“I believe connectivity is a human right, and that if we work together we can make it a reality.” – Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, August 2013
“Here’s a dose of reality: for more than four years, Facebook has been cooperating with state and federal prisons to block inmates from connecting to the networking site without reporting that cooperation in its transparency report.”
More at Electronic Frontier Foundation
Quite enlightening to see the discriminatory treatment of the cops toward a black man vs. a white man open carrying a gun in Oregon (it’s legal to do so there, even though I think it shouldn’t be legal no matter what color you are).
Somehow I missed this story from October 2014 when the United Church of Christ used “freedom of religion” grounds to get a court to strike down North Carolina’s law against same-sex marriage:
“A federal judge has struck down North Carolina’s marriage laws as unconstitutional, giving the United Church of Christ and its co-plaintiffs a monumental and historic victory for equality for all people. General Synod of the United Church of Christ et al vs. Cooper challenged the state’s Amendment One for violating the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion.”
More at PR Newswire
My chosen authentic name is Stardust. Benjamin Patterson and I have written this blog post on the occasion of a June 1, 2015, protest at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, CA, against Facebook’s current prove-your-name policy (see videos and photos at the bottom of this blog post).
Claiming to create a more secure online community, Facebook encourages participants to report users with names they feel are not “authentic”. How people are supposed to know which names are not authentic is not specified. So, those people with names that are a bit out of the ordinary, the creatives among us, those from unfamiliar cultures, and those on the receiving side of a grudge, will bear the brunt of this misguided policy.
Besides encouraging a Stasi-like atmosphere among Facebook participants, the policy neglects many legitimate needs for using a profile name other than one’s legal name.
For example, people facing domestic abuse may wish to create profile alias to communicate with friendly family members. Participants in the witness protection program obviously needs profile aliases if they want to participate in the Facebook community.
People who are undergoing gender transition often do not yet have a legal name that matches their gender identity. Drag queens and other performers are usually known by names other than their legal names. In some cases, faeries, burners, and others who serve as psychologists, doctors, teachers, priesta, or in other sensitive capacities can’t be their social self publicly, so they use their chosen name on Facebook to maintain some privacy and separation between their professional life and their social life Being forced to use one’s legal name often causes confusion among one’s friends and may know you by your chosen name.
Even the U.S. founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay published the Federalist pseudonymously to ensure ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Facebook would have booted them for not using their “authentic” names.
What a shock it is when Facebook takes down your profile without any warning. When it happened to me (Stardust), I had just posted an ad for a new housemate and I didn’t know whether people could still see the ad or how they would respond since my profile appeared to be deactivated completely. Suddenly I was cut off from all my Facebook friends and my online community.
When a company like facebook has a virtual monopoly on a community space, people get used to a certain dependability of communication. Perhaps one lesson from all of this is that we can’t and shouldn’t depend on corporate monopolies to meet our community needs.
Facebook sees us as customers that are using their products, so we should be grateful and use it the way they intend it. In fact, Facebook’s prove-your-name policy is more like a corporation enforcing a governmental aecurity function, which smacks of fascism.
The fact is, it’s the users that create Facebook content. Without its users, Facebook would just be a lifeless empty skeleton.
So why does Facebook want this ridiculous prove-your-name policy? It has nothing to do with safety. There are other ways to address bad behavior directly. For example, Facebook and or law enforcement can legitimately seek court subpoenas to monitor Facebook access in the case of criminal activity. For activity such as harassment, stalking, or spam, it’s very easy for users to block or report a profile. Facebook users can themselves take action to ensure their own safety.
The real reason Facebook wants us all to use our legal names is that they want the name that’s on your credit card or your bank account, so that so that they can cross reference your profile with all of your online activity and searches. This enables them to sell the information to companies who wants to sell products to you.
They may even soon use your payment information to make it possible for you to buy products directly on Facebook.
One way to come back Facebook’s aggressive prove-your-name policy is to boycott. But because Facebook has such a monopoly on social media communications, another alternative is to post your content somewhere else, such as on your own blog. Then, you can still link from Facebook to your content, but Facebook will no longer own your content.
Finally, keep protesting Facebook’s bad policies!
“As negotiations continue, WikiLeaks has published leaked chapters of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership — a global trade deal between the United States and 11 other countries. The TPP would cover 40 percent of the global economy, but details have been concealed from the public. A recently disclosed ‘Investment Chapter’ highlights the intent of U.S.-led negotiators to create a tribunal where corporations can sue governments if their laws interfere with a company’s claimed future profits.”
More at Democracy Now!
An enlightening film about CCA and Geo, the for-profit prison corporations lobbying through ALEC to detain immigrants and continue the trend of overwhelming incarceration in the USA, which now has the highest per capita prison population in the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SonJYh4yl2M
No longer available…
Why a Mission Housing Moratorium makes sense:
“A new report released Friday shows just how limited the land is in the neighborhood and what is likely to occur if development is not “paused,” helping to explain why Mission community leaders are fighting for the proposal.
There are currently 13 sites located in the Mission on which 40 or more units of additional housing could be developed, the report from The City’s budget analyst found. These are considered the key parcels for nonprofit below-market-rate developers who can receive federal funding for developments of that size.
Supporters of the moratorium want The City to buy these parcels. These sites could generate a total of 851 below-market-rate units. But if developed by private developers, just 102 of the 851 units would be offered at below market rate. And that’s only if the builders elect to meet The City’s housing construction requirement that 12 percent of the units on site are offered at below market rate. Developers can also pay fees to skirt that requirement.
There are also 324 sites in the neighborhood on which five or more units of additional housing could be developed. If all of these sites were developed, that’s 4,240 new housing units. Looking at historical trends, just 293 of the more than 4,000 units would be offered at below market rate.
In the past five years, 60, or just 9.6 percent, of the 627 units constructed in developments of all sizes in the Mission were offered at below market rate, the report said. The report also found that of the below-market-rate units built in the Mission between 2010 and 2014, none were for those of the lowest income levels, but instead lower and moderate incomes.
There are currently 90 developments comprising 1,227 new units planned for the Mission, of which 1,060 are covered by city development requirements. If developers include 12 percent of those 1,060 units at below market rate, that would be about 127 homes.”
More at SF Examiner
“I need feminism because I intend on marrying rich and I can’t do that if my wife and I are making .75 cent for every dollar a man makes.”
More at CBCNews
“…many housing activists consider the sponsorship a betrayal of SF Pride’s equality mission. They claim that Airbnb does not promote equality in a city where many lower income and senior LGBT people continue to face evictions and skyrocketing rents.”
More in the Bay Area Reporter.
Almost forgotten for many years…
Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) was of outstanding importance. Socialist and poet, feminist and mystic, he was openly homosexual and an early advocate of gay rights. He influenced a generation of socialists and writers (especially E. M. Forester). His views on the gay life were revolutionary in their time and are still relevant today.
First given as a lecture, Homogenic Love was published in 1895, the year of the Oscar Wilde trials. What was said then, still needs saying today.
Download available at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/150447944/Homogenic-Love-by-Edward-Carpenter