The Internet - The first Worldwide Tool of Unification ("The End of History")

" ... Now I give you something that few think about: What do you think the Internet is all about, historically? Citizens of all the countries on Earth can talk to one another without electronic borders. The young people of those nations can all see each other, talk to each other, and express opinions. No matter what the country does to suppress it, they're doing it anyway. They are putting together a network of consciousness, of oneness, a multicultural consciousness. It's here to stay. It's part of the new energy. The young people know it and are leading the way.... "

" ... I gave you a prophecy more than 10 years ago. I told you there would come a day when everyone could talk to everyone and, therefore, there could be no conspiracy. For conspiracy depends on separation and secrecy - something hiding in the dark that only a few know about. Seen the news lately? What is happening? Could it be that there is a new paradigm happening that seems to go against history?... " Read More …. "The End of History"- Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

"Recalibration of Free Choice"– Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth, 4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical) 8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…5 - Integrity That May Surprise…

Have you seen innovation and invention in the past decade that required thinking out of the box of an old reality? Indeed, you have. I can't tell you what's coming, because you haven't thought of it yet! But the potentials of it are looming large. Let me give you an example, Let us say that 20 years ago, you predicted that there would be something called the Internet on a device you don't really have yet using technology that you can't imagine. You will have full libraries, buildings filled with books, in your hand - a worldwide encyclopedia of everything knowable, with the ability to look it up instantly! Not only that, but that look-up service isn't going to cost a penny! You can call friends and see them on a video screen, and it won't cost a penny! No matter how long you use this service and to what depth you use it, the service itself will be free.

Now, anyone listening to you back then would perhaps have said, "Even if we can believe the technological part, which we think is impossible, everything costs something. There has to be a charge for it! Otherwise, how would they stay in business?" The answer is this: With new invention comes new paradigms of business. You don't know what you don't know, so don't decide in advance what you think is coming based on an old energy world. ..."
(Subjects: Who/What is Kryon ?, Egypt Uprising, Iran/Persia Uprising, Peace in Middle East without Israel actively involved, Muhammad, "Conceptual" Youth Revolution, "Conceptual" Managed Business, Internet, Social Media, News Media, Google, Bankers, Global Unity,..... etc.)


German anti-hate speech group counters Facebook trolls

German anti-hate speech group counters Facebook trolls
Logo No Hate Speech Movement

Bundestag passes law to fine social media companies for not deleting hate speech

Honouring computing’s 1843 visionary, Lady Ada Lovelace. (Design of doodle by Kevin Laughlin)

Monday, April 10, 2017

German anti-hate speech group counters Facebook trolls

Media outlets' Facebook pages are often dominated by haters, but the German group #ichbinhier is talking back. It now has tens of thousands of members who are helping restore civility to social media.

Deutsche Welle, 9 April 2017

Logo No Hate Speech Movement

It's Friday evening, a couple of hours after the truck attack in Stockholm, and the Facebook page of a major German TV news station is filling up with comments inveighing against refugees and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It's an all too familiar scene in an age when anyone can play pundit on social media and hateful tirades are part of political discourse.

But in this case, other users suddenly appear on the station's Facebook page to confront the haters. What evidence is there that the Stockholm attacker was a refugee, they ask. How do we know he was religiously motivated? What does Merkel have to do with a one-off event in Sweden? Shouldn't people wait for all the facts?

What might look like a series of individual responses is actually a loosely coordinated action by a closed Facebook group called #ichbinhier (the English equivalent is #iamhere). Yan, an event coordinator from Berlin, is one of those who helped contain the trolls.

"We usually go to the big media sites because they're either unmoderated or, if they are, it's only for 10 or 15 minutes," Yan told Deutsche Welle. "I can understand that. It's not like we work against the media. And sometimes we get nice feedback. I recently got an email from an intern at a major German newspaper who thanked us for helping to deal with hate speech that came in the middle of the night and overwhelmed him."

Yan took to Facebook to
counter hate speech about
the Stockholm attack
The idea is a bit like a volunteer neighborhood watch for the digital age, with users patrolling the internet to enforce minimum standards of civilized speech on issues that get people hot under the collar. And it originally comes from Sweden.

Feels like team spirit

Hannes Ley, a digital communications expert, founded #ichbinhier in late December, basing it on the Swedish Facebook initiative #jagärhär, which currently has more than 67,000 members. The German version of the initiative has had similar success, attracting almost 30,000 members in well under four months.

The key, says Ley, is that people who used to write comments on the internet alone as individuals now do so as a group. That makes them more confident.

"There's a sense of being part of a team," Ley told DW. "Users say that they now feel capable of expressing their opinions again and feel strong."

#ichbinhier stages three interventions per day. Ley says the group's activities don't just make haters think twice about spewing bile on Facebook pages, but also raise general public awareness on issues.

"For example in Holland, a journalist filmed two male politicians holding hands in response to an attack on a homosexual couple," Ley recalls. "It elicited the classic homophobic comments. We called upon the community to do something. That attracted a lot of attention, and some of our comments had over 500 likes."

Right-wing extremists use
Facebook to advance their agenda
#ichbinhier responses to haters fall into two general categories. Members can simply express contrary views, or they can use fact dossiers on certain issues drawn from sources like the German government's Office for Statistics to argue empirically against irrational points of view. The only thing that's forbidden is trading insults - "Don't feed the trolls" remains a guiding principle.

Calling the fire department

Traditionally, providing the public with facts was the job of journalists. But Ley says he sees a "negative spiral" of distortion in which media outlets, with their often tight personnel resources, fail to monitor their Facebook platforms, so that hate speech not only becomes more and more dominant, but also more and more radical.

Counterspeech initiatives like #ichbinhier, say experts, are a useful and appropriate tool for news outlets to prevent trolls from monopolizing the discussion. André Kroll, a social-media training instructor and a journalist who works for German public TV, says that there's no shame in calling for emergency help from outside.

"For me it's like a kind of volunteer fire department for social media," Kroll told DW. "If a post - be it about refugees or foreigners or anything else - has gotten out of control, it's perfectly legitimate to invite others to come in and join the discussion. #ichbinhier has demonstrated that it can achieve results."

Perhaps the clearest mark of #ichbinhier's success is that right-wing extremists themselves now complain on Facebook that the group is trying to deprive them of their right to free speech.

A challenge for Facebook

Facebook has struggled to control hateful posts

And what about Facebook itself? Germany recently introduced legislation requiring social media platforms to combat hate speech. What does the Californian company think of initiatives like #ichbinhier? Would it be willing to help them?

In an email response, a Facebook spokeswoman told DW that Facebook supported a number of counterspeech initiatives, including the company's own Online Civil Courage Initiative (OCCI), which organizes anti-hate speech seminars for NGOs. Ley took part in one of those seminars earlier this year but came away unimpressed.

"I thought it was like a minor advertising campaign for Facebook," Ley said. "As a response to my criticism about the event, I was given a coupon for 100 euros in ad credits. Honestly, that's laughable."

Ley added that his initiative could use technical support and help in campaigning from Facebook.

Toning down the aggression

Counterspeech groups are a way
of coping with right-wing populism
Leaving aside Facebook's official policies, counterspeech initiatives succeed or fail on the commitment of their members. Yan says he spends at least one and probably two hours a day on #ichbinhier actions. So what motivates people to volunteer significant chunks of their time to trying to talk reason to haters?

Yan says he signed up after wandering around in a state of "shock" following Donald Trump's election as US president. The group, he adds, gave him the sense that he could do something to alter what he felt was the growing irrationality and hatefulness in the world.

He also says that engaging with haters in the virtual universe of the internet has changed the way he behaves and uses language in the real world.

"If someone calls me a 'gay a**hole' on the street, I no longer turn around and say 'f**k you,'" he told DW. "I'll say something like, 'You seem to know quite a lot about homosexuals.' I'll say something that's not at the bottommost level. That's a much better way to react."

#ichbinhier has not only made people like Yan feel empowered. They say it's taught them that there are better ways of asserting one's presence than hurling injurious language at others.
Related Article:


No comments: