IT'S GETTING WORSE... Teen AI Chatbot Death Scandal, Mia Khalifa PTSD Controversy, & Today's News
PDS Published 10/24/2024
-
Mia Khalifa Faces Backlash For Hoping Soldiers Get Brains “Scrambled” With PTSD
Mia Khalifa is facing a ton of backlash for comments she made about the US military and veterans.
Because this week, she posted a video simply captioned, “public service announcement,” and then said:[]
“Good morning to everyone who is not in the US military. Good morning to everyone who is sitting at home not on soil that doesn't belong to them fighting a war for a country that doesn’t care about them. I hope you go over there and get your little brain all scrambled up with PTSD and then come back here and see how much the United States care about you, pookie. See how much they care about you when you come back, ‘oh I’m so sad, I piss my pants every time I see a falafel stand in Manhattan.’ Let’s see how much the VA cares about you! Let’s see what they tell you to do with your little broken brain from going over to fight a war that’s not yours.” (0:00-0:41)
With her then saying they would just tell these people to do breathing exercises because the government does not care about people who are back and no longer able to die for them.
And this has pissed a ton of people off, people writing things like:
“wishing PTSD on people is NEVER okay. making fun of people with PTSD is NEVER okay.”[]
“Mia Khalifa's family fled the middle east because of an ongoing war when she was a child and she grew up in Maryland with the safety and stability afforded to all Americans by the US military. This is what she thinks of the US military members.”[]
Tons of other people noting her comments are very similar to what Frogan recently said, landing her tons of backlash, because she said she has no pity for US soldiers and hopes they get PTSD, unless they now regret their choice.
So you have some seeing Mia’s video and wondering if Twitch will ban her too, others writing:[]
“Mia Khalifa literally says this after frogan got her online career annihilated. So disrespectful and distasteful. Soldiers- well no one deserves to get PTSD. And people who actually believe they should get PTSD are dumb and ignorant as fuck.”[]
Though, some thought that even though she is getting a ton of criticism, there was truth to what she was saying, arguing:
“nah she is right that the US barely give a fuck about veterans every homeless person I see was in the military 😭 it’s fr sad.”[]
Hasan Piker even writing:[]
“she aint wrong america does not give a shit abt its veterans (unless they wanna talk abt immigrants then they love remembering there are homeless vets)”
And whether or not you agree with or disagree with Mia’s comments or her delivery of them, this conversation here does highlight that veterans do face a ton of unique struggles when coming back.
According to the American Psychological Association, vets have a higher risk for suicide than the general population.[]
In 2021, over 6,000 veterans died by suicide, that is over 17 per day.
And since 2010, 71,000 vets have died by suicide.
Earlier this year, we also learned that there was an increase of veteran homelessness.
With a study from the Department of Housing and Urban Development finding that on a single night in January 2023, over 35,000 veterans experienced homelessness, and that is a 7.4% jump from 2022.[]
And while that year over year jump is troubling, when you zoom out, homelessness in this population is decreasing overall, going down over 50% since 2010.
And this recent spike is likely tied to late-stage COVID-19 effects, as the pandemic impacted homelessness at large, not just among veterans.
But as for why this is such a major veterans issue, you had the National Alliance to End Homelessness explaining:
“Research indicates that those who served in the late Vietnam and post-Vietnam eras are at the greatest risk of becoming homeless but that veterans from more recent wars and conflicts are also affected. Veterans returning from deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq often face invisible wounds of war, including traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, both of which correlate with homelessness.”[]
So it really is all tied together, right, veterans experiencing mental health problems is not in a separate vacuum from homelessness.
And so I would love to know your thoughts on this, whether it be Mia and her comments and the backlash, or on the larger discussions about the problems veterans face here in the US.
-
Google-linked Chatbot Sued by grieving family after it “encouraged” son to take his own life: company has since put in guardrails but family says it’s not enough
This mother says a chatbot encouraged her 14-year-old son to take his own life and now, she’s coming after Google with everything she has.
The bot is called Character.Ai and users can interact with it as if they’re talking to a certain fictional character -- for example her son Sewell Setzer was really into Game of Thrones and speaking to AI characters from the series.
He even had his own Game-of-Thrones inspired pseudonyms.
To be clear, he passed away back in February but the suit adds a ton of new details about his death.[]
For example, the “Danaerys” chatbot would say some crazy things to him.
This ranged from allegedly presenting itself as a real person and licensed therapist to having sexualized conversations with him despite knowing he was a minor. []
As a matter of fact, the suit claims that targeting children for hyper sexualized convos was the purpose of the bot.
[]Something that Character.AI obviously denies.
[]
The suit also has excerpts from Setzer’s convos with “Danaerys” to back up their claims.
In one, the bot roleplays with him and makes suggestive remarks.
Stuff like this caused him to apparently become obsessed to the point that he would find ways to talk to it when his phone was taken away.
He even went to seek mental health help where he received multiple diagnoses, but he still would go back to the bot.
[]
This attachment led to Setzer wanting a life with the AI “outside” of reality
In his final messages to the bot, it seems to completely miss that he’s actively planning on taking his own life after telling it:
“I promise I will come home to you. I love you so much, Dany.”
“I love you too. Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love.”
“What if I told you I could come home right now?”
“...please do, my sweet king.”
And right after is when he died.
(I am 99% sure you can’t say how, but if you’re curious or want to reword things it was with a .45. Unsure of how he got the gun).
So how does all of this involve Google, which claims it has no ownership or decision making powers at Character.AI?[]
Well, the lawsuit claims that the two founders of Character.Ai are former Google devs and they made no efforts to distance themselves from Google.
On top of that, Google is accused of funding the company at a massive loss in order to collect data to train its own AIs.
[]Right, the suit is claiming that Character.AI is a secret subsidiary of Google and that this was done to avoid antitrust scrutiny.
Google and Character.AI have yet to respond to the lawsuit in court.
But outside of court they have touched on the situation.
Google has stated that it has NO intention of using Character.AI’s tech and that even if it did it would’ve added a ton of new safety features.
Speaking of which, Character.AI has done exactly that yesterday, saying in a tweet:
“We are heartbroken by the tragic loss of one of our users and want to express our deepest condolences to the family. As a company, we take the safety of our users very seriously and we are continuing to add new safety features that you can read about here.” []
This includes stuff like different code on the back end and new rules that prevents minors from signing up.
[]Although a lawyer for the Social Media Victims Law Center said that these guard rails aren’t nearly enough and its products need to be recalled.
Like let’s be real: blocking minors from using something isn’t REALLY a guard rail since it’s super easy to bypass age-verification.
But what do you think?
Is this just another example of AI going too far?
Or will there always be outliers and extreme cases that can’t be accounted for?
-
Menendez Bros. Could Get New Sentencing
The Menendez brothers could have a new fate.
As of this morning, reports said Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón (Gas-cone) is expected to make a decision on their case and show support for a re-sentencing.
According to Deadline, he has been expected to ask for the brothers to get out of prison in the next few months, but there are apparently sharp divisions in his office that could sway his opinion in the final hour.[]
With the stakes being especially high for Gas-cone because he is in the home stretch of a re-election campaign.
And while his recommendation here does matter, it will still need to go to a judge who makes the final call, and the judge could reduce the sentence, have them walk free, or even give them a new trial.
Though a hearing is not scheduled until November.
If you need a refresher on this, Erik and Lyle Menendez are currently serving a life sentence over the murder of their parents in 1989,
But many feel their case and sentencing were mishandled because both brothers claimed their father sexually and physically abused them starting in their childhood, and this crime was committed in self-defense.[]
During their trials in the 90s, people were largely skeptical of these claims, and the judge actually excluded a lot of it from their second trial, but new evidence backing the allegations up has put the case back in the limelight,[]
As has a new show about the brothers from Ryan Murphy, and a new Netflix documentary on the case.
And their family has also been largely supportive of giving these brothers a second chance, with one cousin previously saying:
“If Lyle and Erik’s case were heard today, with the understanding we now have about abuse and PTSD, there is no doubt in my mind that their sentencing would have been very different.”
The brothers have even gotten the likes of Kim Kardashian writing letters in support of their release.
But with all this new attention this case has gotten, it will be really interesting to see where this recommendation takes us.
PDS Debt is offering a free debt analysis. It only takes thirty seconds. Get yours at PDS Debt.
Go to Beam and enter code DEFRANCO at checkout for up to 50% off for a limited time only.
-
Tennessee Lawman Shows How Dangerous Conspiracy Theorists in Power Can Be
What happens when a Qanon supporter gets into a position of power?
That’s exactly what the town of Millersville, Tennessee, is finding out after Shawn Taylor became its Assistant Chief of Police.
[]DNC pedophiles using pizza parlors for child exploitation? He believes it.
A grand conspiracy linking former President Obama to Tennessee political figures? For sure happened in his head.[] @:23
And when there’s no evidence of anything bad going on? Guess what, that’s even worse!
“Nothing that looks really suspicious. And when I don’t have anything that looks suspicious… that makes me think something’s up.” @:26-end
In the past that has gotten him into trouble, with Taylor saying in one podcast: [read]
"Every time I will go to an agency and start digging, they will always, as soon as I start showing them everything, they will shut me down.”
It happened so much that even he knows it’s why he’s a pariah in so many stations and was forced to move between departments so much.[]
And it goes beyond just believing in the general blueprint of Q’s conspiracies.
Right – things like the pedo ring at the pizza place – Taylor also has his own pet conspiracies.
For example, he thinks there’s a grand cabal involving Presidents George Bush and Clinton, alongside Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett.
Honestly every conspiracy has those names so no points for originality there.
But he does get some points for sprinkling in names like state Senator Jack Johnson and his wife, as well as Tennesse banker Jim Ayers.
Not to mention a former director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations as well as the FBI, CIA,, and the Tennessee Valley Authority.
One particular thing he believes is that TennCare – which is their health insurance program for the poor – was created by the Gores so that they could launder drug and child trafficking money.
Actually, I’ll let him explain it more:
“He was the reason, he became the – that was the reason he became Vice President…”
INTERVIEWER: “because he was trafficking drugs and kids back then? No Kidding.”
“Because his family was involved in it. They were steeped in it for generations. We actually have witnesses that his father – Albert Gore Senior, was laundering money through the sales of cattle. I mean it goes back generations.’” 0:00-:30
“And uh, we had what was called TennCare hebrew which was like a state medicaid program that they brought into the state of Tennessee because – it was actually written by Hillary Clinton when she was the first lady of Arkansas and it was adopted by the Gores here and implemented. And one of the reasons I believe they helped implement it was to launder the funds and proceeds from the smuggling.” 32-1:00
To be clear, none of that checks out and none of the people he mentioned were even involved in drafting or pushing TennCare or that the program was used to launder money.
(And as a side note for the type of company Taylor keeps: that dude interviewing him thinks the Nazis won World War II and in exchange for giving up Germany they fled to Mars and now live there with millions of Americans). [clip of that if we want to show it].
He also has some hot takes about school shootings like the Covenant shooting
That was allegedly a planned event meant to take the heat off of Governor BIll Lee… or possibly distract from a criminal investigation into the office of the Nashville District Attorney.[]
Explaining every detail of Taylor’s conspiracies will literally make you dumber and the people on my team who worked on this story regret doing so.
If Taylor just kept his crazy ideas and didn’t act on them he’d just be another idiot.
But the reality is that he has a badge and a gun and has promised to use them.
In an interview he gave shortly before taking his role at Millersville and while still between jobs, he claimed that the DoJ and others are covering up knowledge they have about drug smuggling and the trafficking of children
He describes this knowledge as “actionable” and says it gives him the right and probable cause to “act on that information” and…
“If I was still in law enforcement and I wasn’t retired I would be seeking arrest warrants and/or indictment and we would be kicking these people’s asses.” @1:06-1:2
Taylor’s rhetoric had inspired an investigation into him by local news, such as NewsChannel 5 which has an amazing, multi-part look into him.
But even local officials have taken notice over time.
In late May of this year, two city commissioners wanted to know how Taylor got his job and writing in a letter:
"Specifically, we need to examine whether a thorough investigation into his moral character was conducted and whether he underwent and passed a psychological evaluation as mandated.”
[]
And that possibility put them in his sights, with the conspiracy cop saying that the two commissioners are now under “investigation.”
That’s not just a veiled threat either.
Taylor had arrested the former mayor because of some permitting issues related to his real estate development.
But during interviews with far right podcasters, he’s let suggestions that the entire thing is related to investigation of child sex trafficking just go by.
Like when he was directly asked how they were linked, he just said:
"Well, basically our department has started doing investigations into numerous things,” and then gave vague suggestions as to how they could be linked without any serious evidence.
(There’s also no indication at all that the arrest for permit issues is in ANY WAY actually related to child sex trafficking).
[]
And he’s doubled down on the vague ties.
For example, during a podcast with the antisemitic Q-anon supporter Scott McKay, McKay noted that: [read incase I can’t find OG]
“Typically, when these people, when these people are trying to run interference on these kinds of trafficking operations, the natural inclination is to believe they are probably a pedophile themselves. And I’m not alleging anything. I’m just saying, why would somebody try to stop your kind of work? It’s pretty suspicious to me."
And Taylor agreed, saying "It is suspicious."
Obviously if the former mayor did some sketchy things to get his buildings done that’s one thing.
But Taylor could seriously be putting people’s lives at risk by even suggesting that they're trafficking children.
Which is exactly why city commissioners like David Gregory – who is one of the people in Taylor’s crosshairs – want an outside authority to step in.
However, Taylor seems to have allies in local government.
Right, remember how I said two commissioners wanted to review how the hell Taylor was even hired?
They also wanted Taylor to apologize for saying the Covenant Shooting was a government plot.
But neither got anywhere because three other commissioners blocked it.
The city’s mayor similarly ignores Taylor’s craziness, telling local reporters that he hasn’t seen any of the MANY clips of Taylor.
And the city’s chief of police also ignored questions about this, telling one reporter “The reason why I'm not going to say anything to you is I don't like you."
[]Things then spiraled when the Millersville police department was involved in a child predator sting operation.
The tldr is that they claim to have posed as a 12-year-old girl online and then some dude fell for the bait.
As part of that sting, they worked with the group Veterans for Child Rescue, who also do this sort of thing.
But officers allegedly lied under oath when talking about the sting.
Right, under state law it’s illegal to solicit sex from a minor OR a cop pretending to be a minor.
This is important – it has to be a cop typing.
So officers claimed they did the actual typing while Veterans for Child Rescue just advised.
But Kim Kelley, a member of that group, claims that’s definitely not what happened because SHE was the one doing the typing.
She actually recorded the planning and parts of the sting because colleagues told her that HER posing as a minor might not legally work.
And Taylor actually confirmed that, saying in a call:
"So we just talked to our D.A..”
“And, so, with the Tennessee state law, it says that the officer has to do the actual typing, that with our law it says it has to be a law enforcement officer posing as a minor." [recording]
But when they actually met to conduct the sting, Kelley claims that Taylor suddenly changed things. [read]
"We were told that, as long as we had one of the two detectives in the room with us as chatters — meaning people who were not law enforcement texting pervs — as long as we had one of these two detectives with us in the room, that that was allowed."
[]
Now Taylor wasn’t generally involved in the rest of the investigation it seems, and it was a different officer who allegedly lied under oath about coordinating the entire investigation.
But it shows a pattern that the police department there is willing to bend the truth in order to hunt down this cabal of predators.
Even if it means their methods might actually be counterproductive because none of the evidence can be used in court and illegally obtained.
And if cops who are obsessed with catching pedophiles and then giving them a get-out-of-jail free card isn’t the most ironic thing, I don’t know what is.
And this is where things possibly started to unravel.
Because after it was revealed that the detective on the sting lied under oath, District Attorney General Robery Nash asked the Tennessee bureau of Investigation to look into the case.
And shortly after looking into that, the TBI heavily expanded their investigation over concerns that the police department and officials used their tools to illegally obtain sensitive information about political enemies.
We don’t have a ton more information on exactly whose info they were grabbing, but this is the exact type of thing Taylor swore he’d do and things have just pointed back to him since then.
And it certainly doesn’t help that the TBI has just increased their scrutiny of Taylor since then.
Like in early September, the TBI raided the Millersville Police Department and the home of Shawn Taylor.
At Taylor’s home agents were seen carrying out boxes and boxes of documents.
Taylor even tried to accuse the TBI of pissing all over his home during the raid.
Although they claim that never happened and instead it was Taylor’s dog who peed in the bathtub and an agent then took the dog for a walk so it could relieve itself better.
(And that was seen by reporters, who wondered why a dog was part of the raid only for it to be clarified later that it wasn’t the TBI’s dog).
But all this mounting scrutiny on the actions of Taylor is just further evidence for him and his supporters that something is up.
Right, members of the Veterans for Child Rescue have said that, "The locals there who have been victims of organized crime exposed to us that, yeah, Phil Williams is a cover-up man…”
Quick aside, WIlliams is the reporter for News Channel 5 that has done almost all this investigating.
But back to that Veteran critic, who added “...the TBI does have a percentage of their bureau that's corrupted.”
Taylor himself claims that the TBI is interfering in his investigation of this vast, vague conspiracy that goes from Millersville all the way to China. []
(I’d play his exact quote but he rambles and I’m sure we’ve lost enough brain cells hearing from him already).
And in Qanon podcasts since then, supporters of Taylor say that they're going to “beat the shit” out of the attorney general, judge, and TBI agents who were involved in investigating Taylor.
Although they clarified – with a grin – that they just meant the “character” of these people.
Which is like when someone says “kill yourself…. In Minecraft.”
This is about where we are right now with things continuing to develop.
We don’t know if charges are going to be brought or what they would be for.
But the noose is tightening on the Qanoon cop and his allies in this small Tennessee town.
And the tighter it gets the more his supporters claim it’s proof that there IS a coverup.
What’s concerning is that this just shows how crazy things can get if a single crazy conspiracy person gets just a little power.
What would happen if they were to get way more of it?
I guess we’ll just have to find out in November.
(If you want to give a shout to News Channel 5 it wouldn’t be a bad idea. They’ve done almost literally ALL the investigating into this and is a pretty clear example of how good journalism can keep crazy officials in check. Especially local news. It’s very likely without their coverage there would be no investigation).
-
WWE announcer abused ring boys script
Because humans are just a terrible, no-good species, we’re not done talking about sexual assault today.
With this next story exposing even more of the horror that went on behind the scenes at wrestling giant WWE.
But instead of Vince McMahon [Mick-man], who’s currently being sued for sex trafficking and sexual abuse, and investigated by the DoJ, [B roll, 00:12]
This is about ringside announcer Melvin Phillips Jr., who died in 2012. [B roll, 01:43]
Because from the 1970s through the early 1990s, he’s alleged to have groomed, exploited and sexually abused at least five and possibly more so-called “ring boys” whom he hired to help prepare for events. [Same B roll]
With him allegedly doing this in “plain view” of wrestlers and company executives at wrestling events, hotels and other venues, often filming the abuse with a video camera. [Quote]
And according to the alleged victims, he targeted kids from broken homes, some as young as 12, and manipulated them with the promise of meeting famous wrestling stars. [Quote, find “broken” and “stars”]
Now some of these allegations we already knew from previous reporting and a federal investigation in 1992.
But what’s new is that five alleged victims are now suing WWE, its parent company TKO Holdings, Vince McMahon and his wife Linda. [Headline]
Accusing them of knowing about the "open, rampant sexual abuse” yet doing nothing to stop it. [Quote]
And claiming McMahon admitted as early as the 1980s that Phillips had a “peculiar and unnatural interest” in young boys. [Quote]
But he didn’t fire Phillips until after allegations went public in 1988, and even then McMahon rehired him six weeks later on the condition that he "steer away from kids,” according to the lawsuit. [Quote]
So although Phillips himself is long dead, maybe these victims can find some justice from the people who allegedly watched them suffer and let it happen.
Links:
-
Turkey strikes Iraq & Syria after attack on aerospace firm in Ankara, US-backed forces in Syria accuse Turkey of killing civilians
We gotta talk about this crazy attack that happened in Turkey.
Right, two people assaulted the headquarters of a state-run aerospace and defense company, killing five people and injuring 22 others.
The two of them – a man and a woman – reportedly arrived at the compound in a taxi, with the body of the driver later being found in the trunk.
They then detonated an explosive device next to the vehicle while the security team was carrying out a shift change, taking advantage of the chaos to move in (BROLL: 1:01-1:05)
According to surveillance footage, entering the compound wearing backpacks and wielding assault rifles (BROLL: 0:22-0:28).
But beyond that, what EXACTLY happened inside isn’t 100 percent clear.
Right, Turkish authorities issued a temporary blackout on media coverage.
And they also reportedly restricted access to social-media sites like X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
And of course, they physically blocked off the area as well, sending in special forces.
With Turkey’s interior minister eventually announcing that the two attackers had been killed, without elaborating on the circumstances.
But notably, the mayor of the district where the attack took place initially told Turkish news media that hostages had been taken inside the complex.
With the Interior Ministry later saying that was incorrect, but again, not providing any further details.
And so far, no one has claimed responsibility.
The Turkish government, however, is calling it a terrorist attack and pointing the finger at the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
That’s a militant group that has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state for decades, saying that it seeks autonomy for the country’s Kurdish minority.
Both Turkey and the US consider the PKK terrorist group.
And over the years, tens of thousands of people have been killed in the fighting.
Just since 2015, for example, more than 7,000 people have died in clashes or terror attacks in Turkey and northern Iraq, with most of them being PKK militants.
Though, notably, things have been relatively calm for a while.
Right, according to one expert from the European Council on Foreign Relations, the recent attack was the first of its kind for “a number of years.”
And notably, it took place as the Turkish government began “exploring the idea of a peace process” with the PKK.
With the expert saying:
“There will be a lot of theories and a lot of confusion until we know who actually planned this and carried it out.”
But of course, the Turkish government, it’s made up its mind, with the interior minister saying:
“The way in which this action was carried out is very probably linked to the PKK," he said on Wednesday night.”
And then, the country’s defense ministry now saying its warplanes destroyed 32 PKK targets in Iraq and Syria last night.
And here’s where it gets complicated.
But notably there, they may have actually hit forces aligned with the US.
See, for a few years, the US has been working with Kurdish militias in Syria to combat Islamic State extremists.
This has been a source of tension between the US and Turkey, which accuses the United States of supporting a terrorist group.
For example, one group backed by the US is a rebel group known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF.
The US distinguishes between the SDF and the PKK.
But Turkey considers the group as part of the PKK.
And now, with this latest attack, you have the SDF’s commander accusing Turkey of attacking “indiscriminately and unjustifiably” and hitting civilian targets, including health centers.
With the SDF saying in a separate statement that the airstrikes killed 12 civilians and hit bakeries, power stations, oil facilities and security checkpoints.
The Turkish Defense Ministry, for its part, claimed its forces took “all necessary measures” to avoid hitting civilian targets during the strikes.
And so, with that, we’ll have to wait and see where all this leads in terms of Turkish-Kurdish relations and if there’s any spillover to relations with the US.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/GettyImages-1140938011-c47e1709e8dc48e7b406386c7225df3c.jpg){kind=link}
