Fine with bot fines. NBC News’ Kailani Koenig reports: “Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said Sunday that she believes tech giants like Facebook and Twitter should face fines if they fail to get rid of ‘bots’ after they are discovered by the government. … ‘I think that would be a great idea,’ she said when asked on Sunday’s ‘Meet The Press.’ ‘But then you need a Congress to act and there are too many people who are afraid of doing something about this because we know these sites are popular.’ ”
An issue about which you might not be aware. NPR’s Nancy Rosenbaum reports (via MPR): “Amira Adawe has just arrived at a Somali-American community radio station in Minneapolis where she hosts a weekly call-in show called Beauty-Wellness Talk. After peeling off her winter jacket, Adawe slides a pair of headphones over her crown of dark, short curls. ‘Hello? As-Salaam-Alaikum,’ she says into the foam mouth of her studio microphone. An anonymous stream of listeners starts calling in to confide about a subject that is deeply personal and also taboo — skin bleaching.”
Interesting twist. MPR’s Tim Nelson reports: “An online fundraising effort has earned more than $25,000 in pledges for the family of student whose social media posts prompted a school lockdown in Orono last week. … A GoFundMe page set up for the student, described as having autism, says he is being held at the Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center. He was arrested last week after police investigated an anonymous online posting that threatened a school shooting at Orono High School. It was the second threat in less than a day and prompted a lockdown for more than 900 students, just a week after 17 people were shot and killed at a school in Florida.”
Should be quite a party. The Duluth News Tribune’s Lisa Kaczke writes: “Duluth is planning to give its Olympians a warm welcome home from South Korea. … The Duluth Curling Club is planning to gather at 5 p.m. Monday at the Duluth International Airport to welcome home the U.S. men’s curling gold medalists John Shuster of Superior; John Landsteiner, Tyler George and Joe Polo of Duluth; and Matt Hamilton of McFarland, Wis., as well as U.S. women’s curling team members Cory Christensen and Aileen Geving of Duluth.”
In other news…
A look inside Dessa’s brain: “The rapper Dessa scanned her brain to fall out of love” [The Verge]
45 percent of Minnesota’s Olympians play hockey: “The Geography of the U.S. Olympic Team” [CityLab]
Just what he would have wanted: “Prince-Inspired Cook Book to be Released Spring 2018” [Billboard]
Welcome: “Marjory Stoneman Douglas wins Fla. hockey title, headed for MN” [KARE]
Skin bleaching
After I originally read this story on MPR, I did a Google image search on skin bleaching. I found it really sad how many of these women (because most of the images that came up were women) were perfectly beautiful before the bleaching. Of course, I don’t have any (ready) way of knowing how many of the images were actually Photoshopped, but in general, how unfortunate that they don’t apparently feel that they can be both dark AND beautiful.
Although, from what I hear, the new Black Panther movie may be doing a pretty effective job at challenging some of those conventions . . . . . .