Category Archives: Transhuman News

OK, people. Now you can start decorating for Christmas.

Im an old-school traditionalist who believes we should embrace the advent season only after weve digested the remains of the Thanksgiving season, and on this, I realize Im an outlier.

Retail stories have had Christmas paraphernalia up since the last echoes of fireworks faded on the Fourth of July. Some unfortunate radio stations have played Christmas music exclusively for weeks now (hello, Chipmunks, barking dogs and the interminable Paul McCartney standard). A group of 80 marauding shoplifters even started their holidays early, invading a Walnut Creek Nordstrom to make off with Christmas treasure. (Too soon, marauders! Too soon!)

Yes, Im a grinch. A Scrooge, even. And Ive yet to meet even one, let alone three, ghosts.

Its not that I dont welcome Christmas, even though were always Doing It Wrong. The gift-giving tradition began when three Magi from the East brought the infant Jesus gold, frankincense and myrrh after following a bright star to Bethlehem. Now, we give gifts to each other, and retailers collect the gold while selling myrrh-scented candles in pricey catalogues.

Maybe its the times.

Weve senseless killings, punished and unpunished. Theres a spike in inflation that drives up prices for everything. (Soon payday lenders will be setting up kiosks at gas stations, alongside the smog check guy.) Santas sleigh is anchored off the California coast, waiting to unload into the Port of Long Beach, in part because of a shortage of his big-rig truck driving helpers.

There are political divisions so deep that Joe Biden could cure cancer and save a baby from a burning building but still be criticized in an overwrought fundraising email the next day that warns about donating before the MID-MONTH FUNDRAISING DEADLINE!

There are real racial divisions in America sowing distrust and suspicion among fellow Americans, not to mention hustlers who seek to exploit those divisions for their own advancement. There are mobs of Twitter warriors prowling the internet, seeking politically incorrect people whom they may devour.

And thats not even to mention Secretary of State Antony Blinkens complete inability to bring a truce in the never-ending War on Christmas. Who knows what will be left behind when we withdraw from that one?

Its tough to get into the spirit of the holidays. But its not impossible.

We live in a great country, a land of freedom so desirable that people wait in line for years to come, some risking their lives walking thousands of miles or sailing unseaworthy rafts across shark-infested waters. They hand their children to U.S. Marines over razor-wire fences so those infants have a chance at a better life.

Although we often disagree with each other, we are fortunate to live alongside hardworking and patriotic fellow citizens, including and especially those who volunteer to help in the worst of times: firefighters, police officers, doctors, nurses, military members past and present and their families. Even many of those who protest this country seek to make it better, to live up to its ideals.

We live in a land of plenty in a nation and a world where many go without. We lead the world in helping, with medical care and disaster relief and food for the hungry.

Yes, there are many reasons not to feel thankful, many crass commercializations of the season that seek to take our eyes away from that Bethlehem manger. But there are also many things we can choose to consider instead, those true, noble, right, pure, admirable things.

Heres hoping we can do that over the next month and even beyond. And why not? If big-box retailers can celebrate Christmas their way virtually year-round, why cant the rest of us try to do it the right way?

Contact Steve Sebelius at SSebelius@reviewjournal.com. Follow @SteveSebelius on Twitter.

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STEVE SEBELIUS: Find the merry in a world of bah, humbug! - Las Vegas Review-Journal

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In Guatemala, there is very little film material from the 70s. With the exception of footage preserved thanks to smuggling or recorded by foreigners, everything was destroyed by a military regime trying to hide the traces of its innumerable atrocities and human rights violations. During this stage, however, journalist Elas Barahona managed to infiltrate the government as Press Chief for bloodthirsty Donaldo lvarez Ruiz, the Interior Minister who orchestrated the murder, torture, and disappearance of countless political opponents. Risking his life and that of his family, Barahona used the shadows to save people, combat the silence imposed by the government, and shed light on its misdeeds. His story is told by Anas Taracena in the extraordinary documentary The Silence of the Mole.

Barahona is compared by a friend to the Alice in Wonderland Cheshire cat; although smiling, he knew how to disappear and use silence to his advantage, qualities that made him a perfect spy. However, the film never romanticizes this work as if it were some kind of Hollywood role. Instead, it explores the complexities of his life under fear and in a mandatory state of mistrust for the people around him. In the most haunting piece of footage, we witness as Barahona confirms the existence of death squads encharged to hunt and kill the opposition. He also reveals the prominent role of the United States in the Guatemalan genocidethe training of troops, the formation of paramilitary groups, and the Vietnam-mirroring strategies of psychological warfare used to kill and destroy entire zones. These are just some of the bone-chilling explanations he provides.

In addition to highlighting the heroism of Barahona, the documentary is an invaluable tool to learn about history from the voices of those who lived or studied it long enough. The director assembled the film with the support of interviews with colleagues and relatives of Barahona, with kidnapping survivors and journalists of the time. As a result, no conversation is wasted. Each one is like a brushstroke on a canvas that tries to reveal the history of violence lived in Guatemala. Taracenas work compiling all these testimonies is exemplary given the enormous fear that still exists around the subject.

The secret weapon of The Silence of the Mole is Taracenas own narration: calm, confident, and powerful, like a hypnotic whisper in the ear that leads you by the hand through the horrors of war. This element is combined with poetic and disturbing shots of the corridors and offices occupied by lvarez during his tenure; the lighting gives a creepy quality to things as simple as an armchair to remind us that, sitting in this old piece of furniture, a man ordered the killing of thousands of innocents.

Blood is the response of an archivist from the National Cinematheque when questioned about what he remembers about lvarez. He helps us understand the erasure of filmic testimonies about the massacre. But not everything is lost, as Taracena carries out an outstanding recovery work and shows us lost footage of the time: visual witnesses to the atmosphere of fear and repression.

In 2014, Elas Barahona testified in a trial about the 1980 fire caused by authorities of the Spanish Embassy in which 36 people died. His experience and his testimonies as an infiltrator supported the exercise of justice. Later that day, he spoke with Taracena, and a few weeks later, he passed away. It is as if, before finally being able to rest in peace, he had only been waiting for one last chance to honor his profession as a journalist and, as Taracena seeks to complement with The Silence of the Mole, to open the eyes of a country with fear of a legacy of violence that is still felt in its streets.

In Guatemala, schools and history books do not speak much about what happened in the seventies and eighties. There is still fear and divisions; addressing the issue of war is politically incorrect. That is why The Silence of the Mole is such an indispensable cinematographic tool and an example of the power of documentary cinema: it seeks to publicize a dark chapter that many try to forget or even hide, and it does so by highlighting Barahona, a man who had the guts to go where few dared.

The Silence of the Mole was screened as part of DOC NYC 2021.

The Silence of the Mole

8.5/10

TL;DR

The Silence of the Mole is such an indispensable cinematographic tool and an example of the power of documentary cinema: it seeks to publicize a dark chapter that many try to forget or even hide, and it does so by highlighting Barahona, a man who had the guts to go where few dared.

Ricardo is a Mexico City-based bilingual writer, Certified Rotten Tomatoes film critic, and Digital Animation graduate. He loves cats, Mass Effect, Paddington and is the founder of the film website La Estatuilla.

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The Silence of the Mole Review - DOC NYC 2021 - But Why Tho? A Geek Community

Once upon a time, Mel Gibson was one of the biggest stars in the business, capable of commanding $20 million paychecks and putting butts in seats based on his presence alone, where he leaned into his signature brand of roguish charm and dangerous charisma.

That all came crashing down around him when a series of highly-publicized incidents in his personal life saw him excommunicated from the Hollywood A-list, with many thinking his career was over. While it wasnt the end of the line, and he nabbed an Academy Award nomination for Best Director after helming Hacksaw Ridge, his star has nonetheless faded dramatically.

However, Gibson has been trending all day for a number of reasons, and as you can see from the reactions below, theres just as many people defending him as there are those asking why he hasnt been blacklisted.

While its clear that Gibson isnt going to be in everybodys good graces ever again, its hardly slowed him down. On top of boarding John Wick prequel series The Continental, hes also got action thrillers Last Looks, Agent Game, Panama and Hot Seat on the way, as well as biopic Stu and family fantasy Boys of Summer, without even mentioning the news hes set to direct Lethal Weapon 5.

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Mel Gibson Trends as Twitter Debates the Polarizing Star - We Got This Covered

Connie Shakalis| Guest columnist

A packed week of entertainment is on the way, withsinging, dancing, comedy, poetry and theater, along with a look ahead to a children's theater classic over the holidays. These events are just some of the options on tap this week:

I'm afraid of Singing Hoosiers shows. I'm afraid of my impulsive nature. I'm afraid I'll run to the stage steps, take them three at a time and elbow a few sopranos. I won't be wearing red sequins, but I'll be belting and waltzing.

On Saturday, this year's Indiana University's Singing Hoosiers program, "Chimes of Christmas," again offers song and dance.

"You will hear music of 17th century Italy, early 20th century England, and 21st century Broadway," said director Chris Albanese. "I am excited to present such a meaningful variety of music, along with collaborating again with the IU Childrens Choir and IU Wind Ensemble with conductors Julia Shaw and Rodney Dorsey.

More: Bloomington Chamber Singers to perform holiday pieces by Britten

Participation in the Grammy-nominated Singing Hoosiers show choir is open to any IU student by audition. Unfortunately, I don't qualify. That's why storming the stage is my only option.

WHAT: The Singing Hoosiers' Chimes of Christmas.

WHEN: 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

WHERE: Indiana University Auditorium, 1211 E. Seventh St.

TICKETS:https://bit.ly/3kVumUL.

He was a "skinny redheaded kid living in a Florida town of blond-haired, blue-eyed surfers," and he resented his carrot top. These days, he embraces those wild orangey curls. Scott Carrot Top Thompson has been making worldwide audiences guffaw for more than three decades. He's coming to do thesame Tuesday at the Brown County Music Center.

Carrot Top's college roommate urged him to sign up for an open mic one night. Later, he debuted on Star Search and became one of the world's most distinguishable entertainers. Fans fill Las Vegas' Luxor Hotel and Casino, where he has a steady gig. So steady, in fact, that he is looking forward to touring for a change.

"I love people, always have, and I love interacting with them," he said over the phone. "We don't usually get to tour anymore" (now that he's got a residency at the Luxor).

What makes Carrot Top'sstandup different from all the other male comedians? Hehas a niche, seemingly unfillable by anyone else. He designs and makes his own props thousands of them because his schtick is all about props. When he began touring hhad two trunks and a strobe light. Now he travels in an 18-wheeler with 35 trunks full of props. He uses about 200 per show, and each show is different.

More: YouTube star Lindsey Stirling on tap in Brown County; BSO plans 3 holiday concerts

My personal favorite is the beer bottle with a beaming light on the bottom so he can see who he's flirting withat the bar. Another good one is Hugh Hefner's bathrobe. A few of them frighten me, for Carrot Top's safety.

"Aren'tyou afraid someone, insulted, will kill you?" I asked.

"Once," he said, "I thought I might die." That was when he spoofed Mike Tyson and then ran into him elsewhere.

"I'm just messing with you," Tyson assured.

Carrot Top was on The Tonight Show in 1992, where his career exploded. After 31 appearances, Carrot Top had the distinct honor of appearing on the last episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.Carrot Tops other credits include hundreds of television programs including Live with Regis and Kelly, Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher and The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

WHAT: Carrot Top, comedian, live with hundreds of props, music and light show.

WHEN:7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

WHERE: Brown County Music Center, 200 Maple Leaf Blvd., Nashville.

TICKETS:https://bit.ly/3r22mmm.

Marge Piercy has won honors including the Golden Rose, the oldest poetry award in the country. Her writing has been translated into 23 languages.

She has written 19 poetry collections, a memoir, 17 novels, five nonfiction books and a book of short stories. Piercy has given readings, lectures or workshops at more than 500 venues in the United Statesand abroad.The Bloomington poet will give a presentationon Zoom at 7:30 p.m., Saturday.

Her novels include The New York Times Bestseller "Gone to Soldiers" and the national bestsellers "Braided Lives" and "The Longings of Women."

Born in Detroit and educated at the University of Michigan and Northwestern, she has received four honorary doctorates and participates in antiwar, feminist and environmental causes.

"At Beth Shalom weve been reading her poems during our Shabbat services for many years," said Bloomington artist Jackie Olenick. "Beth Shalom welcomes Marge Piercy on the seventh day of Chanukah to bring her shining light into our community."

"The Boston Globe" said, Marge Piercy is not just an author, shes a cultural touchstone. Few writers in modern memory have sustained her passion, and skill, for creating stories of consequence.

WHAT: Poet Marge Piercy reads her work during Chanukah on Zoom, sponsored by Congregation Beths Shalom art and culture and adult education committee.

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

HOW: Zoom. Call the Beth Shalom office, 812-334-2440, to obtain the Zoom link.

Love songs by Jewish composers will fill the Bloomington Academy of Film & Theatre's studio during Jewish Theatre of Bloomington's Fundraiser Cabaret at 5:30 p.m. Saturday.

Sheryl Doades is coordinating the evening of music, as well as performing with Eric Doades, Kenny Hertling, Kathleen McConahay, Rachel Morrow, Anne Slovin, Garrett Thompson and maybe a couple of others. Brian Samarzea directs the musicand Darrell Ann Stone will emcee.

"My Defenses are Down" from "Annie, Get Your Gun" by Irving Berlin,"If I Loved You" from Richard Rogersand Oscar Hammerstein's' "Carousel" and "If I Were a Bell" from Frank Loesser's "Guys and Dolls" are on the docket.

WHAT: Jewish Theatre of Bloomington Fundraiser Cabaret, "Fall in Love with JTB."

WHEN: 5:30-7:30 p.m. Saturday.

WHERE: Bloomington Academy of Film & Theatre's studio, 411 E. Seventh St.

TICKETS:jewishtheatrebloomington.com.

Out of (the audience's) sight, out of mind: the lonely but mighty music director. This leader generates conflict or smooths nicked egos. Get a good one, and a cast can soar without scheming to croak one another.

Brandon Magid holds this central position for Cardinal's "A Year with Frog and Toad," coming Dec.21-Jan.2 to the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.

"This is such an earnest, wonderful children's show, without pandering or talking down to the kids," he told me backstage at another theater last week. Robert Reale wrote the music, with book and lyrics by Willie Reale, based on books by Arnold Lobel.

Magid has worked on Broadway and as accompanist and coach for New York University, Northwestern University and Interlochen Center for the Arts. He will guidethe cast through this tale of best-friend amphibians, frolicsome Frog and intolerant Toad.

WHAT: "A Year with Frog and Toad," a musical by Robert Reale (music), with book and lyrics by Willie Reale, based on books by Arnold Lobel.

WHEN: Dec. 21-Jan. 2

WHERE: Buskirk-Chumley Theater, 114 E. Kirkwood Ave.

TICKETS:https://cardinalstage.org/kids/frog-and-toad/.

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Wealth of entertainment options on tap in area this week for the holiday season - The Herald-Times

When it comes to the International Emmys, David Tennant is having quite a year.

The Doctor Who, Broadchurch and Good Omens alum is the only English-language actor contender for the 2021 International Emmys nominated for his chilling turn as Scottish serial killer Dennis Nilsen in British drama Des alongside a group that includes Israeli actor Roy Nik, nominated for the dramedy Normali; Christian Tappn, up for his lead role in the Colombian Netflix thriller The Great Heist; and Indian actor Nawazuddin Siddique, who received a best acting nomination for the Hindi-language drama Serious Men, also on Netflix.

Des is also up best TV movie/miniseries at the International Emmys, which will be held in New York on Nov. 22, and the BBC series There She Goes, in which Tennant plays the father of a daughter with a severe learning disability, is also an International Emmy contender in the best drama category, going up against AppleTV+ show Tehran, the Amazon/Gaumont soccer drama El Presidente, and the Indian series Aarya. This years International Emmys are the most cosmopolitan in their history, with 24 countries represented among the 44 nominees, from French hit Call My Agent!,HBO Europes Spanish-language drama Patria and Adult Material, a Channel 4 limited series set in the British adult film industry, to South Korean miniseries Its Okay to Not Be Okay and MBCs Every Week Has a Friday, whose star, Menna Shalaby, is the first-ever Emmy nominee from Egypt.

Tennant is currently in his native Scotland shooting the second season of Good Omens, reprising his role as Crowley, a demon entwined in an eons-long bromance with an angel (played by Michael Sheen).

In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Tennant spoke about his elusive quest for a British BAFTA, his thoughts on the search for the next Doctor Who, and how he went to a dark place to capture the chilling banality of a real-life serial killer.

I was shocked to learn that youve never won an Emmy. Or a British BAFTA. How is that possible?

Well, Ive won a Daytime Emmy. For voicing a Star Wars cartoon [in 2008 for Star Wars: The Clone Wars]. And Ive won a Scottish BAFTA [for The Escape Artist in 2013] and a Welsh BAFTA [for Doctor Who in 2007]. But youre right. Never the British BAFTA.

Are there many whove won all three, the BAFTA triumvirate?

That is an excellent question. I have no idea. Im working with [Good Omens co-star] Michael Sheen at the moment whos a proud Welshman and who has a Welsh BAFTA, a lifetime achievement one I think. Im not quite sure how one qualifies for a Scottish or Welsh BAFTA. The show has to be filmed in Scotland or Wales or you have to be Scottish or Welsh. Although sometimes those criteria seem to shift year on year.

I think I got very lucky to have squeaked into the Welsh BAFTA because I was filming [Doctor Who] in Cardiff. Im a bit of an outlier. But to make it something like the EGOT [Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony], the BAFTA triumvirate. Excellent idea. Ive never thought about it. But now, its my lifes work.

How important is that kind of recognition for you? What does it mean to get an International Emmy nomination for your work in Des?

Its funny because of course, when youre making a show, the last thing youre thinking about is whether youll be talking about it two years later in relation to an awards ceremony. Its not anything you consider.

And something like an International Emmy is such an extraordinary thing. When you see yourself in among all the drama from the entire globe, it feels extraordinary to be recognized at all, to be in there. I have no real sense of shows that were up against because theyre from all over the world, from such a variety of countries. But its exciting just to be part of it. Im just sad I wont get to be there in New York for the ceremony because Ill be here in Glasgow filming. It would be a treat to be a part of that international meeting of talent. I feel very, very honored to be on the list.

Has your perspective on television changed in the past few years, as international shows, non-English-language shows, have become more prominent and successful?

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the great excitements that have come with the international streaming platforms is that theres a sort of leveling of the playing field and that we can now see the television from anywhere. Nothings off-limits anymore. I guess it started with the Scandi Noir stuff a few years ago, which felt a bit like a breaking down of barriers to the extent that we suddenly were watching things with subtitles and being fine with that.

Once you accept that language doesnt get in the way of engagement and storytelling, then there are no limits. We can watch TV from anywhere and everywhere. How fantastic, how exciting is that? Theres a democratization to that which I think is very good for the world.

The role you are nominated for in Des is a departure from a lot of the stuff youve done. Youve played some nasty characters before: such as Kilgrave in Jessica Jones or the demon Crowley in Good Omens, but serial killer Dennis Nilsen seems another category entirely.

Well, obviously its a very different thing when its a real-world character. With something like Jessica Jones there are no consequences to his evil. So, although it was beautifully written and the consequences for the characters were very telling, I think it surprised people with just how intense it was actually for something that was ostensibly a superhero show, but theres almost a liberation in Kilgrave, sort of chewing the scenery. You can enjoy the villainy.

With something like Des, that would be wrong. It would be insensitive. It would be inappropriate. Because youre telling the story of someone who caused real-world pain. There are families of Dennis Nielsens victims who are very much still with us, and for them this is recent history. Thats something we were aware of at every stage of the development process. I was part of that for several years on this show, making sure that we were sensitive to that, that none of this should be about glorifying Denis Nielsen or titillating the audience.

The thing that unlocked that was when our writers chose to tell the story from the moment Dennis is arrested. So its all about discovering what he did retrospectively. So its not a slasher movie. Its not about witnessing the horrors, its almost trying to unpack the psychology of him but can never be about glorifying him or sensationalizing him. If anything it had to be a memorial to the victims, a memorial to the police officers who, with scant evidence, tried to put the picture of what Dennis had done together. Its a very different thing, and comes from a very different place.

Ive never really found a way of describing this, but I felt a sort of responsibility that when I was dressed up as Des, when I was in the weeds of Dennis Nielsen, I had to kind of slightly remove myself. It wasnt an exercise in method acting, but I just felt, out of respect for the damage that he did, I couldnt joke around on set. I had to remove myself a little bit. It was an unusual job from that point of view. It was always a difficult balance to strike. Getting that sensitivity right and, at the same time, telling the story, being true to it, and acknowledging that people are fascinated by these characters.

We all are fascinated with these types of human beings because they are human beings. Thats the thing thats chilling. Des is still a member of the human race. Hes one of us. And yet he found it possible to do things that most of us find utterly inconceivable. How close are any of us to that? How many steps do we all need to take into the void before we end up in a place where most of the human race cant identify with us anymore? I think thats the thing that appalls and intrigues and fascinates all of us. And I think these are the questions weve got to ask ourselves as a society: Do we create these people or are these just freaks of genetics? Is it nature? Is it nurture? All those sorts of questions are why I think we tell these true crime stories.

Des definitely isnt a Hannibal Lecter-type character. Hes actually extremely boring as a person.

With all the people that I met who had known him or who had interacted with him, that was the thing that kept coming up, that he was just boring, there was a sort of banality to him. That was partly because of his narcissism. I thought it was really important to capture that because, in a sense, it makes the appalling nature of what seem all the more incongruous at first. It doesnt fit what we expect of villains. Theres no mustache-twirling. Theres no melodramatic with him. Its not how you would portray [a serial killer] in a novel, in a thriller, or in a show like Jessica Jones.

It almost doesnt compute that someone who could be capable of these hideous acts, these acts of inhumanity, can be so boringly human. But thats part of how he got away with it for such a long time. He was so unremarkable that nobody noticed. He just sort of slipped through the cracks in society.

How do you approach creating a real-life character? How carefully and closely do you try to imitate them, as opposed to a fiction figure you can create from whole cloth?

It depends on what kind of material evidence you have. If you play Richard II, a part Ive played several times on stage, theres no footage of him, so theres not a lot to go on. With Dennis Nielsen, theres some video footage, some audio footage. He filled books with his musings. So theres a lot of material to get into. There were a lot of people I could go and talk to who met him, who knew him.

But its always a balance. Doing an impersonation sounds like a very crude word when you talk about something like that. You are just trying to do enough so people who knew him would see aspects of this person they met. I have to honor that so there isnt a kind of dissonance. But really, the important bit is to create a human that feels real. There are always compromises between the reality and the artistic license that needs to be taken to tell a story in sort of television-sized chunks.

With Dennis Nielsen, you have an absolute responsibility to the people whose lives were affected by him. There are so many ripples created by someone like that. You have to be very sensitive and aware that you carry peoples lives with you when you tell a story like that. You have a responsibility to get it right.

Another show youre in is also nominated at the International Emmys, for best drama, There She Goes. This is also very different than most of the work youre known for. Its a half-hour sort-of sitcom about a family dealing with a daughter who has a quite severe disability.

Yes, we were really quite taken aback by that. Des has been recognized in various places, which is lovely, and were hugely grateful for that. With There She Goes, Im so proud of it but its been a quieter show. It started on BBC Four, then it was on BBC Two, but it was a show we made quite quickly, and relatively simply: with one location and just the family. To be recognized like this means so much to me because I think its a beautiful piece of work.

Its the story of Shaun Pye, whos a comedy writer and also a performer. If you know Extras, hes Ricky Gervais nemesis in Extras. But he also spends a lot of his time writing gags for British comedy and panel shows. I knew him from that and we have a mutual friend. So I knew Shaun socially but I had no idea that this was his life until he sent me the script to the pilot he wrote.

I just was so blown away by it, because I know we are nominated as best drama but technically, officially, its a comedy. Its a half-hour show made by the [BBC] comedy department. But it is absolutely a drama because its the story of his life, which happens at times to have some very funny things happening in it, maybe because thats how Shaun and his wife [and co-writer] Sarah Crawford see the world.

Even the very challenging things that have happened to them present through a comedic filter. But the show is all true, its their life. Their daughter, Rosie in our show, was born with this undiagnosed genetic condition, which they only recently found the name of. Our show is about what that did to them and their marriage and the challenges of it.

What I think is so brilliant about it is how unsparing Shaun was, particularly in writing about himself and how badly he coped with a lot of it. That for me was what was so special about the show. Because theres a tendency, often in TV shows about families and particularly about families who have a child with challenges, that it can end up in a sort of sentimental ripple dissolve to camera, the we all live happily ever after moment.

The Pye family are now in a better place, but that doesnt mean that life is easy. The show is so beautifully written, its just so honest and moving and charming and funny. But it doesnt pull any punches. It shows how having a daughter with these challenges is bloody hard and emotionally challenging and difficult and doesnt always end well.

It was quite controversial. I can remember the press launch and one journalist said: I think its great, but youre going to be torn to shreds for telling the story because its so politically incorrect. That was a worry for all of us. But the people that its particularly connected with have been families who have children with similar or adjacent issues. They have felt so seen by the show. To be recognized now by the International Emmys means so much to all of us.

Finally, I have to ask a Doctor Who question. The search is on for next Doctor. Whos your pick?

Hmm. Well its a big decision to make, isnt it? Im glad Im not making the decision. Its a part that can sort of go anywhere, and yet you just know when that casting is right. Its very hard to pluck someone out and drop them in it. So Im glad I dont have to decide. Was that a good dodge to your question?

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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David Tennant on the Next Doctor Who and Playing a Banal, Evil Serial Killer in Des - Hollywood Reporter

ONCE IN A GREAT WHILE, a book comes along that shatters assumptions, exposes ignorance, and reveals prejudice, while building a world of glorious complexity and aching possibility. Honore Fanonne Jefferss debut novel, The Love Songs of W. E. B. du Bois, is a sweeping American epic that spans the antebellum period to the early 21st century. Jeffers is the author of five collections of poetry, but Love Songs is her first novel, and it is a masterpiece.

Jefferss first poetry collection, The Gospel of Barbecue (2000), which was selected for the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize, announces themes that she will develop in her subsequent work: the stealing of land from Indigenous peoples (these whites [] these / silly children snatching toys); the importance of song to subjugated peoples (My tongue is strong and hides me; they choke on my songs); the violent hierarchy of colorism within the Black community (it was a lie that only / the yellow will see the face of God); and the abiding injustices of racism (black always means step aside) and sexism (where is the part about blood and fists?). These poems are often sorrowful (I am at my best when tragic), yet exuberant in their emotional range.

Jefferss second collection, Outlandish Blues (2003), gathers poems that foreground a panoply of voices of the displaced and enslaved. In The Battered Blues (Four Movements), for example, Jeffers expresses the fear, terror, pain, isolation, and despair of a woman suffering domestic abuse at the hands of my man. The entire second part of the collection recasts biblical tales from female perspectives, those of Sarai, Hagar, and Lots wife. In Pantoum for a Black Man on a Greyhound Bus, young Black men return from jail fundamentally changed in a way beyond what words can repair: I cant find vocabulary to resolve absence. In this meticulously evoked Deep South setting with its perfume of homemade / cigarettes, chitlin plates, [and] hair grease one / grade above Vaseline the oppressive heat catalyzes the need to sing: O, the blues / is all about slinging those low tales out / the back door

In all her work, Jeffers gives honor and praise to the Creator, from Whom all words and life descend and to her Ancestors, with whom she communes as much as memorializes. In the acknowledgment of Red Clay Suite (2007), she also includes my red clay folk nodding to her roots in Georgia, but also to the skin tone of the Creek and Cherokee peoples who originally occupied the territory, and the centuries of bloodshed soaked into the earth there. The poem Passing opens with a question What would I be if she were still alive? and ruminates on a forked path of destiny that began with a great, great, great Cherokee woman [] committing // the sin of loving a slave Here, red clay represents the history of racial comingling white, Black, and red: Im a mixed-blood, / a mistake, a buffalo hair. Thus, the physicality that infuses these pieces: feet caked with red dust; tongues coated with loud blues; guilty water / chattering down my face.

Jefferss 2015 collection, The Glory Gets, focalizes through Lady Wisdom of the Book of Proverbs, crying out in the streets across five sections that foreground fear, beauty, blues, hoodoo, and wit, respectively. Like the second section in Outlandish Blues, the Blues section focalizes through a female biblical character, this time Mary Magdalene. In the opening poem, Singing Counter, Jeffers announces (or perhaps prophesies) a major tenet of what would become her debut novel: This stands for that, but if no one black ever says that, how would / someone white learn this? The main charge here is that Black people must state things directly, avoiding elaborate metaphors, to ensure white comprehension, lest the latter misconstrue the message. Jeffers gives voice to the triple bind of the Southern Black Woman, what she cheekily calls the Southern Anthropological Equation of lady plus race, with her experience of multiple-variable prejudice.

Jeffers sees her career as a Black female poet as having been made possible by the example of Phillis Wheatley, the first African American poet. Jefferss 2020 collection, The Age of Phillis, is the crowning achievement of her poetry (so far). The product of 15 years of work, including painstaking research in the archives of the American Antiquarian Society, Jeffers offers original insights into the life and work of the 18th-century poet for example, debunking the popular view that her husband was a stereotypical good-for-nothing Black man. The collections title, and its titular poem, is a pun that links the spirit of the age in which Phillis lived with the narrators wondering about her chronological age at certain moments: How old was the child when she first laughed / in her masters kitchen?; And what was the age / of Phillis when she stopped turning East? The implication of this rhetorical inquiry is made explicit in a resonant declaration There is no such age since the ugly truth is that slaves were stripped of their names, their ages, their parents, their land, their language.

In an online conversation hosted by Rain Taxi, Jeffers asserts a strong point about such erasure: When you rename something, you erase documentation a fact that makes the achievement of The Age of Phillis even more striking. The book is a patchwork of many forms: historical court proceedings, 18th-century journals, and newspaper articles. Jeffers orchestrates a polyphonic cry of voices across the generations, culminating in reports about the New Slavery taking place on the US border. In cleaned up letters, we get bracketed looks at what the poet really wanted to say but, in the Age of Phillis, never could. The racism of intellectual giants of the age, like Thomas Jefferson, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant, is displayed in all its harsh reality. In perhaps the most attention-seizing poem, (Original) Black Lives Matter: Irony, Jefferss language is as lacerating as her message:

The Americans fight back, begin to greet

Redcoats with sneers, in tracts call themselves slaves. Insist theyre tethered, yet the Africans

the many souls, the wretched, the taken who move from humans to trafficked

are ignored as white men don paper chains, the language of wounded throats, chatteled claims.

The reverence Jeffers has for Wheatley is clear throughout the volume: the collection is a shrine to the original Black bard, as well as a bracing protest against the silencing of Black voices.

Jeffers has credited the great Toni Morrison with the method of writing a novel from a question. In its most general form, the question at the heart of The Love Songs of W. E. B. du Bois is: How did we get to this place as a country? Branching out from this are more specific variations: How did we get to this place as the South? As the Black community? As a family? The book is thus an inspection of chains of events at different scales and along intergenerational parallels. Unflinching in the depiction of cruelty in its many manifestations, it is also, according to Jeffers, a love letter to Black women (the Archival Coda unapologetically declares it a Black feminist novel), as well as a love letter to our nation. To address questions of such magnitude, Jeffers chronicles no less than four generations of a family across almost 1,000 pages.

The narrative is brilliantly twined out of three strands. The first strand is told in the first-person plural on behalf of the Indigenous people who inhabit the territory that James Oglethorpe would appropriate as the Georgia colony. These sections are the songs of Jefferss novel, just as du Bois prefaced his essays in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) with the Sorrow Songs he loved so much. As we will come to see, however, the we that focalizes this strand is far from limited to the Creek and Cherokee peoples. In fact, one of the books major lessons is a conscientiousness about what we mean when we say we, us, our. The second strand is in the first-person singular of the central character, Ailey Garfield, and progresses from the present tense of childhood to the past tense of adulthoods accumulation. The third strand, told in the third person, provides exposition about Aileys mother, Belle, and her sister, Lydia. Deploying this back-and-forth layering across time and among characters displays Jefferss many strengths as a storyteller. As we move through the text, and family secrets and lineal connections come to light, our understanding of the narrative is in a constant flux of reevaluation.

We follow the endearing, human-all-too-human Ailey Garfield from the age of three to her postdoctoral achievements as a historian the novel itself becoming, in retrospect, the very product of Aileys efforts as a scholar and griot. A career in academia comes to her after a long period of growing pains, the constant blows of loss, suffering, failure, and uncertainty. She stands in the crosshairs of virtually all the books tensions: between the City and the Deep South, Black and white, high class and low, traditionalism and progressivism, motherhood and independence, male and female.

Complicating matters, Ailey and her sisters are hiding a horrifying family secret, which becomes the source of much psychological trauma and heartache. One of the books most crushing lines captures some of the weight of the offense: She didnt remember when it started, only that when she emerged into memory, the hurting already was a fact of her life. As Ailey puts it: Id become a gourd filled with secrets Through this pivotal transgression, Jeffers develops a robust interrogation of classism, racism, colorism, and sexism that powerfully extends du Boiss concept of double consciousness.

Yet for all its intellectual ambition, The Love Songs of W. E. B. du Bois is an exceedingly human novel. Its characters, even its heroine, are messy and make terrible choices despite wanting to do good. Ailey is a self-declared Black feminist, but her feminism is not fully formed; she has a long way to go, as do we all. Her mother, Belle, spouts flawed truisms: There are no Black atheists; Its impossible for Blacks to be politically incorrect. Her Black paternal grandmother, Nana, foists a preference for lighter skin on the family. But these contradictions and flaws are the point: Jeffers is not interested in offering a fairy tale of perfect characters or the illusion of simple solutions. The final sentences of the book are key: The question is the point. The question is my breath. Asking questions is, for Ailey, the only way to keep her heart beating. Freedom from the blinders of ignorance comes precisely through the process of inquiring, listening, and learning. Taking a cue from Ailey, may we all work to turn our sorrow songs to love songs.

Already an accomplished poet, Honore Fanonne Jeffers shows herself, with this novel, to be a glowing, confident storyteller. Her work is an invitation to a conversation and a reckoning of hard truth. As she commented in a Bookworm interview, her goal is to depict Black people straight, no chaser. The du Bois epigraph that prefaces the fourth section of Love Songs states: You misjudge us because you do not know us. It is the responsibility of every American to remedy misjudgment with knowledge, and this magnificent novel offers a wealth of resources to begin this task.

Chris Vias work appears inKenyon Review,Los Angeles Review of Books,3:AM Magazine,Rain Taxi Review of Books,Splice,Arts Fuse, andRupture. Chris also hosts the growing, literature-obsessed YouTube channelLeaf by Leaf.

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The Question Is My Breath: On Honore Fanonne Jeffers's The Love Songs of WEB du Bois - lareviewofbooks

A concerned member of the public has called for a Roy Chubby Brown show to be axed this Christmas.

However the Teesside comedian will play the Victoria Hall in Stoke-on-Trent, on December 17, despite the dispute.

Caroline Key has written to her MP and council calling for the gig to be scrapped, reports Stoke-on-Trent Live.

Go here for more what's on updates, news and reviews from around Teesside

She points to the fact that the Victoria Hall was the scene of the famous 'Lidice Shall Live' gathering in 1942 in response to the Nazi atrocity which wiped out the Czech village in the Second World War.

Caroline said: "I am very concerned that the comedian Roy Chubby Brown has been booked to appear at the Victoria Hall.

"The people of North Staffordshire are rightly proud of having a venue like the Victoria Hall on their doorstep and many, many people will have memories of attending great concerts there.

"Lets be clear, this is not a comedian who is just a bit controversial or who uses language that could be viewed as outdated. His entire act is a stream of unrelenting racism and misogyny.

"This is an act that normalises and encourages racism and misogyny. Is that really reflective of the values of the Victoria Hall?

"When the people of North Staffordshire gathered there in 1942, they did so because they hated Nazi brutality and had a vision for a better future. To allow that same stage to be used to insult people because of their skin colour, mock them for the shape of their eyes, and abuse them for their gender, is a gross betrayal of all that those people stood for.

"I urge you to do all you can to ensure that this performance does not go ahead. Many areas have previously refused to host this act. The people of North Staffordshire deserve more than having one of their major venues associated with this."

It comes as the Grangetown-born star's performance at Sheffield's City Hall has been cancelled by the venue amid racism, homophobia and sexism concerns.

The Victoria Hall is advising under-18s to stay away from the show.

Its promotional material states: "As politically incorrect as ever The Worlds Most Outrageous Comedian is far too rude for TV, so this live performance is the only place to catch the flamboyant comedian.

"Hes still rude, hes still crude and this time hes turning headlines into punchlines as his rip-roaring brand of banter continues to burst bellies across the country.

"Chubby doesnt hold back from sharing his outlandish views on the news, women and gender, sailing so close to the mark, even the most seasoned of fans will be left gob-smacked. If easily offended please stay away."

Tickets for the one-night only show are currently on sale. They are priced at 21.50 or 25.50.

A Victoria Hall spokesman said: Roy Chubby Brown is set to play at the Victoria Hall on Friday, December 17.

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Calls for another Chubby Brown gig to be scrapped over 'racism and misogyny' concerns - Teesside Live

Jennifer Aniston, Jon Hamm and Miley Cyrus are just a few of the countless movie and television stars who have decided they dont want children in their lives. The reasons are, of course, all personal: there are those who think they cannot look after others, those who simply feel they are fully realized even without giving birth to another life. Or who, already having an advanced age, believes that it is now too late to even think about it.

So, while we have actors and stars who have large families and cant wait to show off newcomers, we also have a lot of show business characters who feel they have a fulfilling life even without an offspring. .

There are many stars especially women who have been asked on more than one occasion why they did not have children. The question, already uncomfortable in itself for ordinary men and women, is certainly no more appropriate for the actors we have come to know over the years. The latter, however, have stated on more than one occasion what their personal motivations are.

The famous actress Winona Ryder, born in 1971, became famous in the world of cinema even when she was very young with films like Splinters of madness (1988), Beetlejuice (1988) and, above all, Edward scissor hands (1990). Later it returned to success in 2016, the year in which we found it in the TV series Stranger Things where she played and still plays Joyce Byers, the mother of little (and unfortunate) Will Byers.

In 2016, during an interview with New York Magazine, she stated that she has no children but that she has a wonderful relationship with her grandchildren. And it suits her like this: I have great times with my brothers children. I just have to stop listening to what people say . The actress has in fact added that she has never had the desire to have children and that she has always preferred to prioritize her career.

Regarding the children topic, Jennifer Aniston said in an interview with the Huffington Post: Nobody knows what really happens in a persons privacy. Nobody considers how delicate the situation can be for me and my partner. They dont know what Ive been through medically or emotionally. There is pressure on women to become mothers, and if they are not, then they are considered damaged goods. Everyone is complete with or without a mate, and with or without a child. We dont need to be married or mothers to be complete. We have to decide what makes us truly happy. Perhaps my purpose on this planet is not to procreate. Maybe there are other things I have to do

Mostly known for his role in Mad Men, where he played Don Draper, Jon Hamm is internationally recognized as a real sex symbol and in 2007 he was even named the Sexiest Man Alive by Salon.com. He had a very long relationship with actress and screenwriter Jennifer Westfeld but, after 18 years together, the two broke up.

According to La Repubblica, the motivation behind their separation was Jennifers desire to have children: Jon, who has always been a bit reluctant to have a quiet life with his wife and children, seems to have never really thought about the idea of having children.

In an interview with the New York Times, in 2021, he said: Ive been thinking about it a lot lately. I never thought Id be this age and not have children. But my life has gone on in a million ways I never thought of

Miley Cyrus became famous when she was just a little girl thanks to the role of Miley Stewart / Hannah Montana in the homonymous TV series by Disney Channel, Miley Cyrus is currently one of the most talked about stars. After completely distorting her image, she was in fact widely criticized, but the actress and singer never gave much weight to the words spent towards her.

During an interview for ELLE magazine in 2019, Miley openly stated that she does not want children (at least for the moment): We are left with a planet of me ** and I refuse to pass it on to my children. Until I feel that my children can live in a world where fish can live safely in the sea, I will not bring another person to live this way. We do not want to reproduce because we know that the Earth cannot do it

Sarah Paulson is known and loved by fans of television series mainly for her roles obtained thanks to the anthology series American Horror Story, for which she also won two Critics Choice Awards and five Emmy nominations. In 2017, then, was also included by Time magazine among the 100 most influential people on the planet.

Paulson, like Jennifer Aniston and many other colleagues, was quite clear in an interview for Town & Country Magazine: I dont want to feel bad. I dont want to look at my son and say You are the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me, but also the death sentence. It was difficult for my mother to be everywhere. Ive always known what I wanted from my professional life and I dont want to spend my life running from side to side, If only I had made the choice to dedicate this time to myself. Its selfish, but I think the word selfish creates a bad reputation

American actress best known for her roles in Community And Mad Men, where she played Annie Edison and Trudy Campbell respectively, Alison Brie is currently the star of the Netflix Original television series Glow. She and her husband Dave Franco have decided not to have children and, during an interview, the actress explained her reasons:

I really dont want to have children. Its great because I dont worry about when I should get pregnant in between seasons while touring Glow and I dont have to think about it every day. That would be nice but I think of all the things that would be so stressful. I think about how much we must already work for our cats. Oh my God, and I think what it would be like if he were a child!

Known mainly for his singular comedy defined as ferocious and politically incorrect, Ricky Gervais has participated in numerous films and TV series, among which we mainly remember After Life, An Idiot Abroad And The Office. The actor met his partner, writer Jane Fallon, while attending university in London in 1982. The two have always been very reserved about their private life, claiming that they do not want to get married because they consider the ceremony superfluous and above all that they do not want children.

When asked why he replied, with the usual black humor that characterizes it, in this way: Because children are freeloaders. All they do is say I want, I want, I want Dad dress me, Dad feed me Dad pay me chemotherapy

Canadian actor and musician best known for his film roles, Keanu Reeves got to participate as guest star also to some television series, including Swedish Dicks, The Tracey Ullman Show And American Playhouse. The reason why Keanu Reeves has no children has nothing to do with the reasons of his colleagues and is based on a tragedy that hit him a few years ago.

In 1999 the actor became engaged to actress Jennifer Syme, who after a year gave birth to their first child. The newborn, however, soon died of a congenital heart malformation. Just two years later Jennifer also died in a car accident. Both of these deaths had a strong impact on the life of the actor, who still suffers today, despite many years having passed:

Mourning changes shape, but it never ends. People think we can handle it and say its over, Im better, but theyre wrong. When the people you love are no longer there, you are alone. All we can do is hope that we will reunite in memory again and feel pleasure and comfort in doing so, so that death is not just pain.

For now, while Keanu has been busy with his longtime friend Alexandra Grant since 2019, he doesnt seem to think about having children. In fact, in 2017 he declared: Im too its too late, its over. I am fifty-two years old. I will not have children

I am not a biological parent, but I am a parent. I am the mentor of young actors and actresses and I have grandchildren who I am very close to. I believe that for many women of my generation, not having children was not a fully conscious choice. It was more of a feeling like, Im making my way, things are fine and Im happy. Ill think about it next year, in two years, in five Today and at this age there is a way to become a mother that doesnt include a childs name on the birth certificate. You can express your motherly side in other ways, clearly and forcefully. And it is very satisfying. I never changed diapers, okay, but I helped my niece get into medical school. And I was with my grandson as he was having a hard time. And these are truly maternal things, truly educational

Known mainly for his role in the TV series Black-ish, with whom she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical Series in 2017, Tracee Ellis Ross, born in 1972, is a single woman with no children. In a recent interview with Marie Clare, he said:

I used to fall asleep dreaming of marriage. And Id still love it, but what am I supposed to do? Sit down and wait? Come on. I have so many things to do. I was raised by society to dream of my wedding, but I wish I had dreamed of my life. People interpret being happily single as not wanting a relationship. Sure I want it, but what am I supposed to do? Depress me? No. I will live my life to the fullest and be happy here, right where I am

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Jennifer Aniston and the actors who said they didnt want children - D1SoftballNews.com

Coming off a bruising scandal in the US involving political consultant Cambridge Analytica using its data to manipulate voter behaviour, Facebook pulled out all stops to get it right in Indias 2019 general elections. It managed to sail through the biggest elections in the world involving 900 million voters without a scratch, but information that has recently come to light shows that despite its eagerness to remain blameless, its efforts were sometimes lacking.

As the polls scheduled to begin in April 2019 drew close, Facebook (now Meta Platforms) added resources to monitor and manage information flow through its platform, putting together 40 cross-functional teams with 300 members based in Delhi, Singapore, Dublin, and at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California. It wanted to avoid another scandal at any cost. Although India was the big one, the teams were also looking at elections in Indonesia and to the European Parliament.

Over two years beginning January 2017, Facebook closely studied India and drew up a list of priorities for its Civic Integrity, Business Integrity, Misinformation, and Community Integrity teams. The efforts were not in vain. The company, according to internal documents reviewed by The Intersection and Hindustan Times, was thrilled that it stayed out of the headlines and even managed some good press. In a post-election internal review, one Facebook official wrote, In spite of this being coined a WhatsApp election, the teams proactive efforts over the course of a year paid off, leading to a surprisingly quiet, uneventful election period.

In reality, former Facebook officials told The Intersection and HT, Facebooks priority was to avoid flak should anything go wrong in the elections. Not known until now was also that Facebooks carefully erected systems could not capture many violations, as revealed by the Wall Street Journal and The Economic Times.

Nevertheless, Facebook did take down large volumes of bad content around election misinformation, and acted against attempts at voter suppression, internal documents show.

These excerpts are from disclosures made to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and provided to the US Congress in redacted form by whistleblower Frances Haugens counsel. The redacted versions received by Congress were reviewed by a consortium of news organisations, including The Intersection. The Intersection is publishing these stories in partnership with HT. This is the second in a series of stories.

What Facebook enforced

With the first day of polling 10 days out, Facebook made public what it called coordinated inauthentic behaviour (CIB) and civic spam on the platform. It shut down accounts and took down pages and groups run by the Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) targeting the Indian electorate. It shut down 687 pages, accounts that engaged in CIB and were allegedly linked to individuals associated with an IT Cell of the Indian National Congress and also removed 15 pages, groups and accounts that, it said, were linked to a technology firm, Silver Touch, which managed several pages supporting the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Initial press coverage drew parallels between the INC and Pakistan, though later reports were more balanced, the Facebook official wrote assessing the impact of Facebook releasing the takedown data.

The platform viewed the CIB takedown as proactively shielding election integrity. A former Facebook official said on condition of anonymity that it had an element of playing to the gallery. There was an expectation that Facebook would do something about elections in general. By going public with the CIB, the company was showing that it was transparent.

It prepared for a second CIB in the midst of the elections. As we prepared for a second round of CIB in the midst of the elections, the focus was on protocols and what constituted action under CIB. Also the question over whether there was a need to distinguish between foreign and domestic interference in these cases, the Facebook official wrote in the memo titled India Elections: Case Study (Part 2).

At the time, the company also paused civic spam takedowns globally because it could not clearly define violations of civic spam rules. Civic spam in Facebook-speak is usage of fake accounts, multiple accounts with same names, impersonation, posting malware links and using a content deluge to drive traffic to affiliated websites to make money.

The second CIB takedown was never publicly disclosed or reported, lending more credence to the former Facebook officials observation that it was a show for the public. CIB round two was all exclusively domestic financially motivated (FMO) and politically motivated (PMO) and was blocked for India. This meant no enforcement on any domestic-only (no foreign nexus) CIB case. It was lifted a few weeks later.

Facebook proactively took down over 65,000 pieces of content since the start of polling that were aimed at voter suppression. As polls progressed, the company took down posts claiming that the indelible ink used to mark fingers was made out of pig blood and so Muslims should skip voting to avoid its use. It also took down posts that included incorrect polling dates and times and polling locations according to the Facebook officials memo.

A Meta spokesperson, in response to The Intersection and Hindustan Times questionnaire, said, Voter suppression policy prohibits election-related and voter fraud things that are objectively verifiable like misrepresentation of dates and methods for voting (e.g., text to vote). The content that requires additional review to determine if it violates our policy may be sent to our third-party fact-checkers for verification.

A constant theme throughout the election was misinformation regarding the failure of electronic voting machines (EVM), the official wrote in the memo. While there were legitimate EVM failures that required re-polling in a few constituencies, there was also misinformation in the form of out-of-context videos claiming vote rigging... In total, Market Ops removed over 10,000 pieces of EVM malfunctioning misinformation.

The mess that was verification

To strengthen the verification process, Facebook originally put in place a mechanism to mark political advertisers. This would typically include a mandatory disclosure for advertisers with a paid for or published by label. In February 2019, it also announced an offline verification process with boots on the ground and an OTP sent to the postal address. Facebook was to hire a third-party vendor for this. These were clearly not scalable solutions, even if the intent was right, said a Facebook official aware of the matter.

Facebook later relied on phone-based verification, a person familiar with the matter said. But it reduced oversight. Some advertisers would get verified using burner phones. There would be no follow-up verifications despite it being part of the companys transparency plans. Internally, questions were raised about the frequency to keep a check on these hacks, as once verified, the phones would get unanswered.

Multiple former Facebook officials confirmed that the verification process was a mess, while also highlighting the struggles Facebook has in executing things well globally. One of them said, People wanted ad transparency, but Facebook couldnt get it out in time for the election and have all the things worked out.

The BJP benefited from this loophole, according to a Wall Street Journal report of August 2020. Facebook declined to act after discovering that the BJP was circumventing its political ad transparency requirements, it said, quoting sources. In addition to buying Facebook ads in its own name, the BJP was also found to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars through newly created organisations that didnt disclose the partys role. Facebook neither took down the ads nor the pages.

One of the officials The Intersection and HT spoke to said the company has since taken some steps, including mandatory verification using government-issued identification documents. The biggest problem in India is that there are no standardised address formats, the official said. According to another former official, the Election Commission of India should ideally be looking at a digitised database of who is allowed to run political ads that a platform like Facebook can use to verify people, and anyone not in the database, cant run the ads.

The Meta spokesperson added, In India, based on learnings from the US and other countries, we tightened the disclaimer options available to advertisers and require additional credentials to increase their accountability. E.g. in case of an escalation, if we discover that the phone, email or website are no longer active or valid, we will inform the advertiser to update them. If they do not, they will no longer be able to use that disclaimer to run ads...

To disable or not to disable: That is the question

To prevent India creating fresh legal obligations for social media companies, Facebook led the conversation around the need for a voluntary code of ethics during the silent period, the 48 hours before the polling date when canvassing is prohibited. This would have meant that Facebook would have had to disable all ads for two days in every phase.

Instead, it shifted the onus of reporting ads violating the code to the Election Commission of India (ECI), and did not proactively disable ads as it did in the US. It took down only those ads flagged to it by ECI. Others slipped through and remained live on the platform.

It on-boarded ECI on to the Government Casework channel for escalating content which violated election laws, noted the Facebook official in the memo. This channel, people familiar with the matter said, was primarily for flagging illegal content, although it did include some advertising. A Huffington Post investigation in May 2019, revealed that a total of 2,235 advertisements worth approximately 1.59 crore ran in violation of the silent period in the first four phases.

Product and other teams (presumably in charge of revenues) at Facebook clashed over whether to block ads during the silent period or not. Facebook erred on the side of free speech, and contended that ads were another way for people to express opinion. Parties too wanted them running, and Facebook believed it was only fair to smaller parties. Internally, the firm considers political ads as high risk, low reward, because they bring in little money (in comparison to other types of ads people run on its platforms).

Blocking would have required carving out the right geographical regions as per polling dates which were spread over a month and building digital fences around them to dynamically change the visibility of the ads. Facebook hates being told how to build products, said one of the former company officials The Intersection and Hindustan Times spoke to.

Nayantara Ranganathan, an independent researcher and co-founder of Persuasion Lab, a project interrogating new forms of propaganda told The Intersection and Hindustan Times, In choosing to serve an advertisement between two potential viewers, Facebook optimises for goals of the advertiser, engagement of users and growth of the platform. It is not such a stretch to expect Facebook to optimise for compliance with laws. She added, Ultimately, ads delivery is something that Facebook algorithms control, and it is very much possible to exclude by geolocation and dates.

Venkat Ananth is a co-founder at The Intersection published by The Signal, http://www.thesignal.co

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What FB got right and what it didnt in the 2019 elections - Hindustan Times