February, 18 2022, 10:42am EDT
Statement on Frances Haugen's SEC Filing on Facebook's Climate Change Disinformation
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen filed two complaints with the SEC this month alleging that Facebook misled investors about its efforts to combat climate change and covid-19 misinformation.
Michael Khoo, Co-chair of the Climate Disinformation Coalition at Friends of the Earth, issued the following statement:
Frances Haugen's SEC filing shows yet again that Facebook cannot be trusted and needs Congress to step in to stop the spread of disinformation.
WASHINGTON
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen filed two complaints with the SEC this month alleging that Facebook misled investors about its efforts to combat climate change and covid-19 misinformation.
Michael Khoo, Co-chair of the Climate Disinformation Coalition at Friends of the Earth, issued the following statement:
Frances Haugen's SEC filing shows yet again that Facebook cannot be trusted and needs Congress to step in to stop the spread of disinformation.
In a recent letter we received from Facebook, Nick Clegg told the Climate Disinformation Coalition that there is only a "small amount" of climate change disinformation on the platform. Facebook appears now to be spreading disinformation about its disinformation.
Whether it's fueling the insurrection, trans-youth bullying, teen body image issues, or climate denial, Facebook's algorithm enables the small fringe to tear apart our communities and our values. When last year's winter storm decimated Texas residents, a few fossil fuel-backed voices falsely blamed frozen windmills, and we documented how that narrative exploded on Facebook.
Congress must now step in and require the type of safety reporting that is found in industries from car manufacturers to agriculture. It must force Facebook to disclose its data on platform safety and extremism, with ecosystem-wide reports on disinformation harms.
Facebook amplifies fringe views like climate denial and we must stop it from letting a radical minority overpower the majority.
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
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Police Say Luigi Mangione, Suspected Killer of Insurance CEO, Had 'Ill Will Toward Corporate America'
Mangione, who was arrested Monday in Pennsylvania five days after UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down in Manhattan, was reportedly in possession of an anti-corporate manifesto.
Dec 09, 2024
This is a breaking news story... Please check back later for possible updates.
Luigi Mangione—the 26-year-old man arrested in Pennsylvania Monday on gun charges and is suspected of last week's assassination of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson—was carrying a manifesto condemning insurance industry greed, police said after his apprehension.
Mangione, a Maryland native who according to his social media profiles has a master's degree in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, was apprehended after being recognized in a MacDonald's in Altoona after an employee recognized him,
The New York Timesreported.
New York Police Department (NYPD) Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Mangione was in possession of a 9mm handgun—possibly a ghost gun made with numerous parts or a 3-D printer—the type used to kill Thompson, as well as a silencer and what she described as an anti-corporate manifesto.
"It does seem he has some ill will toward corporate America," Kenny said.
According toCNN, Mangione wrote in the document that he acted alone and was "self-funded."
"I do apologize for any strife or trauma," the manifesto stated, "but it had to be done. These parasites had it coming."
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch claimed that Mangione was also carrying a fake New Jersey ID matching the one the suspected killed used to check into a New York City hostel 10 days before Thomspon was gunned down in broad daylight in Manhattan with a silencer-equipped gun firing 9mm bullets.
Three bullet casings were inscribed with the words "deny," "defend," and "depose"—a phrase commonly used by critics to describe insurance industry tactics to avoid paying patient claims. UnitedHealth, the nation's biggest private insurer, is notorious for denying more claims than any other insurance company.
Mangione's social media posts run the gamut from praising the opinions of right-wing figures like Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson to leaving positive reviews on Goodreads for books including Dr. Seuss' cautionary environmental tale The Lorax and the manifesto of Theodore Kaczynski—better known as the Unabomber.
"He had the balls to recognize that peaceful protest has gotten us absolutely nowhere and at the end of the day, he's probably right," Mangione controversially opined of Kaczynski, whom he called "an extreme political revolutionary."
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"We demand international protection for hospitals, patients, and medical staff," said the Gaza Ministry of Health.
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The death toll from Israel's 14-month assault on the Gaza Strip hit at least 44,758 on Monday, with 50 people killed in the past 24 hours alone, as Israeli forces bombed refugee camps, a flour distribution line, and a hospital, according to reporters and officials in the Palestinian enclave.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said a bombing at the Indonesian Hospital north of Gaza City wounded six patients—who are now among more than 106,000 Palestinians injured since Israel began its retaliation for last year's Hamas-led attack.
"We demand international protection for hospitals, patients, and medical staff," the ministry said in a statement reported by The Associated Press—which noted that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed Sunday evening it was unaware of any attack on the hospital "in the last three to four hours."
A nurse shared footage from the hospital with Drop Site News, which circulated the material on social media:
According toAl Jazeera, "Overnight, an Israeli attack in the southern city of Rafah also killed 10 people while they had lined up to buy flour."
Israel, which faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice, has been accused of starving Gaza's 2.3 million residents by refusing to allow enough humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.
Reporting from central Deir al-Balah, Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud said that at least three people were killed in a Monday morning attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in the north that Israeli bombing and the ongoing blockade have "turned into a graveyard."
The victims "were trying to leave their home in search of food in the vicinity of their neighborhood when they were targeted by a drone," the journalist said. "They were killed right away. Their bodies are still in the street and nobody has the ability to get to the bombed site and remove the bodies from the street."
The IDF announced that three soldiers were killed and 12 others were wounded Monday in fighting in Jabalia.
Mahmoud, the journalist, also said Monday that bodies were piling up outside al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital after an Israeli bombing at the Bureij refugee camp.
"The agony keeps on unfolding here at al-Aqsa Hospital, where survivors and relatives showed up early this morning to collect the bodies from the morgue of the hospital," he said. "At some point, the morgue of the hospital was packed with the bodies and there was not enough room for more bodies."
Citing the Palestinian news agency Wafa, Middle East Eyereported that "two children lost their lives, and others were injured on Monday, during Israeli shelling of al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip."
The updates followed a Hamas delegation led by Khalil al-Hayya leaving Cairo Sunday evening after meeting with Egypt's general intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Hassan Rashad, to discuss a potential cease-fire in Gaza.
Israeli media reported Sunday that unnamed political sources claimed Hamas and Israel are close to reaching a "small" deal that would involve a two-month cease-fire; the release of prisoners who are elderly, women, wounded, and sick; and the IDF's withdrawal from parts of Gaza.
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Dec 09, 2024
U.S. military forces launched dozens of airstrikes on more than 75 Islamic State targets in Syria on Sunday after the fall of longtime Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid ongoing Israeli and Turkish attacks on the war-torn Middle Eastern nation.
According to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), warplanes including B-52 bombers, F-15 fighters, and A-10 ground attack aircraft "conducted dozens of precision airstrikes targeting known ISIS camps and operatives in central Syria."
CENTCOM called the strikes "part of the ongoing mission to disrupt, degrade, and defeat ISIS in order to prevent the terrorist group from conducting external operations and to ensure that ISIS does not seek to take advantage of the current situation to reconstitute in central Syria."
The U.S., "together with allies and partners in the region, will continue to carry out operations to degrade ISIS operational capabilities even during this dynamic period in Syria," CENTCOM added.
"The Biden administration ordering ongoing airstrikes is a disappointing sign that they have no intent on reversing their deadly policy of interventionism."
Responding Monday to the latest attacks on Syria by U.S. forces, Danaka Katovich, national co-director of the peace group CodePink, told Common Dreams: "We condemn the U.S. airstrikes in Syria. The U.S. has sowed chaos in Syria and the entire region for years and the Biden administration ordering ongoing airstrikes is a disappointing sign that they have no intent on reversing their deadly policy of interventionism."
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"Is there no bottom to the moral void of the Western press?" he added.
Sunday's U.S. strikes came as al-Assad and relatives fled to Russia—where they have been granted asylum—amid the fall of the capital, Damascus, to rebel forces.
Also on Sunday, Israeli forces seized more territory in Syria's Golan Heights and ordered residents of five villages to "stay home and not go out until further notice" if they want to remain safe. Israel conquered the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights in 1967 and has unlawfully occupied it ever since. In 1981, Israel illegally annexed the occupied lands.
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Numerous Israelis celebrated the seizure on social media, while others cautioned against boasting about what is almost certainly an illegal conquest.
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In what it called a "horrific massacre," the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday that 11 civilians from the same family, including women and six children, were killed in a Turkish drone strike on the SDF-controlled village of Al-Mustariha in northern Raqqa Governate.
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