Twitter’s star-shaped ‘favourite’ button is no more. It has been replaced with a heart-shaped ‘like’ button, which the company says will “make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use.”
Author: Allum Bokhari
Ultra-Private Communications App ‘Signal’ Launches on Android
Signal, an app for encrypting texts and calls on smartphones, is coming to Android phones.
SJWs Bullied A Young Artist Into A Suicide Attempt… And They’re Still Telling Her To Kill Herself
Social justice warriors often claim to oppose “online harassment.” They recently pressured SXSW into holding an all-day summit on the topic. Yet in the same week, a mob of online SJWs bullied a young web artist so severely that she attempted to commit suicide. Paige Paz, also known by her online handle ‘Zamii070,’ is a Mexican-American artist from Tucson, Arizona. She is the author of Basin Vale, a webcomic about a teenage vampire named Alessa trying to find the rest of her coven. She also runs a Tumblr blog, where she publishes fan art based on the animated series Steven Universe. A strange target for a vicious cyberbullying campaign. Yet that’s exactly what Paz has been on the receiving end of. For over a year, she has received increasingly vitriolic attacks from anonymous social justice warriors on the internet who accuse her work of being “problematic.” For months, Paz had faced accusations of “racism” and “transphobia” for her drawings from the Steven Universe fandom on Tumblr, the popular blogging platform that has become synonymous with overzealous and vitriolic online activism. Paz was accused of racism, for allegedly drawing characters’ skin colours slightly lighter than they are in the series, and “transmisogyny,” for use of what one Tumblr blogger called the
Snapchat Can Now Store Your Selfies
Snapchat has altered its terms and conditions, giving itself full ownership over images shared via its app.
School Bans Hispanic Student’s Hispanic Halloween Costume
A high school in Brampton, Ontario banned a student of Colombian descent from dressing up as a mariachi for Halloween, claiming it was ‘cultural appropriation.’ Joshua Sewerynek, a ninth-grade student at the St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School, told MRCTV that he and his friends had planned to dress up as a mariachi band for Halloween. After submitting his costume to his school’s official Twitter account as per instructions, he informed that it was “too offensive.” When Sewerynek informed the school of his hispanic heritage, he was told that “while you may not find it offensive, others may” and that “culture is not a costume.” This echoed the slogan of a former ad campaign against allegedly insensitive costumes that went viral on the internet, mainly due to the large number of parody remixes that were created to poke fun at the concept of “cultural appropriation.” After informing Sewerynek that his costume was too offensive, the school’s Twitter account then retweeted images from the same campaign. Please keep this in mind while choosing your 2015 Halloween costumes! pic.twitter.com/dTku2yeuTz — Cardy (@STABrampton) October 24, 2015 Sewerynek said that “the social justice movement has gone too far when kids can’t even represent their own culture”, and has said that he and his friends still plan to attend school dressed up as
Proposed ‘Snooper’s Charter’ Law Will Let UK Police View Your Web History
Something embarassing in your web history? British police will be able to see it under new powers granted by the draft Investigatory Powers Act, dubbed the ‘Snooper’s Charter’ by critics.
SXSW Caves To Pressure, Announces ‘Harassment Summit’
Digital media festival South By Southwest (SXSW) has caved to media pressure following their decision to cave to online threats last week. Two panels were cancelled last week: one on gaming culture and integrity in games media, and another on “harassment in games.” The latter panel, entitled “Level Up,” was strongly supported by progressive journalists and social justice activists. The former panel, entitled “Save Point” and organised by the Open Gaming Society, was attacked as “pro-GamerGate,” although they themselves made no attempt to identify with the movement. The festival has announced an all-day summit on online harassment, featuring all the attendees of the panel “Level Up: Overcoming Harassment in Games.” They have not made an attempt to host an event that addresses the topics of the first panel. Guests of the first panel, including adult actress Mercedes Carrera, NBC Producer and President-Elect of the Society of Professional Journalists Lynn Walsh, and games developer Perry Jones, have been invited to attend the summit on online harassment. But the failure of SXSW to host an event on integrity in the games media means that their original panel has been de facto cancelled. What’s happened with #SXSW is a perfect analogy for #GamerGate: some people wanted
Senate Passes Controversial CISA Cybersecurity Bill
The U.S. Senate has passed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) by a vote of 74-21, despite vociferous objections from civil liberties groups who say the bill will afford the government even more powers to collect the private online data o…
The Left’s War on Comment Sections
The internet was born open but is becoming closed everywhere. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the rush to shutter readers’ comments sections at major news organisations.
Singularity or Civil War? The Future of Artificial Intelligence
For years, the advance of artificial intelligence and human augmentation has been forensically debated by three broad factions.