Anita and Zoe's Excellent UN Adventure!

Teen commits suicide after False Accusation

Jay Cheshire aged 17 ended his life after a false rape allegation. Described as shy and sensitive, the Southampton teen was deeply wounded by the accusation. He became deeply depressed throughout the investigation and had to go on anti-depressants to deal with the process. But when the investigation ended in June, after the accuser dropped all charges, the damage had already been done, and a few weeks after that he was found unconscious and hanging from a tree in a nearby park. He died in the hospital two days later. The teen had been in therapy, since age 13 but he had shown signs of improvement, and those who knew him believed that the accusations played a major role in the decision to end his life.

This comes after the UK’s new policies concerning how allegations of rape are investigated. Men now have to prove that a woman said yes.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic…
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknew…



Marion Cotillard says there is no place for feminism in the film industry

Actress Marion Cotillard says that she supports women’s rights but believes that feminism separates men and women. She says that she believes that the differences between men bring about creation and love. She won’t call herself a feminist because she believes that it divides the sexes too much and disrupts the chemistry that is created between them.

‘Film-making is not about gender,’ Marion said. ‘‘For me, it doesn’t create equality, it creates separation. I mean, I don’t qualify myself as a feminist. We need to fight for women’s rights, but I don’t want to separate women from men.’

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/art…



App that tracks US drone strikes banned by apple

Freelance Journalist Josh Begley was methodically following news stories on US drone strikes, Identifying when and where they happened. Then he’d feed it into an app called Metadata+ that would send the information to all. But after seven months of the app being available it was removed from apple for “excessively crude or objectionable content.” Apple also censored an app that took you to the scene where Micheal Brown was shot in Ferguson Missouri, as well as educational apps that displayed the confederate flag.

mic.com/articles/126003/apple-…



Sweat Shaming is now a thing

Guardian writer Amy Roe, tells an anecdote about walking into a starbucks after a 12 mile run. As she stands in line a well dressed woman asks if she’d been to the gym or been swimming. So like most angry feminist women that can afford over priced coffee, Amy Roe chooses to be offended. She calls this sweat shaming, claiming that the woman must have been showing disapproval of her dampness rather than merely stating the obvious. Because of course sweating is something masculine and animalistic, and if a woman comments on how tired and sweaty she looks, it must of course be a kind of harrassment.

www.theguardian.com/commentisf…



The twitter harrassment trial is as ridiculous as it sounds

Gregory Alan Elliot, is on trial for harassment of feminist Stephanie Guthrie. But all that the graphic artist had done was disagree with Guthrie’s politics.

“Blaming the majority of normal men for rape…is wrong,” Elliot wrote back in September of 2012.
“Rapists are not normal men; they’re crazy. Why not blame the mentally ill?”

The tweets were read in court. Stephanie Guthrie replied in an angry yell.“Are you kidding me?”, she pounded her fist , “I know lots of normal men who have raped; I have been raped by normal men.”
She was then asked if that was an offensive point of view.

“Offensive?” Ms. Guthrie replied. “I would say dangerously misguided.”

As the proceedings wore on Guthrie put out more gems. She believed that Elliot was obsessed with her politics.

“It doesn’t make it any less harassing or stalking because he was obsessed with my politics”

“Have we not been over the fact that it was the volume, Mr. Murphy? The frequency of Tweets?”

When asked to point to a specific tweet that made her feel fearful for her safety she had this to say.

“That’s not how feelings work, Mr. Murphy. They develop over time.”

“There’s no perfect victim, Mr. Murphy, and no perfect way to respond to being stalked. Sometimes you have to fight back a little bit…. I’m sorry if I wasn’t a perfect victim”

news.nationalpost.com/full-com…

U.N. Women makes stiff censorship recommendations.

Recently Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn spoke before U.N. Women about online conflict, describing the entire internet as a harrowing environment for women, fraught with the horrors of a phenomenon social justice ideologues have labeled “cyber violence.” In conjunction with their talk, a report was released, with “U.N. Broadband Commission for Digital Development Working Group on Broadband and Gender” listed as its author.

The Broadband Commission is an advisory group which makes recommendations to the United Nations. According to the group’s self-description, “The Commission comprises a high-powered community, including top CEO and industry leaders, senior policy-makers and government representatives, international agencies, academia and organizations…” which acts in an advisory capacity in support of expanding broadband access throughout the world.

Surely we can expect a report from a high powered advisory committee  of leaders in their field to be a thorough, accurately sourced and compelling piece of work.

Well, it’s a piece of work, alright.

The entire thing is comprised of inarticulately melodramatic alarmism such as, “This situation exacerbates already low reporting levels and spiraling a vicious cycle,” interspersed with doubletalk like using the phrase “free speech” to describe exemption from criticism, and freshly coined buzzwords like “emotional bandwidth.” That term, in context, appears intended to frame one’s response to others as a phenomenon outside one’s own control, rather than a behavior one can choose to moderate by selecting where to focus one’s attention.

Beyond the initial weakness of the writing, the report itself is a train wreck of thinly veiled and sometimes completely undisguised mendacity. To bolster the report’s appearance of credibility, the writers engaged in a level of academic chicanery second only to that employed by a highly practiced middle school slacker. They misattributed evidence for their claims to sources which do not contain it and in some cases aren’t even about the subject for which they’re being referenced. There were a lot of sources on real world violence listed for statements about so-called cyber violence. They cited their own organization’s policy and essays as evidence for details which can only be established by unbiased research. They even cited the cyber violence report itself in support of some of the assertions contained therein, hiding the fact behind proxy sources which cite or link to the cyber violence report. Is this the academic equivalent to “because I said so?”

And then there was c-drive link for a PDF file listed as a source for one statement. But as comical as the incompetent presentation is, as ridiculous as the claims are, the solutions proposed are equally disturbing.

In the name of protecting women, they’re asking the United Nations to become the world’s thought police, with a three pronged attack on the free exchange of ideas. The report’s authors want legislated use of the education systems, parental enforcement, and police to promote their gender narrative. They’re requesting an increase in internet censorship with the participation of industry & government to enforce those controls. Last but not least, they want those controls enforceable under both civil and criminal law, with criminal and civil penalties applicable. These draconian measures are presumed necessary to protect “free speech.” Can’t get SOPA or PIPPA type legislation passed in your own country? People don’t want such draconian measures? Just pitch it to the U.N. as an idea for how to protect free speech!

But are they really talking about free speech? Examples used in the report to support claims about abuse consist mainly of political disagreement, with the report’s writers slapping labels like “harassment” and “violence” onto vehement opposition to some women’s political assertions. Based on that, it’s reasonable to conclude that these women aren’t advocating for free speech, but legal protection from criticism of their ideology and its real world application. The entire report is essentially a complaint that some women’s online speech is, but shouldn’t be, subject to scrutiny and criticism.

It’s apparent that this high powered advisory committee full of leaders in their field, so acutely aware of that scrutiny, completely failed to expect their report to be subject to it. What’s more disturbing than the demands in the report is what one can conclude from U.N. Women’s choice to display it on their site. We’re sitting here shaking our heads and laughing at the incompetent preparation, but it’s really not funny. This would never have been taken seriously if U.N. Women wasn’t already planning on making these recommendations to the United Nations. They’re just not accustomed to being noticed and criticized by the general public.

Scrutinized, criticized, and opposed it must be. Information is the most powerful weapon against tyranny, and the strongest foundation upon which a population’s freedom and welfare may stand. No other method of resistance to authoritarianism can be as easily employed by as many people. A people can reject individuals in government based on their actions, but unscrupulous or even malicious politicians who are ousted by voters can just as easily be replaced by new once who are just as bad, or worse. An informed populace has the power to reject not just the individual politicians, but to analyze policy and plans, and oppose that which is dysfunctional and damaging.

Quashing the free flow of information is a step on the path to dictatorship. It is the mark of a tyrant, or a power bent on tyranny. No advocate or governing body would promote such an effort without that goal in mind. No population that wishes to remain free, safe, and prosperous should allow such a push to succeed.