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Facebook Considers Hiding ‘Likes’ to Protect Fragile Egos

Following Facebook’s removal of like counts on Instagram photos, the company is considering removing likes from posts on its main social media platform, to protect the feelings of its userbase.

TechCrunch reports that Facebook may soon begin hiding the like counter on posts on the sites News Feed. Instagram is testing this feature in seven countries including Canada and Brazil, showing just a few names of mutual friends who have liked certain posts rather than the entire like count on a photo. The idea behind hiding engagement levels is to stop users from comparing themselves to others and competing for likes on photos.

Hidden like counts on Facebook posts were first noticed by Jane Manchun Wong who discovered Facebook prototyping the feature in its Android app.

Facebook confirmed to TechCrunch that it is considering the removal of like counts but the feature is not yet live for users. The company declined to share its results from the Instagram like hiding tests or the exact motive behind these tests. However, the testing of like removals on Facebook may indicate that the company liked the results of the Instagram tests.

Instagram began the like hiding test in Canada in April and added Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Ireland, and Japan to the test in July. The author of a post on Instagram can still see the like count on a post but users scrolling through the app’s newsfeed will not see the count. TechCrunch notes that the removal of like counts may actually be in an effort to benefit advertisers, stating:

Facebook has gradually been relegated to the place for sharing showy life events like marriages or new jobs while Instagram and Snapchat take over for day-to-day sharing. The problem is that people have so many fewer of those big moments, and the large Like counts they attract can make other users self-conscious of their of own lives and content. That’s all problematic for Facebook’s ad views. Facebook wants to avoid scenarios such as “Look how many Likes they get. My life is lame in comparison” or “why even share if it’s not going to get as many Likes as her post and people will think I’m unpopular”.

It appears likely that Facebook believes the removal of like counts could encourage users to share more freely and more often. Such a change could also help to hide Facebook’s decline in popularity as users switch to other social media apps, as posts on Facebook that receive fewer likes could encourage users to leave the platform.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com

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Soros-Funded St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner Refuses to Charge Killer of 7-Year-Old Child Despite Suspect’s Confession

Far left billionaire George Soros has been systematically targeting district attorney races throughout the United States. Several of his candidates have already won. His goal is to create havoc in communities.

In St. Louis City far left lunatic Kim Gardner took money from Soros in her race for St. Louis Circuit Attorney.

Soros funded PAC even released an ad in support of this far left and unqualified nutcase.

Kim Gardner won her election and is wreaking havoc on the city of St. Louis circuit attorney’s office.

Kim Gardner is so intolerable that two dozen attorneys and more than one-third of the trial lawyers left the office when she was hired. And this is a Democrat dominated office.

In early January St. Louis Police arrested a drug dealer in possession of over 1,000 highly addictive opiate pills and more than $30,000 in cash.

The St. Louis police officers also got a confession from their suspect.

But when investigators brought their evidence to Gardner’s Circuit Attorney’s office in downtown St. Louis the attorneys REFUSED to press charges against the dealer and handed the police report back to the officers!

The entire event was captured on video!

Gardner refused to charge the drug kingpin because the detectives involved were on her “police exclusion list.”

Kim Gardner created a list of originally 28 police officers but now the list is over 50 police officers who she will not accept their work because she claims they are racists.

Last week a suspect was arrested in the fatal shooting of 7-year-old Xavier Usanga in north St. Louis last Monday evening.

According to KSDK Usanga was shot and killed while playing outside of his Hyde Park home Monday, according to St. Louis Metro Police Cheif John Hayden. An 18-year-old man standing nearby was injured in the backyard of the Usangas’ home, in the 3500 block of North 14th Street, just after 5 p.m. Monday evening.

The suspect confessed to the shooting that killed 7-year-old Usanga.

But when they brought this confession and evidence to the St. Louis City’s circuit attorney’s office Kim Gardner threw it out.

Gardner said based on current evidence she was not able to determine who was responsible for the child’s death.

Again… The suspect confessed to the crime but that was not enough for this radical lunatic in the Circuit Attorney’s Office.

The post Soros-Funded St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner Refuses to Charge Killer of 7-Year-Old Child Despite Suspect’s Confession appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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President Trump to London’s ‘Sadique’ Khan After Golf Taunt: Focus on Knife Crime!

President Donald Trump defended his decision to golf on the Labor Day weekend, after the Mayor of increasingly crime-stricken Brit capital London Sadiq Khan criticized the president.

“He’s clearly busy dealing with a hurricane out on the golf course,” Khan said to Politico about Trump, after the mayor travelled to Poland to attend a commemoration ceremony for the beginning of World War II on Sunday.

“The incompetent Mayor of London, Sadique Kahn [sic], was bothered that I played a very fast round of golf yesterday,” Trump wrote. “Many [politicians] exercise for hours, or travel for weeks. Me, I run through one of my courses (very inexpensive).”

Suggesting Mayor Khan had more important local issues to worry about than his sports routines, the President continued: “Khan should focus on “knife crime”, which is totally out of control in London. People are afraid to even walk the streets,” he said. “He is a terrible mayor who should stay out of our business!”

President Trump cancelled his planned trip to Poland over the weekend, citing the importance of remaining in the United States to prepare for the approaching Hurricane Dorian.

The president golfed on Saturday and Monday while providing updates to the storm on Twitter and addressing the nation from FEMA headquarters after receiving a storm briefing.

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham told reporters that the president received hourly Dorian updates while on the course.

CNN also taunted the president for golfing, reminding him of his frequent criticism of President Barack Obama’s golfing habit.

Trump also said on Twitter that former President Barack Obama would fly to Hawaii to golf, while he golfed at this own courses making it less expensive.

London has seen a surge in crime, and knife crime in particular, during the tenure of Mayor Khan. Breitbart London reported in May on the third anniversary of Khan becoming Mayor when new analysis showed the speed with which the security picture was deteriorating.

After three years knife crime had risen by 52 per cent, robbery by 59 per cent, and gun crime by 30 per cent.

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Biden Defends Peddling Fake War Story, ‘The Details Are Irrelevant’ in Terms of Decision-Making

2020 Democrat front runner Joe Biden was caught lying about a war story and when he got called out on his lies, he responded by saying, ‘the details are irrelevant.’

How dare you call out his lies, peasants.

Biden on Friday told several hundred people in Hanover, New Hampshire about a time when a general asked him to give an award to a Navy captain stationed in Afghanistan.

It turns out that Biden’s story was three different stories mish-mashed together, according to a report from the Washington Post.

The Navy captain, Biden recalled Friday night, had rappelled down a 60-foot ravine under fire and retrieved the body of an American comrade, carrying him on his back. Now the general wanted Biden to pin a Silver Star on the American hero who, despite his bravery, felt like a failure.

“He said, ‘Sir, I don’t want the damn thing!’ ” Biden said, his jaw clenched and his voice rising to a shout. “ ‘Do not pin it on me, Sir! Please, Sir. Do not do that! He died. He died!’ ”

The room was silent.

“This is the God’s truth,” Biden had said as he told the story. “My word as a Biden.”

Except almost every detail in the story appears to be incorrect. Based on interviews with more than a dozen U.S. troops, their commanders and Biden campaign officials, it appears as though the former vice president has jumbled elements of at least three actual events into one story of bravery, compassion and regret that never happened.

The upshot: In the space of three minutes, Biden got the time period, the location, the heroic act, the type of medal, the military branch and the rank of the recipient wrong, as well as his own role in the ceremony.

After a firestorm from the conservative media, Biden commented on Tuesday about his fake war story on NPR radio.

“That has nothing to do with judgment of whether or not you send troops to war, the judgment of whether you bring someone home, the judgment of whether you decide on a health-care policy,” Biden told the NPR Politics Podcast.

Biden argued that he wasn’t trying to intentionally mislead anyone, “The details are irrelevant in terms of decision-making,” Biden said.

Snopes, a liberal ‘fact-checking’ site that has become of self parody jumped in and defended Biden for his fake war story.

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Ted Cruz, Andrew Yang Agree: Public Officials and Media Should ‘Never’ Say Names of Mass Shooters

Both Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Democrat candidate Andrew Yang (D) agree that public officials and media should work to refrain from publicizing the names of mass shooters after such tragedies take place.

Yang took to Twitter Monday and expressed his desire to “explore not publicizing the identities or motivations of mass shooters.” He said it could “discourage those seeking notoriety” but acknowledged that it would be extremely difficult to make it a reality. His tweet followed the tragic shooting that rocked the Midland-Odessa region of Texas over the weekend, leaving seven dead and 25 more injured:

Cruz concurred, retweeting Yang’s thoughts alongside his own.

“I agree. Of course, law enforcement must investigate. But public officials & media (to the extent possible) should NEVER SAY THEIR NAME,” Cruz wrote.

“These murderers crave notoriety, but they deserve to be forgotten,” he added. “Instead, we should celebrate the victims, the first responders & the heroes”:

Yang’s tweet was, perhaps, inspired by Odessa police chief Michael Gerke, who refused to name the gunman during a press conference Sunday.

“You’ll notice that I’m not naming this subject. I refuse to,” Gerke said.

“I’m not going to give him any notoriety for what he did,” he continued. “We’ll provide that information to you but not in this public space”:

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NC State: Electric Scooters Are Not Climate-Friendly After All

According to researchers at North Carolina State University, electric scooters such as Bird and Lime scooters are not as eco-friendly as previously believed. According to researchers, only 34 percent of scooter users would have otherwise used a car, while the majority would have used environment-friendly bicycles or public transportation.

The MIT Technology Review reports that while electric scooter companies such as Bird and Lime claim that their scooters are environmentally friendly, that may not be the case. Bird claims that its scooters allow users to “cruise past traffic and cut back on CO2 emissions—one ride at a time,” while Lime claim that its scooters “reduce dependence on personal automobiles for short-distance transportation and leave future generations with a cleaner, healthier planet.”

But just because the electric scooters don’t run on fossil fuels doesn’t mean that they’re entirely environmentally friendly. A “life-cycle assessment” was conducted by researchers at NC State in which the researchers tallied up the emissions from making, shipping, charging, collecting, and disposing of these scooters. The investigation began after one researcher noticed that Lime receipt stated “your ride was carbon-free,” this is not the case.

The study states that dockless scooters produce more greenhouse gas emissions per passenger mile than a standard diesel bus with a high volume of riders, an electric moped, an electric bicycle, and a regular bicycle. The scooters produce about half of the emissions of a regular car, according to the study, with around 200 grams of carbon dioxide per mile compare to the 415 per mile produced by a regular car.

But a survey of e-scooter riders in Raleigh, North Carolina, found that only 34 percent would have used a car or ride-sharing service to get to their destination, while nearly half would instead have used a bicycle or walked. 11 percent said they would have taken the bus while seven percent stated that they would simply have not gone on the journey.

As a result, approximately two-thirds of the time scooter riders generate more greenhouse-gas emissions than the alternative. Lime said in a statement: “We welcome research into the environmental benefits of new mobility options, however this study is largely based on assumptions and incomplete data that produces high variability in the results. We believe micromobility will reduce pollution and mitigate climate change through clean and efficient modes of transportation and we’re making rapid advances in technology and operations that are helping us become a more sustainable company.” 

Read the full study here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com

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Popeyes Employees Literally Being Held At Gunpoint Over New Fried-Chicken Sandwich

On Monday night, Popeyes employees in the Houston area were held at gunpoint for selling out of the famed restaurant chain’s latest fried chicken sandwich.
"Group of people with gun rushes door at [Popeyes Chicken] on Scott and Corder. They wanted the chicken sandwich, say employees. Employees were able to lock them out. [Houston Police] responded," ABC affiliate reporter Jessica Willey posted to Twitter.

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AOC raising bail money for counter-protesters at straight-pride parade

Saturday, AOC recommended that people support counter-protesters, including Antifa, who were present at a Boston straight-pride parade. She encouraged people to donate to a “Bail Fund for activists who put themselves on the line…”

The Boston Herald reports that 36 people were arrested at the parade Saturday.

Chants of hatred and disgust were tossed across police barricades between protesters and supporters of the Straight Pride Parade on Saturday which ended in 36 arrests and 4 injured officers, according to Boston police.

Tensions flared in the crowd of about 200 people which was composed mostly of counterprotesters and peppered with far left groups like Antifa. The controversial parade garnered national attention since its inception in June.

“We’re covered in black so when we attack these guys we can’t be prosecuted,” said Jon Crowley, an Antifa member who told the Herald that he felt violence was the only way to deal with the people marching in the parade, which went from Copley Square to City Hall Plaza. “They are fascists, 100%. How else are you going to get them to shut up?”

That quote really sums up Antifa in a nutshell. Why would a lawmaker want to support people looking to commit politically-motivated violence? Here’s a bit of the parade which featured a float supporting President Trump for reelection:

At some point, protesters tried to block the streets and police pepper-sprayed them and made arrests:

The whole straight pride parade is a pretty obvious attempt to troll people on the left and I’m not surprised some were upset about it. As Jazz put it, this looks like an intentional effort to seek confrontation. But the police were there doing their jobs, trying to keep the groups apart so no one got hurt. They didn’t deserve to be attacked for that. Raising money for a group that comes to these events to get violent seems like an unusual angle for a lawmaker to take, but it’s not really surprising that AOC is siding with Antifa over the police.

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