It disturbs me that people would consider TikTok an accurate source of…anything.
Pretti was a nurse who was murdered. It would be weird if nurses didn’t support him. Like, it’s ridiculously stupid that people don’t understand that this is one common consequence of murdering someone. That their family, friends, and people who see parts of themselves in that person will all be outraged. Maybe Libs of TikTok are just used to a world where nobody cares about whether they live or die.
I hate these companies, they are the end game of hyper-consumerist Capitalism. Cheap junk, made largely with slave labor, with extremely toxic chemicals that destroy our environment, most of which gets dumped after a few uses in landfills to slowly rot and leak micro plastics into everything. DO NOT BUY FROM THEM!!! Influencers on TikTok doing $200 haul videos with huge boxes of this swill for their addicted viewers, it’s horrific.
People are sharing the social media apps installed on their smartphones. A user comments “Youtube in 2023” as a way to mock it, as they find it obsolete, antiquated, outdated. The year that was current in this screenshot was 2023 The original commenter is confused by the mocking comment Another user is making fun of the user that sent the second comment, claiming they got their attention span eroded by Tiktok short videos and cannot stay focused on the longer videos present on Youtube
Il drago nella letteratura (una leggenda che ci prepara al cambiamento) @libri https://www.illibraio.it/news/dautore/drago-nella-letteratura-1495522/ Presente in tanti tipi di tradizione - e in molteplici varianti, dall’Idra di Lerna al serpente piumato Quetzalcoatl - quella del drago è molto più che una semplice creatura della letteratura fantasy (o del genere “LitRpg”, che oggi spopola su TikTok), ma una vera e propria leggenda che ci prepara ad affrontare il cambiamento… e voi,
I think they’re saying that each of those are different professions, which is why the job posting is made by a clown. That being said, there are 15 year olds with TikTok accounts who do all of these things, so it also sounds like someone who doesn’t know what a Social Media Manager does and criticizing the job posting.
Bonus
Comprehensive privacy law time? Nahh just ban the Chinese EVs and pretend this doesn’t happen. Same thing as tiktok. You’ll never be protected as long as they can point to the Chinese boogyman.
Nothing says ‘feminism’ like limiting a sex worker’s career options to branch out. Wouldn’t expect much more from a TERF paper. She produces hair and makeup tutorials and lifestyle influencer content for the more than 4.6 million followers she has on Instagram and TikTok. Interesting part to leave out in the headline.
If this was forwarded to you, sign up for future news here. Dear Friend, Here’s some news about actions against war, and actions in support of nonviolent protests that change the world without war. —David Swanson, Executive Director, World BEYOND War Upcoming Events Visit WBW’s Global Events Calendar to find events and add your own events! An extraordinary true story of hope, courage and survival and one boy’s journey across the world to find safety. Learn about this incredible online book club! Go Here More Upcoming Events: PeaceWave: Send in Your Videos Now. #NoWar2026: Register Now. In Malawi: June 12: Community Peacebuilding Workshop in Malawi In Burundi: June 12: Youth Dialogue on Peaceful Civic Engagement Videos of Recent Events: Achieving peace in Taiwan The Peace Manifesto Soberanía en Venta en Paraguay Online Actions Military planes are weapons of mass murder and destruction. Air shows are used to advertise them for purchase by governments. Read about all the damage done by air shows. Sign the Petition More Online Actions: Support Aid Flotillas. Tell Ireland To Put Peace On The EU Agenda. Boycott Thai Airways. Poetry Corner At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border News from Around the World Albanians Are Using Nonviolent Action to Keep Out Trump’s Family and Protect the Environment Read about inspiring people pushing back against oligarchic destruction. Read Here More Articles from Around the Globe: WORLD: World Pays Price for U.S. Cage Fight Culture We Need a Culture of Peace Watch News from a Country Not Your Own Do U.S. War Crimes Doom the World to Endless War and Chaos? AFRICA: A New World BEYOND War Chapter Begins in Somalia LATIN AMERICA: Talk World Radio: Bolivia and People Who Don’t Sit Back and Take It EUROPE: Huge Protest March Ends at Aviano U.S. Air Base in Italy World BEYOND War Asks Ireland to Put Peace On The EU Council Agenda Condemning the Defence Universities Alliance as a Threat to Academic Freedom An Open Letter to Chancellor Friedrich Merz Condemning the Defence Universities Alliance Activists in Bucharest Reject Militarization from Palestine to the Black Sea ASIA: One Gaza Flotilla Boat Made it to Gaza—in Pieces Nakba Day Commemorated in Osaka, Japan Rape, Assault, and Abuse Are Signature Israeli Government Values Toward Palestinians and Internationals Talk World Radio: Stephen Zunes on Iran OCEANIA: What Could Hawaiʻi Look Like if the U.S. Military Didn’t Occupy So Much Land? At Music Awards in New Zealand, Singer Tells Government What it Can Do with Military Budget NORTH AMERICA: In Ontario, Canada, Protesters Call on Factory to Shut Down Killing Machines Podcast: Where I Live, or Old Battlefields of Brooklyn U.S. Congress Quietly Moves to Integrate U.S. and Israeli Militaries Hundreds Disrupt CANSEC, Canada’s Largest Arms Show Ten Activists in New Jersey Arrested for Blockading Israel-Bound Weapons Installing Peace VIDEO: Canada’s New War Bank Will Fuel Weapons and a “War-Filled Future” World BEYOND War is a global network of volunteers, chapters, and affiliated organizations advocating for the abolition of war. Donate to support our people-powered movement for peace. Privacy policy. World BEYOND War 513 E Main St #1484 | Charlottesville, VA 22902 | USA PO Box 871 | Campbellford PO, ON, K0L 1L0 | Canada CC Unicentro Bógota, Local 2-222 | Postal Code (Apartado Postal): 358646 | Colombia The post WBW News & Action: Albania Not for Sale appeared first on World BEYOND War. From World BEYOND War via This RSS Feed.
Tommy Robinson is a far-right agitator who’s led street movements like the English Defence League (EDL) and Unite the Kingdom (UtK). While Robinson’s propaganda has shifted over the years, the common throughlines have been Islamophobia and the fear of migrants. As these prejudices aren’t unique to white Brits, there are some people from minority groups who have thrown in with Robinson and his ilk. Now, one of the Sikh men who supported Robinson in the past is being warned to watch his back. Short story: Bobby Singh, who twerks for Tommy Robinson, is now being threatened by Tommy Robinson. “If I personally see Bobby Singh, I’ll personally punch his fucking head off.” pic.twitter.com/CKsdzy0Npv — Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) June 7, 2026 Robinson’s ex-mate Bobby Singh — who is he? Bobby Singh is the co-founder of Love Your Postcode, a real estate and property management company. Recently, Singh attended the far-right Unite the Kingdom rally (as Mukhtar highlighted in the video above), where he voiced his support for Robinson. He’s also reshared anti-Muslim posts from Robinson like the following: Because the above comes from Robinson — a known bullshitter and far-right propagandist — most people would ask themselves: Is this AI? Was it staged? Did it happen recently or years ago? The other thing to remember is that sometimes Muslim people commit crimes. This is true of every group. But smear merchants like Robinson give the impression that Muslims are uniquely bad by only highlighting crimes committed by them. Either Singh is willing to turn his brain off when he sees Islamophobic content or he lacks critical thinking skills. The controversy surrounding Singh Singh has now attracted controversy because of a TikTok panel in which he asked viewers to vote one “if you’re in support of the Singh” or two “if you’re in support of Henry”. From context, it’s clear that the men in question are the murderer Vickrum Digwa and his victim Henry Nowak (most baptised Sikh men have the surname ‘Singh’, but Digwa does not). The video attracted greater controversy because at one point another man asks to change the vote, stating: Can you put a 1 in the comments if I should piss on Henry’s grave, and a 2 if I should shit on his grave. Singh has since claimed the backlash is a ‘character assassination’, and that while he was on the TikTok panel, he doesn’t agree with everything that was said. Bobby Singh has RESPONDED to the live TikTok video circulating online. In it, he shared a panel with someone who asked: “should I shit or piss on Henry Nowak’s grave?” The video also shows him agreeing that “Henry is wearing a turtleneck, so he means trouble,” and endorses… pic.twitter.com/V5Vo7xP5Ky — Sydney Jones (@SydneyJones_) June 7, 2026 Regardless of whether Bobby Singh made the worst comments or not, it was clearly in poor taste to ask viewers to vote on which man they backed. Digwa murdered Nowak with an illegal weapon, and then he fooled the police into thinking Nowak was the aggressor. Digwa’s actions, then, contributed towards a situation in which Nowak was handcuffed while bleeding out (with the other factor being police incompetence). Dis-unite the Kingdom Ironically, Love Your Postcode says the following about itself: Our commitment to community cohesion and philanthropy is interwoven with a passion for business, inspiring others to lead with confidence and a sense of social responsibility. We say, ironically, because co-founder Singh attended Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally, this now-yearly event isn’t committed to “community cohesion” at all. We say that because it promotes “remigration”. Speakers at the first event included the Dutch Generation Remigration. The Canary wrote this about the group: Well, they’re the leading proponents of ‘remigration’, which is the plan to mass deport migrants and their descendants from European countries. We’re not quite sure how that will work in Britain given the continuous influxes of populations we’ve experienced since the Roman Empire, except we are sure, obviously – they’re talking about deporting Black and brown people. Generation Remigration did not attend the 2026 UtK event. No doubt because key member, Eva Vlaardingerbroek, was banned from entering the UK earlier this year. Robinson has kept the ethnic cleansing torch burning, anyway, and regularly posts about “remigration” himself. Take this from 12 May: Invaders and their offspring, tormenting and brutally attacking our people in Europe and filming it “for fun” and to assert dominance. Remigration and de-islamisation can’t come quick enough. You’ll note Robinson calls for “remigration” and “de-Islamification”. He’s doing this to make it clear it won’t just be Muslims who go. You’ll also notice he’s not saying something like ‘deport the non-indigenous Brits‘. This is because the in-group currently includes all white Europeans. This won’t last, of course, and we only have to look back to 2016 to see when the far right was actively hostile towards continentals — most notably Polish people. Clearly, to anyone smart enough to read between the lines, Bobby Singh isn’t in the in-group, so why was Robinson promoting him before this latest controversy? And why was Singh promoting Robinson? Singh and Robinson: Bedfellows To Robinson, there’s an obvious benefit to tolerating a guy like Bobby Singh. Specifically, he can point at him and say: “See, how can I be racist when I’m best mates with this guy?” The answer is obvious, and it’s that in this case, the two are friends because of racism, specifically racism against migrants, which seems to be Singh’s beef if his retweets are anything to go by. In modern Britain, establishment politicians like Nigel Farage warn ‘All migrants are bad‘ and their supporters hear ‘All Muslims are bad‘. Inevitably, this becomes ‘All Black and Brown people are bad‘, because believe it or not, the white rioters shown below aren’t the best at identifying cultural signifiers; they just see a person’s skin colour and lose their minds. Dozens of bricks being thrown pic.twitter.com/VwPXkfZlmR — Taj Ali (@Taj_Ali1) June 2, 2026 Unless you’re a white British man, a guy like Robinson will always always turn on you at some point. But for some, their desire to punch downwards overrides their instincts for self-preservation. To be fair, what Singh said was obviously grim, but Singh isn’t the only Sikh man facing backlash from the far-right. Sikhs at a London remembrance march describe their fears and report a rise in abuse following Henry Nowak’s murder. https://t.co/Zl3K65O6Kq pic.twitter.com/WB5y5UwmnD — Sky News (@SkyNews) June 7, 2026 Nigel Farage has retweeted JD Vance’s tweet, calling British Sikhs “mass invasion of migrants.” Like I said the other day. Look how quickly they turned on the Sikh community. pic.twitter.com/1eGb1WYbnb — Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) June 6, 2026 In-fighting Known white supremacists like James Goddard are repeating the following: Deport the Sikhs It should be noted Robinson is still defending Sikhs despite a significant proportion of his far-right followers turning on them. About 535,000 Sikhs live in the UK (around 0.8% of the population). The Sikhs aint taking over our towns or cities, or even the UK for that matter you fucking moron. They integrate and add value, they love, respect and do fight for our country. Sikhs are not… https://t.co/bv5Qa4IUwp — Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) June 4, 2026 You’re a disingenuous shithouse. Fuck you and your framing. Nobody said we should “give up our homeland to Sikhs”, own it dickhead. — Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra) June 4, 2026 Lest we forget, Robinson literally calls for “remigration”. Clearly he doesn’t actually respect Sikhs; he’s just using them as cover for his Islamophobia. What this shows, anyway, is that it’s impossible to maintain tactical positions on the reactionary far right. There will always be those who are willing to go further, and they will always find themselves arguing from a stronger position because the logical end point of this ideology is a patriarchy of indigenous whites. An odd one One final thing to note about Bobby Singh is that he’s not completely deluded about the white supremacist movement he’s attached himself to. In a video which appears to have been filmed at Unite the Kingdom, Singh said: And by the way, just for the record, just for the record, lads. If they do go back and you ask me to go back, I wouldn’t have a fucking issue…There is no greater honour than going back to a country where it’s your real people of your colour. So what I’m saying is, mate, I’m patriotic, but if you ever want to say to me, ‘Bobby, your time’, I’m more than happy. It’s not good that Singh — or anyone — feels this way. Every British citizen who isn’t 100 years old grew up in a multicultural country. The problems we’ve faced since then don’t arise from that fact; they arise from rich people stealing all of Britain’s wealth while blaming minority groups as cover. Speaking as a white Briton, believe me, skin colour is no indicator of individuals being “your real people”. The people I have the least in common with in this country are the white identitarians who line up behind Tommy Robinson. If such people ever take power, I’ll be doing everything I can to move to a country that doesn’t treat skin colour as the defining characteristic. Although Bobby Singh may not have an issue, you have to assume foreign countries would object to us banishing millions of European-born citizens into their territories. This might surprise people who think the British Empire never ended, but we actually don’t have the right to dump people wherever we like. This is especially true when it comes to nuclear powers like India and Pakistan. The few It’s important to re-emphasise that guys like Bobby Singh are a minority of a minority. Most Sikhs don’t support a movement which will inevitably come for them. At the same time, most would never willingly volunteer to be deported to a country they weren’t born in. Singh being ex-communicated from the British far right was predictable. The same thing will happen to every other person who isn’t a member of the core inner group because this movement is only heading in one direction. Featured image via Mario Tama/ Finnbarr Webster/ Getty Images By Willem Moore From Canary via This RSS Feed.
As the midterm elections approach, something strange has happened: Democratic politicians who once talked about climate change as the defining crisis of our time now barely mention it at all. The phrase has begun disappearing from their speeches, social media posts, and podcast appearances. The main exception is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who has given some version of his “Time to Wake Up” speech on the dangers of climate change more than 300 times over the past decade and a half. He’s accused “climate hushers” of pushing the party to stop talking about the overheating planet. If you had to pinpoint the moment that “climate hushing” began, the 2024 presidential election would be the obvious contender. After President Donald Trump beat former Vice President Kamala Harris in all seven swing states, Democrats were left scrambling to figure out where they went wrong. One popular theory was that they were too busy harping on social justice and planetary problems at the expense of everyday concerns voters cared more about, like the rising cost of living. Whitehouse, however, sees global warming as a piece of that conversation, rather than a distraction from it. “Climate change is right now raising costs for families across the country through higher property insurance premiums, grocery and electric bills, and health care expenses,” Whitehouse said in a statement to Grist. The idea that talking about climate change is a liability for Democrats has become conventional wisdom. Last year, the Democrat-aligned think tank Searchlight Institute issued the advice “Don’t say climate change.” A recent op-ed in The New York Times concluded, “When it comes to climate change, for now, it might be better to say nothing at all.” An early draft of the Democratic National Committee’s autopsy report of the 2024 election, released under pressure in May, posited that messages about climate change and shifting to green energy “created anxiety among workers in traditional industries worried about job losses.” “It’s very zeitgeisty to assume right now that it’s really important not to talk about climate, or that Democrats have paid a political cost for talking about climate,” said Matto Mildenberger, a professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. But there’s no hard evidence that discussing climate change hurts Democrats in elections, Mildenberger and other experts told Grist. If anything, it rewards candidates with a modest boost among voters, studies and surveys show. The basis for thinking that Democrats should avoid the subject comes from polls asking voters about their top priorities: Climate change ranks number 24 out of 25 when Americans are asked which issues will be very important to their vote, according to data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication last year. That’s mainly because other concerns have risen in importance, with liberal Democrats more concerned about things like protecting democracy, government corruption, and the treatment of immigrants than before the 2024 election. It’s a logical leap, however, to assume that talking about climate change is a political liability simply because voters don’t name it as one of their top issues. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse speaks during a Senate Committee on Finance confirmation hearing in 2025. Andrew Harnik / Getty Images Some commentators argue that you can achieve climate action just by getting Democrats elected, regardless of whether they’re bringing it up. But deemphasizing climate change as part of their political platform could have long-term consequences: Without real discussion of it, you lose momentum for action and send a signal that it’s not important. “You actually need to have conversation and attention to an issue to slowly build the coalition and policy work necessary to address it,” Mildenberger said. In effect, Democrats are ceding rhetorical ground to their opponents, he argues, even as polling shows that Trump’s agenda — blocking the construction of wind farms, scrubbing public information about global warming from government websites, and pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement — is broadly unpopular. “All of this is, frankly, doing the service of the fossil fuel industry, ultimately, because it’s helping climate delay,” Mildenberger said. Whitehouse has argued that Democrats are “poll-chasing,” parroting what voters say they want to hear with bland, backward-looking messages. “Many Americans don’t believe Democrats are fighters,” Whitehouse said. “The best way to shed that label is to actually step into the arena and fight. Our climate messaging has long been terrible, but it would be malpractice to shy away from a fight with Central Casting villains (the fossil fuel industry climate denial fraud and dark money corruption operations) with such high stakes for the economic well-being of American families.” As people in the U.S. struggle with rising costs and surging gas prices, oil giants are raking in billions from the Iran war, a dissonance that Democrats could tap into. Matt Burgess, an economist at the University of Wyoming who studies how to find common ground on the environment, agrees with the broader sentiment that Democrats alienated voters on cultural issues and lost sight of concerns around affordability, and that progressive messaging about climate change was a piece of that. But he said it’s wrong to assume that climate change is a losing issue. “There are lots of different lines of evidence that suggest that climate change as an issue overall helps the Democrats and hurts Republicans,” Burgess said. A study he co-authored in 2024 found that in a hypothetical world in which climate change hadn’t been an issue in the 2020 election, Republicans could have gained somewhere around a 3-percent swing in the popular vote, enough to hand the White House to Trump instead of Joe Biden. “If you have any issue that moves the needle a little bit in your favor in a super-close election, it can make the difference between winning and losing,” Burgess said. Exit polling suggests there’s little reason to believe that climate change was a problem for Democrats in 2024, as opposed to other issues playing a larger role. Swing voters considered “U.S. efforts to fight climate change” a reason to support Harris over Trump by 21 points, according to a survey of 5,000 voters from Navigator Research just before and after the election. Trump won by large margins on inflation, the economy, and immigration — concerns that were top-of-mind for voters. “The very simple version is, Trump winning those voters won the election,” said Bryan Bennett, who runs the independent consulting practice Loft Beck strategies, advising Democrats and progressives, and who directed the post-election survey in his previous role at Navigator. Harris, in other words, didn’t lose because she mentioned climate change a few times, or even because Democrats passed climate policies under the Biden administration. Federal investments in infrastructure and manufacturing projects were, on a county level, linked to a very small improvement in the vote share for Harris, an analysis from the Center for American Progress found. If anything, the problem was that voters didn’t know enough about the federal government’s involvement to give the administration credit. Read Next The planet is overheating. Why is the news looking away? Kate Yoder Even if climate change is not an electoral problem for Democrats, they might have other reasons for staying quiet about it. The media ecosystem now is fractured, with many people getting their news from TikTok, YouTube, and podcasts as opposed to traditional news sources, meaning that it’s harder than ever for politicians to make their preferred narrative heard, Bennett said. In recent years, the Democratic Party has gotten more serious about “message discipline,” the practice of sticking with a central message, to try to cut through the noise. “So much of the oxygen in the room is taken up by, ‘How do Democrats deal with, and how do progressives deal with, talking about the economy in a way that really meets voters where they are?’” Bennett said. “And I think that inherently detracts from basically every other issue, regardless of whether it’s a good thing to talk about or not.” The Democratic politicians who are still mentioning climate change have tended to do so indirectly, arguing that clean energy is “cheap energy” and tying it to rising electricity bills. Polling suggests that voters have an appetite for more: Last fall, 41 percent of those surveyed by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication said they wanted political candidates to talk about efforts to reduce global warming more often, almost double the number who wanted to hear about it less. The trend of climate-hushing could stem from a misperception: Studies show that politicians and the public at large tend to vastly underestimate Americans’ appetite for taking action on climate change, from carbon taxes to expanding renewable energy. “We have this tension where, I think, empirically, talking about climate change provides a net benefit. It’s a very small net benefit, but it is a net benefit,” Mildenberger said. “But we have a discourse that somehow says that it’s this massive cost.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why are so many Democrats going quiet on climate change? on Jun 8, 2026. From Grist via This RSS Feed.
🇪🇺 Európsky parlament 20. mája 2026 schválil stratégiu umelej inteligencie (UI) pre obchod EÚ pomerom hlasov 527 za, 62 proti a 59 sa zdržalo. UI má urýchliť obchod, znížiť náklady pre MSP, zefektívniť dodávateľské reťazce a posilniť colné kontroly balíkov z Číny. Komisia by preto mala integrovať poradenské služby UI do portálu Access2Markets, presadzovať bezpapierový obchod, open-source riešenia a využiť UI na kontrolu dovážaného tovaru. 📈 Konkurencieschopnosť EÚ v priemysle (automobilový, farmaceutický či energetický) bude závisieť od produktivity poháňanej UI, čo musí Komisia obhajovať v obchodných rokovaniach proti nekalým praktikám. Parlament však varuje pred stratou pracovných miest kvôli automatizácii a v obchodných dohodách žiada analýzu vplyvov UI na pracovníkov a ekológiu. Upozorňuje tiež na riziko digitálnej priepasti a technologického vylúčenia globálneho Juhu. 🌍 Europoslanci chcú, aby sa európsky model UI zameraný na človeka a Akt o UI stali globálnym štandardom pre bezpečný obchod. Významnú rolu v tom hrajú digitálne partnerstvá a Rady pre obchod a technológie (TTC) s demokratickými spojencami. Komisia by mala koordinovať spoločné pozície v rámci G7, G20, OECD a OSN s cieľom stanoviť globálnu minimálnu ochranu pred najvážnejšími rizikami UI. 🔒 Digitálne obchodné dohody EÚ musia plne rešpektovať ochranu súkromia a cezhraničný tok dát. Parlament zároveň presadzuje vytvorenie osobitnej pracovnej skupiny pre UI v rámci Svetovej obchodnej organizácie (WTO). Akékoľvek pravidlá WTO pre elektronický obchod musia zabezpečiť politický priestor pre demokratické riadenie technológií a vynútiteľné záruky pre zamestnancov i spotrebiteľov. 🛡️ Technologická suverenita EÚ závisí od prístupu k polovodičom a výpočtovému výkonu, čo si vyžaduje diverzifikáciu dodávateľov a surovinovú diplomaciu. Keďže cloudová infraštruktúra sídli najmä mimo EÚ, uznesenie žiada zavedenie rámcov suverenity cez pripravovaný zákon o rozvoji cloudu a UI a zákon o priemyselnom akcelerátore, ktoré vo verejnom obstarávaní uprednostnia európskych poskytovateľov.
Noblefranca said that the healthcare system is affected by the stigma associated with trans healthcare, aside from medical inaccessibility, the societal prejudice embedded within institutions must be taken into account. By Cris Fernan Bayaga Bulatlat.com Related story: Drag affirms trans identity amid absence of nat’l pro-LGBTQIA+ laws CEBU CITY —Nearly 95 percent of the transgender women who visit a community-led clinic in Metro Manila seeking gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) have already started taking hormones on their own without any medical and professional monitoring due to inaccessibility. In 2023, a study conducted at LoveYourself Inc., one of the leading non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the Philippines providing free sexual health, mental health, and trans health services, found that most transwomen individuals who previously self-transitioned resorted to using daily oral contraceptive pills (OCPs), typically used for pregnancy prevention. This alternative practice is driven by the unavailability of estrogen and testosterone medications for GAHT over the counter in Philippine pharmacies, making them inaccessible for transgender individuals to purchase safely. Trans woman and TRANScend by LoveYourself advocate Zoe Black discusses barriers to accessing GAHT during the Polytechnic University of the Philippines College of Social Sciences and Development Student Council Women’s Month celebration (Photo courtesy of Zoe Black) GAHT is a therapy intended to be medically supervised for transgender people who choose to undergo hormonal changes, such as the intake of estrogen for transwomen undergoing feminizing hormone therapy, testosterone for trans men masculinizing hormone therapy, and hormone blockers. These hormonal therapies are administered through oral prescriptions or injectable medications that influence physical appearance that align with one’s Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Gender Expression, and Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC). After looking into trans individuals who sought clinical services at Victoria by LoveYourself (VLY) from 2017 to 2019, the results of the study revealed that 138 out of 146 transwomen and transfeminine individuals had self-transitioned. Among transmen, 96 out of 107, or around 89 percent reported similar experiences. Both communities resort to OCPs and the grey market, including unregulated sources, overseas providers, and online platforms that sell GAHT products, as these medications are not approved by the country’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA). GAHT gray market Medical professional and transhealth specialist at Loveyourself Inc., Dr. Lou Anthony Noblefrancanca said that transwomen who resort to self-prescribed GAHT without proper medical assistance are victims of the country’s public healthcare gap. Noblefranca said that these “micro-pills” or OCPs are not recommended as GAHT alternatives because of the compound combined with the pill’s estrogen. He noted that this compound with the estrogen can cause heart attacks, blood clots, or stroke. “I think around 2023, I saw a rise in cases among clients concerned over their over the counter pills because there were reports that a transwoman died because she overdosed on this kind of pill,” he said. He also said that GAHT regimens for transitioning are not illegal, but trans-specific medications are only FDA-approved abroad, pushing his clients to resort to alternative sources such as international and online sellers. “Buying online tells you a lot. The fact that it’s hard to have access to these meds locally, is an issue already. Due to this inaccessibility, some have to change regimen because there are no stocks available, but this would affect their routine,” he said. Klies*, 20, is a Cebu-based drag queen who prefers to use her professional drag name as her lived name. She works as a drag performer to fund the hormonal transition journey she began on her own. For nearly a year, she has relied on self-administered hormonal therapy using estrogen pills and injectable hormones sourced from fellow transwomen, online sellers, and local resellers within the city. Aside from the risks of purchasing from the gray market, she also faces the financial burden of maintaining her GAHT regimen. Disagreeing with the use of OCPs due to their health risks, she instead opts to spend more on gray market sources. Klies shows her newly purchased pack of GAHT estrogen pills (Photo by Cris Fernan Bayaga/Bulatlat) Klies said she spends around P900 ($15) monthly for GAHT, P370 ($6) for three weeks’ worth of daily pills and P250 ($4) twice a month for injectable hormones, though she admitted that she only “eyeballs” the dosage for her intake. She admits feeling anxious about missing even a few days of her hormone intake, fearing it may affect the progress of her transition and feminizing changes. Filipina transwoman and registered psychologist Dr. Brenda Alegre said that the limited medical support systems for transgender individuals is a systemic issue that pushes many transpeople to transition on their own, as socioeconomic barriers leave them reliant on unsupervised and often unsafe practices, while others seek care abroad at higher cost. Noblefranca said it also becomes financially inaccessible for many transpeople because maintaining hormonal regimens requires long-term financial commitment, making transition expensive for trans communities over time. “It’s expensive to be frank, apparently. You buy GAHT needed regimen like pills or injectables, the shipping fee from international sellers or from the international market,” he said. In 2023, Asia Pacific Transgender Network (APTN) reported that there’s no insurance coverage for hormonal therapy in the Philippines, pushing many transgender individuals to rely on unsafe and unmonitored means of accessing hormones, which increases the risk of adverse health effects and improper dosing, among the key hazards of self-transitioning. One thing Noblefranca also noted is that transgender healthcare practices are often centered on Western settings and standards, but many of these approaches are not fully applicable to Filipinos due to biological and physiological differences, particularly in body build. This means that following such dosage regimens may result in incompatible hormonal therapy. “We are not as tall and built the same way as caucasians, so adjustments must be made to Southeast Asian trans communities who want to seek similar healthcare,” he said. Facing a health crisis Klies said that her first three months of transitioning were challenging, physically and emotionally, as she navigated hormonal therapy without professional guidance and only relied on a fellow drag queen and close friend whom she considered an older sister who has undergone the feminizing transition for years. “I felt insecure, not with her, but with my identity of becoming a transwoman, so one day I mustered up the courage to ask her what pills she was taking and injecting and I followed her regimen,” she said. Klies checks her remaining pills for the month and plans to get her injectable hormones this month of June (Photo by Cris Fernan Bayaga/Bulatlat) She also noted two non-physical side effects she experienced: becoming “too emotional,” where she would feel the urge to cry more than usual over inconveniences; stressing over the slow-paced process of seeing physical changes in her body. During the first three months of her feminizing hormonal therapy, she also experienced intense headaches after taking her daily estrogen pill. Watching someone she admired slowly embody the femininity she also desired intensified Klies’s own gender dysphoria, a condition in which a person experiences distress or discomfort because their gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth. This mismatch made her feel that “something was missing” within herself. At first, she hesitated to ask about GAHT, worried she would be judged or denied support. Klies styles her hair as she prepares for a drag performance (Photo by Cris Fernan Bayaga/Bulatlat) Noblefranca said that even the term “treatment” in addressing hormonal transitioning can already reflect prejudice in the medical field, because it implies that “there is something wrong with a person.” Instead, Noblefranca emphasized the word “therapy” in gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT), explaining that the process is meant to help a person physically align with the gender identity they already recognize within themselves and affirm their gender expression. In the Philippines, he said there is no denying the existence of a huge gap in the medical field, as even endocrinologists, specialists in body hormones, are generally not trained to address transgender healthcare needs. Noblefranca said that there is still no formal education or specialized training for trans healthcare in the country. If there is no available specialist in one’s area, patients can still seek help from an endocrinologist, even without prior training in trans healthcare, for concerns related to the post-transition effects of GAHT regimens. However, he noted that there are cases where doctors may hesitate to provide medical support due to the specialized nature of trans healthcare, as well as differences in willingness in accommodating clients from the LGBTQIA+ community. Even at LoveYourself White House Cebu, he said there is currently no in-house medical doctor due to the limited number of physicians equipped with proper transhealth training and background. Initially, Noblefranca had to self-study to familiarize himself with existing transgender healthcare practices abroad and prepare for formal training in transhealth. “To be honest, there’s no mention of transgender health in medicine books in the Philippines. During my time in 2006 to 2010 in med school, only a few sentences talked about transgender health,” Noblefranca said. He later trained in Thailand at Pribta Tangerine Clinic, the first transgender-led clinic in Southeast Asia specializing in healthcare services for the transgender community and run by medical experts experienced in gender-affirming care. ‘Nanay-nanayan’ referral approach Noblefranca said that these shortcomings in transgender healthcare have normalized self-medication among trans communities, leaving them with no choice but to seek help from each other. “What is usually taught to trans women and trans men comes from their ‘nanay-nanayan’ and ‘tatay-tatayan’ or those who came before them, transitioned on their own, and self-medicated who then teach the younger generation what hormones to take,” he said. Klies collaborates with other drag queens in preparing her look (Photo by Cris Fernan Bayaga/Bulatlat) This kind of support from older queer and trans individuals guiding younger trans people through transition is often rooted in personal experience rather than formal medical training. Noblefranca said that there is no “one-size-fits-all” in GAHT or a “cookie cutter mold to follow,” but these informal support systems emerged not because trans communities reject healthcare, but because healthcare institutions have largely left them to navigate transition on their own. For Klies, transitioning became a process of “trial and error” as she tried to determine which hormonal regimen or “combo” would work for her body. For three months, she took Diane 35 daily, a commonly recommended pill among transwomen that can easily be purchased online. However, the medication eventually affected her health negatively, causing dizziness, emotional instability, and persistent fatigue. “What I did was just observe what changes I can see within a few months and if my body will not reject this kind of hormones, but I figured that I was struggling every day because of my previous pill,” she said. Algorithm as the doctor Klies said her first understanding of hormonal transition came from watching other trans women online. With no accessible medical guidance and no one professionally trained to help her understand what would work best for her body, social media became her primary source of information about transitioning. Through videos and online groups among trans women, she was introduced to different hormonal “combos,” dosage routines, and feminizing regimens commonly shared within trans communities. “I would always search on TikTok and look up ‘combos’ with pills and injectables, but I realized these videos could be misleading because bodies are different and manifestations of pills and injectables also take effect differently,” she said. On TikTok, Klies said she followed two Cebu-based trans women content creators who openly sold GAHT pills and shared recommended hormonal regimens online. For her, with hundreds of thousands of followers and visible transition results, these influencers appeared “trustworthy” enough for many young trans women seeking guidance on how to begin transitioning. She also previously took “pampafresh” vitamins and collagen supplements purchased online in hopes of improving her appearance, but eventually stopped after experiencing nosebleeding and fever-like symptoms. Noblefranca said he has observed a shift in recent years, as many trans women who once relied mainly on referrals within trans communities now increasingly turn to online influencers and social media personalities for guidance on GAHT. “There are many trans women who are also influencers, so I tell my clients that they have to be careful and critical of the kind of media you consume on TikTok, Facebook, Reddit or whatever social media platform because what might work for some will not exactly work for you,” he said. However, he said these online influencers are often simply trying to help other trans people in the only ways they know how, and that the growing reliance on social media for transition guidance reflects a deeper systemic failure in healthcare access, not something they should be “villainized” for. Risk reduction Noblefranca said that NGOs like LoveYourself Inc. aims to help bridge this gap between the trans community and the healthcare industry and this by giving them completely free access to services for their journey. “Most of the time, the people who come to me wanting to transition have already started self-transitioning. But I tell them not to be scared to consult because there’s no need to apologize for doing it on their own,” he said. He said that their role as medical practitioners is to help remedy or lessen the risks that trans people might have gotten from self transitioning. Given the limited number of their clinics, he said that online consultations are also a choice. “I do get online consultations from Cebu, Davao, and northern parts of the Philippines, usually. So, the consultation is free. The initial and follow-up consultations are also free. Most of the time, they just have to struggle with booking appointments due to the influx of requests,” he said. Noblefranca said that these consultations require laboratory tests which the clients need to shoulder on their own to properly assess their current status, if they have self-transitioned or just starting. “We give them forms to fill up and email it to us to assess their biological and physiological development, alongside their personal observations after their transition, and cross-check their laboratory results for better understanding of their case,” he said. He said that their clinics require their clients to conduct these laboratory tests to check for other possible health issues that might affect their transition journey like high blood pressure, diabetes, or other underlying conditions. Noblefranca added that after assessing a person’s capacity and readiness to undergo GAHT, he does not impose a rigid hormonal regimen on them, but instead allows trans individuals to decide what best fits their lifestyle and transition goals, while his role is to guide them toward safer and medically appropriate intake. “I don’t choose for them. I ask them, which of the methods are financially viable for their budget and lifestyle and if they can sustain it because they can’t forget or miss any scheduled pill or injectable because it will slow down your process and see its effects,” he said. He said that this is what sets trans healthcare clinics different from the stereotypical hospital setting because a community-based organization clinic does not dictate but it’s a collaborative process. “If you’re in a hospital, this is the diagnosis and doctors tell you what to take and what to do with your medicine. In LoveYourself, I and my fellow doctors who are trained in TransHealth, we adjust according to their needs based on the effects of their regimen,” he said. Klies said she has long been hesitant to visit a trans healthcare clinic because she had already been self-transitioning for over a year, though she hopes to eventually gather the courage to seek professional medical consultation. Klies walks along Colon Street to look for materials for her drag look after purchasing her estrogen pills (Photo by Cris Fernan Bayaga/Bulatlat) Noblefranca said that the transition journey also involves counseling services that address concerns such as body dissatisfaction and gender dysphoria, which may arise throughout the process of transitioning. In 2015, according to a psychiatric study, body dysmorphia is the persistent anxiety and distress over one’s appearance. Among transgender individuals, these feelings may be heightened by societal expectations surrounding how a person’s gender expression should physically manifest during hormonal transition. For Noblefranca, these concerns show the need for clinics not only to address hormonal treatment and physical changes but also the psychological and emotional challenges that may accompany transition. Life beyond transition For Noblefranca, transgender healthcare extends beyond prescriptions and hormones, emphasizing that trans individuals also need safe spaces, as many of his clients become more confident and comfortable with themselves through holistic gender-affirming care. Klies said that prior to transitioning, what helped her was her friend who was also a transwoman and a drag queen for emotional support and advice about navigating transitioning amid doubts to enter womanhood. Noblefranca said that the healthcare system is affected by the stigma associated with trans healthcare, aside from medical inaccessibility, the societal prejudice embedded within institutions must be taken into account. “In 2026, there are still mindsets rooted in discrimination. We should educate people first, especially about our SOGIE. It’s not just for queer people, but it’s a basic human right to be recognized for your lived gender identity. SOGIE is for everyone,” he said. Read: After 25 years, SOGIESC Bill still awaits passage For Klies, she hopes the next generation of trans individuals will grow up in a country where transgender healthcare is accessible and where communities no longer reject their existence. “At a young age, I already knew I wanted to be a woman. I want younger kids to have families willing to accept them because hormonal transition is one thing, but the psychological support from people willing to acknowledge these changes is vital to one’s womanhood.” Klies calls her mother before her performance to seek support (Photo by Cris Fernan Bayaga/Bulatlat) She emphasized that acceptance is often the first step toward meaningful change, saying that when trans individuals are free from pressure, stigma, and discrimination, they are more capable of transitioning safely and confidently with the support they need. Noblefranca shares the sentiments and agrees that there’s no such thing as “pushing the gay agenda” which is the assumption for opening clinics like LoveYourself because they’re just humans too. “We have no agenda at all. Our agenda is to live, to live safely and to make others feel that it’s okay to live. Our agenda is to live without being shamed, catcalled, physically abused, killed, or threatened,” he said. He said that once acceptance is slowly being part of Filipinos’ daily lives, then the education system can hopefully change and gradually introduce trans healthcare in medical education. “Hopefully in the coming years, we have a society that is open to allowing those who are interested to practice transgender medical help like Philippine Professional Association for Transgender Health, not just doctors but also nurses and community health workers,” he said. Noblefranca said that until the Philippine healthcare system recognizes transgender healthcare as essential public healthcare, the Filipino trans community will continue risking their bodies simply to become themselves. (AMU, DAA, RVO) *Editor’s Note: “Klies” is the Cebu trans woman’s lived name and not her legal name, in accordance with editorial policy recognizing a person’s preferred name in published releases. The post Limited trans healthcare compromises safe hormonal therapy — medical expert appeared first on Bulatlat. 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Anthropic’s high-profile spat with the Pentagon gave it a killer marketing advantage, burnishing its public image as a principled AI company that puts values over profits — unlike more mercenary rivals such as OpenAI or Google. But Anthropic’s double standard on authoritarianism suggests the nearly trillion-dollar firm is as calculating and ethically flexible as any of its competitors. In a recently published policy paper arguing a full-throated embrace of data center nationalism, Anthropic said that “it’s essential that the US and its allies stay ahead of authoritarian governments like the Chinese Communist Party,” lest the world fall into the grips of tech-powered tyranny. Anthropic and its peers, the company claims, will form a bulwark of democratic values, protecting societies at home and abroad from repression. Left unmentioned in the document — and seldom publicly acknowledged — is the fact a slice of Anthropic is owned by the Emirati dictatorship of Abu Dhabi, a repressive and authoritarian monarchy. Anthropic’s policy paper, published in May, tours the same Sinophobic territory heavily trod by its chief competitor OpenAI and a wide swath of the tech industry, who know a “race” with China — the finish line never quite defined — is a weighty cudgel against regulation. [ Related OpenAI on Surveillance and Autonomous Killings: You’re Going to Have to Trust Us](https://theintercept.com/2026/03/08/openai-anthropic-military-contract-ethics-surveillance/) Anthropic is aware of which way the wind blows from Washington to Silicon Valley, and it shrewdly casts the development of machine learning models not just as a matter of hardware and software, but of ideology and geopolitics. “Democracies, not authoritarian regimes, must lead in AI development and deployment,” the company says, or else an era of “authoritarian AI” will begin. “Already, the CCP is using AI to censor speech, repress dissidents, hack governments and corporations across the world, and strengthen the People’s Liberation Army,” Anthropic writes, and to “enforce draconian policies on ethnic minorities” using machine learning-powered methods like biometric collection and facial recognition. The policy paper isn’t a condemnation of any of these AI uses per se; the United States is already eagerly using these technologies for intelligence, military, and ethnic minority-repression purposes today. Residents of Tehran, which Anthropic has helped bomb since the start of the joint U.S.–Israeli war against Iran, might question the company’s argument that American AI supremacy is a matter of global “safety.” Though the policy paper focuses on China, the company has long stated it opposes authoritarianism broadly: “AI-powered authoritarianism seems too terrible to contemplate, so democracies need to be able to set the terms by which powerful AI is brought into the world, both to avoid being overpowered by authoritarians and to prevent human rights abuses within authoritarian countries,” CEO Dario Amodei wrote in a 2024 blog post. This is not merely a battle between the U.S. and China, Anthropic says in the May paper, but a war between democracy and “authoritarian governments” broadly construed. But Anthropic’s anti-authoritarian fervor seemingly does not extend beyond China to the Middle East, where Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund invested in Anthropic twice this year. In February, Anthropic [announced](file:///Users/sambiddle/Documents/Intercept/misc%20drafts/authoritarian) it had raised $30 billion in capital from a group of investors that included MGX, the AI-focused investment vehicle of a Emirati government capital controlled by Abu Dhabi’s royal family. Anthropic’s most recent May 28 $65 billion capital round, bringing its valuation to $965 billion, also included MGX. Like China, the United Arab Emirates outlaws almost everything associated with democratic society: Political parties, a free press, freedoms to associate and assemble, open elections, due process, and free speech are nonexistent. Political dissidents face torture, and any speech, online or offline, that causes “damage to national unity” risks life imprisonment or the death penalty. [ Related Philly Cops Admit That They’re Tracking “First Amendment Activity” Critical of AI](https://theintercept.com/2026/06/01/ai-data-center-protest-police-surveillance/) Emirati authoritarianism isn’t contested by the U.S., Anthropic’s primary governmental customer. The State Department’s 2024 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices assessed the UAE faces “credible reports of: disappearances; arbitrary arrest or detention; transnational repression against individuals in another country; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including censorship; and prohibiting independent trade unions or significant or systematic restrictions on workers’ freedom of association.” Freedom House, a State Department-backed think tank, gives the UAE a score of 18 out of 100 on its “Global Freedom” index. Anthropic declined to comment. MGX did not respond to a request for comment. “Like China, the UAE is at the forefront of AI-based authoritarian surveillance.” Given that MGX bought into Anthropic at its Series G and H investment rounds, relatively late in the venture capital game, it’s likely that the UAE’s stake in the company is relatively small and its influence limited. But Anthropic’s willingness to sell part of itself to an authoritarian monarchy suggests at least that its mission of “ensuring democracies lead” comes with asterisks. “Like China, the UAE is at the forefront of AI-based authoritarian surveillance,” said Matthew Tokson, a law professor at the University of Utah who focuses on the security implications of artificial intelligence. Tokson added that while he generally agrees with Anthropic’s calls to restrict processor exports to China and other measures to bolster American AI firms, he doesn’t buy the nationalist rhetoric, which he attributes to the company’s anti-regulatory agenda rather than patriotism. The more Anthropic and its competitors can convince the public that their bottom line is a matter of national security, the more likely Washington is to take a light touch. “The fact that Anthropic is partly owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, which is similar to China in its extensive use of AI surveillance to support an authoritarian government, suggests that its anti-authoritarian arguments are more based on a cynical policy position than a sincere passion for democracy or antipathy toward authoritarian governments.” Many of the emirate’s long record of repressive acts and rights violations are connected to MGX via its chair, Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Through his position as the emirate’s national security and intelligence chief and his business portfolio, including chairmanship of the AI firm G42 (itself a founding partner in MGX), Tahnoun has been linked to a bevy of campaigns to surveil and hack into the phones of Emirati dissidents, human rights advocates, and others the monarchy deems an adversary, according to news media reports and scholarly research. A 2020 investigation by Bill Marczak, a senior researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab placed “Spy Sheikh” Tahnoun at the center of myriad hacking, espionage, and surveillance operations. A 2025 Wired profile of Tahnoun similarly described him as Abu Dhabi’s “spymaster sheikh,” noting G42’s “special areas of strength in state-sponsored hacking and surveillance tech.” [ Related AI’s Imperial Agenda](https://theintercept.com/2026/01/02/empire-ai-sam-altman-colonialism/) In 2019, the New York Times reported a covert Emirati government campaign to conduct surveillance through an instant messaging app called ToTok, an app itself Marczak tied to Tahnoon and through G42 in his 2020 analysis. The Wired profile described Tahnoun’s ambitions to “dominate AI” noted that “an engineer who worked at G42 at the time told me that all of the [ToTok] voice, video, and text chats were analyzed by AI for what the government considered suspicious activity.” G42 declined to comment, and neither it nor MGX responded to interview requests for Tahnoun. There is reason to believe G42 and MGX have already deployed Anthropic’s powerful large language models. A review of DNS data — internet records that connect website names to numerical addresses understandable by computers — show both G42 and MGX have both configured their servers to allow personnel to access Anthropic tools like Claude, the company’s flagship large language model. Anthropic has been more candid in internal communications about its stance on authoritarianism. “Unfortunately, I think ‘No bad person should ever benefit from our success’ is a pretty difficult principle to run a business on,” Amodei wrote in a 2025 memo on Gulf State venture capital obtained by Wired. He wrote that such investment would boost “dictators” and conceded that it would give an authoritarian government “some soft power” to wield against the company. Nonetheless, Amodei dismissed the risk of hypocrisy as a “Comms Headache” — a function of “very stupid” commentators “having a poor understanding of substantive issues.” Principles aside, Amodei explained in plain terms why he was interested in doing business with a repressive Gulf State. “We gain a very large benefit,” he wrote, “from having access to this capital.” The post Anthropic Says We Must Stop Authoritarian AI. But What About Its Authoritarian Investors? appeared first on The Intercept. From The Intercept via This RSS Feed.
Whatever Tiktok is doing, the correct response is to write enforcable laws to prevent ANY company from doing what Tiktok is doing. This is bad governance.
TikTok outrages should never become news headlines. But it’s the Daily Fail, so 🤷 That said - as if he could tell what each one would taste like.
He tells the officers his daughter is already asleep, and that he had hoped they could help talk to her about the seriousness of the situation. The female officer quickly tells him that his daughter could be charged with creating sexually explicit content. The father protests and says that she is a child who was manipulated by an adult, according to the police report and the father’s TikTok video. The officer asks him if she was taking pictures, and the father ends the conversation. In audio of the body camera footage, the female officer can be heard asserting again as she walks away from the house, “She’s taking pictures of herself naked. She’s creating child porn.” This is the same fucking logic groomers use… Once they get anything they shouldn’t have, they blame the victim and blackmail them into more and more stuff. Even if they do t get anything more, the child would be less likely to tell anyone. It’s fucking insane that the issue isn’t these cops, the actual law is set up like this, and there’s no way to know how often it prevents report.