Former Miss Turkey Arrested Over Instagram Post

http://sourcefed.com/former-miss-turkey-may-be-imprisoned-for-allegedly-insulting-turkish-president-on-instagram/

Former Miss Turkey winner, Merve Buyuksarac, could be sent to jail for two years on charges of 'insulting a public official'. All because of a poem she posted on her Instagram account. The poem allegedly insulted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. While the post has since been deleted, Hurriyet Daily News describes it as a satirical text titled "The Master's Poem." It had originally appeared in the Turkish magazine Uykusuz, a satirical publication which prides itself on mocking the Turkish political establishment and Erdoğan in particular. Buyuksarac was questioned by police about the poem last month. "I don't precisely recall the content I have shared on my Instagram account," she said, according to a report from Cihan news agency. "However, I might have taken excerpts from Twitter, other social media websites or the cartoon magazine Uykusuz.I shared it because it was funny to me, I did not intend to insult Recep Tayyip Erdoğan."

• Merve Buyuksarac has 15,000 followers on Instagram and 30,000 on Twitter.
• More than 60 people have been charged for their mockery of Erdoğan since August: Just a couple of months ago, a 16-year-old high school student was arrested after making a speech in which he described Erdoğan as "the thieving owner of the illegal palace."
• The Turkish president is no fan of social media either. “Twitter, mwitter!” is how he infamously put it last year, shortly before he put in force a wide-ranging yet ultimately ineffective ban on the social network.

This news article highlights how what we write online can largely impact our lives offline. This can especially be said when people's online following grows, and so your views at one particular moment become known by many instantly, whether you actually mean them or not. And so it is becoming increasingly obvious that as technology quickly evolves, what we post that we would later rather forget, will never be forgotten by the internet.

Why media coverage of alternative cancer cures is dangerous

http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2015/mar/04/why-media-coverage-of-alternative-cancer-cures-is-dangerous
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/kelly-logan-mum-refuses-nhs-5228826

Kelly Logan, who refused traditional treatments in favour
 of herbal remedies and a raw vegetable diet.

Last week the Mirror Online reported on the story of the "defiant mother" and breast cancer patient Kelly Logan, who refused surgery and being "pumped full of chemotherapy" that her doctors advised, electing instead to try and treat her condition with an intense regime of raw food and supplements. Her decision was seen in the article to promote this attitude towards cancer treatment, however Logan herself is not a cancer treatment specialist. It shows pictures of Logan looking happy and well with her family, along with rough outlines of her diet, her blog and the Macmillan (a cancer support) website.

The Guardian had the view that "articles like this one are extremely regrettable; they jeopardise the efforts of the many professionals who work tirelessly to improve the prospects of cancer patients". And so, could result in the avoidable deaths of cancer patients who follow in Logan's footsteps, and reject medical cancer treatment and instead opt for other methods. The article also includes details of the potentially harmful remedies that Logan suggests, including one in which The Mirror reported on a fortnight beforehand, that was being sold by a conman and so was "potentially toxic".

Jessica Ainscough rejected traditional cancer treatment.

A day after the article was posted Jessica Ainscough - Australia’s “wellness warrior” - died after her battle with cancer. She too, was faced with a serious diagnosis, but elected to treat her cancer with a regime of supplements and juices, which gained her regular positive coverage in the media, as well as gaining her tens of thousands of social media followers, who she recommended her lifestyle to, before dying aged 30 last week.

My view on The Mirror's article, as well as The Guardian's coverage of the article, is that both can be seen to be shaming one particular treatment of cancer. Although the medical treatment of cancer has a lot of research and evidence for it, each individual cancer sufferer has the right to know of all potential routes that they may take, and then make an informed decision based upon that. Shaming treatments, which can be seen in both articles, may funnel cancer patients into making a decision about their treatment, based on bias articles. Therefore it is important for media institutions to present unbiased articles on cancer treatment, so that readers come away from it informed, instead of having an opinion forced upon them.

Orange Wednesdays ends and the internet is very upset

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-02-25/orange-wednesdays-ends-today-and-the-internet-is-very-upset

Orange Wednesday's 2 for 1 cinema deals that had been going on for over ten years came to an end on the 25th February 2015. Mobile company EE announced it's plans to end the deal last year as it said that "customers' viewing habits had changed". In reaction to this, apps such as UsherU have been created, in an attempt to replace Orange Wednesday's with finding cinema deals in your area.

• Orange Wednesdays were created in an attempt to increase cinema visits during the quiet weekly periods. It also allowed Orange customers a 2 for 1 main courses with complimentary appetizers at Pizza Express restaurants. Both the cinema ticket and meal offers only required a text ticket from Orange, which is entered at point of purchase. 
• Orange offered "Orange Wednesdays" from 2003 until 2014. This enabled any Orange customer to apply for 2 for 1 cinema tickets at participating cinemas, by text message.

EE's decision to stop Orange Wednesday's, will cause a large reduction in the amount of cinema goers (especially teenagers) due to the ever increasing price of a ticket. When the deal first began in 2003, the average price of a cinema ticket was £4.43, which has now greatly increased in 2014 to £6.53, and more than £13 in London. On top of the price of the ticket itself, many cinema goers deem it necessary to buy popcorn and drinks whilst they are there, to complete their cinema experience. This can mean a very high bill once you've come out of the cinema, which can feel very disheartening, especially if the film you watched didn't turn out to be very good. With ever increasing film piracy online, as well as companies such as Netflix providing viewers with the ability to stream movies instantly, EE's decision may be the start of the end for cinemas.

Samsung smart TV policy allows company to listen in on users

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/samsungs-new-smart-tv-policy-allows-company-to-listen-in-on-users-10033012.html

The new privacy policy for Samsung’s smart TVs allows the company and its partners to listen in on everything their users say. The policy states: “Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.” It makes clear that the tool can be turned off through settings, though that will stop the voice recognition working entirely and Samsung will still continue to collect data about how people use the TV. The privacy policy has drawn much controversy though, because it has been compared to a passage in George Orwell's book 1984, in which it reads: “Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by [the screen], moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork.”

• The company says it stores this data and, under its privacy policy, states that it can share it with ‘affiliates and vendors
• And it’s not just television sets. It emerged that millions of Britons are being spied on by Microsoft’s voice-activated Xbox games consoles, which can listen in to everything around them. 
  In its privacy policy, Microsoft states that it is ‘only interested in your voice commands to Xbox, which we capture along with any ambient background noise. If you give Microsoft permission, we record commands whether you are online or offline’.

It has become increasingly more obvious that as technology evolves faster and faster, and becomes more prevalent in our everyday lives, it appears as though it comes at the cost to our privacy, meaning that unless we become paranoid enough to have to switch all of our devices at the mains, we could be listened in on at any given moment, sharing our lives with other people, even if we may not want to or are aware of doing.

Clare's Law: 1,300 domestic abuse disclosures made

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30977759

Under Clare's Law, otherwise known as the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, men and women can request information about whether their partner has had a history of domestic violence, or third parties such as friends or relatives can make requests if they are "concerned". Police and other agencies including social services then consider whether releasing information on someone's past is "necessary, lawful and proportionate" to protect someone from their partner. Reasons for information not being released include a partner not having a record of abuse offences, or there being no "pressing need for disclosure" based on the information found. Polly Neate, chief executive of charity Women's Aid, said: "Any woman asking for a disclosure under Clare's Law is clearly already concerned about her relationship, and should be referred to a specialist service so she can get support with her concerns, even if no disclosure can be made."

Clare Wood was murdered by George Appleton at her home in Salford in 2009

• There have been at least 3,760 applications under the law so far - resulting in the 1,335 disclosures. The true totals are likely to be higher, as three police forces did not release their statistics.
• Outside the four forces involved with the pilot, Lancashire had the highest number of disclosures at 146, while Norfolk had the lowest, with five.

I think that Clare's Law is an extremely important event to have occurred, and will prevent people from unknowingly staying in relationships with dangerous partners. However, it could make people with a past of domestic violence become isolated, by ending relationships because of it. But, personally, I think that isolating former domestic abusers is a small price to pay for protecting the lives of their vulnerable partners. 

Publishing Muhammad cartoons would have been too risky, says Amol Rajan

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/08/charlie-hebdo-muhammad-cartoons-independent-amol-rajan

The editor of The Independent newspaper has defended the fact that he did not publish Charlie Hebdo's cartoons caricaturing the prophet Muhammad and described doing so as “too much of a risk”. Rajan said that although he did of course want to print the cartoons and did not want to feel a sense of self-censorship, at the same time he felt that it would of been too much of a risk to the newspaper and it's staff to do so. He also added that this was part of a decision not "to be taken over by events"

• Danish newspaper Berlingske and German newspaper BZ were among very few newspapers to publish the controversial cartoons.
• A Danish newspaper drew death threats and incited protests by publishing cartoons satirising the prophet Muhammad in 2005.

My view on this story is that it is obviously a very difficult decision to make as an editor, as although you want to be fully granted freedom of speech, it could backfire drastically by offending the audience and outraging them enough that you could endanger both you and your staff members. It is sad to know that even in this present day and age, even though we are at the height of freedom of speech so far, we are still having to restrict ourselves. If we are granted freedom of speech, then we must be granted freedom to offend as well.

Goodbye smart gadgets. Hello dumb tech

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/06/goodbye-smart-gadgets-hello-dumb-tech-apple-nokia

With the new year having just arrived, consumers have been bombarded with a vast array of new gadgets, which companies insist they need to make their lives complete. However, consumers are increasingly coming to the realisation that however much you spend on a new piece of technology, sometimes it's better to just go back to the basics.

• The La Spaziale machine pictured can be bought for three and a half grand. The alternative? A Russell Hobbs CAMBRIDGE kettle and a jar of coffee granules for under twenty pounds.
• Again, another example is you could purchase a Motorised Treadmill with MP3 music and an electronic waist system for £399.00. On the other hand, you could simply put your running gear on and go run outside for free.

I think that technology can be extremely useful, and has brought about so many positive changes, whether that be connecting individuals to their loved ones through the ever advancing mobile phone, or through advances in medical science. However for some things it is better to go back to basics. Because although you might feel like you need a hundred and one different gadgets to perform the simplest of tasks, sometimes it's best just to go back to basics.