#social media complaints policy

[germiyahu]

I also don't like the assertion that Jews are trying to conflate "criticism of Israel with antisemitism/the Israeli state with Jewishness as a whole" because you... YOU... did that first and you do it more easily than you breathe.

You interrogate every complaint of antisemitism, just to make sure it's not actually whining about someone being mean to Israel. You investigate the person's social media history to make sure they're not a Zionist. You turn around and act so enlightened and wise when you say "Right because Netanyahu wants Jewish people to think criticism of Israel is antisemitic, and he wants Jewish people to think that they have to have ties to Israel and that Israel is the only place they'll feel safe, that plays right into his hands," like you're doing this for Jewish people's benefit. Like you're not one of the people making Jews feel unsafe.

The fact of the matter is that Israel is intrinsically Jewish. By design yes. But also for the fact that it's just logically true? Most Israelis are Jewish. Most Diaspora Jews have friends and family in Israel. It's not a function of flags or national anthems. It's a function of people. Saying "Well conflating Israel with the idea of Jewishness is antisemitic," changes nothing about that. It's words with no value. It's empty air. Because what have you done to advocate for Diaspora Jewry and make them feel like they're not subordinate to Israel? What have you done to assure them that your disdain for a country that most of them have personal familial and cultural ties to is not motivated by bigotry? What have you done to include them and center their safety when advocating against Israel's policies?

Yes, the more people are antisemitic and weird about Israel to Diaspora Jews' faces, the more of them will gravitate closer to Israel. But that's not the point. The point is that if your criticisms of Israel were normal, we wouldn't have a problem. 99% of Diaspora Jews would join you. But you tell them they're not allowed to defend Israel in any context and they're not allowed to defend themselves when your "criticism" of Israel harms them. You don't want to admit that these can overlap. You just want them to silently add a rubber stamp of approval of whatever you say or they can leave.

It's clear you don't see Jews as a marginalized group. This is not how Leftists treat marginalized groups. This is how they treat the oppressor group, the dominant group. Diaspora Jews are at best an ally to Palestinian liberation. Because you don't see them as different from Israelis, you see them as the group that benefits from the oppression of Palestinians, not as a group that has nothing to do with Palestine and is historically and contemporarily marginalized by Western society, the society you live in.

And yet for all you conflate Diaspora and Israeli Jews you clearly want to keep Israel and the Diaspora divided, isolated from each other. They can't show solidarity with one another because that's (((ZIONIST COLLUSION))) and confirmation of a media controlled conspiracy or something. You want Diaspora Jews under your thumb and you want Israeli Jews dead. You're not as subtle as you think you are.

[osmanthusoolong]

All this uproar, the court cases, the children suffering? Unsurprisingly, the result of a couple of dedicated transphobic conspiracy theorists.

“The review of Policy 713 officially began in late April 2023, according to the province but only became public knowledge on May 5.

When asked why the review started, Hogan and Higgs gave several reasons, including "misinterpretations and concerns," from the public, and "hundreds of complaints" about the issue.

At the time, child and youth advocate Kelly Lamrock asked for the complaints showing these misinterpretations and concerns. The department handed over three emails.

When challenged, Hogan said Lamrock was only given a sample, and if people wanted to see all the emails, they could file a right to information request.

Through right to information, CBC News requested all emails about 2SLGBTQ+ issues sent to Hogan between January 2020 and May 2023.

According to records, Hogan received about 40 emails about those issues in those three years. The majority, about 35 emails, came between March and May 5, 2023, stating objections to different forms of 2SLGBTQ+ education or drag storytime.”

…

“The Saint John woman on Facebook, Barb Dempsey, is one of several New Brunswickers who make posts against 2SLGBTQ-inclusive education on social media and ask people to lobby the government for change. It's not clear whether she created the petition she shared in early April.

In late April, Dempsey and another New Brunswick resident started promoting a protest against the teachers' event in Hanwell.

On that day, a small group of protesters held signs calling educators "perverts," and accusing them of harming children.

In a later interview, when asked why he started the policy review, Higgs referred to that event.”

…

“Some email authors said teaching children about the concept of gender identity would harm them because it would confuse them.

In July, in his speech to the legislature, Higgs said, "we're seeing a rapid onset of gender dysphoria. It's expanded in the last several years and it's becoming popular and trendy."

"Society can compound [children's] confusion," he said.

The New Brunswick Medical Society said that the points Higgs made are "ideologically based narratives."

The society said "rapid onset gender dysphoria," or the notion that some children are socially influenced to become trans when they're actually not, has no scientific basis.

"The notion of 'Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria' is not a recognized medical condition and should not be used in medical, social, or political narrative," the society said in a statement.

"Framing gender dysphoria as 'trendy or popular,' as opposed to an actual medical diagnosis, lead to further prejudice and misinformation."”

@allthecanadianpolitics

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Elsie Carson-Holt at LGBTQ:

Jack Daniel’s has joined a growing number of brands that have cut their commitments to diversity, after conservative influencer Robby Starbuck threatened to make the company his next target. Last week, it was Harley Davidson, and before them it was Tractor Supply Co. and John Deere. Starbuck’s method of rallying his online followers to deluge companies social media with complaints about their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and donations to social justice organizations has proven effective.

Jack Daniel’s, the whiskey company, is the latest. On August 21, Starbuck posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) “Big news: The next company we were set to expose was Jack Daniels,” but that the company had ended several initiatives and partnerships.

Starbuck said, “They must have been tipped off by us going through employee LinkedIn pages” and that the company had “just preemptively announced” changes to DEI programs. Starbuck had obtained an email from Brown Forman (Jack Daniel’s parent company) saying that “the world has evolved” since launching a DEI campaign in 2019. The company said that since January, it had been evolving the current program to a “strategic framework,” which includes ending its partnership with the Human Rights Campaign and its Corporate Equality Index (CEI), which tracks how large employers treat their LGBTQ+ employees through various policies.

Jack Daniel’s is the latest company to shamefully cave into right-wing faux outrage artist Robby Starbuck’s bad-faith campaign against DEI and LGBTQ+ initiatives in workplaces by ending their participation in Human Rights Campaign’s CEI program and diversity initiatives.

[papapandashipyards]

Spaceshiptember Day6 CORPORATE "...regarding the complaints we received in relation to asteroid strikes of the Worker quarters; we hear you and understand your concerns! However, Company policy is clear: Asteroids are a VITAL part of the natural beauty of the universe as well as a major source of income for the ship. Therefore any negative mention of Asteroids in any Communique, News release, social media, personal correspondence, or verbal utterance will result in immediate termination."

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

Please read this post

On March 12, 2022, 12-year-old Kelaia Turner hung herself with a belt. By the time her mother found her, she was bleeding from her nose and starting to cool. Paramedics were only able to find a pulse after eight minutes. She spent the next few weeks in a coma and now lives with severe neurological damage, unable to breathe, eat, or move on her own. Her mother has set up a GoFundMe, which I strongly recommend that you contribute to:

Kelaia hung herself after enduring a year and a half of severe bullying from five other students at the school she attended, Dr. Phinnize J. Fisher Middle School. About a month after she hung herself, two students managed to get to her bed in the ICU. They took pictures of her and posted them on social media. A third student also spread rumors about her injuries.

Her family is now suing Greenville County School District (GCSD) for negligence in handling the bullying. Major allegations include:

Students would call Kelaia a man and a roach in a class taught by Olivia Bennett. In December 2021 one of them asked Bennett, "Where's the roach?" Bennett pointed at Kelaia.

After the roach incident, Kelaia's parents met with Principal Smith to discuss solutions. One of the proposals was to separate Kelaia from HCJ, one of her bullies. Kelaia also emailed a school counselor, Michelle Kirby, to request a schedule change that would keep her away from HCJ. Nothing changed. In fact, Kelaia and HCJ were both added to a new class for spring semester. HCJ subsequently cursed out Kelaia in the new class.

A student attacked Kelaia in March. Kelaia was suspended; her attacker was not. The school failed to inform her parents, leaving that task to Kelaia herself.

A student in one of Kelaia's classes was constantly disruptive. When Kelaia would ask the student to quiet down, the teacher, John Teer, would scold her instead of the student. In May, another student played the Youtube video "The Black People Song." Teer allowed the song to play and did not comment on its offensiveness or scold its player.

By October 2022 one of Kelaia's bullies, BA, had begun literally pushing her around. School faculty did not intervene, even after Kelaia's mother contacted them about the pushing. BA eventually hung up Kelaia's clothes, poured water all over them, and then threw them in the trash.

After Kelaia's suicide attempt, her mother lodged a formal complaint about the school's failure to enforce its anti-bullying policy. The principals told her, and I quote, "they have a zero-tolerance policy for bullying but no way to enforce it."

While the lawsuit does not emphasize any racial component, racism hangs like a shadow over the incident. Kelaia is Black; Greenville County is 76.3% White. Olivia Bennett, who pointed Kelaia out as "the roach," is White, as are most of the nine teachers named in the lawsuit. Kelaia's mother, Ty Turner, also posted a list of the names that her bullies used on Facebook, and it's pretty indicative:

Not to mention, the US has a long history of insulting Black women by calling them masculine. All those gendered insults have a secondary meaning. In the same Facebook post, Mrs. Turner notes that the bullying started in elementary school, when Kelaia began wearing her natural hair.

GSCD's school board (ten White members, two Black members) are denying the allegations, insisting that they conducted a full investigation every time Kelaia's family made one of their many, many complaints. Their legal response only admits to exchanging emails with Kelaia's parents and that Bennett pointed to Kelaia as "the roach." Bennett is still teaching at Fisher Middle School today.

I don't usually ask this, but please, please, please reblog this post. Even if you don't live in South Carolina. Even if you don't live in the US. I suspect that GSCD wants to sweep this incident under the rug as soon as possible. It'll be a lot harder for them to do that if the world is watching them and demanding justice for Kelaia. If you can, please donate. Kelaia's care will require a lot of money; her parents could use all the help they can get.

And if you're from the Greenville area, message me. We need to put the board's feet to the fire.

[starredforlife]

how are you expecting Trump not to win though

this is a strange question. are you trying to say you expect that if harris becomes massively criticized in a pressure campaign, then she will stay locked into her stance of supporting Israel, not budging, and lose momentum and appeal, enough to lose to trump? because i don't know, genocide should make your party completely unappealing. maybe that's just me.

HOWEVER a pressure campaign/criticism of her "platforms" (which are completely vibes and not written down anywhere yet btw) are made by people who believe SHE CAN change. i think this is where y'all are tripping up--the progressive base that shares thousands of smaller complaints with the more moderate dem policies would be willing to buck up on those, and vote full-heartedly for harris if she changed on this issue!!! it's the red line. i mean, it's fucking genocide. the uncommitted movement has a very specific demand--weapons embargo. her promising to work toward that now and during her presidential term would guarantee their votes. it's really not rocket science. so people asking her for change are people who want to vote for her--she simply hasn't done enough to earn our votes yet. but she's seemed susceptible to listening to what's the most popular stance (and i think this is always how she's worked in politics) so it's up to US to make a weapons embargo to Israel the most popular stance. does that make sense? her social media team is listening rn. they want to win and they're looking for what might throw them. it's why their border policy has fully shifted right-wing, bc that's the much more popular stance right now. it's why she's talking about no taxes on tips all of the sudden. so our threats need to hold water.

all harris has to do is agree to these demands and she won't lose those votes. it's up to her to win this election--not for us to hand it over to her regardless of what her policies are. locking yourself into the system and giving up on doing anything is actually killing people, right now. you cannot be scared to raise your voice over fear that trump may win. nobody is saying "don't vote for harris". we are saying "tell harris she is not winning our votes until she changes on this issue.". and then see if she fucking listens. and if she doesn't, i can't stop you from voting for her. but she will have lost our votes and it will be her fault--not ours.

[vote-democrat-president-congress]

Trump tells Christians ‘you won’t have to vote anymore’ if he’s elected.

2024/07/27: Former President Donald J. Trump at the Turning Point USA Believers Summit in West Palm Beach, Fla., in the closing minutes of his speech to a gathering of religious conservatives on Friday night, former President Donald J. Trump told Christians that if they voted him into office in November, they would never need to vote again.

“Christians, get out and vote. Just this time,” he said at The Believers’ Summit, an event hosted by the conservative advocacy group Turning Point Action, in West Palm Beach, Fla. “You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more years, it��ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”

Mr. Trump, who never made a particular display of religious observance before entering politics, continued: “I love you, Christians. I’m a Christian. I love you, you got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”

Mr. Trump’s comments came at the end of a nearly hourlong speech in which he appealed to religious conservatives by promising to defend them from perceived threats from the left. Earlier in his remarks, he lamented that conservative Christians do not vote in large numbers, a complaint he had made repeatedly on the trail.

“They don’t vote like they should,” Mr. Trump said of Christians. “They’re not big voters.”

Mr. Trump’s suggestion that Christians would not have to vote again if he is elected quickly spread across social media. Some argued that it was a threat that the 2024 election could be the nation’s last if he were to win and claimed it was further evidence of an authoritarian, anti-democratic bent he has displayed throughout his political candidacy.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment to clarify Mr. Trump’s intent.

The former president — who continues to falsely insist the 2020 election was rigged, a claim that inspired some of his supporters to storm the Capitol in a bid to keep him in power in 2021 — has raised alarm from Democrats and some Republicans. He has compared his political opponents to “vermin,” said he would have a prosecutor investigate President Biden and his family and framed his campaign as one of retribution.

James Singer, a Harris campaign spokesman, criticized Mr. Trump in a statement for lying about the 2020 election, among other things, during his Friday remarks. Mr. Trump “went on and on and on, and generally sounded like someone you wouldn’t want to sit near at a restaurant — let alone be president of the United States,” Mr. Singer said.

Since his 2020 loss, Mr. Trump, who often praises strongmen leaders on the trail, has further embraced a brand of conservatism that experts on autocracy have said veers toward totalitarian.

Mr. Trump provoked further outcry when, in an interview with Sean Hannity, he said he would not categorically dismiss concerns that he might abuse presidential power but instead said he would not be a dictator “other than Day 1.”

Mr. Trump added: “We’re closing the border. And we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”

Mr. Trump and his allies have long dismissed the criticism as alarmist political attacks from liberals. They argue that Democrats have been anti-democratic, labeling the criminal cases brought against Mr. Trump as an effort to weaponize the justice system.

The Harris campaign — and the Biden campaign before that — have consistently attacked Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy. More recently, Democrats and their allies have highlighted Project 2025, a set of conservative policy proposals developed by a group that includes former Trump advisers and that would bring about a radical shift to the federal government.

Mr. Trump himself was not behind Project 2025, and he has repeatedly tried to distance himself from it. But The New York Times has reported on his plans for a second term, which would include casting aside the norm that gives the Justice Department independence from the White House, appointing ideologically aligned lawyers who would be less resistant to Mr. Trump’s policies and a vastly expanded crackdown on immigration that would involve scouring the country for undocumented immigrants and deporting millions of people annually.

by Michael Gold, NYTimes. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/27/us/harris-trump-biden-election

[beardedmrbean]

A House committee revealed Friday that the Pentagon, other US agencies and the European Union — in addition to the State Department — have funded a for-profit “fact-checking” firm that blacklisted The Post.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) wrote a letter to the firm, NewsGuard, demanding more details about the public-private collaboration that led last year to the State Department being sued by conservative outlets that were labeled more “risky” than their liberal counterparts.

NewsGuard has briefed committee staff on contracts it had with the Defense Department in 2021, including the Cyber National Mission Force within US Cyber Command; the State Department and its Global Engagement Center; and the EU’s Joint Research Centre.

“The Committee writes today to seek additional documents and communications from NewsGuard related to all past and present contracts with or grants administered by federal government agencies or any other government entity, including foreign governments,” Comer informed NewsGuard CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz.

“The protection of First Amendment rights of American citizens is paramount and attempts by government actors to infringe on those rights is dangerous and misguided,” the chairman warned.

The Oversight panel in June opened its investigation into NewsGuard’s apparent participation in a government-funded “censorship campaign” to allegedly discredit and even demonetize news outlets by sharing its ratings of their reliability with advertisers.

Comer also expressed concern about NewsGuard employees sharing social media posts exhibiting left-wing bias, in violation of the company’s policies, and the firm throttling disfavored outlets’ “misinformation” — which in at least one case included a published academic study on the failure of lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“These wide-ranging connections with various government agencies are taking place as the government is rapidly expanding into the censorship sphere,” the chairman wrote. “For example, one search of government grants and contracts from 2016 through 2023 revealed that there were 538 separate grants and 36 different government contracts specifically to address ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation.’”

The right-leaning websites the Daily Wire and the Federalist filed a civil complaint against the State Department in December 2023 for allegedly using taxpayer dollars to fund firms like NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), which smeared the outlets as “purveyors of ‘disinformation.’”

Both firms have relationships with social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, as well as advertisers like Dell Technologies, ExxonMobil and Nike, prompting concerns about how their “disinformation” ratings would affect business.

In 2022, GDI distributed a “Disinformation Risk Assessment” that rated the “riskiest” sites for factual news as the Federalist, the Daily Wire, Newsmax, the American Conservative, Reason Magazine and the New York Post, among others.

The New York Times and the Washington Post were ranked as among the “least risky.”

In a statement Friday, Crovitz said: “When the Trump administration first asked us for our data and insights about disinformation campaigns from hostile foreign governments in 2020, we contracted with them on the condition that such work be strictly limited to disinformation from hostile governments, not US publishers. We’re proud that NewsGuard’s data and analysis has helped defend Western democracies against Russian, Chinese and Iranian disinformation. NewsGuard was created as a transparent alternative to censorship by governments or big tech companies, and we do not censor any content.”

The 2020 and 2024 elections have brought so-called “anti-misinformation” and “anti-disinformation” efforts to the fore — with The Post’s bombshell scoop on Hunter Biden’s laptop being falsely labeled a Russian plant by then-candidate Joe Biden.

Some Democrats have since been suggesting that the only way to defeat pushback to their policies is by crushing the First Amendment.

President Biden’s ex-climate envoy John Kerry even called the constitutional freedom “a major block” to keeping people from believing the “wrong” kinds of things.

“You know, there’s a lot of discussion now about how you curb those entities in order to guarantee that you’re going to have some accountability on facts,” Kerry told an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“But look, if people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda, and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence,” he said.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, also downplayed free speech protections during a 2022 appearance on MSNBC’s “The Reid Out.”

“I think we need to push back on this. There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy,” the Minnesota governor inaccurately stated.

Comer has asked for NewsGuard to provide by Nov. 8 all records of its contracts, grants or other work with the Pentagon, the State Department and any other federal agencies or departments.

[mariacallous]

In March 2019, TikTok agreed to a US federal court order barring the social media giant from collecting personal information from its youngest users without their parents’ consent. According to a new lawsuit filed by US authorities, TikTok immediately breached that order and now faces penalties of $51,744 per violation per day.

TikTok “knowingly allowed children under 13 to create accounts in the regular TikTok experience and collected extensive personal information from those children without first providing parental notice or obtaining verifiable parental consent,” the US Department of Justice alleged on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission in a complaint lodged on Friday in federal court in California.

TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes says the company strongly disagrees with the allegations. He reiterates a statement the company issued in June, when the FTC had voted to sue, that many of the issues raised relate to “practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed.” Hughes adds that TikTok is “proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve the platform.”

Lawsuits over alleged violations of children’s privacy are almost a rite of passage for social platforms these days, with companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Epic Games collectively having paid hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties.

But the case against TikTok also falls into the US government’s escalating battle with the service, whose ownership by China-based ByteDance has drawn national security concerns. Some US officials and lawmakers have said they worry about China exploiting TikTok to spread propaganda and gather data on vulnerable Americans. TikTok has refuted the concerns as baseless fear-mongering and is fighting a law that requires it to seek new ownership.

The complaint filed on Friday alleges that as of 2020, TikTok wouldn’t let users sign up on their own if they entered a birthdate that showed they were under 13 years old. But it allowed those same users to go back, edit their birthdate, and sign up without parental permission.

TikTok also wouldn’t remove accounts purporting to belong to children unless the user made an explicit admission of their age on their account, according to the lawsuit. TikTok’s hired content moderators allegedly spent just five to seven seconds on average reviewing accounts for age violations. “Defendants actively avoid deleting the accounts of users they know to be children,” the lawsuit states. Additionally, millions of accounts flagged as potentially belonging to children allegedly were never removed because of a bug in TikTok’s internal tools.

The lawsuit acknowledges that TikTok improved some policies and processes over the years but that it still held on to and used personal information of children that it shouldn’t have had in the first place.

Authorities also took issue with TikTok’s dedicated Kids Mode. The lawsuit alleges that TikTok gathered and shared information about children’s usage of the service and built profiles on them while misleading parents about the data collection. When parents tried to have data on their kids deleted, TikTok forced them to jump through unnecessary hoops, the lawsuit further alleges.

TikTok should have known better, according to the government, because of the 2019 court order, which stemmed from TikTok’s predecessor—a service known as Musical.ly—allegedly violating a number of rules aimed at protecting children’s privacy. Those rules largely come from the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a law dating to the late-1990s dotcom era that tried to create a safer environment for children on the web.

Lawmakers in the US this year have been weighing a major update in the form of the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA. The proposed measure, which passed the Senate earlier this week, would require services like TikTok to better control kids’ usage. Detractors have said it would unfairly cut off some young populations, such as transgender kids, from vital support networks. KOSA’s fate remains uncertain. But as the case against TikTok allegedly shows, stricter rules may do little to stop companies from pursuing familiar tactics.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Four days after the new Weathered Waves bar received its license to serve its hard ciders in its space at The Gateway mall in Salt Lake City, a post on its Instagram account announced, “NO ZIONISTS ALLOWED.”

The Monday post said: “We are a business, but we are also human. We don’t make and sell cider for robots. … We are horrified by the ongoing genocide in Gaza and are even more horrified to see so many Americans ignore and rationalize ethnic cleansing. That is why we are pleased to announce we are banning all Zionists forever from our establishments.”

[Update: Salt Lake City bar’s ‘No Zionists’ policy prompts dozens of complaints to Utah liquor agency]

Weathered Waves, 158 S. Rio Grande St., is part of the Six Sailor Cider group, and specializes in locally brewed hard ciders. Six Sailor Cider is owned by Michael Valentine, an advocate and small-business owner who unsuccessfully ran for Salt Lake City mayor last year as a first-time candidate.

On Wednesday, the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services notified the state Attorney General’s office about the post, “so they may conduct an investigation on whether the business is violating discrimination laws,” said agency spokesperson Michelle Schmitt.

The agency has received “several comments from members of the public” about the postings on Weathered Waves’ Instagram account, Schmitt said, and “we take these concerns seriously.”

It also “is reviewing its statutory obligations and legal options for responding to discrimination at DABS licensed establishments. … Safety is always the department’s top priority for everyone who interacts with licensed establishments, including patrons, employees, and owners,” Schmitt said.

The department’s commission awarded Weathered Waves its bar license on Feb. 29 and it opened March 1. In an interview Wednesday, Valentine said he wrote the Monday post and doesn’t see it as antisemitic.

He emphasized that he opposes all hate speech and said he has received “thousands” of messages on voicemail and social media, including some with threats. He said he reported a threat to burn the bar down to Salt Lake City police.

He said he clarified his stance in a follow-up post. “We didn’t just ban Zionism, we banned all hate speech,” he said. “We banned neo-Nazis, we banned transphobes, we banned sexists, we banned homophobes — any and all hate speech.”

[doctorjameswatson]

In a continuation from yesterday. The man with the homophobic review didn’t like our response and has updated his review, changing it from 3 to 1 star, and has put in an official complaint to our head office.

He also claims that almost everyone on his social media pages agrees with him.

My colleagues think it’s laughable and in a way it is because my company’s policies are very pro-lgbt and the law also backs us.

But it just gives me anxiety 😔

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Just curious...could this Sussex Squad thing turn into a legal investigation (if it's not already)? And what crimes would they be arrested for and what is the penalty?!??

The "general" stuff they do (for lack of a better word), like spread rumors about the Waleses and bully Kate's fans on social media, there's not a whole lot there. It's just seen as "coming with the territory" (also for lack of a better phrase).

Where the Sussex Squad could get into legal trouble is if or when they go after single accounts - doxxing them, dogpiling them, or escalating to death threats (or r*pe threats, threats of violence, etc.). All of that could qualify as stalking, intimidating, harassment, or incitement for violence for which there could be criminal charges levied. Depending on the severity and the jurisdiction, the penalty could range from slap-on-the-wrist fines to jail time.

Where it gets complicated is who reports these incidents and what kind of evidence or investigation there is to support the complaint. Usually the victim of a cyber crime has to report the incident (vs a bystander witness) and usually the onus on providing evidence to prove there's a case is on the victim - in most cases, the investigator (police, FBI, DHS, a lawyer) won't open a case unless the victim provides enough evidence to make it worth their time; screenshots of messages and usernames or phone numbers, IP addresses, voicemails, voice recordings. Which really sucks, but that's the grey area in a lot of cyber crime where the policies and practices are still being developed.

So for example, when Yankee Wally was doxxed and bullied off Twitter, only Yankee Wally could have reported the cyberbullying, the cyber harassment, the cyber stalking/intimidation and she would have had to provide evidence - e.g., screenshots of the tweets and the usernames/accounts who were harassing her. The rest of us wouldn't have been able to "call it in" for her. We could've helped take screenshots of any public messages she received or any posts/websites we saw where her PII published, but we most likely wouldn't have been able to report it to the FBI and have it taken seriously.

Which is why if you're ever the victim of a cyberbullying campaign, a doxxing, online harassment, it's super important you document everything. Take screenshots of all the messages you get (or see) and make sure all the identifying information is there like timestamps, usernames, account handles, and phone numbers. If you know how to get someone's IP address, grab that too. Save any voicemails or voice messages you get. If you answer a call that turns out to be harassment, document as much as you can; the number they called from, what time, what their voice sounded like, what they said. Have physical copies (printouts), electronic copies (screenshots), and backup copies.

If this is happening to you and you receive packages or letters in the mail from addresses you don't recognize, that are unusually heavy, or are leaking some kind of fluid/grease, don't open them, don't bring them inside, don't let children or pets near. Call the police to report it and follow their instructions about what to do.

[radicallicious]

A female inmate at Mexico’s Chalco Penitentiary and Social Reintegration Center has reported that she was sexually assaulted by a trans-identified male who had been placed in her cell.

The male inmate had a history of sexual violence, and threatened to harm the victim’s children if she spoke out about what happened to her.

The assault occurred in July of 2022 after the trans-identified male inmate was transferred into the victim’s quarters. Despite having a history of violent sexual crimes and misconduct, the perpetrator was allowed to move into the women’s area where there was minimal security, with some sections being separated only by fabric curtains.

While the victim had initially been threatened into silence as the trans-identified male had promised to harm her family using contacts he had on the outside, she eventually reported the assault to prison authorities.

CODHEM, the Human Rights Commission of the State of Mexico, launched an investigation and determined that “one of the [incarcerated women] was sexually assaulted by her roommate, who was a trans woman with previous complaints of misconduct and probable sexual harassment.”

CODHEM further revealed that “the aggression was not prevented by the prison authorities,” with the facility administrators having conducted an insufficient assessment of the inmate without follow-up and with no consideration for the possible risks the trans-identified male inmate posed to the women.

But disturbingly, despite affirming that the sexual assault had taken place and that the transgender inmate had been a risk to the women, CODHEM ordered prison staff to attend a “gender perspective” course.

As reported by El Gráfico, members of the Interdisciplinary University Seminar on Citizen Security at the National Autonomous University of Mexico were in charge of giving the course on human rights and “gender perspective” to eighty prison officials.

The same University was recently embroiled in scandal after trans activists staged a “coup” and took control over one of the largest women’s washrooms on the campus in protest of a lesbian mural being painted nearby. Trans activists vandalized the washroom, painting graffiti that threatened women critical of gender ideology with “rape and death.”

Despite Mexico’s political constitution outlining that prisons must be sex-segregated, the National Human Rights Commission of Mexico has declared that there is no “strict difference between men and women.”

Since news of the assault broke, Mexican media have almost uniformly referred to the assailant as a “woman,” or “trans woman,” using feminine pronouns to refer to the rapist.

Speaking to Reduxx on the disturbing case, Laura Lecuona, the head of WDI Mexico and author of Gender Identity: Lies and Dangers, slammed CODHEM for perpetuating gender self-identification policy in light of the obvious risks it posed.

“A man with a history of sexual violence is serving his sentence in a women’s prison, where he raped and threatened a cellmate, and the state human rights commission thinks that the solution is to give prison employees a little course on ‘gender,'” Lecuona says, questioning: “What will they teach them in this course? Likely that ‘trans women are women.’ The only solution is to recognize that self-declaration of sex involves several dangers for women.”

Lecuona also says gender self-identification policies must be “abandoned” completely in order to protect women.

“Feminists have been warning about this for years. There is still time [for authorities] to rectify and fulfill their obligation to guarantee women a life free of violence.”

The employment of “gender” counselors in cases where women have been involuntarily housed in close quarters with men who declare a transgender identity is an international phenomenon. In July, Reduxx revealed that a man who identifies as transgender presented a speech for a Women’s Empowerment event held at New Jersey’s only correctional facility for women, where he lectured female inmates on the importance of “inclusivity.”

La’Nae Grant reportedly told the women that he believed “cisgender women” may hesitate to accept trans-identifying men as female due to jealousy or “competition” between the groups for male sexual partners. The Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women has been plagued by violent male convicts being transferred into the prison, including a sadistic trans-identified male inmate��who was handed a 50-year sentence in 2003 for the brutal rape and murder of a sex-trafficked woman from Ecuador.

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Placing males' feelings and delusions before women and compromising their security in the process... Absolutely terrible. I took my time to read about Perry Cerf (the man mentioned at the end of the article) and I was this close to vomiting. The description of his crime and what he did to the woman (who was referred as a 'hooker' by other media outlet... Nice) is gut-wrenching so be careful.

And the immediate solution to a sexual assault committed by a trans-identified male in a women's prison is taking courses on gender perspective, suggested by the National Human Rights Commission out of all people... Noted.

[coochiequeens]

An intact white male went to a Korean spa and wanted access to the space for nude women, was denied, found another spa that was trans inclusive and is still suing the first spa.

A man who identifies as transgender has filed a legal complaint against a New Jersey sauna over “discrimination” on the basis of gender identity. 

Alexandra “Allie” Goebert was denied access to the women’s section of King Spa & Sauna in Palisades Park on the basis of his sex, a move he claims was a violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD).

Goebert, who is a US Army Veteran and law school graduate, filed the complaint to the state’s Department of Law and Public Safety on October 7, 2022 over the incident, which he states occurred last year on August 14. Goebert also is the owner of White Crow Martial Arts, located in Watertown, New York, where he teaches the Korean combat sport of taekwondo.

King Spa & Sauna is a facility inspired by the Korean jimjilbang, a sex-segregated public bathhouse intended for rejuvenation and health benefits. Bathing areas are sex-segregated as they are intended to be used nude. The spa’s website makes specific note of this custom.

“If you are K-spa newbie and uncomfortable being nude, you could skip the bath house. Change to the Spa uniform in the locker room and go straight to the saunas. For bath house users, you must be fully nude,” it advises.

According to the complaint, Goebert was issued a “male token” when he arrived at King Spa & Sauna, “which did not align with [his] gender identity.” Additionally, Goebert alleges that he was asked whether he had undergone genital surgery by a staff member who stated, “Have you changed your front?” to which he replied, “No.”

In accordance with the facility’s policy, Goebert was told he was prohibited from entering the women’s section, where female patrons made use of the hot tubs and wet saunas, because “those areas required nudity.”

Instead, the complaint states, Goebert was told to use the co-ed areas, which required that guests be clothed. Dissatisfied with being denied entry to the area where women were undressed, Goebert complained. The General Manager then issued him a refund and asked him to leave the premises.

According to the legal claim documents, the general manager of King Spa & Sauna is alleged to have failed “to accommodate Complainant so she could use the facilities in accordance with her gender identity.” As compensation, Goebert “requests whatever relief is provided by the law, including, but not limited to, affirmative relief, and compensatory damages for economic loss, humiliation, mental pain and suffering.”

Goebert took to social media to complain about being denied access to areas where women and girls were undressed. In a Facebook post, Goebert suggested he would instead frequent a different facility, Island Spa & Sauna, as an alternative to King Spa. Goebert claims to have reached out directly to Island Spa in one comment, saying, “I have spoken with them personally and they’re trans-welcoming.”

According to admission policies posted on Island Spa’s website, “All guests, including transgender guests, have the right to access the spa in a manner consistent with their gender identity and gender expression.”

The company further implies that any patrons who object to the presence of a man in a women’s section of the spa may be removed from the premises. “We expect all members, regardless of gender identity, to show respect for others so that all members may have a peaceful and pleasant experience.”

“We have a body-positive and accepting environment; respect your fellow bather and help us to create a safe and welcoming environment for guests of all gender, race and body types. Island Spa & Sauna has the right to remove any guest found to be in violation of these policies,” the website states.

Additionally, rules regarding the bathing area explicitly stipulate that nudity is a requirement: “Bathing suits and clothing are not allowed in the bathing area. Traditional Korean Spas require all guests to be fully nude in our gender separated bathhouses.”

A woman who was a regular patron of Island Spa told Reduxx that she, and several of her acquaintances, would no longer visit the sauna out of fear for their privacy and safety. The woman, who has requested to remain anonymous, pointed out that Asian women in particular were “horrified” to learn of the self-identification policy.

“It fills me with dread knowing this fetishist is going to be there and we wouldn’t know when. I am never going there again. I am absolutely concerned about other women and girls. My circle is mainly Asian women and everyone was horrified to hear about it. We won’t be going there now,” she said.

“Why should a naked man be in there with the women at all? We don’t care about his gender identity. He can always use the co-ed section. Why does he want to be where women and girls are naked? The spa is used by teen girls, too.”

Island Spa’s admission policy allows access to children over the age of 10 on a regular basis, and hosts “family days” once per month which permit entry to children under the age of 10 years old.

Goebert’s Instagram profile reveals that he follows a range of fetish-related accounts. 

Among them are women’s lingerie company Honey Birdette and sex toy retailer Wet For Her. Hashtags followed by Goebert include “lesbian”, “boyinadress”, “menindresses”, and the misspelled “nuedisnormal”, which features photos of naked or nearly-naked women, often in sexualized poses.

On Twitter, Goebert has stated that he has not had any genital surgery, and clarified that he has no intention to do so in the future. 

Goebert’s legal claim comes as “gender identity” policies allowing adult men into areas of undress designated for women and children are coming under national scrutiny. This week, news reports circulated revealing that a trans-identified male is facing multiple indecent exposure charges after repeatedly stripping down in the women’s locker room at a YMCA in Xenia, Ohio, including when minors were present.

In January, a young woman became the target of trans activist vitriol after she took to a city council meeting in Santee, California, to report that she had seen a male in the YMCA locker rooms. 17-year-old Rebecca Phillips teared up as she recounted her experience at the January 11 meeting, stating she had seen “a naked male in the women’s locker room.”

Christynne Lili Wrene Wood, 66, announced publicly that he was the man that Phillips had been referring to in her testimony. Reduxx would later find that Wood had a disturbing social media history that included posting photos of little girls he compared himself to.

In 2021, another Korean spa in the United States became a flashpoint for debates on gender ideology after a trans-identified sex offender had been granted access to the women’s facilities. 

Wi Spa, a jimjilbang-style establishment in Los Angeles, California, was the subject of international attention after a video recorded by a female patron went viral on social media. In the video, the woman confronts spa staff because of a nude male who was exposing himself in front of women and girls in the women’s changing room.

The incident was initially dismissed as a “transphobic” hoax by progressive commentators, but would later be verified by police who issued a warrant for the arrest of Darren Agee Merager, a registered sex offender. Merager was arrested in December of 2022.

[eretzyisrael]

Philadelphia School District Under Federal Investigation for Antisemitism

Since April 2024, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has been investigating the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) for unparalleled levels of antisemitism in its schools.

The two filed complaints specifically include abhorrent harassment of Jewish teachers and students following the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre of 1,200 Israelis.

Both federal complaints sought intervention by the OCR to compel SDP’s compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which explicitly prohibits public schools from perpetrating or failing to respond to acts of discrimination and intimidation due to religious and ethnic bias.

SDP is the largest school district in Pennsylvania and the eighth-largest school district in America. It serves 118,335 students in grades K-12.

Key Findings

There are unparalleled levels of antisemitism and harassment of Jewish students and teachers in Philadelphia’s K-12 schools post October 7: This has prompted two TItle VI complaints to be filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

Canary Mission has identified antisemitic teachers: The teachers’ names were redacted in the above complaints.

Systemic Use of Social Media to Promote Antisemitism: Educators and administrators in the Philly school district have used their social media platforms to disseminate antisemitic content and propagate hatred towards Israel. This activity is in violation of district policy.

Sanctioned Antisemitic Curricula and Events: The district has allowed the promotion of antisemitic content through sanctioned school events, “teach-ins” and class assignments.

Active Alignment with Anti-Israel Activist Groups: Philly educators have aligned themselves with anti-Israel activist groups, such as the Racial Justice Organizing Committee and Philadelphia Educators for Palestine. These groups actively push an anti-Israel agenda in schools, including the organization of events and the distribution of materials that promote antisemitism and glorify violence.

Retaliation Against Jewish Parents and Students: Jewish parents and students who have raised concerns about antisemitism in Philly’s schools have faced retaliation and public denigration by teachers and administrators. This has created a culture of fear and reluctance to report incidents, further perpetuating a hostile environment.

Refusal to Take Action: Despite numerous complaints, the district has failed to take adequate action to address these issues, resulting in Jewish students withdrawing from schools and Jewish teachers retiring early due to the hostile environment.

Facilitation of Antisemitism by High-Ranking Administrators: Senior officials in the district have fostered a culture of antisemitism through public social media posts and by supporting antisemitic rhetoric and events.

[ukrfeminism]

Westminster city council and Social Work England last week became the latest to join a list of organisations – including Arts Council England, a barristers’ chambers and a thinktank – found to have discriminated against a female worker because of their gender-critical beliefs.

The social worker Rachel Meade’s winagainst the council and her profession’s regulator means she joins a select but growing group of gender-critical feminists who have successfully brought discrimination claims on the basis of their beliefs.

Gender-critical feminists believe sex is biological and cannot be changed, and disagree with trans rights activists who say gender identity should be given priority in terms of law-making and policy. Clashes in workplaces – in some cases with those who regard the focus on biological sex as transphobic – have led to a string of employment tribunals.

On Monday, a tribunal began hearing a constructive dismissal claim from Roz Adams against Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre. Next month, Kenny McBride’s case against the Scottish government is due to be heard in Glasgow, while judgments are pending in a claim from Prof Jo Phoenix against the Open University and that of the Green party’s former deputy leader Shahrar Ali against the party.

In all four cases – and more in the pipeline – the claimants argue they were discriminated against because they hold gender-critical beliefs.

They hope to follow in the footsteps of the barrister Allison Bailey, and of the researcher Maya Forstater who obtained a landmark judgment in 2021 that her gender-critical beliefs were a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act. The campaign group Sex Matters, founded by Forstater, has identified at least 19 current cases.

After the Meade case last week, which like several others involved disciplinary action being initiated against an employee as a result of social media postings, Westminster council said it would “consider what changes we need to make”. For the local authority it comes too late to prevent a payout, but other employers may need to learn from it.

Lucy Lewis, a partner at the law firm Lewis Silkin, said that on such a politically charged issue, employers could feel they must act quickly after a complaint.

“Because this has become a politically toxic issue, there’s a sort of temptation [on the part of employers] to take a kneejerk reaction rather than the considered view of actually, what is the impact, is there another way we can address this [other than disciplinary proceedings or suspension]?

“People are being influenced by the very public and political dialogue on this and actually there’s value in just taking a step back and understanding all the factors.”

Georgina Calvert-Lee, an employment and equality barrister at Bellevue Law, agreed that the wider debate – in which gender-critical feminists and advocates of transgender rights have been at loggerheads – may have influenced employers, but said they must adjust their behaviour in light of the case law.

“What Forstater and Bailey have done is they’ve set this very strong precedent of tolerance,” Calvert-Lee said.

“Above all, in a pluralistic society, which is what we want, you have to accept that people are going to have different views and some people are going to find their colleagues’ views completely obnoxious – but nevertheless protected because freedom of speech is something that … has been really promoted and underlined.

“It’s always been there but it’s been sort of forgotten in some of these culture wars.”

After settling a case with a gender-critical volunteer, Katie Alcock, Girlguiding UK said it remained “a home for trans people” but added: “We agree that sex and gender are different, and will reflect this in the language we use.”

After another case that was settled out of court, brought by the student James Esses, who was thrown off his course for expressing gender-critical views, the UK Council for Psychotherapy conceded it was a valid professional belief that children suffering from gender dysphoria should receive counselling rather than medical intervention and people should not be discriminated against for such beliefs. Esses’ case against the Metanoia Institute continues.

Calvert-Lee said the cases to date showed the importance of employers training staff “about what is acceptable and what’s not and what amounts to harassment and what probably doesn’t – the sort of respect they should give to each other”, as well as giving training to those staff investigating complaints.

“Whenever there’s some sort of complaint which involves a belief that’s basically pitted against another belief, they [the investigator] have to be completely neutral,” she said. “It’s not on for the investigator to come to it very overtly with their own value judgment.”

The tribunals have made clear that it is not a free-for-all but a balancing exercise. For instance, David Mackereth – an outlier in that he lost his case based on gender-critical beliefs – was found to have crossed the line by misgendering service users at the Department for Work and Pensions, making its decision to dismiss him reasonable.

Calvert-Lee believes the recent increase in cases will ultimately be a blip rather than a growing trend, as workplaces become more aware of the need to handle complaints and concerns more carefully.

The events that led to Meade’s claim came “just weeks before the Forstater employment appeal tribunal decision was given”, she said, and the results of the Forstater and Bailey cases would mean “employers will have training, and so they’re likely to fall off, you’re likely to have fewer cases”.

Lewis said there would always be “bad eggs” but compared the situation to legal cases on manifestations of religious belief at work, such as wearing a cross.

“You have a flurry of cases and people that aren’t lawyers … wonder why those cases go away,” she said. “In a common law system like ours, you have cases that set out some of the principles employment tribunals need to consider and then really good organisations like the CIPD [Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development] take all that reasoning, they give advice and training to employers and then employers are clear about what they need to do, how they should manage this kind of conflict in the workplace.”

She added that the media attention afforded to gender-critical cases perhaps suggested that they were more common than they really were. In fact, she suggested there were likely to be a greater number of claims brought by transgender people alleging harm, though many go unreported.

“The overwhelming majority of employers are not setting out to discriminate; they’re not just thinking ‘well all people with gender-critical views are bad, so we’re just going to get rid of them’,” said Lewis.

“They just have got strong alternative views in the workplace and they haven’t known how to navigate through that conflict.”