Tag: social media

It Started With Thirst Traps on TikTok. Now, She’s Accused of Running a Cult

When Chae first saw Angela Vandusen, aka @angelatheegoddess, on her TikTok For You page last year, she was instantly smitten. A 27-year-old based in Michigan, Vandusen was a home health care aide and an aspiring natural oils entrepreneur, but she had amassed many devoted adherents by posting thirst traps on the platform, most of which followed a specific template: she’d turn her steely blue gaze on the camera, usually while biting her lower lip and lip-synching provocative lyrics, or simulating strap-on sex while winking to the camera. She’d built a following of about 50,000 followers based on those videos, as well as videos documenting her dramatic weight loss journey.

A single stay-at-home mom of two children, Chae, who requested her last name be withheld to protect her privacy, wasn’t looking for a girlfriend at the time. But when Vandusen popped into her TikTok Live late last year, she was giddy with excitement. “She was my biggest TikTok crush at the time,” Chae says. It wasn’t just Vandusen’s looks — the penetrating stare, the chest tats, the razor-sharp cheekbones — that attracted Chae. It was also the fact that Vandusen frequently made videos about her love of BBWs (big beautiful women), coupled with those documenting her own weight loss journey. As a BBW herself, Chae was intrigued. “She understands what a bigger person goes through, the insecurities and stuff like that,” Chae says.

Chae and Vandusen exchanged numbers, and they began chatting every day, sometimes late into the night while Vandusen was still working her shifts. When Vandusen told Chae she was involved in the kink lifestyle and wanted Chae to be her submissive, Chae says, she didn’t bat an eyelash; though she’d never dabbled in kink before, the prospect intrigued her. Same went for the fact that Angela had a slew of online admirers, who’d go into her Lives every Saturday to lobby for her affection: Chae was also interested in the poly lifestyle, and says she didn’t initially feel jealousy in that regard.

Then, in the winter of 2021, another one of Angela’s subs started calling her “daddy.” Angela apparently liked it, and on one of her Lives, she requested that all of her followers refer to her as “Daddy,” and that they refer to themselves as “Daddy’s Girls.” “It mainly was like a sisterhood,” says Chae. “At least, that’s how it started.”

Now, Vandusen, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment, is alleged to be the leader of the Daddy’s Girls cult, a group of female devotees who identify themselves with a yellow heart in their bio (this was, Chae says, inspired by the fact that she once painted her nails yellow, and Angela liked the color). Many of the members of the so-called “Daddy’s Girls cult,” as TikTokers describe it, are Black women; their bizarre Lives, in which they pray to Vandusen like a god, have attracted the attention of black TikTok. The level of scrutiny around them was heightened last spring after Chae left the group and made several allegations against Angela publicly, such as that she forced her “Girls” to cut themselves and pull out their own hair if they displeased her. And while many of Vandusen’s so-called “girls” state that their relationships with her are consensual, and that they follow her of their own volition, cult experts disagree.

“What definitely is going on here is psychological manipulation,” says Diane Benscoter, a cult expert and former member of the Unification Church, who runs the group Antidote.ngo. “This person is taking advantage of TikTok and social media and it’s a business, almost, where the goal is total control over a specific group of people. It’s definitely got all of the components that one would call a cult.” In their Lives, Angela and other members of the group would also validate claims that the group was a “cult,” albeit in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. “They say it’s a cult,” Angela says in one Live, responding to another user’s comment and grinning. “Want to join?” 

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Big Tech announces climate change “misinformation” to be the next censorship target

After “tackling” – some say disastrously for online speech – the topics of US elections and Covid by promoting content that is considered “authoritative” and suppressing, to various degrees, everything else, Facebook, Twitter, and Google are further narrowing the space for their users’ free expression.

These enormous digital squares, the social platforms-turned-approved speech enforcers will now add climate change to the list of issues discussions about which are strictly controlled and censored, when information users post or share clashes with the giants’ idea of what’s true and what’s false.

Media like Axios already have something akin to a pejorative for those who happen not to be on board the current climate change narrative – their stance is described as “climate denialism.”

And as the elites are gathering in Glasgow, Scotland for the UN-sponsored COP26 summit, tech giants who operate some of the biggest social media platforms on the planet are using the opportunity to “finally” fall in line and contribute with the best (or the worst, depending on your point of view) they have to offer – censorship, and manipulation of content visibility and reach.

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The UK plans to make online “pile-ons” a crime, in chillingly broad attempt to suppress speech

The UK is preparing to criminalize what is perceived as internet trolling that causes “likely psychological harm,” thanks to the country’s upcoming Online Safety Bill that is introducing a new set of criminal offenses.

And while the punishment internet users in the UK could face under the new legislation is clear – up to two years in prison – the definitions of their “crimes” are a good deal murkier.

In addition to their posts “likely” causing psychological harm, users can also be accused of committing a crime if they post messages containing “threatening communication” – but not necessarily, as defined in the previous law dealing with online hate speech and abuse, because they are found to intend to follow through on the threat.

Instead, it would be enough to “prove” that the recipient of such posts and messages “feared” the threat was real.

Another offense has to do with spreading information that internet users “know” is false, again, in order to cause emotional or physical harm to their “likely audience.” The proposed bill is littered with equally vague and subjective definitions of future crimes that could be hard to prove in a court of law.

The Department for Culture, Media & Sport incorporated the “likely psychological harm” as a basis for the new legislation, as recommended by the Law Commission, and will include them in the bill once it is forwarded to the UK government, which should approve it before it hits parliament in November.

Another recommendation that has been accepted is to make online “pile-ons” a crime – i.e., several users sending trolling messages perceived by the recipient as harassing, while one example a government source gave to the media of what it means to “knowingly” spread false information would be if a vaccine skeptic or a vaccine hesitant person speaks about their conviction – that is apparently automatically considered untrue, while the author is held responsible for “knowing” it.

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People in UK Who Post “False Information” About Vaccines Could be Jailed For Two Years

People in the UK who post “false information” about vaccines online could face two years in prison under a new law.

Yes, really.

The Online Safety Bill, described as “the flagship legislation to combat abuse and hatred on the internet” has faced fierce criticism from civil liberties groups for its broad overreach.

The law would create a “knowingly false communication” offence which, according to the Times, “will criminalise those who send or post a message they know to be false with the intention to cause “emotional, psychological, or physical harm to the likely audience”. Government sources gave the example of antivaxers spreading false information that they know to be untrue.”

Given that authorities have deemed all kinds of information about the pandemic and vaccines “false” that later turned out to be true, this is a chilling prospect.

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WitchTok: the rise of the occult on social media has eerie parallels with the 16th century

It’s 1.30am in the morning, and I’m about to watch a duel between magicians. One is a “demonolater”, a word I have never heard before, someone who claims they worship demons and can petition them in return for knowledge or power. The other describes themselves as a “Solomonic magician”, and claims to be able to command demons to do his bidding, as some Jewish and Islamic traditions have believed of King Solomon, who ruled Israel in the 10th century BC.

I first discovered this debate because, in the course of studying 16th century books of magic attributed to Solomon, I had found, to my astonishment, that “Solomonic magic” is still alive and well today, and growing in popularity. Twitter had suggested to me that I might be interested in an account called “Solomonic magic”, and a few clicks later I had found myself immersed in a vast online community of young occultists, tweeting and retweeting the latest theories and controversies, and using TikTok to share their craft.

To my further bemusement, it seemed that the tradition of Solomonic magic had recently faced accusations that its strict and authoritative approach to the command of demons amounted to a form of abuse, akin to domestic violence. As I had made a note in my diary of a public debate that I wanted to attend out of sheer curiosity, it seemed astonishing to be asking myself whether Solomonic magic, the same found in books of necromancy dating back hundreds of years, was on the brink of cancellation in 2021.

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Facebook employee said censorship colleagues were “drunk on power”

A Facebook data scientist accused fellow employees of being “drunk on power” for censoring posts supporting Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who killed two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, at the height of last summer’s riots.

The data scientist said some of the censored posts did not violate the platform’s policies as they were discussing whether Rittenhouse was being treated fairly and if he was acting in self-defense. Rittenhouse’s official stance at trial will be self-defense.

Facebook removed many posts supporting Rittenhouse because its policies prohibit the praising of “mass shootings” and “mass shooters.”

In Facebook internal discussions, obtained by the New York Post, most employees agreed with the censorship of pro-Rittenhouse posts. However, one employee, a data scientist, disagreed.

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Pope Francis calls on social media platforms to censor more “misinformation”

In a virtual meeting during the weekend, Pope Francis called on tech companies to be more responsible about the spread of “misinformation.”

The Pope made the remarks during the World Meeting of Popular Movements, which, according to Reuters, is “a grouping of grassroots organizations and social movements which bring attention to inequality in labour, land ownership, health care, and other social issues in the developing world.”

The pope noted that “the pandemic had laid bare the social inequalities that afflict our peoples.” He added that “technology can be a tool for good, and truly it is a tool for good, which permits dialogues such as this one, and many other things, but it can never replace contact between us, it can never substitute for a community in which we can be rooted and which ensures that our life may become fruitful.”

In his speech, the Pope singled out tech platforms for aiding the spread of misinformation.

He said: “In the name of God, I ask the technology giants to stop exploiting human weakness, people’s vulnerability, for the sake of profits without caring about the spread of hate speech, grooming, fake news, conspiracy theories, and political manipulation.”

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Facebook Adds To Its Orwellian Content Moderation By Protecting Activists And Journalists From “Bullying”

Just when you thought the censorship at social media companies couldn’t possibly get any worse, Facebook has come along and moved the bar. 

The company is now going to be protecting activists and journalists, who is is called “involuntary” public figures, with additional safeguards against “harassment and bullying”, Reuters reported. 

The company says people it determines to be “human rights defenders” will be protected under the new safeguards, which we’re sure will be completely discretionary and applied only to those “activists” who are advocating for liberal causes. 

Nevermind the fact that when someone becomes an “activist” they are no longer an “involuntary” public figure, but we digress.

Facebook’s handling of public figures has been an area of debate over the last month, as the company deals with allegations form a “whistleblower” who went public with details of the company’s content moderation strategies. 

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Another fake fact check from Facebook’s “Science Feedback”: this one about Amish Covid-19 immunity

If you’ve paid attention, you already know that Facebook’s “Science Feedback” and other health-related fact checkers are prolific distributors of misinformation and false information that typically benefits the vaccine or pharmaceutical industry.

They tend to “fact check” articles about medical studies and topics that are having an impact on the public, in hopes of tamping down the buzz and circulation of the data or details.

This week, these players are working hard to keep the public from learning that the Amish have claimed to reach “herd immunity” with Covid-19 and fared better than places that imposed drastic measures. The Amish say they did so without masking, closing, social distancing, or vaccination.

The Amish claim of herd immunity was previously reported by Associated Press and other news organizations, but didn’t get wide circulation. The propagandists and fake fact checkers didn’t challenge the topic at the time.

But my report on the same, which aired last Sunday on Full Measure, must be having an impact.

In response, Facebook’s Health Feedback propagandists have made several false and unsupported claims in an attempt to discredit The Amish approach and the reporting about it.

The fake fact-checkers, edited by a woman named Fernanda Ferreira, falsely claim that “natural immunity post-infection is variable, while vaccination provides safer and more reliable immunity.” The bulk of the scientific studies show the opposite. (You can find them here and decide for yourself.)

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