Again Ethel is a woman I have been following since she was a teenager. She has gone through all the stages of transitioning, from doubt, trying to make it something else to finally admitting to herself and the world she is a woman and now living her life as one. The grand thing is she still fights so very hard for trans people despite the costs to her for taking on one of the growing popular atheist anti-trans people and others. She lost 2/3rd her income but never backed down, always telling the truth. She makes every video well researched and documents it, also she provides a transcript for those who would rather read than listen. I admit I admire her and her strength in her life struggles. But if you wish to learn more about those attacking trans stuff or the false idea that trans women are destroying female sports, I would watch her videos. Hugs
January 10, 1776 Thomas Paine Thomas Paine anonymously published his influential pamphlet, “Common Sense”. In it Paine questioned the fundamental legitimacy of the rule of kings, and advocated the doctrine of independence for Americans, and the rights of mankind. The entire text:
January 10, 1908 A prominent young Indian lawyer, Mohandas Gandhi, was jailed for the first time. He had refused to register as an Asian in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was released three weeks later. Gandhi, 1906 Gandhi and how his time in South Africa affected his life
January 10, 1917 The National Women’s Party began regular picketing of the White House, advocating the right to vote for women.
The first suffrage picket line leaving Congressional Union headquarters to march to the White House gates.
January 10, 1920 The League of Nations formally came into being when its Covenant (part of the Treaty of Versailles), ratified by 42 nations in 1919, took effect. In 1914, a political assassination in Sarajevo set off a chain of events that led to the outbreak of the most costly war ever fought to that date. As more and more young men were sent down into the trenches, influential voices in the United States and Britain began calling for the establishment of a permanent international body to promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security. Though strongly supported by President Woodrow Wilson (who served as Chairman of the Committee that developed the Covenant), the U.S. never joined.
January 10, 1930 In December 1928, Mohandas Gandhi attended a session of the Indian National Congress Party in Calcutta where it called for complete Indian independence from Great Britain. This was to be achieved through peaceful means, specifically complete noncooperation with the governmental apparatus of colonial British rule, known as the Raj. On this day, Gandhi drafted the declaration, which stated, in part: “The British government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually. . . . Therefore . . . India must sever the British connection and attain Purna Swaraj, or complete independence.”
January 10, 1940 Members of the Brethren, Mennonites and Friends religious groups sent a message to Presidend Franklin Roosevelt requesting alternative service in the event of war. Civilian Public Service workers Clark and Kriebel in the Duke University’s hospital sterilizer room. The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 proclaimed that all persons who “by reason of religious training and belief were conscientiously opposed to all forms of military service, should, if conscripted for service, be assigned to work of national importance under civilian direction.” More on those who refused to serve in the “good war”
January 10, 1946 The first General Assembly of the United Nations convened at Westminster Central Hall in London, England, and included 51 nations.On January 24, the General Assembly adopted its first resolution, a measure calling for the peaceful uses of atomic energy and the elimination of atomic and other weapons of mass destruction.
January 10, 1966 Vernon Dahmer, a businessman and farmer in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, offered to pay the poll tax for those who couldn’t afford the fee that was then required before a citizen could vote (and which was made unconstitutional in federal elections by the 24th Amendment). Vernon Dahmer (foreground) former home of Vernon Dahmer Dahmer was known for saying, “If you don’t vote, you don’t count.” The night after a radio station broadcasted Dahmer’s offer, his home and store were firebombed. Dahmer died later from severe burns. The man responsible for the arson attack, Ku Klux Klan Wizard Sam Bowers, was not tried and convicted until 32 years later. The poll tax and other means of disenfranchising African Americans
January 10, 1971 The Peoples’ Peace Treaty between the citizens of the U.S. and Vietnam was endorsed by 130 organizations. Several million North Americans later signed it.
One change Meta made this week was to eliminate restrictions on some attacks on immigrants, women, and transgender people. Specifically, its hateful conduct policy now allows “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird.’”
Meta has long supplemented its public community standards with nonpublic guidelines that it shares with employees and contractors charged with enforcing its policies. The guidelines give moderators examples of what is and is not allowed.
Today, Platformer is sharing some of those guidelines.
In an answer to the question “Do insults about mental illness and abnormality violate when targeting people on the basis of gender or sexual orientation?” Meta now answers “no.” It gave the following examples of posts that do not violate its policies:
Non-violating: “Boys are weird.” Non-violating: “Trans people aren’t real. They’re mentally ill.” Non-violating: “Gays are not normal.” Non-violating: “Women are crazy.” Non-violating: “Trans people are freaks.”
And in a follow-up questions about whether denying that a protected class violates the hateful content policy, Meta also answers no. It gave these as examples of posts that are now allowed on Facebook and Instagram: (snip-MORE. This is from the guy who left Substack a while back. I don’t want to steal from him. It’s free to read.)
Oh, we’re helping Trump deport people for more minor offenses now, to avoid being ‘soft’ on immigration? Read on Substack
(I’m not putting the piece here, because it’s obvious to me that I’m not the only one who dislikes the news of the day. However, if your writingtapping fingers are warm or want to be, there’s an action within; writing or calling to our US Senators to oppose the Laken Riley Act. The article, couched in angry humor/humorous anger, gives good insight on the act, along with listing unintended consequences, because of course Republicans don’t read what they write and can’t think ahead about what words mean. Anyway, go read, or not; just call or email your Senators. And thanks!)
Hi Everyone. I woke at 12:22 last night. But I got up at 1 am and started making posts and doing things. So I just finished the asshat yesterday news posts. So now before I answer the comments … and I love comments everyone sends to me, I have to make a red sauce. Ron promised to make me a grand lasagna if I make the sauce. So with ear buds in, off I go to make the sauce. Hugs and loves to everyone. Remember that I really care for everyone. Add any questions or comments in the comments and I will reply there. Hugs.
If you criticize the dear leader of the maga cult then you are forever an enemy. Death to the nonbelievers. This is why the current republicans and maga is very much a cult. Hugs.
This is great. The tRump world crowed about this citizen of Greenland who praised tRump’s plan to take over Greenland. Yet the truth did come out … He was a tRump loving fanboy violent felon drug dealer prison escapee. Hugs.
Personally, I don’t think it’s surrender on the part of Meta, nor any of the other media moguls. It’s all of one piece-they’re all in it together with the new 47th president. I’ve read this from others, too, both last night and this morning. We the people are not part of the club. Anyway, here is this.
Donald Trump’s surprising victory in the 2016 US presidential election sparked a backlash against tech platforms in general and against Meta in particular. The company then known as Facebook was battered by revelations that its network dramatically amplified the reach of false stories about Trump and his opponent, Hillary Clinton, and was used as part of a successful effort by Russia to sow division in US politics and tilt the election in favor of Trump.
Chastened by the criticism, Meta set out to shore up its defenses. It hired 40,000 content moderators around the world, invested heavily in building new technology to analyze content for potential harms and flag it for review, and became the world’s leading funder of third-party fact-checking organizations. It spent $280 million to create an independent Oversight Board to adjudicate the most difficult questions about online speech. It disrupted dozens of networks of state-sponsored trolls who sought to use Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to spread propaganda and attack dissenters.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg had expected that these moves would generate goodwill for the company, particularly among the Democrats who would retake power after Trump lost in 2020. Instead, he found that disdain for the company remained strongly bipartisan. Republicans scorned him for policies that disproportionately punished the right, who post more misinformation and hate speech than the left does. Democrats blamed him for the country’s increasingly polarized politics and decaying democracy. And all sides pilloried him for the harms that his apps cause in children — an issue that 42 state attorneys general are now suing him over.
Last summer, the threats against Zuckerberg turned newly personal. In 2020, Zuckerberg and his wife had donated $419.5 million to fund nonpartisan election infrastructure projects. (Another effort that had seemingly generated no goodwill for him or Meta whatsoever.) All that the money had done was to help people vote safely during the pandemic. But Republicans twisted Zuckerberg’s donation into a scandal; Trump — who lost the election handily but insisted it had been stolen from him — accused Zuckerberg of plotting against him.
“We are watching him closely,” Trump wrote in a coffee-table book published ahead of the 2024 election, “and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison.”
By the end of 2024, Zuckerberg had given up on finding any middle path through the polarized and opposite criticisms leveled against him by Republicans and Democrats. His rival Elon Musk had spent the past year showing how Republican party support can be bought — cheaply.
In business and in life, Zuckerberg’s motivation has only ever been to win. And a doddering, transactional Trump presented Meta with a rare opportunity for a fresh start.
All they would have to do is whatever Trump wanted them to do.
Ending its fact-checking program, which funds third-party organizations to check the claims in viral Facebook and Instagram posts and downrank them when they are found to contain falsehoods. It will be replaced with a clone of Community Notes, X’s volunteer fact-checking program.
Eliminating restrictions on some forms of speech previously considered harmful, including some criticisms of immigrants, women, and transgender people.
Re-calibrating automated content moderation systems to prioritize only high-severity violations of content policy, such as those involving drugs and terrorism, and reviewing lower-severity violations only when reported by users. (This sounds boring but might be the most important change of all, as we’ll get to)
Re-introducing discussion of current events, which the company calls “civic content,” into Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
Moving content moderation teams from California to Texas to fight the perception that Meta’s moderation reflects a liberal Californian bias. (Never mind that the company has always had content moderation teams based in Texas, or that it was Zuckerberg and not the moderators who set the company’s policies.)
Zuckerberg announced these changes in an Instagram Reel; Joel Kaplan, a Republican operative and longtime Meta executive who last week replaced Nick Clegg as the company’s president of public policy, discussed the changes in an appearance on “Fox and Friends.” (See transcripts of both here.)
One way to understand these changes is as a marketing exercise, intended to convey a sense of profound change to an audience of one. In this, Meta appears to have succeeded; Trump today called the company’s changes “excellent” and said that the company has “come a long way.” (“Mr. Trump also said Meta’s change was ‘probably’ a result of the threats he had made against the company and Mr. Zuckerberg,” dryly noted the Times’ Mike Isaac and Theodore Schleifer.)
Whether this will be enough to get Trump to end the current antitrust prosecution against Meta, or otherwise advocate for the company in regulatory affairs, remains to be seen. By the cynical calculus of the company’s communications and policy teams, though, one assumes that Trump’s comments inspired a round of high-fives in the company’s Washington, DC offices.
But these changes are likely to substantially increase the amount of harmful speech on Meta’s platforms, according to 10 current and former employees who spoke to Platformer on Tuesday.
Start with the end of Meta’s fact-checking partnerships, which perhaps generated the most headlines of the company’s changes on Tuesday. While the company has been gradually lowering its investment in fact-checking for a couple years now, Meta’s abandonment of the project will have real effects: on the fact-checking organizations for whom Meta was a primary source of revenue, but also in the Facebook and Instagram feeds of which Meta is an increasingly begrudging steward. (snip-MORE. Go read; he left Substack because of the nazis, and made Platformer to get his writing to people. It’s free to read, and you don’t have to subscribe, either.)
For months, Meta has been restricting content with LGBTQ-related hashtags from search and discovery under its “sensitive content” policy aimed at restricting “sexually suggestive content.”
Posts with LGBTQ+ hashtags including #lesbian, #bisexual, #gay, #trans, #queer, #nonbinary, #pansexial, #transwomen, #Tgirl, #Tboy, #Tgirlsarebeautiful, #bisexualpride, #lesbianpride, and dozens of others were hidden for any users who had their sensitive content filter turned on. Teenagers have the sensitive content filter turned on by default.
When teen users attempted to search LGBTQ terms they were shown a blank page and a prompt from Meta to review the platform’s “sensitive content” restrictions, which discuss why the app hides “sexually explicit” content.
Meta reversed the restrictions on LGBTQ search terms after User Mag reached out for comment, saying that it was in error. “These search terms and hashtags were mistakenly restricted,” a Meta spokesperson said. “It’s important to us that all communities feel safe and welcome on Meta apps, and we do not consider LGBTQ+ terms to be sensitive under our policies.”
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Under mounting pressure from lawmakers and amidst a moral panic about young people’s social media use, last year, Meta introduced a new set of “sensitive content” restrictions across Instagram, Facebook, and Threads, aimed at teenagers. “We will start to hide more types of content for teens on Instagram and Facebook,” the company said at the time.
In September, Meta doubled down, forcing users under the age of 18 to use “Instagram Teen Accounts,” a setting which could only be reversed by a parent or guardian. The goal of this change, in Meta’s words, was to “limit … the content [teenagers] see, and help ensure their time is well spent.”
These changes quickly resulted in LGBTQ+ content getting restricted across Meta apps. Meanwhile, heterosexual content, tradwife content, and content featuring straight cisgender couples (even those engaged in romantic activities) has flourished.
“Meta categorizing LGBTQ hashtags as ‘sensitive content’ is an alarming example of censorship that should concern everyone,” said Leanna Garfield, social media safety program manager at GLAAD.
Some LGBTQ teenagers and content creators attempted to sound the alarm about the issue, but their posts failed to get traction. For years, LGBTQ creators on Instagram have suffered shadow bans and had their content labeled as “non-recommendable.” The restrictions on searches, however, are more recent, coming into effect in the past few months. Meta said it was investigating to find out when the error began.
“A responsible and inclusive company would not build an algorithm that classifies some LGBTQ hashtags as ‘sensitive content,’ hiding helpful and age-appropriate content from young people by default,” a spokesperson for GLAAD said. “Regardless of if this was an unintended error, Meta should… test significant product updates before launch.”
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Several LGBQT teenagers I spoke to said that they weren’t even aware of the sensitive content restrictions, but said that they struggled to find other LGBTQ young people to connect with through Instagram.
“For many LGBTQ people, especially youth, platforms like Instagram are crucial for self-discovery, community building, and accessing supportive information,” Garfield said. “By limiting access to LGBTQ content, Instagram may be inadvertently contributing to the isolation and marginalization of LGBTQ users.”
The downranking and hiding of LGBTQ+ content comes as LGBTQ rights across the country are under attack.
On December 4th, the Supreme Court heard a major case on banning healthcare for trans youth. Trump has pledged to roll back protections for LGBTQ students, and right wing groups like the Heritage Foundation are working together with Democrats to dismantle civil liberties and restrict young people from accessing social media under dangerous proposed legislation such as the very poorly named Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).
KOSA co-sponsor Rep. Marsha Blackburn claimed that it’s essential to restrict teens access to social media to “protect minor children from the transgender [sic] in this culture and that influence.”
One of the most prominent voices pushing legislation like KOSA and boosting policies like Meta’s sensitive content restrictions is NYU Stern School of Business professor Jonathan Haidt, whose dubious book, The Anxious Generation falsely ties social media use to teen mental health issues in order to push a moral panic about kids and technology use. This moral panic is then used to justify harmful laws that restrict speech and civil liberties online, and do immense harm to marginalized LGBTQ youth.
“Meta categorizing LGBTQ hashtags as ‘sensitive content’ is an alarming example of censorship that should concern everyone”
Mark Zuckerberg recently dined at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and is seeking an “active role” in Trump tech policy as the two are “now warming to each other,” according to The Guardian.
The increased censorship of LGBTQ content online is already having devastating effects on young people. For queer teens who rely on social media to connect with their peers and find support, these policies are cutting off vital access to community and representation.
“Meta should not only stop suppressing LGBTQ content in this way, it should also clarify how and why [this error occurred],” said Garfield.
User Mag is a 100% reader-supported publication. To support my work, become a free or paid subscriber. I could not do this work without your support.
Wow! This has taken a long time. I had hoped to do it every day. But I have been at this since 4 am and it is now 12 pm when I am finishing it. I love sharing the horrible shit the right wing thinks, the things the cult wants to do. If everyone likes these posts so they can choose what to read or ignore let me know. If no one wants them then I am wasting 8 hours of my life. Love and hugs to all. PS. On the other side even with my issues I am feeling a lot more energized. It seems I go one 24 hour period with no sleep and then sleep nearly 12 hours … and repeat. Love all of you, really feel good right now.
But please let me know what you feel of these posts. Do they keep you informed? Do they help? As to if I listen yes, I have decided to post the meme post twice a week because the majority of the few responces I got implied they were too many in each post. So the one I have now worked on for several days will be posted tomorrow morning and since only one person said they cared about the day, I will now try to do them on Wednesday and Sunday. However the voting is still open if I get a new majority of people who feel a different day is better for them. Again as always, loves and hugs. Scottie
Trump supporter crashes his car while speeding in the snow, screaming about Trump, and blasting "maga music". He was livestreaming WHILE DRIVING 💀 pic.twitter.com/uOinMINwa2
White male bosses, black / brown low level employees without a chance of promotion. White women secretaries / assistants. In other words, 1950 to 1960.
PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Kat Kerr declares that people who stole the election will “hang on meat hooks in hell right next to Hitler.” Kat Kerr says 150-foot angels will kill her critics. Kat Kerr says a talking scroll in heaven will soon prove the “legality” that Trump is still president. Kat Kerr says she heard God “laughing loudly” at Biden’s fake electoral college count. Kat Kerr says Jesus took her to a football game in heaven where he always wins at every sport. Kat Kerr says Jesus personally gave her the commission to draw a portrait of God and that she touched God’s hair while visiting heaven to create the drawing. Kat Kerr personally dispatches 1000 “special ops angels” to ensure Trump is reelected. Kat Kerr assigns 100 million angels to guard the Republican convention. Kat Kerr claims God destroyed the Bahamas with a hurricane due to all the underground sex trafficking tunnels. Kat Kerr claims she saw angels bombarding Trump protesters to drive out their “demonic infections.” Kat Kerr claims she waved at the blond angels guarding the tomb of Jesus. Kat Kerr claims she met Whitney Houston in heaven. Kat Kerr claims the GOP secretly won the 2018 House midterms by pretending to be Democrats. Kat Kerr claims all the aborted babies in heaven had a dance party after Kavanaugh was sworn in. Kat Kerr claims God has a rainbow colored pet unicorn. Kat Kerr claims she met Jesus in person and he was totally hot. Kat Kerr clams that once you reach heaven, Jesus personally throws you a dance party in his mansion and serves you the delicious desserts he baked himself. Kat Kerry claims God personally told her the results of the next five presidential elections. Kat Kerr “takes authority” over volcanoes, hurricanes, and wildfires in the name of Jesus, failing to stop each event.
Trump’s plan redirects even more wealth to top 5%. It shifts the tax burden onto everyday Americans to fund tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy. It increases inequality. Removing tax on tips is a symbolic gesture to appease MAGAs while they're sold out to the top 5%.… pic.twitter.com/noGH4Mp3fI
The first General Assembly of the United Nations convened at Westminster Central Hall in London, England, and included 51 nations. On January 24, the General Assembly adopted its first resolution, a measure calling for the peaceful uses of atomic energy and the elimination of atomic and other weapons of mass destruction.
Vernon Dahmer (foreground)
Scottie's Playtime 