#tiktok is a scourge on humanity

[saturdaynightghostclub]

About to start biting people

[littlemut]

social media gurus be like “cOnTeNt Is KiNg” yeah and depression is queen but you never talk about that now do you

[tamaharu]

theres a very fine line between school assignments being creative enough to be fun and being "creative" enough to make me want to put my head through a wall

[spikeyjo]

Narc this and narc mom that. How about you pass the Narcan because my ass is getting the fentanyl ouchies

[naturalrights-retard]

People frequently ask about my undercover role in the fashion industry. The heart of this mystery is a sinister and pervasive issue: human trafficking, deeply entangled in the modelling sector of the fashion world. This glamorous facade has been tarnished by the predatory actions of influential figures — photographers, casting directors, and scouts, or full-time criminals — who have preyed upon young women and girls, offering them illusory dreams of fame and success. My task was to seek these predators and put an end to their nefarious activities.

The nature of the response to this revelation varies with the audience. The general public is often aghast, unaware of the extent of these heinous crimes. Conversely, those aware of the issues surrounding child trafficking may express surprise at the disclosure of an actual, state-led effort to tackle this scourge. The world, as is typically the case, is not a place of clear-cut moral absolutes.

The motivations and actions of intelligence agencies in combating known human traffickers could be a topic for another discussion, but they are not the central theme of this account. What is essential here is the acknowledgment that numerous innocent lives were saved, and the conviction that those I closely worked with were genuinely committed to a noble cause.

Despite the controversies and complex history associated with the agency, my involvement was driven by a profound belief in the value and integrity of my mission. As a survivor of sexual assault myself, the arrest of Jean-Luc Brunel was not just a professional victory; it was a profound moment of justice. It represented the salvation of countless young women with dreams and aspirations from a grim fate in the clutches of a man who would have irreparably damaged their lives.

[normiebutch]

Every single day of my life I am only given more reasons to believe that TikTok is a scourge against humanity. Unironically. I don't even believe in the concept of a soul and yet I think that godforsaken app withers it away.

[mincedgirlic]

tiktok is a foul scourge and a stain on the record of humanity in general but i do get to watch a kind man trim cow’s hooves and put little high heels on them so they can walk easier so that’s nice

[curious-glitch]

The Tyranny of the Measurable

Stock prices, revenues, 3-pointers, likes, what do they have in common? These are measures that we have become obsessed with, and I contend that we are obsessed with them because they are easy to measure and track.

Surrounded by the measurable, everything becomes a contest.

The scariest thing about the modern world? How we translated our most human, most precious ideals into metrics bulls-eyes to hit:

Attention - page views

Admiration - likes

Success - net worth

Intelligence - test scores

Diligence - GPA

Academic prestige - school rank

Customer love - NPS

In the process, we get to miss the forest for the trees, sometimes even throw the baby out with the bathwater.

We definitely get more procrustean, and we start seeing like a state.

The alternative is a lot harder and way more taxing for the brain - doing actual thinking and sensing instead of relying on the numbers as a crutch, coupled with triangulation across many different sources. But it's worth it. By doing these, you allow yourself a chance to perceive the authentic and the true.

There are moments when you feel that something is off, when it just doesn't pass the sniff test. For example when someone with no test scores seems to be smarter than someone with high scores, GPA, school rank, and net worth. It takes real 'seeing' to notice these.

Again, most people just outsource their judging and evaluation function to these numbers. We give a lot more credit to the people these numbers endowed with abundance.

So we all become slaves to these numbers because we don't know any better. We dance to Tiktok beats we abhor just to earn more likes, because who doesn't crave admiration? We give up everything to reach a certain dollar-figure net worth

Whether you're on the user side or the business side, these numbers were meant to be proxies or approximations for something more real, yet we lose sight of that 'real thing.' Indeed, "what is essential is invisible to the eye." because we naturally fixate on the numbers before we get a chance to train our eyes to the essential.

This fixation appeals to the competitor in each of us. We all crave to compete, but we are all thirsting for some semblance of rules and a finish line. We need to find ways to uncover where we are in the social hierarchy, who are inferior or superior. Why? Because in large social circles this is the only way to guide our actions in the most efficient way possible.

We need to know our place, so we find ways to compete to find out.

To enable that competition, you need numbers to define the competition. So we chase those numbers! And we let those numbers define our self-worth. If we're doing well, then great. If not, we tumble and stumble.

This is where transparency becomes a scourge. In the mimetic milieu of human communities, it benefits the majority to make these hierarchies modestly vague.

If we make it too clear, the mimetic rivalries inflame and erupt. I know that my posts normally get 35 likes, while hers get 80 likes. She is higher up in the hierarchy than I am, respect! No matter how rich we get, we don't get happy. Because someone else will also be richer than you, and you have those magazines like Fortune and Forbes that make the bitter pill of truth even harder to swallow.

To make something measurable is to cheapen it. You transmute it from a Platonic form to a prosaic commercial entity. To impose the measurable is to destroy it.

The book 'Seeing like a State' gives plenty examples of this, one where 19th century foresters planted only a type of crop that is productive and measurable, giving them a boost in the first few years until the pests ate up the plantation because the ecological ecosystem was disrupted, and another when the Great Leap Forward instituted such grand goals in one area of the economy (agriculture) while neglecting everything else, because the targets became blinders, and the bureaucrats became metric-driven to a fault.

We are going through another round of this by obsessing too much on GDP and GDP growth instead of a more authentic, encompassing measure.

Numbers make you think short-term and lose sight of the long-term.

Clear consensus numbers and common metrics are good in giving us standards and a shared language.* They are useful - serving as the bedrock of civilization, but we should not be obsessed. Knowing our human tendencies, to not be obsessed with the metrics is stupidly hard to do, but we must try anyway.

It is hard to not work towards maximum efficiency but we should again, look at the long-term big picture. To go for robustness and sustainability is becoming more prized in an increasingly chaotic world. We must think in more ecological systems terms - to balance multiple variables, diverse stakeholders, stocks and flows... Beyond surface-level connection we need genuine, empathetic immersion.

*Partially agreed numbers on the other hand are just pure chaos - just look at the ESG wave where no one metric is defined, it just messes everything up...

[allthingsdarkanddirty]

Universal: https://geni.us/ClaimedBTH

ALICE It’s hard enough living in the Bugpocalypse, and the last thing I need is a big, purple stalker. But that’s exactly what I get. Kaj’k is freakin’ HUGE! And his sharp claws, pointy fangs, and massive horns are scary AF.

I reject his gift of food and flowers, but my massively muscled alien warrior doesn’t get the hint. He tosses me over his shoulders and carries me to his shuttle. I expect the worst, but all he does is purr at me.

KAJ'K I’ve spent my entire life fighting the swarm. Genetically engineered to hunt the scourge across the galaxy, Xarc’n hunters are the ultimate predators. It takes a lot to take one of us down. Then, I meet the little human female who brings me to my knees.

My Alice is full of fire, and I have no doubt she can survive on her own. But she’s my mate, and she’s mine to protect. When cannibals and scourge threaten my female, I toss her over my shoulder and carry her to my ship. Now that I have my mate in my arms, I’m never letting her go!

#sale #booksale #freebooks #freedownloads #discountbooks #cheapreads #sfr #scifiromance #sciencefictionromance #alienromance #claimedbythehunter #xarcnwarriors #romancenovels #romancebooks #romance #kissingbooks #steamyreads #reading #readers #booklovers #bookbuzz #booknews About Lynnea:

Lynnea Lee is a recovered serial monogamist who now lives in her forever home with the man of her dreams. Still hopelessly addicted to the feeling of falling in love she now feeds her habit with a routine prescription of romance novels and rampant imagination. When she is not dreaming up fantastical stories of love, lust and romance, her hobbies include talking to her plants, putting on a full face of makeup to stay home on Saturday nights and hugging her dog longer than is appreciated.

Find Lynnea Online: Amazon: amazon.com/LynneaLee BookBub: bookbub.com/LynneaLee Facebook: facebook.com/LynneaWrites Goodreads: goodreads.com/author/LynneaLee Instagram: instagram.com/lynnea.lee.writes TikTok: tiktok.com/@lynnea.lee.writes Web: lynnealee.com

[sonyclasica]

JONGNIC BONTEMPS

TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEAST - BANDA SONORA ORIGINAL

Milan Records anuncia el lanzamiento de TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK) del compositor JONGNIC BONTEMPS. El tema que abre el álbum, "The Maximals", se acaba de estrenar junto con la reserva del álbum. BSO disponible el 9 de junio.

Escucha el adelanto AQUÍ

Reserva el álbum AQUÍ

El álbum, que se publica el viernes 9 de junio y ya está disponible para reserva, incluye música escrita por Bontemps para la séptima entrega de live-action de la exitosa franquicia cinematográfica. Transformers: el despertar de las bestias es la nueva colaboración entre el director Steven Caple Jr. y Jongnic Bontemps, que ya han trabajado juntos en el debut cinematográfico de Caple Jr., The Land, y el éxito de taquilla de 2018 Creed II. El tema que abre el álbum, "The Maximals", se acaba de estrenar junto con la reserva del álbum, dando a los oyentes una idea de lo que se puede esperar del álbum antes de su lanzamiento el próximo viernes 9 de junio: ESCÚCHALO AQUÍ. Transformers: el despertar de las bestias de Paramount Pictures llegará a los cines el 9 de junio.

Sobre la banda sonora, el compositor JONGNIC BONTEMPS dice: "Ojalá pudiera decirle a mi yo preadolescente que un día los juguetes con los que te diviertes infinitas horas serán una serie de películas, y que escribirás la música de Transformers: El despertar de las bestias. Eso podría haberme evitado muchos problemas... Poner música a la película y trabajar con mi viejo colaborador Steven Caple Jr. ha superado mis sueños más salvajes y estoy muy contento de formar parte del legado de Transformers. Trabajamos incansablemente para respetar el lenguaje musical de las películas anteriores y reimaginarlo a través de la lente de nuestro mundo actual".

"Estamos muy contentos de aportar un nuevo sonido a Transformers: El despertar de las Bestias", añade el director STEVEN CAPLE JR. "A los fans, nuestra música les parecerá fresca, nostálgica de los años 90, y supondrá una reelaboración de la composición musical por la que son conocidas estas películas. Con Jongnic Bontemps como el primer compositor negro de esta franquicia, estamos orgullosos y emocionados de que el público conecte con la película y la cultura a través de nuestra música." El Presidente de Música de Paramount Pictures RANDY SPENDLOVE se hace eco de este sentimiento y añade: "Estamos orgullosos y emocionados de dar la bienvenida a Jongnic Bontemps al universo de Transformers. Su música es épica, emotiva e inspiradora, y será una incorporación asombrosa a la legendaria franquicia."

SOBRE TRANSFORMERS: EL DESPERTAR DE LAS BESTIAS

Retomando la acción y el espectáculo que han cautivado a los cinéfilos de todo el mundo, Transformers: El despertar de las bestias llevará al público a vivir una aventura de los 90 con los Autobots e introducirá una facción totalmente nueva de Transformers, los Maximals, que se unirán a ellos como aliados en la actual batalla por la Tierra. Con dirección de Steven Caple Jr. y protagonizada por Anthony Ramos y Dominique Fishback, la película se estrena el 9 de junio de 2023.

CONECTA CON TRANSFORMERS: EL DESPERTAR DE LAS BESTIAS

PÁGINA WEB | TRÁILER | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | TIKTOK

TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK)

TRACKLISTING –

The Maximals

Unicron / Scourge

Autobots Enter

What Are You

More Than Meets the Eye

Mirage

Museum Heist

Battle at Ellis Island

Fallen Hero

Chris Meets Mirage

Arriving in Peru

Hiding in Plain Sight

The Cave

Switchback Chase

The Village

Saving Elena

One Last Stand

The Final Battle Begins

Unicron Approaches

Home Team

Volcano Battle

No Matter the Cost

Till All Are One

Humans and Autobots United

Here’s My Card

A Long Time Ago

SOBRE JONGNIC BONTEMPS

Jongnic "JB" Bontemps es un compositor de cine excepcionalmente moderno, elegido por Paramount Pictures para crear la banda sonora de la taquillera película de acción y ciencia ficción Transformers: El despertar de las bestias protagonizada por Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback y Michelle Yeoh para el director y colaborador habitual Steven Caple Jr.

JB es conocido por su fusión de sonido contemporáneo con emoción atemporal. Se convirtió en el compositor de cabecera del director Steven Caple Jr. mientras componía su drama de madurez The Land, para el que también orquestó la canción "This Bitter Land", interpretada por Nas y Erykah Badu. A continuación, ambos colaboraron en la aclamada película Creed II, para la que JB aportó una emocionante música adicional. La música de JB puede escucharse recientemente en la comedia romántica de Netflix Wedding Season, la serie de ciencia ficción de la CW 4400, y el largometraje dramático Last Night in Rozzie dirigido por Sean Gannet. Entre sus proyectos de próximo estreno se incluyen dos para Disney+: el largometraje World's Best para el director Roshan Sethi y la serie de 6 partes Choir para el director Rudy Valdez, así como el videojuego de terror de Arkane Studios Redfall y Jagged Mind para la directora Kelley Kali.

JB ha aportado su talento a varios proyectos documentales aclamados por la crítica. Se dio a conocer por su banda sonora con toques de hip-hop para el documental favorito de Tribeca United Skates, y desde entonces ha colaborado con numerosos documentalistas galardonados en sus proyectos, incluido el largometraje de Julie Cohen y Betsey West My Name is Pauli Murray, por el que fue nominado a un Critics' Choice Award. Entre sus otros proyectos documentales se incluye el especial de la CNN The People vs. The Klan, las películas del director Sam Pollard Citizen Ashe y Reopening Night, los proyectos documentales de Netflix Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story y We Are: The Brooklyn Saints, y Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker.

JB ha compuesto la música para decenas de largometrajes, series y videojuegos de todos los géneros, incluido el biopic de Lifetime Clarke Sisters: The First Ladies of Gospel, el drama dirigido por Toni Braxton, Faith Under Fire, la selección de Sundance Leimert Park producida por Charles King (Mudbound), la serie original de BET+ Boomerang, y música adicional para la serie de Epix Godfather of Harlem protagonizada por Forest Whitaker y el galardonado juego Call of Duty WWII. Las bandas sonoras de JB han sonado en Cannes, el Festival de Cine de Varsovia, el Festival de Cine Panafricano y el Festival de Cine Negro Estadounidense, así como en Netflix, CNN, HBO, BET, Lifetime, NBC, Showtime, Netflix, PBS y Disney XD.

Nacido en Brooklyn, JB aprendió a tocar el piano y se empapó de su entorno de gospel y jazz. Estudió música en Yale y más tarde se encontró en el corazón de la industria tecnológica como desarrollador de software y empresario tras vender su startup a HP. Allí prosperó durante varios años, pero al final decidió perseguir su pasión más profunda y se metió de cabeza en el programa de composición cinematográfica de la USC y en el Sundance Film Music Lab. Trabajó como aprendiz de programador para numerosos compositores de la lista A de Hollywood antes de abrirse camino por su cuenta.

"La música de cine tiene que contar una historia sin palabras", dice JB. "Su trabajo consiste en añadir profundidad y dimensión a las imágenes y palabras presentadas en pantalla. Eso es lo que me atrajo; la oportunidad de expresar realmente emociones con la música".

[strommccallum]

Democratic Socialism and the “Politics” of Exhibitionism

Tailing socially reactionary sentiment would lead international democratic socialism to a dead end. So would continuation of its accommodation of exhibitionism practiced under the guise of democratic socialist agitation.

Not only does exhibitionism carried out on Twitter, city streets, TikTok, organizational meetings and conventions, and all spaces in between under the name of democratic socialist organizational effort repel or frighten the vast majority of those that are exploited and oppressed by Capital, the vast majority of those who would make up the ranks of the Socialist Revolution, but it is in itself demonstration of a lack of commitment to a serious revolutionary politics and program, a lack of commitment to a politics and program of development of an international class conscious proletarian consensus, seizure of state power, expropriation of Capital, and realization of a global cooperative commonwealth. It amounts to display of the mindset that Marxism and democratic socialist agitation is simply a pretext for lashing out and being "bad", "edgy", or generally unlike so-called "normies", for ribaldly signaling that one is "different", for throwing temper tantrums of raw, indiscriminate iconoclastic rage.

If a movement is one of trumpeting that its faithful are "different" from and somehow better than the "normies", of shocking and offending simply to shock and offend, of being a boisterous "Catboy", "commie witch" or "commie Satanist", "Tankie"-themed BDSM practitioner, or clotheshorse of styles and articles meant only to be grotesque, it is not one of serious politics of radical social transformation and is, by definition, a movement which is anti-popular. The objective of the democratic socialist project, as laid out by Marx and Engels, is developing the class consciousness of all proletarians to a mature level, freeing humankind from the scourge of capitalism, and building a classless world of human solidarity and democratic production for use economy. It is about emphasizing what the exploited have in common and emancipating the "normie" and the "eccentric" or "queer" oppressed alike. The idea that the eccentric or the exhibitionist libertine is superior to the "normie" is anti-majoritarian, counter-proletarian solidaristic, anti-socialist, bourgeois hyper-individualist nonsense. International democratic socialism must be intolerant of these attitudes, just as it is intolerant of racial, ethnic, gender, or sexual orientation bigotry. How can we continue to allow space for thinking so oppositional to genuine Marxist thought in our institutions of political education and organization?

Intolerance of the practice of exhibitionism in the name of Marxist revolutionary politics does not in any sense amount to intolerance of deviation from aesthetic or sexual norms. It amounts to enforcement of a serious commitment to revolutionary politics and protection of our movement from tendencies opposed to serious constructive mentality and programs of action, to protection of international democratic  socialism from tendencies that would derail the movement. Institutions of international democratic socialism must not accommodate elements which deem the objective of the democratic socialist project to be the advertisement of sexual or aesthetic preferences in a manner designed to offend the "everyman and everywoman", establishment and broadcasting a "subcultural" identity, simple castigation of the "masses" or bragging about how "bad" or "edgy" we democratic socialists are.

No, we cannot write off proletarians practicing this rubbish as "irredeemables" or individuals incapable of becoming revolutionary actors, just as we cannot write off those proletarians under the sway of socially reactionary ideology or "radical" essentialism and identity reductionism as such, but we cannot pretend that they are as of yet serious, genuine Marxists.

(Republished from my blog) 

[angrydemonfawnbaby]

there's a lot of tiktok videos being made about what classes the cast should play whenever campaign 3 starts and i have a lot of thoughts but i do not make tiktoks so im just going to put my thoughts here:

Travis - Cleric because I think it would be nice to see him in a class geared more towards "support" and also because he'd be an inflict wounds machine. He likes stronk races so maybe dwarf or even like a monster race to try an avoid romance next campaign. But also something in my soul says assimar??? Idk why?? (Scourge Aasimar cleric???)

Sam - Wild magic sorcerer, probably a kobold. I saw somewhere that Sam apparently said he wanted to be a monk next campaign (most likely definitely way of the drunken master?? Can we honestly see him picking a different subclass??), which I think would be interesting to see him take on a melee class, in which case...I still think kobold. He loves small and I feel like Spurt had Sam energy and probably unlocked something deeply chaotic in him. Wild magic kobold is Sam Riegal energy.

Liam - Druid and I will not be taking critism. This man loves polymorphing into animals so much. I have never seen anyone happier than a Liam O'Brien turning his wizard into a shark or a t-rex. Liam deserves to be a druid. I'm not sold on any race for him. Something in me says tiefling but I think that's maybe just Caleb's love for the tiefs coloring my glasses. I'm gonna say Elf or Genasi.

Talesein - I know everyone says he needs to play a warlock because he is a warlock but I feel like we kinda got a touch of that with Percey and Orthax. I think there's a strong possibility he could do warlock. Personally, I would be much more interested in seeing him play the other side of the coin and go Paladin after seeing him play out Cad's relationship with the wildmother. Or, if he's going to go warlock, I'd like to see the developing multiclass arc of it (gimme a downward spiral bby). As for race? Human Paladin, maybe a Half-elf warlock OR Yuan-ti Pureblood if he wants to get freaky(which...it's Tal...that's entirely on the table).

Marisha - BARBARIAN. I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL. Let the girl rage. She would crush it as a barbarian. She's so good at melee and my biggest regret of campaign 1 is keyleth didn't take a level in barbarian. I can see her going for a smaller race (dwarf, maybe halfling) for this but my (bisexual) heart wants a strong firbolg lady.

Ashley - I would like to order one rogue please. I know everyone wants Laura to be a rogue and honestly either of these ladies would crush it as a sneaky sneak because they have the range but I want to see ashley tackle it (she did it in a one shot but I need more). Human or maybe a Changeling?? Maaaaybe half-orc?

Laura fucking Bailey - I want her to be a warlock. I know there's a lot of people in the rogue corner because of campaign 1 but Laura Bailey has the range and I want to see her tackle nuanced morality and I want a callback moment where she looks at travis and says "eldritch blast". This moment would only be made better if she were to play a goliath.

I am not taking critism but I would love to hear ur own thots

[antsypoindexter]

Tiktok infantalizing gender nonconformity has made me wanna thrash about and shove these queers into lockers lmao

honestly yeah. i have a lot less vitriol for the nonbinary people themselves cause i think figuring out you're nonbinary and being online like that kinda gives you the thinking of "okay, this is how people will see me so i have to conform to this/perform in this way for my identity to be acceptable to people" which you ultimately grow out of with having a stronger sense of self acceptance, they're annoying sure but whatever that's their journey + their choice and it's not my business. however the cis people perpetuating that and not getting it through their thick fucking skulls that being nonbinary has not and will not ever look like One Thing need to get their shit rocked, just very essentially "nonbinary is the Third Gender" but with buckley demonias and frog hats so their bigotry can be masked as some sort of appealing ideal to more impressionable people in the community. anyway tik tok is a fucking scourge on humanity

[sirpatientfancy]

tiktok is a scourge upon the corpse of humanity but i am addicted to it sadly

[indianarrative1]

Chinese President Xi Jinping has been forced to acknowledge that his country’s economic growth is facing a rising external risk and the export-driven model that established China as the factory for the world has run into rough weather.

Addressing a meeting on China’s five-year development plan for 2021-2025 on Saturday, Xi put great emphasis on his “dual circulation” strategy to cut the country’s dependence on overseas markets and technology amidst a widening rift with the United States, Europe and Japan.

“China has strong manufacturing capacity, very large domestic markets and huge investment potentials,” the official Xinhua news agency quoted Xi as saying in a report from Beijing.

Xi put up a brave face saying “China’s economy remains resilient and there are ample policy tools at Beijing’s disposal to ensure growth as globalization slows and unilateralism and protectionism are rising. We must seek our development in a more unstable and uncertain world.”

However, what Xi did not say is that his own policies have ended up killing the geese that laid the golden eggs for China. He is now seen at the world stage as a leader who cannot be trusted. After having used technology and investments from the advanced Western countries to establish the biggest supply chain for manufacturing goods in the world and then exploiting their markets to rake in huge profits, China has literally stabbed them in the back.

The Xi regime’s concealing of facts related to the deadly coronavirus scourge triggered from the meat market in Wuhan and the intimidatory display of naval and air power in the South China Sea along with the military build-up on the Indian border have made the world wary of China. The brazen violation of human rights in Hong Kong and China’s southern province of Xinjiang has further alienated the country.

Sales of goods in overseas markets have helped China to emerge as the fastest growing economy in the world with huge balance of trade surpluses vis-à-vis its leading trade partners such as America and Europe. The trade with India too has been one-sided as cheap Chinese goods have been flooding the market often at the cost of domestic industry. However, with these markets now likely to dry up, China now faces an uphill task to achieve its goal of becoming a high-income nation comparable to the western countries and Japan.

Under the “dual circulation” strategy, Xi aims to boost technological  innovation and push Chinese firms up the global value chain so that they create more jobs and incomes within the country to generate a higher domestic demand for goods and services that will also raise the standard of living of its vast population.

Xi Jinping’s “internal circulation” strategy aims to depend on domestic production and consumption for its development. But at the same time Xi also says “internal circulation” will be supported by “external circulation” which in other words means that he wants to have the cake and eat it too. Chinese leaders still favor greater market opening to attract more foreign investment in high-end manufacturing and prevent the exodus of multinational companies from China.

But analysts think matters have gone too far and with the US decoupling from the Chinese economy, other countries have stepped up their plans to scale down economic engagement with the dragon. Japan, for instance, has started offering subsidies to its companies to shift their production lines out of China.

The Trump administration has blacklisted more than 275 China-based companies which include telecom equipment giants Huawei and ZTE and drone producer DJI. Surveillance camera maker Hikvision has been put on the banned list over suppression of China’s Uighur minority which lives in the Xinjiang province. Similarly, Trump signed an executive order on August 14 giving ByteDance 90 days to sell popular short video app TikTok which has access to personal data of millions of US citizens. Some construction companies have also been put on the sanctions list for helping China’s military build-up on disputed islands in the South China Sea.

The Trump administration has moved in a big way to prevent most US companies from conducting business with Huawei, saying the world’s biggest maker of mobile telecommunications equipment and smartphones posed a security risk as it ultimately functioned under the control of an authoritarian Chinese government. The company has been barred from participating in the roll out of 5G operations of advanced countries which has come as a major setback for its expansion plans. Last month, restrictions were tightened further to stop Huawei’s access to commercially available chips from US companies. This is bound to cripple its capacity to produce high-end smartphones, giving rivals such as South Korean electronics giant Samsung and leading US phonemaker Apple a big advantage.

[warninggraphiccontent]

24 January 2020

Whitehall statistics

It's here! It's done! It's finished! Whitehall Monitor 2020, our seventh annual report on the size, shape and performance of government, was published this week, with 61 charts on government finances, ministers, the civil service workforce (and how its people are managed), major projects, digital services and transparency. The launch event was fun, too (my slides are here). And intelligent coverage from The Guardian, Civil Service World, Global Government Forum, Public Technology, Quartz, and Diginomica. Fill your boots.

We'll be talking a lot more about Whitehall Monitor on this week's Inside Briefing, out later. And here's last week's sonification - free jazz freedom of information.

Also: Data Bites is back! Join us at 6pm on Thursday 6 February for another great line-up. Previous events here. Tell all your friends.

Given all that, it probably won't shock you to know W:GC is taking a week off next week, back in a fortnight. But keep an eye out for some more wonderful charts when my IfG colleagues publish a report on ministerial and civil service turnover while I'm away.

Have good weekends

Gavin

Today's links:

Graphic content

Government and politics

Whitehall Monitor 2020 (IfG)

Launch

Slides

The civil service is getting older and younger – what does that mean? (Alex for IfG - more on age)

Location of the civil service (IfG)

HS2 is still the quickest way to invest in northern and Midlands transport (Graham for IfG)

Parliament: summary of gender (IfG - topical given this)

Sewel Convention (IfG - why it matters, from Jess and Kelly)

What percentage of Freedom of Information (#FoI) requests are departments granting? (IfG)

Was Labour’s 2019 manifesto popular? (Christabel Cooper)

10 years of Tory rule: the long and short of cabinet careers (The Times)

Public services

How have inequalities in the quality of care changed over the last 10 years? (QualityWatch, via Melissa)

Crime in England and Wales: year ending September 2019 (ONS)

People and population

What are the world’s largest problems? (Max Roser)

Population pyramid of Qatar (via Xavi Ruiz)

ELITES IN THE UK: PULLING AWAY? (Sutton Trust)

The truth about weekend working* (FT)

Environment, energy, etc

Australia’s deadly wildfires in numbers* (FT)

Tree Loss* (Bloomberg)

How much warmer was your city in 2019?* (New York Times)

Sunshine duration in hours per year in the US and in Europe (via Simon Kuestenmacher, via Tim)

Very occasionally, this most hated of #dataviz tools (the humble pie chart) is actually a good way to tell the story of... (Simon Evans)

Mappiness

Archivists are racing to identify every Jewish Holocaust victim* (The Economist)

The reliance on maps that – by relying on a red/blue binary — overstate the degree of regional partisan homogeneity (Jamelle Bouie)

Map madness (Giuseppe)

Scheduled public transport flows on a weekday in Paris (Will Geary)

Five ways the British landscape changed in 10 years (BBC News)

Delays of travel busses that start from Berlin (Haluka Maier-Borst)

US politics

In 1,095 days, President Trump has made 16,241 false or misleading claims* (Washington Post, via Ketaki)

929 people have been shot and killed by police in the past year* (Washington Post)

The Ups And Downs Of Candidate Popularity, In 4 Charts (FiveThirtyEight)

What is the Impeachment process? A step-by-step guide* (New York Times)

Everything else

China Plans 39 Million-Mile Race to Mars to Catch Up With NASA* (Bloomberg)

Meghan gets twice as many negative headlines as positive, analysis finds (The Guardian - see also this)

Hong Kong v Shenzhen: the battle for supremacy* (FT)

2020 TRUST BAROMETER UK RESULTS (Edelman)

Viral content

Wuhan virus: a visual explainer (South China Morning Post)

Maps: Where the Wuhan Coronavirus has spread* (New York Times)

Mapping the spread of the new coronavirus* (Washington Post)

Meta data

UKGovCamp

#ukgc20

UKGovCamp 20: session docs

Telling the story of your project… using The Tiger Who Came to Tea. (Sam Villis)

AI

Cross Government AI Adoption Review: Final Report (Faculty)

Consultation on the ICO’s ExplAIn draft guidance (ICO)

Why Google thinks we need to regulate AI* (FT)

Whoever leads in artificial intelligence in 2030 will rule the world until 2100 (Brookings)

Privacy and personal data

Revealed: betting firms use schools data on 28m children (The Times, with analysis from Owen Boswarva)

Apple’s privacy software allowed users to be tracked, says Google* (FT)

The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It* (New York Times)

Describing datasets – the “Highgate 12” (Simon Briscoe)

New 'transformational' code to protect children's privacy online (BBC News)

Community consent (Jeni Tennison)

Philosophy

What Jean-Jacques Rousseau can teach us about Twitter* (New Statesman)

Doppelgänger and digital twins, urban glimpses and drawing data (Dan Hill)

Artificial Morality (Los Angeles Review of Books)

Tech

Tech Trends 2020 (Deloitte)

Tech journalism’s ‘on background’ scourge (CJR)

UK to push on with digital tax in face of US anger* (FT)

Policy

Lab Long Read: Human-centred policy? Blending ‘big data’ and ‘thick data’ in national policy (Policy Lab)

The Experimenter’s Inventory: A catalogue of experiments for decision-makers and professionals (Alliance for Useful Evidence)

Misinformation

Is this video “missing context,” “transformed,” or “edited”? This effort wants to standardize how we categorize visual misinformation (Nieman Lab)

National Archives exhibit blurs images critical of President Trump* (Washington Post)

Thread (Eileen Clancy)

Everything else

Freedom of Information is broken – help us fix it (openDemocracy)

Releasing statistics in spreadsheets (Government Statistical Service)

The Case for Digital Public Infrastructure (Ethan Zuckerman)

Future Proof: Skills for Work (Good Things Foundation)

So a few days ago a pediatrician made a TikTok video about how vaccines don’t cause autism (Renee DiResta)

International NGO leaders at Davos tell ISOC, ICANN: selling .ORG puts civil society at risk (Access Now)

Opportunities

EVENT: Data Bites #8: Getting things done with data in government (Institute for Government)

JOB: Chief executive (Royal Statistical Society)

JOB: Deputy Director: Head of Digital Technology (Defra)

JOB: Research Director (The Center for Democracy & Technology)

JOB: Chief Digital Officer (6 Month Fixed Term) (Genomics England)

JOBS (Open Rights Group)

JOB: Digital Transformation Consultant (French-speaking) (Public Digital)

JOB: Digital Rights Correspondent (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

INVITATION TO TENDER: Scoping exercise exploring which data the public sector is missing in order to address a specific key challenge, and how it might obtain it (Nesta)

And finally...

Words

Eunoia: Words That Don't Translate (via Benoit)

Why So Many Things Cost Exactly Zero* (Bloomberg)

College Chums (1907) found a very creative way of depicting a phone conversation (Silent Movie GIFs)

Pictures

Map of the continental United States if... (via Randy Olson)

the story telling in this graph is great (@aismallard)

I'm a No. 9, which are you? (Allan Bell)

Blue Monday (Matt Ballantine)

Can you help colour London’s buildings? (Ordnance Survey)

Colorized with deep learning (Jason Antic)

God only knows

Anyone? (via Rob Briner)

Any idea which planet this "Female" is from? (MHCLG via Charles Boutaud)