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Antonio García Martínez #sexist theverge.com

Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit. They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism, and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they’d become precisely the sort of useless baggage you’d trade for a box of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel.

Unnamed Brits #conspiracy #crackpot theverge.com

5G phone masts are being set alight in the UK, after online conspiracy theories have misleadingly linked the cell towers to the coronavirus pandemic. The BBC reports that at least three 5G towers were set alight within the last week, and police and fire services were called to extinguish the flames.

“I’m absolutely outraged and disgusted that people would be taking action against the infrastructure we need to tackle this emergency,” said Stephen Powis, the National Health Service (NHS) director, at a daily UK coronavirus briefing. Police have now launched investigations into how the 5G towers caught fire.

Rumors and conspiracy theories over a link between the roll out of 5G and the spread of coronavirus have been spread primarily through social media networks. A variety of groups exist on Facebook and Nextdoor, where thousands of members repeat false and misleading claims that 5G is supposedly harmful.

One theory claims that the novel coronavirus originated in Wuhan because the Chinese city had recently been rolling out 5G. It’s now supposedly spread to other cities that are also using 5G. These false conspiracy theories neglect to mention that a highly contagious virus would naturally spread more in densely populated cities with access to 5G, and that the coronavirus pandemic has hit counties like Iran and Japan where 5G isn’t in use yet.

There is no scientific evidence that links the coronavirus pandemic to 5G, nor any immediate negative health effects to 5G. Full Fact, an independent fact checking charity in the UK, has explored the claims after a British tabloid newspaper highlighted them recently. 5G uses a higher frequency of radio waves than 4G or 3G, but regulators in the UK have recorded 5G electromagnetic radiation levels well below international guidelines.


This is the consequence of those bonkers Facebook conspiracy theories about 5G. Key workers getting harassed on the street. pic.twitter.com/5z35r6sabp
— Charlie Haynes (@charliehtweets) April 2, 2020

This hasn’t stopped these wild conspiracy theories from spreading, though. Some people are even harassing workers laying fiber optic cables for 5G installations, claiming that when 5G is turned on it’s going to “kill everyone.”

Eric Hauser #fundie theverge.com

Pepe the Frog book profits will now go to a Muslim-American advocacy group
Pepe’s creator fights back
by Megan Farokhmanesh

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The Adventures of Pepe and Pede, Post Hill Press

The Adventures of Pepe and Pede, a children’s book based around thinly veiled alt-right themes, will cease publication at the behest of Pepe the Frog creator Matt Furie. Motherboard reports that Furie has reached a settlement with the author of the book, who admitted to copyright infringment of Furie’s creation. Not only will the settlement prevent additional sales of the book, but all profits must be donated to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim-American advocacy group.

Earlier this month, The Washington Post reported that Eric Hauser, an assistant principal at a Texas middle school, penned a book based around alt-right themes. The book’s title is a reference to the co-opted cartoon frog and “centipedes”: a nickname made popular by Trump’s fanbase on Reddit. The book follows the duo in “Wishington Farm” as they try to defeat an alligator with “buds from an honesty tree.”

According to Motherboard, the settlement is Furie’s attempt to “aggressively enforce his intellectual property, using legal action if necessary, to end the misappropriation of Pepe the Frog in any way that espouses racism, white supremacy, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Nazism, or any other form of hate.” The move to send CAIR the book’s profits — which made a mere $1,521.54 — is part of Furie’s effort to ensure that no one profits off the meme for alt-right propaganda.

Last year, the Anti-Defamation League added the meme frog to its database of hate symbols. While Furie was initially optimistic that Pepe’s pro-Trump bent would die off, he began campaigning to rehabilitate the frog into a more positive figure. Eventually, Furie killed off the character himself in a comic.

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