#délétère

Mark Zuckerberg was more involved in decision-making at #Facebook than he let on - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/25/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-whistleblower
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/JQKM6HDJ2VFXRCZC6TBTAOQXEY.jpg&w=1440

Haugen references Zuckerberg’s public statements at least 20 times in her SEC complaints, asserting that the CEO’s singular power and unique level of control over Facebook mean he bears ultimate responsibility for a litany of societal harms. Her documents appear to contradict the CEO on a host of issues, including the platform’s impact on children’s mental health, whether its algorithms contribute to polarization and how much hate speech it detects around the world.

For example, Zuckerberg testified last year before Congress that the company removes 94 percent of the hate speech it finds — but internal documents show that its researchers estimated that the company was removing less than 5 percent of hate speech on Facebook. In March, Zuckerberg told Congress that it was “not at all clear” that social networks polarize people, when Facebook’s own researchers had repeatedly found that they do.

[…]

In her congressional testimony, Haugen repeatedly accused #Zuckerberg of choosing growth over the public good, an allegation echoed in interviews with the former employees.

#délétère

Let’s put the straw man of pandemic denial out of his misery - STAT
▻https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/23/put-straw-man-pandemic-denial-out-of-its-misery

https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/GettyImages-1230052805-1024x576.jpg

The obsession with denialism isn’t just inaccurate. It’s corrosive for at least three reasons. First, it needlessly alienates the interested public with false accusations. Second, by conflating reasonable dissent with unreasonable misinformation, it stifles debate, even about issues that genuinely warrant discussion . Third, the myth of denial deflects blame from the policy failures of politicians, who use it to claim they’ve done all they could, leaving only the denialists (and cheesecake eaters) to blame.

#complotisme #délétère #idiots_utiles

What Does It Mean If a Vaccine Is ‘Successful’ ? | WIRED
▻https://www.wired.com/story/what-does-it-mean-if-a-vaccine-is-successful

https://media.wired.com/photos/5f73bf8ab5fbbbb0ed6d449a/191:100/w_1280,c_limit/Science_vaccine_standards_1136585524.jpg

Aux #états-unis, alors même que de l’#argent_public à été massivement injecté, la #FDA a laissé les #laboratoires_pharmaceutiques définir les critères d’efficacité de leur(s) propre(s) #vaccin(s) contre le #SARS_Cov2 ; par exemple chez Pfizer il suffira d’avoir significativement moins de #COVID-19 non graves que dans le bras placebo pour conclure à l’efficacité du vaccin ..., avec, de plus, comme corollaire la possibilité de pouvoir arrêter leur essai lors des résultats intérimaires et d’homologuer le vaccin. quitte à voir apparaître des effets secondaires graves par la suite.

Par ailleurs il n’existe aucun essai comparant les candidats vaccins entre eux, pour le plus grand bonheur des labos bien sûr..

L’#OMS a bien prévu des essais rigoureux en #Europe avec des comparaisons entre produits, mais les choses ont à peine démarré..

It’s worth it to do these things [comparaison entre vaccins]. And the companies don’t want us to do it. They’d much prefer being oligopolists than to compete,” Bach says. Head-to-head tests would let the market compare their products, and the companies would have no way of spinning the results. (He pitched the idea in an op-ed in Stat.) “They don’t want binary events that would cause their market to evaporate,” Bach says. “Here we have a situation where we have financed a lot of the development, there’s a lot of government IP, we’ve given advance marketing commitments—which are guarantees of revenue—and we’re paying for the distribution. We’ve run the table on reasons why the government should have an interest in managing and guiding the science.”

Yet that only happened in one case—the government-run trial of the antiviral drug remdesivir. It didn’t happen with any other therapeutics, and hasn’t happened with vaccines. Instead, the regulatory agencies let the pharmaceutical companies define the terms of their own trials. “It makes me bonkers that we think we should let the companies decide on the study designs, because their incentives are off,” Bach says. “When we know definitively that X or Y are not what we want, and we want something slightly different, that’s where the government is supposed to step in and modify the market’s behavior.”

#vaccins #santé #santé_publique #pharma #big_pharma #marché #dérégulation #délétère

Trump administration blocks states from using #Medicaid to respond to coronavirus crisis - Los Angeles Times
▻https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-13/trump-administration-blocks-states-use-medicaid-respond-coronavirus-crisis

“Medicaid could be the nation’s biggest public health responder, but it’s such an object of ire in this administration,” said Sara Rosenbaum, a Medicaid expert at George Washington University. “Their ideology is clouding their response to a crisis.”

#etats-unis #santé #idéologie #délétère

U.S. Warns Iraq It Risks Losing Access to Key Bank Account if Troops Told to Leave
▻https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-warns-iraq-it-risks-losing-access-to-key-bank-account-if-troops-told-to-lea

The Trump administration warned Iraq this week that it risks losing access to a critical government bank account if Baghdad kicks out American forces following the U.S. airstrike that killed a top Iranian general, according to Iraqi officials.

The State Department warned that the U.S. could shut down Iraq’s access to the country’s central bank account held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a move that could jolt Iraq’s already shaky economy, the officials said.

Le chef de l’#extrême_droite autrichienne mis en cause par une caméra cachée
▻https://www.france24.com/fr/20190518-autriche-vice-chancelier-chef-extreme-droite-camera-cachee

https://scd.france24.com/fr/files_fr/imagecache/rfi_16x9_1024_578/article/image/austria_strache.jpg

En Autriche, le chef de l’extrême droite et vice-chancelier Heinz-Christian Strache a été mis en cause vendredi 17 mai pour avoir promis à la pseudo-nièce d’un oligarque russe des marchés publics en échange d’un soutien financier, selon des affirmations de presse qui ont déclenché un tollé.

Après ces révélations des médias allemands Süddeutsche Zeitung et Der Spiegel, les principaux partis d’opposition ont demandé la démission du numéro deux du gouvernement dirigé par Sebastian Kurz, chef du parti conservateur qui gouverne avec l’extrême droite depuis fin 2017. Ce dernier a convoqué une réunion de crise vendredi soir.

Selon les informations, extraits vidéo filmés en caméra cachée à l’appui et mis en ligne vendredi soir, Heinz-Christian Strache a participé, dans les mois précédant le scrutin qui l’a amené au pouvoir, à ce qu’il croyait être une réunion avec la nièce d’un oligarque russe.

Le chef du Parti de la liberté d’Autriche (FPÖ) est filmé en train de discuter avec cette interlocutrice qui lui fait miroiter la possibilité d’investir de l’argent en Autriche pour soutenir sa formation.

La discussion porte notamment sur la prise d’une importante participation dans l’actionnariat du puissant tabloïd autrichien Kronen Zeitung, premier tirage du pays, afin d’en faire un média pro-FPÖ.

Heinz-Christian Strache, qui est accompagné d’un de ses lieutenants, Johann Gudenus, actuel chef du groupe parlementaire FPÖ, suggère à son interlocutrice qu’il pourra en échange de ce soutien lui obtenir des marchés publics.

#délétère

Hidden #FDA Reports Detail Harm Caused by Medical Devices
▻https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/910150

https://img.medscape.com/thumbnail_library/dt_190311_operating_room_interior_800x450.jpg

La FDA permet à de nombreuses entreprises de fabrication d’appareils médicaux de ne pas rendre public les dysfonctionnements de leurs créations en attendant leur ré-évaluation (puis souvent retrait du marché).

The growing cadre of #exceptions to the injury- and death-reporting rules strikes Dr. Michael Carome, director of the Public Citizen Health Research Group, as a retreat by the FDA from making crucial #information available for researchers and #patients.

“It’s just another example of a flawed oversight system,” he said, “bent toward making it easier for industry rather than making protection of public health the primary goal.”

#santé #etats-unis #délétère

Karl Sharro on Twitter: “This is the biggest US fuck up in the Middle East since the last several hundred fuck ups.”
▻https://mobile.twitter.com/KarlreMarks/status/938532101690920960

#Etats-Unis #délétère #moyen_orient

They Have, Right Now, Another You
▻http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/12/22/they-have-right-now-another-you

http://www.nybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/halpern_1-122216.jpg

Advertisements show up on our #Internet browser or #Facebook page or #Gmail and we tend to think they are there because some company is trying to sell us something it believes we want based on our browsing history or what weʼve said in an #e-mail or what we were searching for on #Google. We probably donʼt think they are there because we live in a particular neighborhood, or hang out with certain kinds of people, or that we have been scored a particular and obscure way by a pointillist rendering of our lives. And most likely, we donʼt imagine we are seeing those ads because an algorithm has determined that we are losers or easy marks or members of a particular ethnic or racial group.

As OʼNeil points out, preferences and habits and zip codes and status updates are also used to create predatory ads, “ads that pinpoint people in great need and sell them false or overpriced promises.” People with poor credit may be offered payday loans; people with dead-end jobs may be offered expensive courses at for-profit colleges. The idea, OʼNeil writes, “is to locate the most #vulnerable people and then use their private #information against them. This involves finding where they suffer the most, which is known as the ‘#pain_point.

#algorithme #délétère #données #data

Opinion piece in Saudi pro-monarchy daily : No fear of 9/11 lawsuit since US/CIA was main trainer of terrorists
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/opinion-piece-in-saudi-pro-monarchy-daily-no-fear-of-911-laws

From Okaz -

“…If these files are opened, we would learn the reasons behind the CIA chief’s visit to Afghanistan with the famous $1 billion in cash, to create the Afghan Mujahedeen. We would also learn who trained and organized them, created what was later dubbed Al-Qa’idah, excluded and chased them and did not contain them once the mission was over, and how and where they retaliated against those who tricked them. Congress and its claims do not threaten the Kingdom. They rather create an opportunity to expose the involved Americans and their leaders’ lies one after the other, and expose the reality of their advisors’ presence in Afghanistan as trainers in the arts of terrorism.

“Yes, the Kingdom did send youth, but upon Washington’s request and under its direct supervision. What happened later on is a different thing, which ended with a terrorist attack on the Kingdom, pushing it to exert strenuous efforts to keep [terrorism] away from the Kingdom, Europe, and even America itself, as confirmed by the files of its domestic and external intelligence. What is noticeable at this level is that President Obama is the American president who visited the Kingdom the most, but also who harmed it the most. Strategies are not built with deceivers or goners, or even based on public relations. Therefore, let us leave Mr. Obama to drown in his reluctance between isolation and interaction, and wait for the newcomer to the White House, and more importantly the new Congress that will be produced by the elections…”

#Arabie_saoudite #Etats-Unis #linge_sale #apprentis_sorciers #terrorisme #dommages_collatéraux #délétère

Reporting (or Not) the Ties Between US-Armed Syrian Rebels and Al Qaeda’s Affiliate
►http://fair.org/home/reporting-or-not-the-ties-between-us-armed-syrian-rebels-and-al-qaedas-affilia

À la fois étiqueter groupe terroriste #al_nusra, et en fait compter sur lui et l’appuyer,

The Obama administration has long portrayed the opposition groups it has been arming with anti-tank weapons as independent of Nusra Front. In reality, the administration has been relying on the close cooperation of these “moderate” groups with Nusra Front to put pressure on the Syrian government. The United States and its allies–especially Saudi Arabia and Turkey–want the civil war to end with the dissolution of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by US rivals like Russia and Iran.

Reflecting the fact that Nusra Front was created by #Al_Qaeda and has confirmed its loyalty to it, the administration designated Nusra as a terrorist organization in 2013. But the US has carried out very few airstrikes against it since then, in contrast to the other offspring of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State or ISIS (Daesh), which has been the subject of intense air attacks from the US and its European allies. The US has remained silent about Nusra Front’s leading role in the military effort against Assad, concealing the fact that Nusra’s success in northwest Syria has been a key element in Secretary of State John Kerry’s diplomatic strategy for Syria.

When Russian intervention in support of the Syrian government began last September, targeting not only ISIS but also the Nusra Front and US-supported groups allied with them against the Assad regime, the Obama administration immediately argued that Russian airstrikes were targeting “moderate” groups rather than ISIS, and insisted that those strikes had to stop.

#délétère #Etats-Unis #Syrie

As Conflicts Flare Up, Leaders Fan Sectarian Flames in Middle East
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/world/middleeast/as-conflicts-flare-up-leaders-fan-sectarian-flames-in-middle-east.html

In an online statement signed by 55 clerics, [Saudi clerics] warned that if the “holy warriors” were defeated in Syria, Sunni nations would also fall “one after the other.”

Madawi al-Rasheed, a visiting professor at the Middle East Center of the London School of Economics, said the strong sectarian tone of the statement represented the sort of pronouncements that have made the region’s hostilities harder and harder to arrest.

“The language of sectarianism involves elimination and purification, and these are very dangerous words to use in any conflict,” Dr. Rasheed said. “It makes it more difficult to see a space for dialogue and political solutions or compromises. Religious conflicts are more difficult to resolve than political ones.”

#sectarisme #délétère #Arabie_Saoudite

Why the U.S. Owns the Rise of Islamic State and the Syria Disaster
▻http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/why_the_us_owns_the_rise_of_islamic_state_and_the_syria_disaster_20151008

By November 2012, al-Qaida’s Syrian franchise, al-Nusra Front, had 6,000 to 10,000 troops—mostly foreign fighters—under its command and was regarded as the most disciplined and effective fighting force in the field. The CIA’s Gulf allies armed brigades that had allied themselves with al-Nusra—or were ready to do so. A Qatari intelligence officer is said to have declared, “I will send weapons to al-Qaeda if it will help” topple Assad.

The #CIA officials overseeing the covert operation knew very well what their Sunni allies were doing. After the U.S. shipments from Benghazi stopped in September 2012 because of the attack on the U.S. diplomatic post there, a CIA analysis reminded President Obama that the covert operation in Afghanistan had ended up creating a Frankenstein monster. Even the now-famous account in Hillary Clinton’s 2014 memoirs about Obama rejecting a proposal in late 2012 from CIA Director Petraeus for arming and training Syrian rebels does not hide the fact that everyone was well aware of the danger that arms sent to “moderates” would end up in the hands of terrorists.

Despite this, after rejecting Petraeus’ plan in 2012, Obama approved the covert training of “moderate” Syrian rebels in April 2013. As the Pentagon has been forced to acknowledge in recent weeks, that program has been a complete fiasco, as the units either joined al-Nusra or were attacked by al-Nusra. Meanwhile, as Vice President Joe Biden pointed out in October 2014, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were pouring “hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons” into Syria that were ending up in the hands of the jihadists.

#Etats-Unis #Syrie #délétère

#Glyphosate -based herbicides reduce the activity and reproduction of earthworms and lead to increased soil nutrient concentrations
▻http://www.nature.com/articles/srep12886

Herbicide use is increasing worldwide both in agriculture and private gardens. However, our knowledge of potential side-effects on non-target soil organisms, even on such eminent ones as earthworms, is still very scarce. In a greenhouse experiment, we assessed the impact of the most widely used glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup on two earthworm species with different feeding strategies. We demonstrate, that the surface casting activity of vertically burrowing earthworms (Lumbricus terrestris) almost ceased three weeks after herbicide application, while the activity of soil dwelling earthworms (Aporrectodea caliginosa) was not affected. Reproduction of the soil dwellers was reduced by 56% within three months after herbicide application. Herbicide application led to increased soil concentrations of nitrate by 1592% and phosphate by 127%, pointing to potential risks for nutrient leaching into streams, lakes, or groundwater aquifers. These sizeable herbicide-induced impacts on agroecosystems are particularly worrisome because these #herbicides have been globally used for decades.

#pesticides #délétère

Innovation to Stanch Climate Change Sputters - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/business/energy-environment/innovation-to-stanch-climate-change-sputters.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/07/22/business/22porter-web1/22porter-web1-facebookJumbo.jpg

In the race to develop #technologies to slow climate change, the world is off track.

That’s the latest assessment from the International Energy Agency, which presented a bleak outlook ahead of the planned climate summit meeting in Paris this December, where countries rich and poor are hoping to agree on a strategy to slow global warming.

Even under the more optimistic assessments of humanity’s technological capabilities, limiting the atmosphere’s warming to two degrees Celsius above the average in the preindustrial era — considered by many scientists to be a tipping point toward climatic upheaval — seems to be slipping out of reach.

[...]

Perhaps most critically, the world’s collective effort to reshape energy infrastructure seems to be losing steam. In 2014, global investments in renewable energy declined for the fourth year in a row, to under $250 billion.

The United States, the most technologically proficient nation on earth, could be expected to take the lead in developing new energy alternatives. It isn’t.

Technologie malheureusement de plus en plus orientée vers la #destruction.

#climat #inconscience #délétère

CIGI paper says ECB president #Trichet blocked IMF debt relief to Greece - Business Insider
▻http://uk.businessinsider.com/cigi-paper-says-ecb-president-trichet-blocked-imf-debt-relief-to

http://static5.uk.businessinsider.com/image/545b3cb582e985e00e387212/ecb-president-blew-up-at-plan-that-could-have-solved-the-greek-crisis-in-2010.jpg

The paper, released by the independent think-tank the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), claims that the negotiating team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had pushed for debt haircuts for private bank sector holders of Greek debt. That would have meant those banks getting less than the amount they expected to be paid back. The idea was to provide an orderly process out of the debt crisis and to put the country onto a sustainable footing to repay its creditors.

However, the paper’s authors claim, the proposal came under fierce opposition from former ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet. At an ECB meeting in the spring of 2010 a member of the central bank’s executive board brought up the prospect of debt relief. Trichet allegedly “blew up,” the paper says:

_The ECB president “blew up,” according to one attendee. “Trichet said, ‘We are an economic and monetary union, and there must be no debt restructuring!’” this person recalled. “ He was shouting ._ ”

In response to questions from Business Insider on the accuracy of the account, an ECB spokesperson said “we don’t comment on executive board meetings”.

#BCE #délétère #Grèce

Aux Etats-Unis, les nouvelles variétés d’#OGM sont tolérantes à plusieurs pesticides - Reporterre
▻http://www.reporterre.net/Aux-Etats-Unis-les-nouvelles

http://www.reporterre.net/IMG/arton6847.jpg?1421944720

Bienvenue dans la nouvelle ère des OGM ! Le ministère états-unien de l’Agriculture (USDA) et l’Agence pour la protection de l’Environnement (EPA) des Etats-Unis sont en passe de donner leur accord pour la commercialisation et la mise en culture d’une « nouvelle génération » d’OGM destinés aux agriculteurs. #Semences miracles ou plantes à haut rendement capables de pousser sans eau, penserez-vous ? Rien de cela !

La première génération de plantes génétiquement modifiées commercialisées pour l’agriculture, depuis bientôt vingt ans, consistait surtout en deux types de transgènes intégrés à la majorité des cultures GM (#maïs, #soja, #coton, #colza...) : un transgène de production d’un insecticide par la plante ou un transgène de tolérance à un herbicide, le plus souvent le Roundup de Monsanto (70 % des cultures américaines).

La seconde génération consiste, elle, à combiner ces modifications dans une même plante, en « empilant les traits », jusqu’à obtenir un OGM capable de produire jusqu’à six #insecticides et tolérer au moins deux #herbicides différents (technologie Smartstax).

#pesticides #agrobusiness

The Double Identity of an « Anti-Semitic » Commenter | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community
▻http://www.commondreams.org/hambaconeggs

Un étudiant étatsunien #sioniste ("Common Dreams" lui donne le pseudo de Beck) abreuve les sites qui ne se plient pas à la doxa israélienne de commentaires antisémites auxquels il répond ensuite lui-même pour fustiger le « climat antisémite qui règne » dans les sites en question.

The impersonation, this character wrote, must be part of an “elaborate #Hasbara setup,” referring to an Israeli international public-relations campaign. When Common Dreams finally confronted the man behind the deceptive posting, he denied that he himself was involved with Hasbara.

(...)

“Today many supporters of Israel worldwide are becoming digital ambassadors,” Neil Lazarus, a prominent Israeli public-relations consultant to the government, wrote in the Times of Israel in 2012. “The internet is transforming the battle lines of Israel’s public relations war. . . . As Hasbara becomes a grass-roots movement, the very essence of the relationship between Israel and Diaspora Jewry is being transformed.”

Lazarus, in fact, has teamed up with the pro-Israel website HonestReporting.com to train “digital ambassadors” globally to promote Israel’s interests online. The website claims 3,000 such ambassadors, a number Lazarus confirmed in a phone conversation with Common Dreams from Israel.

(...)

Beck may have shown the future, unless defenses are mounted. As the ADL’s Todd Gutnick said, “Any idiot with a computer can do something like this.” But Beck is highly intelligent—at least in some ways. Think what a team of Becks could do.

#Israel #Israël #délétère