have concerns about it even if the company is defunct it’s possible we can find former employees of the company who might have more information about it. This starts with trying to identify where the issues might be and then run the trail down as much as we can. As you highlight, though, there are going to be limits to what we can find. But our goal is to understand this as best as we can.”

The committee also wanted to know if Facebook had set a deadline for completing the audit — but Schroepfer would only say it’s going “as fast as we can”.

He claimed Facebook is sharing “a tremendous amount of information” with the UK’s data protection watchdog — as it continues its (now) year-long investigation into the use of digital data for political purposes.

“I would guess we’re sharing information on this too,” he said in reference to app audit data. “I know that I personally shared a bunch of details on a variety of things we’re doing. And same with the Electoral Commission [which is investigating whether use of digital data and social media platforms broke campaign spending rules].”

In Schroepfer’s written evidence to the committee Facebook says it has unearthed some suggestive links between Cambridge Analytica/SCL and Aggegrate IQ: “In the course of our ongoing review, we also found certain billing and administration connections between SCL/Cambridge Analytica and AIQ”, it notes.

Both entities continue to deny any link exists between them, claiming they are entirely separate entities — though the former Cambridge Analytica employee turned whistleblower, Chris Wylie, has described AIQ as essentially the Canadian arm of SCL.

“The collaboration we saw was some billing and administrative contacts between the two of them, so you’d see similar people show up in each of the accounts,” said Schroepfer, when asked for more detail about what it had found, before declining to say anything else in a public setting on account of ongoing investigations — despite the committee pointing out other witnesses it has heard from have not held back on that front.

Another piece of information Facebook has included in the written evidence is the claim that it does not believe AIQ used Facebook data obtained via Kogan’s apps for targeting referendum ads — saying it used email address uploads for “many” of its ad campaigns during the referendum.

“The data gathered through the TIYDL [Kogan’s thisisyourdigitallife] app did not include the email addresses of app installers or their friends. This means that AIQ could not have obtained these email addresses from the data TIYDL gathered from Facebook,” Facebook asserts. 

Schroepfer was questioned on this during the session and said that while there was some overlap in terms of individuals who had downloaded Kogan’s app and who had been in the audiences targeted by AIQ this was only 3-4% — which he claimed was statistically insignificant, based on comparing with other Facebook apps of similar popularity to Kogan’s.

“AIQ must have obtained these email addresses for British voters targeted in these campaigns from a different source,” is the company’s conclusion.

“We are investigating Mr Chancellor’s role right now”

The committee also asked several questions about Joseph Chancellor, the co-director of Kogan’s app company, GSR, who became an employee of Facebook in 2015 after he had left GSR. Its questions included what Chancellor’s exact role at Facebook is and why Kogan has been heavily criticized by the company yet his GSR co-director apparently remains gainfully employed by it.

Schroepfer initially claimed Facebook hadn’t known Chancellor was a director of GSR prior to employing him, in November 2015 — saying it had only become aware of that specific piece of his employment history in 2017.

But after a break in the hearing he ‘clarified’ this answer — adding: “In the recruiting process, people hiring him probably saw a CV and may have known he was part of GSR. Had someone known that — had we connected all the dots to when this thing happened with Mr Kogan, later on had he been mentioned in the documents that we signed with the Kogan party — no. Is it possible that someone knew about this and the right other people in the organization didn’t know about it, that is possible.”

A committee member then pressed him further. “We have evidence that shows that Facebook knew in November 2016 that Joseph Chancellor had formed the company, GSR, with Aleksandr Kogan which obviously then went on to provide the information to Cambridge Analytica. I’m very unclear as to why Facebook have taken such a very direct and critical line… with Kogan but have completely ignored Joseph Chancellor.”

At that point Schroepfer revealed Facebook is currently investigating Chancellor as a result of the data scandal.

“I understand your concern. We are investigating Mr Chancellor’s role right now,” he said. “There’s an employment investigation going on right now.

In terms of the work Chancellor is doing for Facebook, Schroepfer said he thought he had worked on VR for the company — but emphasized he has not been involved with “the platform”.

The issue of the NDA Kogan claimed Facebook had made him sign also came up. But Schroepfer counter claimed that this was not an NDA but just a “standard confidentiality clause” in the agreement to certify Kogan had deleted the Facebook data and its derivatives.

“We want him to be able to be open. We’re waiving any confidentiality there if that’s not clear from a legal standpoint,” he said later, clarifying it does not consider Kogan legally gagged.

Schroepfer also confirmed this agreement was signed with Kogan in June 2016, and said the “core commitments” were to confirm the deletion of data from himself and three others Kogan had passed it to: Former Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix; Wylie, for a company he had set up after leaving Cambridge Analytica; and Dr Michael Inzlicht from the Toronto Laboratory for Social Neuroscience (Kogan mentioned to the committee earlier this week he had also passed some of the Facebook data to a fellow academic in Canada).

Asked whether any payments had been made between Facebook and Kogan as part of the contract, Schroepfer said: “I believe there was no payment involved in this at all.”

‘Radical’ transparency is its fix for regulation

Other issues raised by the committee included why Facebook does not provide an overall control or opt-out for political advertising; why it does not offer a separate feed for ads but chooses to embed them into the Newsfeed; how and why it gathers data on non-users; the addictiveness engineered into its product; what it does about fake accounts; why it hasn’t recruited more humans to help with the “challenges” of managing content on a platform that’s scaled so large; and aspects of its approach to GDPR compliance.

On the latter, Schroepfer was queried specifically on why Facebook had decided to shift the data controller of ~1.5BN non-EU international users from Ireland to the US. On this he claimed the GDPR’s stipulation that there be a “lead regulator” conflicts with Facebook’s desire to be more responsive to local concerns in its non-EU international markets.

“US law does not have a notion of a lead regulator so the US does not become the lead regulator — it opens up the opportunity for us to have local markets have them, regions, be the lead and final regulator for the users in that area,” he claimed.

Asked whether he thinks the time has come for “robust regulation and empowerment of consumers over their information”, Schroepfer demurred that new regulation is needed to control data flowing over consumer platforms. “Whether, through regulation or not, making sure consumers have visibility, control and can access and take their information with you, I agree 100%,” he said, agreeing only to further self-regulation not to the need for new laws.

“In terms of regulation there are multiple laws and regulatory bodies that we are under the guise of right now. Obviously the GDPR is coming into effect just next month. We have been regulated in Europe by the Irish DPC whose done extensive audits of our systems over multiple years. In the US we’re regulated by the FTC, Privacy Commissioner in Canada and others. So I think the question isn’t ‘if’, the question is honestly how do we ensure the regulations and the practices achieve the goals you want. Which is consumers have safety, they have transparency, they understand how this stuff works, and they have control.

“And the details of implementing that is where all the really hard work is.”

His stock response to the committee’s concerns about divisive political ads was that Facebook believes “radical transparency” is the fix — also dropping one tidbit of extra news on that front in his written testimony by saying Facebook will roll out an authentication process for political advertisers in the UK in time for the local elections in May 2019.

Ads will also be required to be labeled as “political” and disclose who paid for the ad. And there will be a searchable archive — available for seven years — which will include the ads themselves plus some associated data (such as how many times an ad may have been seen, how much money was spent, and the kinds of people who saw it).

Collins asked Schroepfer whether Facebook’s ad transparency measures will also include “targeting data” — i.e. “will I understand not just who the advertiser was and what other adverts they’d run but why they’d chose to advertise to me”?

“I believe among the things you’ll see is spend (how much was spent on this ad); you will see who they were trying to advertise to (what is the audience they were trying to reach); and I believe you will also be able to see some basic information on how much it was viewed,” Schroepfer replied — avoiding yet another straight answer.

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[abckidstvyara]

What we learned from Facebook’s latest data misuse grilling

What we learned from Facebook’s latest data misuse grilling

Facebook’s CTO Mike Schroepfer has just undergone almost five hours of often forensic and frequently awkward questions from members of a UK parliament committee that’s investigating online disinformation, and whose members have been further fired up by misinformation they claim Facebook gave it.

The veteran senior exec, who’s clocked up a decade at the company, also as its VP of engineering, is the latest stand-in for CEO Mark Zuckerberg who keeps eschewing repeat requests to appear.

The DCMS committee’s enquiry began last year as a probe into ‘fake news’ but has snowballed in scope as the scale of concern around political disinformation has also mounted — including, most recently, fresh information being exposed by journalists about the scale of the misuse of Facebook data for political targeting purposes.

During today’s session committee chair Damian Collins again made a direct appeal for Zuckerberg to testify, pausing the flow of questions momentarily to cite news reports suggesting the Facebook founder has agreed to fly to Brussels to testify before European Union lawmakers in relation to the Cambridge Analytica Facebook data misuse scandal.

“We’ll certainly be renewing our request for him to give evidence,” said Collins. “We still do need the opportunity to put some of these questions to him.”

Committee members displayed visible outrage during the session, accusing Facebook of concealing the truth or at very least concealing evidence from it at a prior hearing that took place in Washington in February — when the company sent its UK head of policy, Simon Milner, and its head of global policy management, Monika Bickert, to field questions.

During questioning Milner and Bickert failed to inform the committee about a legal agreement Facebook had made with Cambridge Analytica in December 2015 — after the company had learned (via an earlier Guardian article) that Facebook user data had been passed to the company by the developer of an app running on its platform.

Milner also told the committee that Cambridge Analytica could not have any Facebook data — yet last month the company admitted data on up to 87 million of its users had indeed been passed to the firm.

Schroepfer said he wasn’t sure whether Milner had been “specifically informed” about the agreement Facebook already had with Cambridge Analytica — adding: “I’m guessing he didn’t know”. He also claimed he had only himself become aware of it “within the last month”.

“Who knows? Who knows about what the position was with Cambridge Analytica in February of this year? Who was in charge of this?” pressed one committee member.

“I don’t know all of the names of the people who knew that specific information at the time,” responded Schroepfer.

“We are a parliamentary committee. We went to Washington for evidence and we raised the issue of Cambridge Analytica. And Facebook concealed evidence to us as an organization on that day. Isn’t that the truth?” rejoined the committee member, pushing past Schroepfer’s claim to be “doing my best” to provide it with information.

A pattern of evasive behavior

“You are doing your best but the buck doesn’t stop with you does it? Where does the buck stop?”

“It stops with Mark,” replied Schroepfer — leading to a quick fire exchange where he was pressed about (and avoided answering) what Zuckerberg knew and why the Facebook founder wouldn’t come and answer the committee’s questions himself.

“What we want is the truth. We didn’t get the truth in February… Mr Schroepfer I remain to be convinced that your company has integrity,” was the pointed conclusion after a lengthy exchange on this.

“What’s been frustrating for us in this enquiry is a pattern of behavior from the company — an unwillingness to engage, and a desire to hold onto information and not disclose it,” said Collins, returning to the theme at another stage of the hearing — and also accusing Facebook of not providing it with “straight answers” in Washington.

“We wouldn’t be having this discussion now if this information hadn’t been brought into the light by investigative journalists,” he continued. “And Facebook even tried to stop that happening as well [referring to a threat by the company to sue the Guardian ahead of publication of its Cambridge Analytica exposé]… It’s a pattern of behavior, of seeking to pretend this isn’t happening.”

The committee expressed further dissatisfaction with Facebook immediately following the session, emphasizing that Schroepfer had “failed to answer fully on nearly 40 separate points”.

“Mr Schroepfer, Mark Zuckerberg’s right hand man whom we were assured could represent his views, today failed to answer many specific and detailed questions about Facebook’s business practices,” said Collins in a statement after the hearing.

“We will be asking him to respond in writing to the committee on these points; however, we are mindful that it took a global reputational crisis and three months for the company to follow up on questions we put to them in Washington D.C. on February 8. 

“We believe that, given the large number of outstanding questions for Facebook to answer, Mark Zuckerberg should still appear in front of the Committee… and will request that he appears in front of the DCMS Committee before the May 24.”

We reached out to Facebook for comment — but at the time of writing the company had not responded.

Palantir’s data use under review

Schroepfer was questioned on a wide range of topics during today’s session. And while he was fuzzy on many details, giving lots of partial answers and promises to “follow up”, one thing he did confirm was that Facebook board member Peter Thiel’s secretive big data analytics firm, Palantir, is one of the companies Facebook is investigating as part of a historical audit of app developers’ use of its platform.

Have there ever been concerns raised about Palantir’s activity, and about whether it has gained improper access to Facebook user data, asked Collins.

“I think we are looking at lots of different things now. Many people have raised that concern — and since it’s in the public discourse it’s obviously something we’re looking into,” said Schroepfer.

“But it’s part of the review work that Facebook’s doing?” pressed Collins.

“Correct,” he responded.

The historical app audit was announced in the wake of last month’s revelations about how much Facebook data Cambridge Analytica was given by app developer (and Cambridge University academic), Dr Aleksandr Kogan — in what the company couched as a “breach of trust”.

However Kogan, who testified to the committee earlier this week, argues he was just using Facebook’s platform as it was architected and intended to be used — going so far as to claim its developer terms are “not legally valid”. (“For you to break a policy it has to exist. And really be their policy, The reality is Facebook’s policy is unlikely to be their policy,” was Kogan’s construction, earning him a quip from a committee member that he “should be a professor of semantics”.)

Schroepfer said he disagreed with Kogan’s assessment that Facebook didn’t have a policy, saying the goal of the platform has been to foster social experiences — and that “those same tools, because they’re easy and great for the consumer, can go wrong”. So he did at least indirectly confirm Kogan’s general point that Facebook’s developer and user terms are at loggerheads.

“This is why we have gone through several iterations of the platform — where we have effectively locked down parts of the platform,” continued Schroepfer. “Which increases friction and makes it less easy for the consumer to use these things but does safeguard that data more. And been a lot more proactive in the review and enforcement of these things. So this wasn’t a lack of care… but I’ll tell you that our primary product is designed to help people share safety with a limited audience.

“If you want to say it to the world you can publish it on a blog or on Twitter. If you want to share it with your friends only, that’s the primary thing Facebook does. We violate that trust — and that data goes somewhere else — we’re sort of violating the core principles of our product. And that’s a big problem. And this is why I wanted to come to you personally today to talk about this because this is a serious issue.”

“You’re not just a neutral platform — you are players”

The same committee member, Paul Farrelly, who earlier pressed Kogan about why he hadn’t bothered to find out which political candidates stood to be the beneficiary of his data harvesting and processing activities for Cambridge Analytica, put it to Schroepfer that Facebook’s own actions in how it manages its business activities — and specifically because it embeds its own staff with political campaigns to help them use its tools — amounts to the company being “Dr Kogan writ large”.

“You’re not just a neutral platform — you are players,” said Farrelly.

“The clear thing is we don’t have an opinion on the outcome of these elections. That is not what we are trying to do. We are trying to offer services to any customer of ours who would like to know how to use our products better,” Schroepfer responded. “We have never turned away a political party because we didn’t want to help them win an election.

“We believe in strong open political discourse and what we’re trying to do is make sure that people can get their messages across.”

However in another exchange the Facebook exec appeared not to be aware of a basic tenet of UK election law — which prohibits campaign spending by foreign entities.

“How many UK Facebook users and Instagram users were contacted in the UK referendum by foreign, non-UK entities?” asked committee member Julie Elliott.

“We would have to understand and do the analysis of who — of all the ads run in that campaign — where is the location, the source of all of the different advertisers,” said Schroepfer, tailing off with a “so…” and without providing a figure. 

“But do you have that information?” pressed Elliott.

“I don’t have it on the top of my head. I can see if we can get you some more of it,” he responded.

“Our elections are very heavily regulated, and income or monies from other countries can’t be spent in our elections in any way shape or form,” she continued. “So I would have thought that you would have that information. Because your company will be aware of what our electoral law is.”

“Again I don’t have that information on me,” Schroepfer said — repeating the line that Facebook would “follow up with the relevant information”.

The Facebook CTO was also asked if the company could provide it with an archive of adverts that were run on its platform around the time of the Brexit referendum by Aggregate IQ — a Canadian data company that’s been linked to Cambridge Analytica/SCL, and which received £3.5M from leave campaign groups in the run up to the 2016 referendum (and has also been described by leave campaigners as instrumental to securing their win). It’s also under joint investigation by Canadian data watchdogs, along with Facebook.

In written evidence provided to the committee today Facebook says it has been helping ongoing investigations into “the Cambridge Analytica issue” that are being undertaken by the UK’s Electoral Commission and its data protection watchdog, the ICO. Here it writes that its records show AIQ spent “approximately $2M USD on ads from pages that appear to be associated with the 2016 Referendum”.

Schroepfer’s responses on several requests by the committee for historical samples of the referendum ads AIQ had run amounted to ‘we’ll see what we can do’ — with the exec cautioning that he wasn’t entirely sure how much data might have been retained.

“I think specifically in Aggregate IQ and Cambridge Analytica related to the UK referendum I believe we are producing more extensive information for both the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner,” he said at one point, adding it would also provide the committee with the same information if it’s legally able to. “I think we are trying to do — give them all the data we have on the ads and what they spent and what they’re like.”

Collins asked what would happen if an organization or an individual had used a Facebook ad account to target dark ads during the referendum and then taken down the page as soon as the campaign was over. “How would you be able to identify that activity had ever taken place?” he asked.

“I do believe, uh, we have — I would have to confirm, but there is a possibility that we have a separate system — a log of the ads that were run,” said Schroepfer, displaying some of the fuzziness that irritated the committee. “I know we would have the page itself if the page was still active. If they’d run prior campaigns and deleted the page we may retain some information about those ads — I don’t know the specifics, for example how detailed that information is, and how long retention is for that particular set of data.”

Dark ads a “major threat to democracy”

Collins pointed out that a big part of UK (and indeed US) election law relates to “declaration of spent”, before making the conjoined point that if someone is “hiding that spend” — i.e. by placing dark ads that only the recipient sees, and which can be taken offline immediately after the campaign — it smells like a major risk to the democratic process.

“If no one’s got the ability to audit that, that is a major threat to democracy,” warned Collins. “And would be a license for a major breach of election law.”

“Okay,” responded Schroepfer as if the risk had never crossed his mind before. “We can come back on the details on that.”

On the wider app audit that Facebook has committed to carrying out in the wake of the scandal, Schroepfer was also asked how it can audit apps or entities that are no longer on the platform — and he admitted this is “a challenge” and said Facebook won’t have “perfect information or detail”.

“This is going to be a challenge again because we’re dealing with historic events so we’re not going to have perfect information or detail on any of these things,” he said. “I think where we start is — it very well may be that this company is defunct but we can look at how they used the platform. Maybe there’s two people who used the app and they asked for relatively innocuous data — so the chance that that is a big issue is a lot lower than an app that was widely in circulation. So I think we can at least look at that sort of information. And try to chase down the trail.

“If we have concerns about it even if the company is defunct it’s possible we can find former employees of the company who might have more information about it. This starts with trying to identify where the issues might be and then run the trail down as much as we can. As you highlight, though, there are going to be limits to what we can find. But our goal is to understand this as best as we can.”

The committee also wanted to know if Facebook had set a deadline for completing the audit — but Schroepfer would only say it’s going “as fast as we can”.

He claimed Facebook is sharing “a tremendous amount of information” with the UK’s data protection watchdog — as it continues its (now) year-long investigation into the use of digital data for political purposes.

“I would guess we’re sharing information on this too,” he said in reference to app audit data. “I know that I personally shared a bunch of details on a variety of things we’re doing. And same with the Electoral Commission [which is investigating whether use of digital data and social media platforms broke campaign spending rules].”

In Schroepfer’s written evidence to the committee Facebook says it has unearthed some suggestive links between Cambridge Analytica/SCL and Aggegrate IQ: “In the course of our ongoing review, we also found certain billing and administration connections between SCL/Cambridge Analytica and AIQ”, it notes.

Both entities continue to deny any link exists between them, claiming they are entirely separate entities — though the former Cambridge Analytica employee turned whistleblower, Chris Wylie, has described AIQ as essentially the Canadian arm of SCL.

“The collaboration we saw was some billing and administrative contacts between the two of them, so you’d see similar people show up in each of the accounts,” said Schroepfer, when asked for more detail about what it had found, before declining to say anything else in a public setting on account of ongoing investigations — despite the committee pointing out other witnesses it has heard from have not held back on that front.

Another piece of information Facebook has included in the written evidence is the claim that it does not believe AIQ used Facebook data obtained via Kogan’s apps for targeting referendum ads — saying it used email address uploads for “many” of its ad campaigns during the referendum.

“The data gathered through the TIYDL [Kogan’s thisisyourdigitallife] app did not include the email addresses of app installers or their friends. This means that AIQ could not have obtained these email addresses from the data TIYDL gathered from Facebook,” Facebook asserts. 

Schroepfer was questioned on this during the session and said that while there was some overlap in terms of individuals who had downloaded Kogan’s app and who had been in the audiences targeted by AIQ this was only 3-4% — which he claimed was statistically insignificant, based on comparing with other Facebook apps of similar popularity to Kogan’s.

“AIQ must have obtained these email addresses for British voters targeted in these campaigns from a different source,” is the company’s conclusion.

“We are investigating Mr Chancellor’s role right now”

The committee also asked several questions about Joseph Chancellor, the co-director of Kogan’s app company, GSR, who became an employee of Facebook in 2015 after he had left GSR. Its questions included what Chancellor’s exact role at Facebook is and why Kogan has been heavily criticized by the company yet his GSR co-director apparently remains gainfully employed by it.

Schroepfer initially claimed Facebook hadn’t known Chancellor was a director of GSR prior to employing him, in November 2015 — saying it had only become aware of that specific piece of his employment history in 2017.

But after a break in the hearing he ‘clarified’ this answer — adding: “In the recruiting process, people hiring him probably saw a CV and may have known he was part of GSR. Had someone known that — had we connected all the dots to when this thing happened with Mr Kogan, later on had he been mentioned in the documents that we signed with the Kogan party — no. Is it possible that someone knew about this and the right other people in the organization didn’t know about it, that is possible.”

A committee member then pressed him further. “We have evidence that shows that Facebook knew in November 2016 that Joseph Chancellor had formed the company, GSR, with Aleksandr Kogan which obviously then went on to provide the information to Cambridge Analytica. I’m very unclear as to why Facebook have taken such a very direct and critical line… with Kogan but have completely ignored Joseph Chancellor.”

At that point Schroepfer revealed Facebook is currently investigating Chancellor as a result of the data scandal.

“I understand your concern. We are investigating Mr Chancellor’s role right now,” he said. “There’s an employment investigation going on right now.

In terms of the work Chancellor is doing for Facebook, Schroepfer said he thought he had worked on VR for the company — but emphasized he has not been involved with “the platform”.

The issue of the NDA Kogan claimed Facebook had made him sign also came up. But Schroepfer counter claimed that this was not an NDA but just a “standard confidentiality clause” in the agreement to certify Kogan had deleted the Facebook data and its derivatives.

“We want him to be able to be open. We’re waiving any confidentiality there if that’s not clear from a legal standpoint,” he said later, clarifying it does not consider Kogan legally gagged.

Schroepfer also confirmed this agreement was signed with Kogan in June 2016, and said the “core commitments” were to confirm the deletion of data from himself and three others Kogan had passed it to: Former Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix; Wylie, for a company he had set up after leaving Cambridge Analytica; and Dr Michael Inzlicht from the Toronto Laboratory for Social Neuroscience (Kogan mentioned to the committee earlier this week he had also passed some of the Facebook data to a fellow academic in Canada).

Asked whether any payments had been made between Facebook and Kogan as part of the contract, Schroepfer said: “I believe there was no payment involved in this at all.”

‘Radical’ transparency, not regulation

Other issues raised by the committee included why Facebook does not provide an overall control or opt-out for political advertising; why it does not offer a separate feed for ads but chooses to embed them into the Newsfeed; how and why it gathers data on non-users; the addictiveness engineered into its product; what it does about fake accounts; why it hasn’t recruited more humans to help with the “challenges” of managing content on a platform that’s scaled so large; and aspects of its approach to GDPR compliance.

On the latter, Schroepfer was queried specifically on why Facebook had decided to shift the data controller of ~1.5BN non-EU international users from Ireland to the US. On this he claimed the GDPR’s stipulation that there be a “lead regulator” conflicts with Facebook’s desire to be more responsive to local concerns in its non-EU international markets.

“US law does not have a notion of a lead regulator so the US does not become the lead regulator — it opens up the opportunity for us to have local markets have them, regions, be the lead and final regulator for the users in that area,” he claimed.

Asked whether he thinks the time has come for “robust regulation and empowerment of consumers over their information”, Schroepfer demurred that new regulation is needed to control data flowing over consumer platforms. “Whether, through regulation or not, making sure consumers have visibility, control and can access and take their information with you, I agree 100%,” he said, agreeing only to further self-regulation not to the need for new laws.

“In terms of regulation there are multiple laws and regulatory bodies that we are under the guise of right now. Obviously the GDPR is coming into effect just next month. We have been regulated in Europe by the Irish DPC whose done extensive audits of our systems over multiple years. In the US we’re regulated by the FTC, Privacy Commissioner in Canada and others. So I think the question isn’t ‘if’, the question is honestly how do we ensure the regulations and the practices achieve the goals you want. Which is consumers have safety, they have transparency, they understand how this stuff works, and they have control.

“And the details of implementing that is where all the really hard work is.”

His stock response to the committee’s concerns about divisive political ads was that Facebook believes “radical transparency” is the fix — also dropping one tidbit of extra news on that front in his written testimony by saying Facebook will roll out an authentication process for political advertisers in the UK in time for the local elections in May 2019.

Ads will also be required to be labeled as “political” and disclose who paid for the ad. And there will be a searchable archive — available for seven years — which will include the ads themselves plus some associated data (such as how many times an ad may have been seen, how much money was spent, and the kinds of people who saw it).

Collins asked Schroepfer whether Facebook’s ad transparency measures will also include “targeting data” — i.e. “will I understand not just who the advertiser was and what other adverts they’d run but why they’d chose to advertise to me”?

“I believe among the things you’ll see is spend (how much was spent on this ad); you will see who they were trying to advertise to (what is the audience they were trying to reach); and I believe you will also be able to see some basic information on how much it was viewed,” Schroepfer replied — avoiding yet another straight answer.

[sheminecrafts]

What we learned from Facebook’s latest data misuse grilling

Facebook’s CTO Mike Schroepfer has just undergone almost five hours of often forensic and frequently awkward questions from members of a UK parliament committee that’s investigating online disinformation, and whose members have been further fired up by misinformation they claim Facebook gave it.

The veteran senior exec, who’s clocked up a decade at the company, also as its VP of engineering, is the latest stand-in for CEO Mark Zuckerberg who keeps eschewing repeat requests to appear.

The DCMS committee’s enquiry began last year as a probe into ‘fake news’ but has snowballed in scope as the scale of concern around political disinformation has also mounted — including, most recently, fresh information being exposed by journalists about the scale of the misuse of Facebook data for political targeting purposes.

During today’s session committee chair Damian Collins again made a direct appeal for Zuckerberg to testify, pausing the flow of questions momentarily to cite news reports suggesting the Facebook founder has agreed to fly to Brussels to testify before European Union lawmakers in relation to the Cambridge Analytica Facebook data misuse scandal.

“We’ll certainly be renewing our request for him to give evidence,” said Collins. “We still do need the opportunity to put some of these questions to him.”

Committee members displayed visible outrage during the session, accusing Facebook of concealing the truth or at very least concealing evidence from it at a prior hearing that took place in Washington in February — when the company sent its UK head of policy, Simon Milner, and its head of global policy management, Monika Bickert, to field questions.

During questioning Milner and Bickert failed to inform the committee about a legal agreement Facebook had made with Cambridge Analytica in December 2015 — after the company had learned (via an earlier Guardian article) that Facebook user data had been passed to the company by the developer of an app running on its platform.

Milner also told the committee that Cambridge Analytica could not have any Facebook data — yet last month the company admitted data on up to 87 million of its users had indeed been passed to the firm.

Schroepfer said he wasn’t sure whether Milner had been “specifically informed” about the agreement Facebook already had with Cambridge Analytica — adding: “I’m guessing he didn’t know”. He also claimed he had only himself become aware of it “within the last month”.

“Who knows? Who knows about what the position was with Cambridge Analytica in February of this year? Who was in charge of this?” pressed one committee member.

“I don’t know all of the names of the people who knew that specific information at the time,” responded Schroepfer.

“We are a parliamentary committee. We went to Washington for evidence and we raised the issue of Cambridge Analytica. And Facebook concealed evidence to us as an organization on that day. Isn’t that the truth?” rejoined the committee member, pushing past Schroepfer’s claim to be “doing my best” to provide it with information.

A pattern of evasive behavior

“You are doing your best but the buck doesn’t stop with you does it? Where does the buck stop?”

“It stops with Mark,” replied Schroepfer — leading to a quick fire exchange where he was pressed about (and avoided answering) what Zuckerberg knew and why the Facebook founder wouldn’t come and answer the committee’s questions himself.

“What we want is the truth. We didn’t get the truth in February… Mr Schroepfer I remain to be convinced that your company has integrity,” was the pointed conclusion after a lengthy exchange on this.

“What’s been frustrating for us in this enquiry is a pattern of behavior from the company — an unwillingness to engage, and a desire to hold onto information and not disclose it,” said Collins, returning to the theme at another stage of the hearing — and also accusing Facebook of not providing it with “straight answers” in Washington.

“We wouldn’t be having this discussion now if this information hadn’t been brought into the light by investigative journalists,” he continued. “And Facebook even tried to stop that happening as well [referring to a threat by the company to sue the Guardian ahead of publication of its Cambridge Analytica exposé]… It’s a pattern of behavior, of seeking to pretend this isn’t happening.”

The committee expressed further dissatisfaction with Facebook immediately following the session, emphasizing that Schroepfer had “failed to answer fully on nearly 40 separate points”.

“Mr Schroepfer, Mark Zuckerberg’s right hand man whom we were assured could represent his views, today failed to answer many specific and detailed questions about Facebook’s business practices,” said Collins in a statement after the hearing.

“We will be asking him to respond in writing to the committee on these points; however, we are mindful that it took a global reputational crisis and three months for the company to follow up on questions we put to them in Washington D.C. on February 8. 

“We believe that, given the large number of outstanding questions for Facebook to answer, Mark Zuckerberg should still appear in front of the Committee… and will request that he appears in front of the DCMS Committee before the May 24.”

We reached out to Facebook for comment — but at the time of writing the company had not responded.

Palantir’s data use under review

Schroepfer was questioned on a wide range of topics during today’s session. And while he was fuzzy on many details, giving lots of partial answers and promises to “follow up”, one thing he did confirm was that Facebook board member Peter Thiel’s secretive big data analytics firm, Palantir, is one of the companies Facebook is investigating as part of a historical audit of app developers’ use of its platform.

Have there ever been concerns raised about Palantir’s activity, and about whether it has gained improper access to Facebook user data, asked Collins.

“I think we are looking at lots of different things now. Many people have raised that concern — and since it’s in the public discourse it’s obviously something we’re looking into,” said Schroepfer.

“But it’s part of the review work that Facebook’s doing?” pressed Collins.

“Correct,” he responded.

The historical app audit was announced in the wake of last month’s revelations about how much Facebook data Cambridge Analytica was given by app developer (and Cambridge University academic), Dr Aleksandr Kogan — in what the company couched as a “breach of trust”.

However Kogan, who testified to the committee earlier this week, argues he was just using Facebook’s platform as it was architected and intended to be used — going so far as to claim its developer terms are “not legally valid”. (“For you to break a policy it has to exist. And really be their policy, The reality is Facebook’s policy is unlikely to be their policy,” was Kogan’s construction, earning him a quip from a committee member that he “should be a professor of semantics”.)

Schroepfer said he disagreed with Kogan’s assessment that Facebook didn’t have a policy, saying the goal of the platform has been to foster social experiences — and that “those same tools, because they’re easy and great for the consumer, can go wrong”. So he did at least indirectly confirm Kogan’s general point that Facebook’s developer and user terms are at loggerheads.

“This is why we have gone through several iterations of the platform — where we have effectively locked down parts of the platform,” continued Schroepfer. “Which increases friction and makes it less easy for the consumer to use these things but does safeguard that data more. And been a lot more proactive in the review and enforcement of these things. So this wasn’t a lack of care… but I’ll tell you that our primary product is designed to help people share safety with a limited audience.

“If you want to say it to the world you can publish it on a blog or on Twitter. If you want to share it with your friends only, that’s the primary thing Facebook does. We violate that trust — and that data goes somewhere else — we’re sort of violating the core principles of our product. And that’s a big problem. And this is why I wanted to come to you personally today to talk about this because this is a serious issue.”

“You’re not just a neutral platform — you are players”

The same committee member, Paul Farrelly, who earlier pressed Kogan about why he hadn’t bothered to find out which political candidates stood to be the beneficiary of his data harvesting and processing activities for Cambridge Analytica, put it to Schroepfer that Facebook’s own actions in how it manages its business activities — and specifically because it embeds its own staff with political campaigns to help them use its tools — amounts to the company being “Dr Kogan writ large”.

“You’re not just a neutral platform — you are players,” said Farrelly.

“The clear thing is we don’t have an opinion on the outcome of these elections. That is not what we are trying to do. We are trying to offer services to any customer of ours who would like to know how to use our products better,” Schroepfer responded. “We have never turned away a political party because we didn’t want to help them win an election.

“We believe in strong open political discourse and what we’re trying to do is make sure that people can get their messages across.”

However in another exchange the Facebook exec appeared not to be aware of a basic tenet of UK election law — which prohibits campaign spending by foreign entities.

“How many UK Facebook users and Instagram users were contacted in the UK referendum by foreign, non-UK entities?” asked committee member Julie Elliott.

“We would have to understand and do the analysis of who — of all the ads run in that campaign — where is the location, the source of all of the different advertisers,” said Schroepfer, tailing off with a “so…” and without providing a figure. 

“But do you have that information?” pressed Elliott.

“I don’t have it on the top of my head. I can see if we can get you some more of it,” he responded.

“Our elections are very heavily regulated, and income or monies from other countries can’t be spent in our elections in any way shape or form,” she continued. “So I would have thought that you would have that information. Because your company will be aware of what our electoral law is.”

“Again I don’t have that information on me,” Schroepfer said — repeating the line that Facebook would “follow up with the relevant information”.

The Facebook CTO was also asked if the company could provide it with an archive of adverts that were run on its platform around the time of the Brexit referendum by Aggregate IQ — a Canadian data company that’s been linked to Cambridge Analytica/SCL, and which received £3.5M from leave campaign groups in the run up to the 2016 referendum (and has also been described by leave campaigners as instrumental to securing their win). It’s also under joint investigation by Canadian data watchdogs, along with Facebook.

In written evidence provided to the committee today Facebook says it has been helping ongoing investigations into “the Cambridge Analytica issue” that are being undertaken by the UK’s Electoral Commission and its data protection watchdog, the ICO. Here it writes that its records show AIQ spent “approximately $2M USD on ads from pages that appear to be associated with the 2016 Referendum”.

Schroepfer’s responses on several requests by the committee for historical samples of the referendum ads AIQ had run amounted to ‘we’ll see what we can do’ — with the exec cautioning that he wasn’t entirely sure how much data might have been retained.

“I think specifically in Aggregate IQ and Cambridge Analytica related to the UK referendum I believe we are producing more extensive information for both the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner,” he said at one point, adding it would also provide the committee with the same information if it’s legally able to. “I think we are trying to do — give them all the data we have on the ads and what they spent and what they’re like.”

Collins asked what would happen if an organization or an individual had used a Facebook ad account to target dark ads during the referendum and then taken down the page as soon as the campaign was over. “How would you be able to identify that activity had ever taken place?” he asked.

“I do believe, uh, we have — I would have to confirm, but there is a possibility that we have a separate system — a log of the ads that were run,” said Schroepfer, displaying some of the fuzziness that irritated the committee. “I know we would have the page itself if the page was still active. If they’d run prior campaigns and deleted the page we may retain some information about those ads — I don’t know the specifics, for example how detailed that information is, and how long retention is for that particular set of data.”

Dark ads a “major threat to democracy”

Collins pointed out that a big part of UK (and indeed US) election law relates to “declaration of spent”, before making the conjoined point that if someone is “hiding that spend” — i.e. by placing dark ads that only the recipient sees, and which can be taken offline immediately after the campaign — it smells like a major risk to the democratic process.

“If no one’s got the ability to audit that, that is a major threat to democracy,” warned Collins. “And would be a license for a major breach of election law.”

“Okay,” responded Schroepfer as if the risk had never crossed his mind before. “We can come back on the details on that.”

On the wider app audit that Facebook has committed to carrying out in the wake of the scandal, Schroepfer was also asked how it can audit apps or entities that are no longer on the platform — and he admitted this is “a challenge” and said Facebook won’t have “perfect information or detail”.

“This is going to be a challenge again because we’re dealing with historic events so we’re not going to have perfect information or detail on any of these things,” he said. “I think where we start is — it very well may be that this company is defunct but we can look at how they used the platform. Maybe there’s two people who used the app and they asked for relatively innocuous data — so the chance that that is a big issue is a lot lower than an app that was widely in circulation. So I think we can at least look at that sort of information. And try to chase down the trail.

“If we have concerns about it even if the company is defunct it’s possible we can find former employees of the company who might have more information about it. This starts with trying to identify where the issues might be and then run the trail down as much as we can. As you highlight, though, there are going to be limits to what we can find. But our goal is to understand this as best as we can.”

The committee also wanted to know if Facebook had set a deadline for completing the audit — but Schroepfer would only say it’s going “as fast as we can”.

He claimed Facebook is sharing “a tremendous amount of information” with the UK’s data protection watchdog — as it continues its (now) year-long investigation into the use of digital data for political purposes.

“I would guess we’re sharing information on this too,” he said in reference to app audit data. “I know that I personally shared a bunch of details on a variety of things we’re doing. And same with the Electoral Commission [which is investigating whether use of digital data and social media platforms broke campaign spending rules].”

In Schroepfer’s written evidence to the committee Facebook says it has unearthed some suggestive links between Cambridge Analytica/SCL and Aggegrate IQ: “In the course of our ongoing review, we also found certain billing and administration connections between SCL/Cambridge Analytica and AIQ”, it notes.

Both entities continue to deny any link exists between them, claiming they are entirely separate entities — though the former Cambridge Analytica employee turned whistleblower, Chris Wylie, has described AIQ as essentially the Canadian arm of SCL.

“The collaboration we saw was some billing and administrative contacts between the two of them, so you’d see similar people show up in each of the accounts,” said Schroepfer, when asked for more detail about what it had found, before declining to say anything else in a public setting on account of ongoing investigations — despite the committee pointing out other witnesses it has heard from have not held back on that front.

Another piece of information Facebook has included in the written evidence is the claim that it does not believe AIQ used Facebook data obtained via Kogan’s apps for targeting referendum ads — saying it used email address uploads for “many” of its ad campaigns during the referendum.

“The data gathered through the TIYDL [Kogan’s thisisyourdigitallife] app did not include the email addresses of app installers or their friends. This means that AIQ could not have obtained these email addresses from the data TIYDL gathered from Facebook,” Facebook asserts. 

Schroepfer was questioned on this during the session and said that while there was some overlap in terms of individuals who had downloaded Kogan’s app and who had been in the audiences targeted by AIQ this was only 3-4% — which he claimed was statistically insignificant, based on comparing with other Facebook apps of similar popularity to Kogan’s.

“AIQ must have obtained these email addresses for British voters targeted in these campaigns from a different source,” is the company’s conclusion.

“We are investigating Mr Chancellor’s role right now”

The committee also asked several questions about Joseph Chancellor, the co-director of Kogan’s app company, GSR, who became an employee of Facebook in 2015 after he had left GSR. Its questions included what Chancellor’s exact role at Facebook is and why Kogan has been heavily criticized by the company yet his GSR co-director apparently remains gainfully employed by it.

Schroepfer initially claimed Facebook hadn’t known Chancellor was a director of GSR prior to employing him, in November 2015 — saying it had only become aware of that specific piece of his employment history in 2017.

But after a break in the hearing he ‘clarified’ this answer — adding: “In the recruiting process, people hiring him probably saw a CV and may have known he was part of GSR. Had someone known that — had we connected all the dots to when this thing happened with Mr Kogan, later on had he been mentioned in the documents that we signed with the Kogan party — no. Is it possible that someone knew about this and the right other people in the organization didn’t know about it, that is possible.”

A committee member then pressed him further. “We have evidence that shows that Facebook knew in November 2016 that Joseph Chancellor had formed the company, GSR, with Aleksandr Kogan which obviously then went on to provide the information to Cambridge Analytica. I’m very unclear as to why Facebook have taken such a very direct and critical line… with Kogan but have completely ignored Joseph Chancellor.”

At that point Schroepfer revealed Facebook is currently investigating Chancellor as a result of the data scandal.

“I understand your concern. We are investigating Mr Chancellor’s role right now,” he said. “There’s an employment investigation going on right now.

In terms of the work Chancellor is doing for Facebook, Schroepfer said he thought he had worked on VR for the company — but emphasized he has not been involved with “the platform”.

The issue of the NDA Kogan claimed Facebook had made him sign also came up. But Schroepfer counter claimed that this was not an NDA but just a “standard confidentiality clause” in the agreement to certify Kogan had deleted the Facebook data and its derivatives.

“We want him to be able to be open. We’re waiving any confidentiality there if that’s not clear from a legal standpoint,” he said later, clarifying it does not consider Kogan legally gagged.

Schroepfer also confirmed this agreement was signed with Kogan in June 2016, and said the “core commitments” were to confirm the deletion of data from himself and three others Kogan had passed it to: Former Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix; Wylie, for a company he had set up after leaving Cambridge Analytica; and Dr Michael Inzlicht from the Toronto Laboratory for Social Neuroscience (Kogan mentioned to the committee earlier this week he had also passed some of the Facebook data to a fellow academic in Canada).

Asked whether any payments had been made between Facebook and Kogan as part of the contract, Schroepfer said: “I believe there was no payment involved in this at all.”

‘Radical’ transparency is its fix for regulation

Other issues raised by the committee included why Facebook does not provide an overall control or opt-out for political advertising; why it does not offer a separate feed for ads but chooses to embed them into the Newsfeed; how and why it gathers data on non-users; the addictiveness engineered into its product; what it does about fake accounts; why it hasn’t recruited more humans to help with the “challenges” of managing content on a platform that’s scaled so large; and aspects of its approach to GDPR compliance.

On the latter, Schroepfer was queried specifically on why Facebook had decided to shift the data controller of ~1.5BN non-EU international users from Ireland to the US. On this he claimed the GDPR’s stipulation that there be a “lead regulator” conflicts with Facebook’s desire to be more responsive to local concerns in its non-EU international markets.

“US law does not have a notion of a lead regulator so the US does not become the lead regulator — it opens up the opportunity for us to have local markets have them, regions, be the lead and final regulator for the users in that area,” he claimed.

Asked whether he thinks the time has come for “robust regulation and empowerment of consumers over their information”, Schroepfer demurred that new regulation is needed to control data flowing over consumer platforms. “Whether, through regulation or not, making sure consumers have visibility, control and can access and take their information with you, I agree 100%,” he said, agreeing only to further self-regulation not to the need for new laws.

“In terms of regulation there are multiple laws and regulatory bodies that we are under the guise of right now. Obviously the GDPR is coming into effect just next month. We have been regulated in Europe by the Irish DPC whose done extensive audits of our systems over multiple years. In the US we’re regulated by the FTC, Privacy Commissioner in Canada and others. So I think the question isn’t ‘if’, the question is honestly how do we ensure the regulations and the practices achieve the goals you want. Which is consumers have safety, they have transparency, they understand how this stuff works, and they have control.

“And the details of implementing that is where all the really hard work is.”

His stock response to the committee’s concerns about divisive political ads was that Facebook believes “radical transparency” is the fix — also dropping one tidbit of extra news on that front in his written testimony by saying Facebook will roll out an authentication process for political advertisers in the UK in time for the local elections in May 2019.

Ads will also be required to be labeled as “political” and disclose who paid for the ad. And there will be a searchable archive — available for seven years — which will include the ads themselves plus some associated data (such as how many times an ad may have been seen, how much money was spent, and the kinds of people who saw it).

Collins asked Schroepfer whether Facebook’s ad transparency measures will also include “targeting data” — i.e. “will I understand not just who the advertiser was and what other adverts they’d run but why they’d chose to advertise to me”?

“I believe among the things you’ll see is spend (how much was spent on this ad); you will see who they were trying to advertise to (what is the audience they were trying to reach); and I believe you will also be able to see some basic information on how much it was viewed,” Schroepfer replied — avoiding yet another straight answer.

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