Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on July 7, 2020

Just after shed arrived in Berlin to start filming the Netflix series Unorthodox, Shira Haas went out for drinks with director Maria Schrader.

After a few glasses of wine, Schrader broke the news: The first day of production on the series which follows a young woman raised in a Hasidic community in Brooklyn was going to be intense. In the morning, shed have to get partially nude for a scene in a mikveh, or ritual bath. In the afternoon, shed have to shave her head on camera.

I was like, Nooooooo! Maybe she felt like she needed to give me wine, Haas recalled with a laugh during a recent Zoom call from her home in Tel Aviv. I was really shocked in the beginning. But now that I look at it I can see how helpful it was. It got me into character like that, she says, snapping her fingers.

Inspired by Deborah Feldmans memoir of the same name, Unorthodox tells the story of Esty Shapiro, a teenager who flees a miserable arranged marriage to pursue a dream of studying music in Berlin. The four-part limited series was released in late March, as the coronavirus pandemic was forcing much of the world indoors. Suddenly, people everywhere could relate to a story about a woman feeling impossibly isolated.

Amit Rahav and Shira Haas star in Unorthodox, a Netflix series about a young woman who flees her Hasidic community.

(Anika Molnar / Netflix)

Featuring Yiddish dialogue and careful re-creations of Satmar Jewish rituals, it became an unlikely sleeper hit, and Haas mesmerizing performance as Esty, a quiet character with a wildly expressive face that nearly rendered subtitles unnecessary, was integral to its success.

Although Haas and Esty share a certain steely determination, the actress, 25, is more animated than her onscreen counterpart. Over the course of a nearly hourlong chat, she uses an array of colorful gestures conveying the brain-melting difficulty of learning Yiddish by dragging a finger down her face and the pleasure of playing such a rich and complicated character with an enthusiastic chefs kiss.

Etsy is very stubborn but also very flexible. She wants to fit in but she wants to break out. She is strong but she is soft. You have to bring this complexity not only to every scene, but to every sentence. So this was very attractive to me. I found it amazing, this combination.

As a toddler in her hometown about 30 minutes outside Tel Aviv, Haas was diagnosed with kidney cancer and spent several years undergoing treatment. Her earliest memories involve hospital visits and chemotherapy. The experience made her something of an old soul. When I was 7 or 8, I was in a lot of ways like a 40-year-old. She also suspects it enabled her, as an actress, to go to some deep places.

Haas was certain shed go to college to study psychology but enrolled at an arts high school. A casting director reached out to her on Facebook about an Israeli film called Princess. She got the part, playing a 12-year-old with a sexually abusive stepfather. That was the moment where I was like, OK, this is what I want to do. I always say it was like Narnia. I open the door and [she sings a heavenly note].

She gained even wider notice in the Israeli series Shtisel, which follows a strictly religious Haredi family in Jerusalem. A hit at home in Israel, it was eventually picked up by Netflix.

When she got the call to audition for Unorthodox, she was told only that it was for a German series called The Orchestra and was asked to perform Leonard Cohens Hallelujah. (Esty sings during a pivotal scene in Unorthodox.) Once she was cast, she devoured Feldmans memoir and the scripts by Alexa Karolinski and Anna Winger.

You read something thats supposed to be very different from you, and youre like, Oh, Im very curious to see those people. And then you read it, and youre like, Thats actually me, Haas says, noting that, like Esty, she grew up asking a lot of questions. Questions about life, about meaning, about who I am, what I am. For me it was a blessing. For Esty, and maybe also for Deborah, it was a curse. Asking questions was not the best thing to do.

Haas spent weeks memorizing dialogue in Yiddish, a language the native Hebrew speaker had heard only fleetingly before, and mastering a new accent in English. Eli Rosen, a translator and consultant on the series, saw the darkest side of me, she says. You know that you learn something so much that your brain is melting and youre not you anymore? I was a monster sometimes. Well, not like a cruel one. A very sympathetic monster.

But Haas says Esty really only came to life at her first costume fitting, when she put on her modest clothing and wig. I put it on and she makes a sound like a vacuum sucking up air immediately, physically I was suddenly Esty.

Haas has followed an unusual professional journey the last three months, having a breakout moment while barely leaving her apartment. Shes used the downtime to write scripts she says she would love to direct one day and create collages. I really love staying at home. But I wish it was different circumstances.

Shira Hass in Unorthodox on Netflix.

(Anika Molnar / Netflix)

Once production can safely begin, she is scheduled to film Season 3 of Shtisel, and the acclaim shes received for Unorthodox will almost certainly lead to more work. But for now shes grateful to hear from the people whove been touched by Unorthodox including formerly Hasidic men and women whove left the strict religious upbringing.

So many people said, Im Esty, this is my story. Its an unbelievable privilege. There is nothing you can say except thank you for sharing.

It has also strengthened Haas bond with her 86-year-old grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who spontaneously gave her the ring off her finger when she heard about the project. She was really emotional and excited about the fact I would be playing an Orthodox girl in a show in Yiddish for Netflix. Its amazing. The fact that I can take part in this series thats a gift for me.

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Shira Haas finds the complexity within her 'Unorthodox' role - Los Angeles Times

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Posted By admin on July 7, 2020

Published: 7/7/2020 5:33:01 PM

The New Hampshire House recently passed HB 1135 which contained other bills, including an amendment that called for requiring all school districts in the state to teach about the Holocaust and other genocides.

Two people spoke in opposition, both citing the bill might constitute an unfunded mandate, especially as part of the bill called for the creation of a special commission to study best practices in formulating curricular for schools. One mentioned that the bill is redundant in that many, if not most schools, already teach about the Holocaust.

Among those who testified in favor were the NH Council of Churches, the Jewish Federation of NH, the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and a Holocaust survivor all legislated to be on the special commission along with seven other members of the state government and New Hampshire schools.

Concerning the commission, there is no representative from the Black community such as the NAACP or Black Lives Matter. Millions of African-Americans died either during the passage from Africa or during enslavement. Moreover, no person of Indigenous origin was named to sit on the commission. Millions of Native people died beginning with Columbus four voyages to the Americas.

Such omissions of those communities of color who have been victimized in both history/herstory and in the present-day United States is absolutely shameful.

William Thomas

Auburn

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Letter: Teaching genocide, but where is the representation? - Concord Monitor

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Posted By admin on July 7, 2020

It was the competitive players who objected. In a compromise, slurs and profanities were taken out of the official Scrabble Dictionary, but clubs and tournaments could follow a separate lexicon, produced by the players association, that allows for the slurs.

It is very difficult for a lot of people to understand why those words are still acceptable in Scrabble, said Stefan Fatsis, the author of a book on competitive scrabble, Word Freak.

But, he added, it is also hard for them to understand why qi and aa are words. For Scrabble players, they are just instruments with which to score points.

During the 1990s furor, Steven Alexander, who is white and Jewish, was one of many players who wrote letters opposing any expurgation. He still opposes most exclusions, but he has amended his position after recent events.

The one word that has actually been used to rally mobs into terrorism is the N-word, he said. Its a word of conspiracy, a tool of oppression. If Black people demand something, a white person like me shouldnt necessarily put their views first.

Chews initial proposal came after an association member wrote a letter on the organizations Facebook page calling for the body to take action. Chew agreed and made the proposal, then opened the topic for debate, which he says was fairly evenly split.

I couldnt have found a bigger wedge issue if I tried, he said.

For those who objected to removing the words, Chew said, the three main arguments were: A words meaning is irrelevant in Scrabble; its a slippery slope, and one he repeated with a tone of incredulity if some people are not offended by the presence of those words, why should anyone else be?

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Scrabble Will Ban Racial and Ethnic Slurs From Tournaments and Game Rules - The New York Times

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Posted By admin on July 7, 2020

Infinity Ward has quietly removed the OK gesture from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone.

The developer has yet to explain the decision, and publisher Activision has so far failed to comment after Eurogamer got in touch last week, but it seems likely the gesture was pulled due to its status as a hate symbol.

In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone, you're able to assign hand gestures to your character for use out on the battlefield.

The OK gesture, which was added to the game earlier in 2020, was used by some as a trickshot of sorts - the player character doing the OK sign with their left hand while firing their gun with their right.

Call of Duty social media and subreddits would often carry clips of players doing the OK sign as they ended a multiplayer match or a game of Warzone with the final kill.

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But the OK sign is no longer in the game, pulled on the quiet by Infinity Ward as part of Modern Warfare's mid-season update and replaced by a new gesture called "crush". There is no mention of the change in the official patch notes, but of course it didn't take players long to spot the difference.

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In September 2019, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) added the OK sign to its list of hate symbols after it was found to be used by some as a "sincere expression of white supremacy".

Its use in this context owes its origins to users on 4Chan, who pretended there was a hidden meaning behind the OK sign in a bid to trick the media into a reaction. However, this ploy ended up with the OK sign's use by the far-right, and now many believe its meaning has changed.

While Infinity Ward is yet to comment, the removal of Call of Duty's OK gesture probably has to do with the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement. The developer has issued strong statements in recent weeks, pledging to crack down on racism in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and even inserting a Black Lives Matter message into the game.

This isn't the first time the video game industry has taken action over the OK sign. Back in April 2019, Blizzard reportedly told a fan in the Overwatch League arena they were not allowed to use the OK sign after it was spotted on a stream and a complaint was made.

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Infinity Ward quietly removes OK gesture from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone - Eurogamer.net

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Posted By admin on July 6, 2020

Image by facebook

(JTA) It was when Mark Zuckerberg said he would allow Holocaust denial on his platform that the Anti-Defamation League realized its partnership with Facebook wasnt working.

The social media giant and the Jewish civil rights group had been working together for years to curb hate speech online. In October 2017, Facebook headlined a new ADL initiative to start a Cyberhate Problem-Solving Lab in collaboration with Silicon Valleys biggest companies.

Then, nine months later, Zuckerberg told the tech site Recode that while he personally found Holocaust denial deeply offensive, he said, I dont believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong.

People who monitor anti-Semitism criticized Zuckerberg for what they saw as undeservedly giving anti-Semites the benefit of the doubt as if they were making an innocent mistake rather than propagating a deliberate lie. Thats when the ADL realized that Facebook wasnt going to change on its own and needed to be pressured.

Holocaust denial is somethingthat weve been talking to Facebook about forI think its11 years at this point, Daniel Kelley, associate director of the ADLs Center for Technology and Society, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Weve told them Holocaust denial is hate. It is not misinformation. And they have not only not changed, but in several instances doubled down on treating Holocaust denial as someformof misinformation.

So the ADL has changed tacks as Facebook, according to ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, has allowed some of the worst elements of society into our homes and our lives.

After years of seeing the largest social network in the world as a partner, it is now treating Facebook as an adversary. That shift has culminated in an ADL-led campaign urging companies to stop advertising on Facebook for the month of July in collaboration with the NAACP and other civil rights groups.

The campaign has attracted a growing list of leading brand names. More than 230 companies have signed onto the pledge, and last week Facebooks stock dipped more than 8%, though it has since rebounded.

Apparently shaken by the boycott, Zuckerberg has announced a series of changes to Facebooks hate speech policies, which he said come directly from feedback from the civil rights community. He also pledged to meet with the organizers of the boycott.

Facebooks changes include labeling posts regarding voting access, flagging posts that target immigrants, banning members of the far-right antigovernment Boogaloo movement and placing warnings on hateful or false posts from public figures that the network still feels are newsworthy.

Im committed to making sure Facebook remains a place where people can use their voice to discuss important issues, because I believe we can make more progress when we hear each other, Zuckerberg wrote Friday in a Facebook post. But I also stand against hate, or anything that incites violence or suppresses voting, and were committed to removing that no matter where it comes from.

Those moves have not lessened the ADLs commitment to pressuring the company, which makes nearly its entire $70 billion in annual revenue through ads.

Facebook says it will take meaningful steps to address the hate on its platform, Greenblatt tweeted after the announcement. Weve been down this road. Dont let them refuel for another hate-filled trip.

Fighting tech companies is a change for Greenblatt, who came to the ADL job in 2015 following a career as a social entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. Greenblatt founded a bottled water company that donated a portion of its proceeds to clean-water access, as well as All for Good, an open-source platform that aggregated volunteer opportunities online.

The ADL had been pushing tech companies to get more serious about combating anti-Semitism for decades. Greenblatts predecessor, Abraham Foxman, complained in a 2013 interview with JTA about the geniuses at Palo Alto and said, The providers need to take greater ownership. They dont want regulation.

Under Greenblatt, the ADL increased its focus on tech, and at first tried to curb online hate through partnership. The group expanded its presence in Silicon Valley in 2016 and founded the Center for Technology and Society in 2017 to combat cyberhate. Greenblatt said he hoped to collaborate even closer on the threat with the tech industry.

Later that year, the ADL announced its partnership with four tech giants Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter to create the Cyberhate Problem-Solving Lab. The idea was to work with the companies on technical solutions to improve detection and removal of hateful posts, with the ADL providing guidance on how to spot bigotry and address it.

But according to Kelley, the effort went nowhere. Facebook, he said, never acted on any of the advice provided by the ADL.

They were happy to sign onto a press release and to say, well, were working with ADL. We did have several meetings, Kelley said. Its the same story of us coming to the meeting with real ideas for how to approach the problems on their platform and them walking away not promising anything. We tried to work with them.

Facebook did not respond to an email request for comment. But the company has disputed that it has a poor record on addressing hateful posts. It points to a recent study from the European Union showing that Facebook is the quickest among the major social media platforms in addressing notifications of hate speech coming from European users. It found that Facebook assessed 96% of the notifications of hate speech within 24 hours, compared to 76.6% for Twitter. Facebook removed 87.6% of the flagged content, compared to 35.9% for Twitter.

But Kelley said that while Facebook does release transparency reports, it does not give outside researchers access to the data, unlike Twitter. So he said theres no real way to confirm Facebooks claims of transparency.

As months and then years passed, activists in Myanmar and elsewhere were complaining that Facebook was allowing public officials to encourage human rights violations. In 2018, the shooter at the New Zealand mosques livestreamed the massacre on Facebook.

But while Facebook made some modifications to its hate speech policies, it did not appear to change course philosophically. In October, Zuckerberg said in an address at Georgetown University that he was proud that our values at Facebook are inspired by the American tradition, which is more supportive of free expression than anywhere else.

Using the speech, the Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen compared Zuckerberg to a restaurateur gladly serving neo-Nazis.

If he owned a fancy restaurant and four neo-Nazis came goose-stepping into the dining room and were talking loudly about wanting to kill Jewish scum, would he serve them an elegant eight course meal? Or would tell them to get the f*| out of his restaurant? Cohen wrote. He has every legal right, indeed a moral duty, to tell them to get the f*| out of his restaurant.

A month later, the ADL gave Cohen its International Leadership Award. The comic actor used the opportunity to give a keynote address to excoriate social media companies.

I say, lets also hold these companies responsible for those who use their sites to advocate for the mass murder of children because of their race or religion, he said. Maybe its time to tell Mark Zuckerberg and the CEOs of these companies: You already allowed one foreign power to interfere in our elections, you already facilitated one genocide in Myanmar, do it again and you go to jail.

A wrinkle in this story came a few weeks before Cohens speech. Following the October attack on a synagogue in Halle, Germany, the ADL accepted a $2.5 million donation from Facebooks COO, Sheryl Sandberg. Greenblatt said, upon accepting the donation, that he was grateful for her commitment to fighting hate in all of its forms.

Sandberg posted on Facebook that It means so much to me to be able to support this vital work at this critical moment.

Facebooks mostly hands-off approach to posts does have notable defenders.

David Hudson, an advocate of expansive First Amendment rights, said that free speech protections should be extended to Facebook because its size and breadth gives Facebook the power of a government.

Certain powerful private entities particularly social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and others can limit, control, and censor speech as much or more than governmental entities, he wrote for the American Bar Associations Human Rights magazine. A society that cares for the protection of free expression needs to recognize that the time has come to extend the reach of the First Amendment to cover these powerful, private entities that have ushered in a revolution in terms of communication capabilities.

But Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt, who spoke out against Zuckerbergs remarks on Holocaust denial, said a boycott was the right way to go.

Facebook is a private entity and no private entity is obligated to post hate speech, she said. Generally I dont like boycotts, but if this is the only thing to which Facebook is going to respond, then you have no other choice. You can choose where you put your money.

This year, in testimony to Congress, Greenblatt cited his work in Silicon Valley in calling on tech companies to work harder. He called tech an amplifier, an organizer, and a catalyst for some of the worst types of hate in our society, and said Facebook and Twitter need to apply the same energy to protecting vulnerable users that they apply to protect their profits.

Despite the measures Facebook has taken, the ADL says that hasnt happened. And thats why, after years of trying to collaborate with Facebook, the ADL is now trying to disrupt its revenue stream in the hopes of forcing change.

Theres a common understanding that Facebook is a company that puts revenue above all else, but I think this is a very clear-cut example, the ADLs Kelley said. All of these changes, the minor tweaks that Mark Zuckerberg announced on Friday, were things that the civil rights community have been asking for for years, in addition to larger structural changes to the platform.

It took a massive pause on advertisement by major companies to get them to move an inch.

The post How the ADL went from working with Facebook to leading a boycott against it appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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How the ADL went from working with Facebook to leading a boycott against it - Forward

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Posted By admin on July 6, 2020

(JTA) It was when Mark Zuckerberg said he would allow Holocaust denial on his platform that the Anti-Defamation League realized its partnership with Facebook wasnt working.The social media giant and the Jewish civil rights group had been working together for years to curb hate speech online. In October 2017, Facebook headlined a new ADL initiative to start a Cyberhate Problem-Solving Lab in collaboration with Silicon Valleys biggest companies.Then, nine months later, Zuckerberg told the tech site Recode that while he personally found Holocaust denial deeply offensive, he said, I dont believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong.

People who monitor antisemitism criticized Zuckerberg for what they saw as undeservedly giving antisemites the benefit of the doubt as if they were making an innocent mistake rather than propagating a deliberate lie. Thats when the ADL realized that Facebook wasnt going to change on its own and needed to be pressured.

Holocaust denial is something that weve been talking to Facebook about for I think its 11 years at this point, Daniel Kelley, associate director of the ADLs Center for Technology and Society, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Weve told them Holocaust denial is hate. It is not misinformation. And they have not only not changed, but in several instances doubled down on treating Holocaust denial as some form of misinformation.

So the ADL has changed tacks as Facebook, according to ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, has allowed some of the worst elements of society into our homes and our lives.

The campaign has attracted a growing list of leading brand names. More than 230 companies have signed onto the pledge, and last week Facebooks stock dipped more than 8%, though it has since rebounded.

Apparently shaken by the boycott, Zuckerberg has announced a series of changes to Facebooks hate speech policies, which he said come directly from feedback from the civil rights community. He also pledged to meet with the organizers of the boycott.

Im committed to making sure Facebook remains a place where people can use their voice to discuss important issues, because I believe we can make more progress when we hear each other, Zuckerberg wrote Friday in a Facebook post. But I also stand against hate, or anything that incites violence or suppresses voting, and were committed to removing that no matter where it comes from.

Those moves have not lessened the ADLs commitment to pressuring the company, which makes nearly its entire $70 billion in annual revenue through ads.

Fighting tech companies is a change for Greenblatt, who came to the ADL job in 2015 following a career as a social entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. Greenblatt founded a bottled water company that donated a portion of its proceeds to clean-water access, as well as All for Good, an open-source platform that aggregated volunteer opportunities online.

Under Greenblatt, the ADL increased its focus on tech, and at first tried to curb online hate through partnership. The group expanded its presence in Silicon Valley in 2016 and founded the Center for Technology and Society in 2017 to combat cyberhate. Greenblatt said he hoped to collaborate even closer on the threat with the tech industry.

Later that year, the ADL announced its partnership with four tech giants Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter to create the Cyberhate Problem-Solving Lab. The idea was to work with the companies on technical solutions to improve detection and removal of hateful posts, with the ADL providing guidance on how to spot bigotry and address it.

But according to Kelley, the effort went nowhere. Facebook, he said, never acted on any of the advice provided by the ADL.

They were happy to sign onto a press release and to say, well, were working with ADL. We did have several meetings, Kelley said. Its the same story of us coming to the meeting with real ideas for how to approach the problems on their platform and them walking away not promising anything. We tried to work with them.

But Kelley said that while Facebook does release transparency reports, it does not give outside researchers access to the data, unlike Twitter. So he said theres no real way to confirm Facebooks claims of transparency.

Using the speech, the Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen compared Zuckerberg to a restaurateur gladly serving neo-Nazis.

If he owned a fancy restaurant and four neo-Nazis came goose-stepping into the dining room and were talking loudly about wanting to kill Jewish scum, would he serve them an elegant eight course meal? Or would tell them to get the f*** out of his restaurant? Cohen wrote. He has every legal right, indeed a moral duty, to tell them to get the f*** out of his restaurant.

I say, lets also hold these companies responsible for those who use their sites to advocate for the mass murder of children because of their race or religion, he said. Maybe its time to tell Mark Zuckerberg and the CEOs of these companies: You already allowed one foreign power to interfere in our elections, you already facilitated one genocide in Myanmar, do it again and you go to jail.

A wrinkle in this story came a few weeks before Cohens speech. Following the October attack on a synagogue in Halle, Germany, the ADL accepted a $2.5 million donation from Facebooks COO, Sheryl Sandberg. Greenblatt said, upon accepting the donation, that he was grateful for her commitment to fighting hate in all of its forms.

Facebooks mostly hands-off approach to posts does have notable defenders.

David Hudson, an advocate of expansive First Amendment rights, said that free speech protections should be extended to Facebook because its size and breadth gives Facebook the power of a government.

But Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt, who spoke out against Zuckerbergs remarks on Holocaust denial, said a boycott was the right way to go.

Facebook is a private entity and no private entity is obligated to post hate speech, she said. Generally I dont like boycotts, but if this is the only thing to which Facebook is going to respond, then you have no other choice. You can choose where you put your money.

Despite the measures Facebook has taken, the ADL says that hasnt happened. And thats why, after years of trying to collaborate with Facebook, the ADL is now trying to disrupt its revenue stream in the hopes of forcing change.

Theres a common understanding that Facebook is a company that puts revenue above all else, but I think this is a very clear-cut example, the ADLs Kelley said. All of these changes, the minor tweaks that Mark Zuckerberg announced on Friday, were things that the civil rights community have been asking for for years, in addition to larger structural changes to the platform.

It took a massive pause on advertisement by major companies to get them to move an inch.

Read the rest here:

How the ADL went from working with Facebook to boycotting against it - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on July 6, 2020

As Facebook continues to receive criticism for its handling of hate speech, corporations and advertisers are pulling away as part of #StopHateForProfit, an activist campaign forcing the social network to counteract harmful content on its platform.

The initiative created by a civil rights coalition that includes the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Color of Change, and other nonprofits believes Facebook failed to censor President Donald Trump when he warned protesters in Minneapolis, "When the looting starts, the shooting starts.

The group organizing the boycott has called on businesses to pause Facebook advertising for the month of July. Facebook earns over 98 percent of its revenue from ads, which brought in $70 billion in 2019 alone.

Lets send Facebook a powerful message: Your profits will never be worth promoting hate, bigotry, racism, antisemitism and violence, the Anti-Defamation League wrote.

The campaign comes amid widespread racial justice protests across the U.S. The Anti-Defamation League claims Facebook allowed incitement to violence against protesters fighting for racial justice in America in the wake of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks and so many others. Could they protect and support Black users? Could they call out Holocaust denial as hate? Could they help get out the vote? They absolutely could. But they are actively choosing not to do so, the organization wrote on #StopHateForProfits webpage.

We deeply respect any brands decision, and remain focused on the important work of removing hate speech and providing critical voting information, Carolyn Everson, Facebook's vice president for global marketing, told NBC News. Our conversations with marketers and civil rights organizations are about how, together, we can be a force for good.

One estimate suggests that more than 530 companies will participate in the boycott. Heres how some of these companies are addressing their connection to Facebook.

Volkswagen

In solidarity with #StopHateForProfit, Volkswagen Group of America is suspending central advertising on Facebook and Instagram for the month of July while we assess their fit as relevant platforms for our brand communications, a company spokesperson told NBC News.

VW firmly believes in the right to free speech for all. But hate and dangerous online misinformation should not go unchecked. We expect our advertising partners to reflect our values, and Volkswagen as well as other companies must hold them to the same standards we demand of ourselves.

Adidas and Reebok

Racist, discriminatory, and hateful online content have no place in our brand or in society, the company said in a statement. As we focus on better practices within our company and communities to ensure lasting change in the fight against racism, Adidas and Reebok will also pause advertising on Facebook and Instagram globally throughout July.

The company added that it would be developing criteria to hold ourselves and every one of our partners accountable for creating and maintaining safe environments.

Levi Strauss & Co.

We at Levi Strauss & Co. have a responsibility to speak up and take action when we see major issues arise that impact our employees, fans and community at large, Jen Sey, Levis chief marketing officer, wrote in a statement.

Thats why we are joining the #StopHateForProfit campaign, pausing all paid Facebook and Instagram advertising globally and across all our brands to hit pause on hate. We will suspend advertising at least through the end of July. When we re-engage will depend on Facebooks response, the statement continued.

Chipotle Mexican Grill

The fast casual restaurant chain has temporarily paused ads on Facebook and Instagram, saying Chipotle is committed to our brand purpose of cultivating a better world.

We are temporarily pausing paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram starting July 1 while we work together to better understand the changes they are making, said Chris Brandt, the companys chief marketing officer. We will continue to be part of the solution to fight systemic racism and create inclusive communities.

CVS Health

The health care giant said it would pause advertising on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for at least 30 days and said it will use that time to define our strategy going forward, built around the simple principle that we wont support any platform that isnt taking meaningful steps to eliminate hate speech and misinformation.

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Starbucks

Starbucks announced that it plans to suspend advertising on all social media platforms.

We believe in bringing communities together, both in person and online, and we stand against hate speech, the coffee giant said in a statement. We believe more must be done to create welcoming and inclusive online communities, and we believe both business leaders and policy makers need to come together to affect real change.

Intercontinental Hotels Group

Intercontinental Hotels Group, whose brands include Crowne Plaza, Kimpton, and Holiday Inn, has joined other companies in what has become a global boycott on Facebook. The company did not provide specifics on how long they would suspend ads on the platform.

Conagra Brands

We stand by our company values including broadmindedness and integrity, and believe there is no place for hate, intolerance and racism in the world or on social media, the packaged food company, which owns brands such as Orville Redenbachers and Chef Boyardee, told NBC News.

That's why Conagra Brands is pausing all paid Facebook and Instagram advertising in the U.S. across our brand portfolio throughout the rest of the calendar year.

Microsoft

Microsoft stopped advertising on Facebook in the U.S. in May and has now suspended its ad campaigns on the platform globally, according to a report from Axios.

"Based on concerns we had back in May we suspended all media spending on Facebook/Instagram in the U.S. and weve subsequently suspended all spending on Facebook/Instagram worldwide," Microsoft chief marketing officer Chris Capossela wrote in an internal post to company employees.

Microsoft, which is Facebooks third-largest advertiser, is mostly concerned about inappropriate content adjacent to its ads, Axios wrote.

Ford

We are pausing all national social media advertising for the next 30 days to re-evaluate our presence on these platforms, the auto giant said.

The existence of content that includes hate speech, violence and racial injustice on social platforms needs to be eradicated. We are actively engaged with industry initiatives led by the Association of National Advertisers to drive more accountability, transparency and trusted measurement to clean up the digital and social media ecosystem.

Clorox

The Clorox Company will stop advertising spending with Facebook, Inc. through December, the company wrote in a statement on its website.

As a people-centered company committed to our values, we feel compelled to take action against hate speech, which we believe will increase through the balance of the year. This creates an increasingly unhealthy environment for people and our purpose-driven brands.

Honda

For the month of July, American Honda will withhold its advertising on Facebook and Instagram, choosing to stand with people united against hate and racism, the company told NBC News. This is inalignment with our companys values, which are grounded in human respect.

Verizon

Verizon announced last week that it would suspend advertising on Facebook.

"We're pausing our advertising until Facebook can create an acceptable solution that makes us comfortable and is consistent with what we've done with YouTube and other partners," John Nitti, chief media officer for Verizon, said.

The company spends approximately $1billion each year on advertising.

Unilever

One of the largest advertisers in the world, Unilever announced last week it would pull its ads from Facebook in support for the #StopHateForProfit campaign.

Continuing to advertise on these platforms at this time would not add value to people and society," the company said. "We will be monitoring ongoing and will revisit our current position if necessary."

Ben & Jerrys

As of July 1, we will pause all paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram in the United States as part of the #StopHateForProfit campaign, the company told NBC. We call on Facebook, Inc. to take the clear and unequivocal actions called for by the campaign to stop its platform from being used to spread and amplify racism and hate.

Coca-Cola

The beverage giant said it will stop running ads on social media platforms for the next 30 days, as it reevaluates where it spends its advertising budget.

There is no place for racism in the world, and there is no place for racism on social media, CEO and chairman of the company James Quincey told Adweek.

Other brands participating in the massive campaign include Patagonia, The North Face, and Best Buy. While the campaign exists for the month of July, some companies including Conagra and Clorox plan to suspend their advertising on Facebook for the remainder of the year.

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Which companies have pulled their ads from Facebook so far? - NBC News

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Posted By admin on July 6, 2020

It is steadily becoming clear where the woke brigade will go once the current moral panic over racism has run its course (which cant be long, following the newsthat London estate agents have stopped using the term master bedroom to avoid its connotations with slavery). A week ago Andrew Willshire wrote hereof how the activist group Hope Not Hate has now decided that climate change denialism is now a hate crime.

Now comes another sign that climate change is becoming the next woke battleground. Earlier this week, an environmental campaigner, Michael Shellenberger wrote a mea culpa on the website of Forbes.com. On behalf of environmentalists everywhere I would like to formally apologise for the climate scare we have created over the past 30 years, it began. Climate change is happening. Its just not the end of the world. Its not even our most serious environmental problem.

Shellenberger, who has been campaigning against the destruction of the rainforest since the age of 16, has not given up his campaign. On the contrary, that is the very reason he has changed his mind. Previously, he worked as an advocate for renewable energy persuading the Obama administration to invest $90bn (72bn) into renewables, he says. But he has now changed his mind. He has calculated that at present, 0.5 per cent of land on Earth is used for the production of energy. If the world switched to 100 per cent renewables, however, we would have to use 50 per cent of all land on Earth for wind farms, solar farms, growing biofuels or forest plantations to feed wood-burning power stations and so on. The devastation this would cause has led him to the conclusion that if we are going to reduce carbon emissions the only practical way is via nuclear power.

Now you may or may not agree with that conclusion. Personally, I have serious misgivings about using nuclear fission to provide the worlds energy needs, given the economic devastation that another Chernobyl or Fukushima would bring to a densely-populated country. Nuclear fusion, if we could get it to work on a commercial scale, would be a different story although everyone has been promising that for the past half century, and there is a limit to how many billions you can throw at a technology in the hope of a breakthrough.

Anyway, that is by the by. What is surely true is that the worlds future energy needs, and the extent of the damage wrought on the climate by man-made carbon emissions, are areas of legitimate debate. If you do disagree with Shellenberger, you have every right to do so. But that is not, of course, how woke politics functions. The aim now is not to engage with political opponents but to attempt to put them beyond the pale, to try to delegitimise their opinions by making out that they belong on some far-right fringe from which the general public needs to be protected.

I know that the above facts will sound like climate denialism to many people, Shellenberger wrote prophetically in his Forbespiece. Not half. His piece has now been taken down by Forbes. A US journalist who tried to find out why was issued only with the following statement: Forbes requires its contributors to adhere to strict editorial guidelines. This story did not follow those guidelines, and was removed.

It is not hard to decode: a bunch of climate alarmists decided that Shellenberger is inconvenient to their cause and have tried to cancel him by complaining to the website and the website caved in. Fortunately, Shellenberger has reposted his piece, so you can still read it here and judge for yourself what editorial guidelines Forbesjudged it to breach (after initially passing it for publication).

The attempt to classify climate change denialism as a hate crime has been coming for quite a while. The very use of the word denial is an attempt to put anyone sceptical of climate alarmism in the same pigeonhole as holocaust deniers. Incidentally, I recently wrote a novel, The Denial, about a meteorologist who falls foul of climate activists because he values observation over alarmist predictions. I intended it as a satire set in the near future, but by the time it is publishedin September it looks as if it may well have become the present.

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The next culture war will be over climate change - Spectator.co.uk

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Posted By admin on July 6, 2020

WASHINGTON (KTVZ) -- Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., on Thursday co-sponsored legislation that would provide $1.2 billion to ensure federally-assisted senior housing facilities have the resources to protect residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Seniors in Oregon and across the country face serious dangers from both COVID-19 and inaction from the federal government to protect them,Wyden said.Congress must ensure seniors can remain in their homes and have the proper safeguards to stay healthy. The Emergency Housing Assistance for Older Adults Act would provide those urgently needed resources for federally-assisted senior housing facilities to protect their vulnerable residents.

The Emergency Housing Assistance for Older Adults Act of 2020 would provide $1.2 billion to the Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly and Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance programs, including $845 million for obtaining PPE, cleaning and disinfecting properties, hiring additional staff and providing rental assistance.

The average age of residents in Section 202 properties for older adults is 79, and nearly 39 percent of residents are older than age 80. Their average annual income falls below $14,000 and there are profound disparities in both COVID-19 infections and virus-related deaths.

The bill also includes:

Wyden joined Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., to introduce the bill, as well as Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Bob Casey, D-Pa., Ed Markey, D-Mass., Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

The legislation is endorsed by AARP, Leading Age and B'nai B'rith International.

Earlier this week, Wyden introduced theCoronavirus Housing Counseling Improvement Actto expand access to critical assistance programs and services for millions of families struggling to remain in their homes because of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic fallout. According to research, homeowners who receive counseling have a better chance at avoiding default, protecting their credit scores, reducing debt and securing mortgage modifications.

A copy of the bill text is availablehere.

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Wyden backs bill to help seniors in federally assisted housing amid COVID-19 - KTVZ

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Posted By admin on July 6, 2020

In the aftermath of George Floyds death, anti-racism protests have rippled across the world. 'Black Lives Matter' has become a rallying cry for the rights and equality of Black people and many people around the world sat up and took notice for the first time this summer.

So, when I saw a recent tweet from the Black Lives Matter UK Twitter account, my heart sank.

'As Israel moves forward with the annexation of the West Bank, and mainstream British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism, and Israels settler colonial pursuits, we loudly and clearly stand beside our Palestinian comrades.

FREE PALESTINE.'

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As a Black Jewish woman, the antisemitic undertones of the tweet made me feel as though I was torn between two communities, and that the two sides of my identity were being pitted against each other. Being part of two marginalised groups is difficult enough on a daily basis as it is, let alone when racism or antisemitism comes from within one of my communities.

Not only was the tweet upsetting to me as a Black Jew, but it was also dangerous because it would have two major consequences: to stoke division between Black people and Jewish people who found the tweet harmful; and derail a very important message about Palestinian liberation as Israel plans to annex the West Bank. But what made it so damaging?

Id just like to start by saying: it is not antisemitic to criticise the actions of the Israeli government; the Israeli government is planning to annex the West Bank, which will be a gross violation of Palestinian human rights and international law. Black Lives Matter critiquing this isn't the issue, and many Jews and Israelis are against it as well. And, while Zionism means the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel, it can be critiqued when extremist politicians like Benjamin Netanyahu manipulate it for political ends or if you oppose the concept of ethno-nationalist states in general, and do not single out the only Jewish state in your critique; however, this can sometimes become a sensitive issue when put in the context of Jewish persecution over millennia, and must be navigated carefully. So, it was not the expression of solidarity with Palestinians, or even the critique of Zionism, that was the issue.

The part of the tweet that was problematic was the language surrounding 'gagged'.

A long-standing, well-known antisemitic conspiracy theory is "Jews control the world" and contemporary antisemites often exchange the word 'Jews' with 'Israel' to hide their bigotry; a prime example is the 'Israel did 9/11' conspiracy theory, or the idea that 'Zionists control the world'. Therefore, when BLM UK said "British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism" it immediately set off alarm bells in my head; 'gagged' by whom?

If someone is being 'gagged' there must be an omnipotent 'gagger'. Then, when you ask that question, it begins to become clear that the language of the tweet has a sinister angle to it it was playing into the old trope that Jews control the media and global politics. Not only that, but it was a bizarre choice of words in the British political context right now - given all major political parties have condemned the looming annexation, and Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy (who is also the Chair of Labour Friends of Palestine) has called for sanctions on Israel should they move forward with annexation.

And this is why the wording of the tweet became an issue. The poor choice of language slipped into an antisemitic trope - perhaps without BLM UK even realising; modern antisemitism can be very insidious as the issues in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn demonstrated. And the tweet had real consequences: I, and other Black Jews, were subjected to an onslaught of abuse online - with some calling me a "white supremacist zionist wh*re" for highlighting the problematic language of that tweet.

It was particularly painful for Jews in my position because it felt like our identities were suddenly incompatible - making us feel as though we can be Jewish or Black, but not both. As I anticipated, the tweet became a fertile environment for division and a battleground for racists - for those who are anti-Palestinian, for those who that were antisemitic, for those that were anti-Black, and for those who were all of these things.

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A lot of Jewish people who support the Black community began to feel deeply uncomfortable with aligning themselves with Black Lives Matter. Political opponents to Black Lives Matter manipulated the situation to suggest BLM was an antisemitic endeavour, and far-left antisemites began to suggest Jews were making their concern up about the tweet and that it was because they didnt care about Palestinians. The row continued - meanwhile, neither Black people, Jews, or Palestinians gained anything from the situation; the only people that benefited were racists.

And that is why the use of language was so disappointing in the tweet - because it triggered a sequence of behaviour that was so easy to avoid but so difficult to remedy. It also demonstrated how imperative it is for left-wing movements to educate themselves on how to speak about Israel without being antisemitic, and how to recognise modern antisemitism.

Because, until this happens, anti-racism movements will undermine themselves, important conversations about anti-racism and liberation will continue to be derailed and ultimately, it will continue to benefit the oppressor, not the oppressed.

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Why The Black Lives Matter UK Tweet Was Antisemitic - GLAMOUR UK

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