Month: June 2018

After actress Priyanka Chopra became the target of harassment and outrage, ABC has apologized for a recent episode of “Quantico” featuring what one Hindu scholar slammed as “the myth of Hindu terror.”

A recent episode of “Quantico,” which stars Chopra — a 35-year-old actress who has successfully crossed over to Hollywood from Bollywood — involved Indian nationalists attempting to frame Pakistan for a terrorist bombing in New York. After the show aired, Chopra became the target of online attacks and calls for boycotts of her work and the brands she promotes, among them Samsung, Reuters reports.

One particular scene earned the ire of critics, who called for it to be blacked out: As evidence that one of the plotters is an Indian nationalist, Chopra holds up sacred Hindu prayer beads.

“The myth of Hindu terror, by a fake story, enters American television with the help of Priyanka Chopra. Would any Pakistani actress betray Pakistan or Islam the way she betrays India and Hinduism?” wrote Hindu scholar David Frawley in a tweet.

ABC has since issued an apology and attempted to shield Chopra from the misdirected outrage.

“The episode has stirred a lot of emotion, much of which is unfairly aimed at Priyanka Chopra, who didn’t create the show, nor does she write or direct it,” said ABC in a statement Friday reported by Reuters.

“The show has featured antagonists of many different ethnicities and backgrounds, but in this case we inadvertently and regrettably stepped into a complex political issue. It was certainly not our intention to offend anyone,” ABC said.

Reuters notes that Hindu nationalists have repeatedly criticized films and other products of popular culture in recent years. Backlash against actor Aamir Khan in 2016 over his comments about the problem of intolerance in India resulted in Snapdeal letting him go, while earlier this year, “a fringe outfit held violent protests and threatened actors over the release of Bollywood film ‘Padmaavat,’ which showed a Muslim ruler pursuing a Hindu queen.”

Everyone has a story. Like my daughter, Kelsey, who said a while back she was talking to her boyfriend on her cellphone, asking him to pick up some NyQuil on his way home. Hours later, there were ads on her Facebook page for … NyQuil.

Coincidence? Nuh uh. Phones have microphones and they can be turned on by different applications at nearly any time. Worse, you’ve agreed to let them do it (in those interminable terms of service agreements no one ever reads).

The BBC last year ran a great story — “Is your phone listening in? Your stories” — compiling a slew of anecdotes, like this one: “My fiancee and I both had wedding ads the day after we got engaged, before we had told anyone.”

Now, Sam Nichols at Vice has written a great piece subtitled “Here’s how I got to bottom of the ads-coinciding-with-conversations mystery.” In it, Nichols breaks it down simply, with insights from Dr. Peter Hannay, the senior security consultant for cybersecurity firm Asterisk and former lecturer and researcher at Edith Cowan University.

For your smartphone to actually pay attention and record your conversation, there needs to be a trigger, such as when you say “hey Siri” or “okay Google.” In the absence of these triggers, any data you provide is only processed within your own phone. This might not seem a cause for alarm, but any third party applications you have on your phone—like Facebook for example—still have access to this “non-triggered” data. And whether or not they use this data is really up to them.

“From time to time, snippets of audio do go back to [other apps like Facebook’s] servers but there’s no official understanding what the triggers for that are,” explains Peter. “Whether it’s timing or location-based or usage of certain functions, [apps] are certainly pulling those microphone permissions and using those periodically. All the internals of the applications send this data in encrypted form, so it’s very difficult to define the exact trigger.”

Hannay says social media sites and other apps might have thousands of triggers to determine when your cellphone becomes a microphone, sending your voice into massive data banks. So Nichols tried an experiment: “Twice a day for five days, I tried saying a bunch of phrases that could theoretically be used as triggers. Phrases like I’m thinking about going back to uni and I need some cheap shirts for work. Then I carefully monitored the sponsored posts on Facebook for any changes.”

The changes came literally overnight. Suddenly I was being told mid-semester courses at various universities, and how certain brands were offering cheap clothing. A private conversation with a friend about how I’d run out of data led to an ad about cheap 20 GB data plans. And although they were all good deals, the whole thing was eye-opening and utterly terrifying.

So yes, you’re not paranoid: Big brother really IS listening.

Children in Minnesota are welcome to partake in “drag queen story hours” at the public library this summer.

According to LifeSiteNews, the wholly taxpayer-funded St. Paul Public Library is putting on these events as part of its “inclusivity” campaign. Little children can serve witness to this at various locations.

Planning the event will be the adult-centered party company Flip Phone Events, which typically caters to the 18 and older crowd, not little kids. The event is scheduled for June 11, June 16, and July 11.

“Come meet some fabulous drag queens and kings at the library!” reads an ad for the June 11 reading. “They will read stories, sing songs, and strut their stuff for an over-the-top story hour. All ages welcome.”

After parents started unsurprisingly expressing outrage, which Flip Phone Events described as “MEGA troll[ing],” the organization asked its Twitter followers to defend them online. Speaking with Alpha News, parents expressed concern over the event, though they refused to go on record.

“In addition to Drag Story Hour, patrons can find a selection of staff-recommended materials on the library’s website for Pride, including a fun primer on drag culture with recommended DVDs, books, and online resources,” the library said in a press release about the event, while recommending 21 “great LGBTQIA” books for little children. They call this the “Rainbow Collection.”

“Drag queen story hours” have become a new trend at public libraries around the country as a way to give kids “glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models,” according to the group’s national website. “In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish.”

On Thursday, Paul Nehlen, a candidate for Congress in Wisconsin, gave me a new nickname: “Ben’s philosemetic [sic] flying monkey.”

Nehlen gave me my new nickname in an email to his supporters. This comes after I published an article on Monday discussing Virginia Senate candidate Corey Stewart and his ties to Nehlen.

“In an article written for Ben’s publication, Kassy Dillon further ingratiates herself as Ben’s philosemetic flying monkey,” he writes. “[A]ttacking none other than the GOP frontrunner in Virginia, Corey Stewart, for supporting my run against globalist NeverTrumper Paul Ryan.”

Nehlen is known for his toxic, anti-Semitic views and brutal attacks on his political opponents. Nehlen’s campaign collapsed in January after his overtly racist and anti-Semitic social media posts surfaced, but the candidate didn’t admit any wrongdoing — he blamed Jews. Nehlen compiled a list of 81 verified, predominantly Jewish, Twitter users who have “attacked” him for his “#AmericaFirst positions.”

Despite the fact that I am not Jewish, I was included on this list, along with a few other non-Jews.

Apparently, anyone who disagrees with Nehlen is either a flying monkey or a Jew.

While I am devastated that my original label of a Jew was lowered to “Ben’s philosemetic [sic] flying monkey,” I am excited to try out my newfound flying superpower.

It also appears that Shapiro, the wicked witch of the Western Wall, enjoys his new role as the Wicked Witch of the West:

Nehlen’s statement goes on to describe himself and Stewart as “fervent Trump supporters,” despite Trump backing Paul Ryan over him in their race against each other, and Stewart’s firing from the Trump campaign.

Stewart distanced himself from Nehlen earlier this week, saying, “That was before he went nuts and started spewing a bunch of stupid stuff. When he started saying all that crazy stuff, I wanted nothing to do with him after that.”

Sorry Nehlen, three clicks of your ruby red slippers won’t make you relevant again. Twitter user Jerry Dunleavy, who Nehlen has targeted in the past, got it right:

P.S. This flying monkey disobeyed her handler’s request to not use sarcasm in this article.