Dance music superstar Avicii dead at 28

Yahoo – AFP, Shaun TANDON, April 21, 2018

Avicii, seen here performing in the southern Swedish city of Malmo in 2016, was
among the first DJs to break through in the mainstream as electronic dance music
grew over the past decade from nightclubs to Top 40 radio (AFP Photo/Bjorn Lindgren)

New York (AFP) - Avicii, one of the world's most successful DJs who helped usher in the global boom in electronic music but struggled to cope with the hard-partying lifestyle, died Friday in Oman, his representative said. He was 28.

Two years after his unusually early retirement from touring amid recurring health scares, the Swedish DJ was found dead in the Gulf sultanate's capital Muscat.

"It is with profound sorrow that we announce the loss of Tim Bergling, also known as Avicii," his management said in a statement, without specifying the cause of death.

"The family is devastated and we ask everyone to please respect their need for privacy in this difficult time. No further statements will be given."

Maitrai Joshi, a DJ at the Muscat Hills Resort, said he had spotted Avicii and understood the dance superstar was on vacation in Oman for the first time and had extended his stay.

"I saw him again the next day and again he was friendly, humble and took some photos," Joshi told AFP by email.

Avicii was among the first DJs to break through in the mainstream as electronic dance music grew over the past decade from nightclubs to Top 40 radio. He created a global hit out of Coldplay's "A Sky Full of Stars," to which he added a layer of energetic electronica.

He also helped produce Madonna's last album. On Instagram, the pop icon posted a picture of herself in the DJ booth with Avicii and wrote: "So Tragic. Goodbye Dear Sweet Tim. Gone Too Soon."

His biggest individual hits included "Wake Me Up," which went to number one across Europe in 2013 and featured the soul singer Aloe Blacc.

Avicii was one of the world's most successful 

DJs (AFP Photo/Jason Merritt)

In 2015, he DJ-ed the wedding reception of Sweden's Prince Carl Philip and his bride Sofia. The couple mourned him in a statement, saying: "We had the honor to have known him and admired him both as an artist and the beautiful person that he was."

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven called Avicii "one of the greatest names of music in Sweden in modern times."

Scene 'not for me'

Avicii has spoken publicly in recent years about his health problems, including pancreatitis, triggered in part by excessive drinking.

The condition forced him to cancel shows in 2014 as he had to have his gallbladder and appendix removed.

In 2016, Avicii stunned fans by retiring from touring when he was just 26.

"The scene was not for me," he told music magazine Billboard after his decision.

"It was not the shows and not the music. It was always the other stuff surrounding it that never came naturally to me. All the other parts of being an artist," he added.

"I'm more of an introverted person in general. It was always very hard for me. I took on board too much negative energy, I think."

Avicii later returned to the more quiet life of a studio artist. Last year, he put out a six-song EP that featured British pop singer Rita Ora.

'Genius and musical innovator'

The son of Anki Liden, a prominent Swedish actress, Avicii had his start uploading tracks on the internet and was discovered by Dutch superstar Tiesto, who invited him to play at his residency in the clubbing hub of Ibiza.

Avicii, seen here at the Sziget festival in Budapest in 2015, took his stage name 

from the Sanskrit word for the lowest level of hell in Buddhism, adding an 

additional "i" at the end (AFP Photo/Attila KISBENEDEK)

His breakthrough single, "Levels," adapted a sample of soul singer Etta James and earned him one of his two Grammy nominations.

He took his stage name from the Sanskrit word for the lowest level of hell in Buddhism, adding an additional "i" at the end.

In 2014, he was tied with Tiesto as the third top-grossing DJ in the world on the list of Forbes magazine, which estimated his earnings for the year at $28 million.

Pop star Charlie Puth paid tribute to Avicii as "a genius and a music innovator" and said he "really opened my eyes to what my production could one day sound like."

Deadmau5 -- an outspoken top DJ who had mocked Avicii when he quit touring so young -- offered his "sincerest and most heartfelt condolences."

"Banter aside, nobody can deny what he has accomplished and done for modern dance music and I'm very proud of him," Deadmau5 tweeted.

Fellow star DJ David Guetta, who collaborated with Avicii on "Sunshine," wrote: "We lost a friend with such a beautiful heart and the world lost an incredibly talented musician

Electronic producer Diplo on Instagram called Avicii "the gold standard" in setting musical trends.

"I know you had your demons and maybe this wasn't the right place for you sometimes, but we need to protect true artists like you at all costs because there are not enough left and we are losing too many," Diplo said.

Magnetic fields possibly linked to childhood leukemia: Dutch health council

DutchNews, April 18, 2018

Children living in the vicinity of overhead power lines may have a greater chance of contracting leukemia, a report by the national health council said on Wednesday. 

One case every two years could possibly be linked to the effects of the magnetic fields surrounding the power lines, the council said. While a causal relation with magnetic fields has not been proven, ‘there are indications for such a relationship’, the council said. 

The report is an update of earlier research by the advisory body and was commissioned by the infrastructure ministry. Apart from cancer in children, the council will also look into the data available on cancer and diseases of the central nervous system in adults. 

Some 135 children are diagnosed with leukemia each year in the Netherlands. According to the council’s data analysis, there are indications that children who live near overhead power lines are twice as likely to fall victim to the disease. 

The council also analysed the data on other types of cancer in children and found a possible link between brain tumours and the strength of magnetic fields. However, again the higher instances could be down to coincidence, the council said. Both the distance from and the strength of magnetic fields were looked at. 

Danger zone 

Although hard and fast evidence for a link with the effects of magnetic fields is lacking and coincidence or other factors may play a role, the council says it cannot be ruled out. Current government policy is not to build homes too close to the power lines and offer compensation to people who already own a home in a presumed danger zone so they can move. 

The council now recommends an extension of the present preventative policy to include underground cables. Magnetic fields from these cables are not stopped by the soil or building materials. 

‘We already have a preventative policy in place on overhead power lines. If the government wants to be consistent it will also have to find ways of protecting people from exposure to magnetic fields from other sources of the electricity network, such as underground cables and transformer stations,’ spokesman Eert Schoten told broadcaster NOS.

Read a summary of the report, in English

Related Article:

"The A in Kundalini" – Oct 23, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) – (Subjects: What is Ascension, Ascended Consciousness, Ascension on cellular level (Biology), Activate/higher Efficiency DNA (90%), Air/Electromagnetic pollution in the air, Children will be born with bigger livers for pollution protection, Children will start to have instinct (like animals), 21-12-2012, Stop Aging, Ascension of Gaia, …etc.)

Kryon Q&A

(9) Question: Dear Kryon: I've read your books (only the ones that are translated in Dutch), and I have a French friend who also reads them. She tells me that it's not healthy to live near electric wires. She says that the cactus (which normally lives in the desert or tropical countries) helps eliminate the negativity of this electricity. Is that so, and is there any particular plant that can help eliminate the negative effects of electricity?

Answer: Indeed, we've admonished you to at least make a measurement (easily done) to see if you live in a magnetic field caused by the proximity to high-voltage lines that are often strung in the air near where you live. Not all these wires are bad. Some carry only communications, and some are lower voltages. The ones that are the most dangerous to you are those that are very large and that carry the power from city to city.

It's also true that certain kinds of plants carry energy that can help shield or void magnetics. This is actually a part of what you call "radionics," which we will leave for another discussion. This is not well known to the people reading this, however, and your friend is correct. Some cacti have water in them, which changes the situation slightly. However, if you're near a very large magnetic source, we still recommend moving instead of growing a lot of cactus. Even though the cactus "knows" what you're trying to do and might help reduce the risk, unfortunately, today's technology presents a far stronger field than can be voided by this plant.

Also know that there is now scientific validation to support the danger of the effects of long-term magnetic-field exposure on both plants and animals. It's not balancing for you to remain in a magnetic field. You should instead be exposed only to the one you were born in... the one that surrounds you and the earth, and which science is now beginning to understand is needed for your health and well-being... the earth's magnetic field. To have another one around you is to stop the flow of the balance that you need and deserve.

China's Weibo backtracks on gay content ban

Yahoo – AFP, Becky Davis, April 16, 2018

China's popular Sina Weibo microblogging platform reverses decision to block

'homosexual' content following storm of online protest

China's popular Weibo microblogging platform on Monday reversed a decision to block "homosexual" content, in an unusual concession to a storm of online protest at the weekend.

Sina Weibo said in a statement Friday it had begun a three-month-long "clean-up campaign" to remove "illegal" content, including "manga and videos with pornographic implications, promoting violence or (related to) homosexuality".

But the Twitter-like platform backtracked on Monday, stating on its administrators' official account: "This clean-up of games and manga is no longer directed at homosexual content, but is primarily to clean up pornographic and bloody, violent content."

It also thanked the public for "discussions and suggestions".

Weibo's decision on gay content had prompted a tide of protest from outraged users who rallied behind the hashtag "#IamGay", viewed some 240 million times before it was banned by the platform on Saturday.

Even the Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily jumped into the discussion, posting an essay promoting LGBT acceptance to its official Weibo account on Saturday. The posting was viewed nearly 6.5 million times.

"Everyone is unique and sexuality is just one side of us that differs, just like skin colour, height and weight," the essay said.

But it added that "even homosexual people are regular citizens" whose affiliated content was not above being subjected to censorship laws against porn and violence.

Monday's reversal was met with an outpouring of support.

"I support Sina in clearing out pornographic content, but it definitely must not do so as before and target homosexuality -- that kind of discrimination is wrong," wrote one user.

"Through everyone's unrelenting efforts, we finally got a basic right -- how rare!" wrote another.

A third said: "Although I still don't like you, I thank you."

Gay Voices, which has since 2009 been one of Weibo's major LGBT accounts with some 230,000 followers, had on Friday declared it would be forced to indefinitely suspend its postings.

On Monday it was back online and thanking supporters, saying: "Only by speaking up can we affect change."

Weibo's purge was the latest move in a crackdown by the ruling Communist Party to clear the Chinese internet of any content deviating from its "core values ​​of socialism", while stifling criticism of social norms and established policies.

The platform -- which has some 400 million active monthly users -- said in its original Friday statement that it was merely implementing China's new cybersecurity law and had already removed some 56,240 items.

'A step further'

Much of the homosexual content on Weibo is fuelled not by LGBT activists, who are quite low-profile, but by the large online community of "funu" ("rotten girls") -- heterosexual women who are avid fans of male gay romances and share comics or stories, frequently erotic.

The affair has highlighted the cultural gap between younger Chinese more open to LGBT issues and "China's older generation -- mostly very conservative 40-year-old men -- who are now the main force of our society because they control the resources," Xiao Tie, director of the Beijing LGBT Center, told AFP, using a nickname.

Xiao Tie said the homosexuality ban was a result of over-cautiousness in the absence of specific information from authorities on what kind of content should be censored.

"Sina Weibo doesn't want to make trouble, so they went a step further with their censorship before the government even asked for it," she said.

China has a mixed track record with gay themes in cultural products.

Last year it banned gay content from all online streaming platforms

Last month it pulled the Oscar-winning film "Call Me by Your Name" from the ongoing Beijing International Film Festival.

But after a two-year delay, Chinese theatres on Friday finally released "Seek McCartney", a film about a secret homosexual romance between Chinese and French lovers that has been hailed as the country's first gay movie.

EU senses Facebook scandal shifts privacy tide in its favour

Yahoo РAFP, C̩dric SIMON, April 14, 2018

Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg testifies earlier this week about the
data breaches at the social media which have sparked calls for tougher rules
(AFP Photo/SAUL LOEB)

Brussels (Belgium) (AFP) - Sensing the Facebook scandal has shifted the transatlantic winds, the EU is asserting itself as a forward-looking regulator rather than a retrograde bulwark against Silicon Valley's innovative might.

After years of mounting concern, the European Union will introduce tough new data protection rules next month, which Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg himself has welcomed in the face of the latest scandals.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into force on May 25, gives web users much greater control over how their personal information is stored and used, with big fines for companies that break the rules.

"I was really desperate about thinking how to make the best possible campaign for GDPR so now this is well done, so thank you Mr Zuckerberg," the EU's justice and consumer affairs commissioner Vera Jourova told reporters in Brussels this week.

"His declaration that they want to expand our European rules globally, it's only good news, it sounds very nice to me."

The GDPR is not the only EU action that has triggered accusations of protectionism against the new digital economy. It has also drawn fire over its massive anti-trust fines against Google and Apple as well as plans to tax internet giants.

During questioning by US senators on Tuesday over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Zuckerberg said Facebook was "committed to rolling out the controls and the affirmative consent" required by the new EU rules "around the world".

Under the new rules, companies will need explicit consent from users to share their data with third parties and people will have the right to know what personal information is stored about them and to ask for it to be deleted.

Breaches can lead to heavy fines -- up to four percent of a company's global turnover.

Zuckerberg said he took personal responsibility for the fact that 87 million people's personal data was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, a firm which worked for Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

'Wake-up call'

The Facebook chief "had always said the opposite, that it was going to kill the internet," said Viviane Reding, the centre-right European Parliament member who initiated the GDPR when she was a European commissioner in 2012.

"Now our regulation is seen as a positive step for the internet's future development," she told AFP.

Reding said the Cambridge Analytica scandal was a "wake-up call" to the United States in the same way that whistleblower Edward Snowden's revelations about mass US intelligence surveillance was to Europe.

The US senators who questioned Zuckerberg "studied closely the European legislation," Reding said. "They understood that this model is not an internet killer, but the basis for its balanced development."

European Parliament member Maria Joao Rodrigues, a Portuguese socialist, said times have changed, recalling how even some European governments had initially opposed the GDPR.

"US congressmen are contacting us at the European Parliament to learn about our experience," Rodrigues told AFP.

Jan Albrecht, a German MEP from the Greens party, said Europeans have demonstrated they have taken a "necessary step" to protect data, not stall the economy.

"The far-sightedness that the EU has shown is confirmed," Albrecht told AFP, recalling those who said "we must not create any hurdles for the digital economy".

'Extremely proud'

He said Europeans should stop doubting themselves and "be extremely proud" that they are leading the way and that their market is big enough to "set standards" for the rest of the world.

"The US Congress has failed to do so for years and left legislative initiatives untreated," Albrecht said.

Guillermo Beltra, a legal expert with the European consumers association BEUC, said the GDPR is a great example of the EU showing industry where "innovation should go towards", with society demanding citizen privacy first.

Dutch bye bye Facebook campaign leads 10,000 to say farewell

DutchNews, April 12, 2018

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Some 10,000 Dutch people have closed their Facebook accounts following a call to action by television show host Arjen Lubach, news website Nu.nl said on Thursday. 

Lubach, who presents the Zondag met Lubach programme, had urged viewers to take part in a mass closure event on Wednesday evening in response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. 

Of the 30,000 people who signed up, Nu.nl estimates 10,000 actually shut down their Facebook accounts. The news site bases its claim on checks made on 8,200 of the accounts which were registered for the event. 

Lubach said that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is unlikely to be affected by the closures.’That does not matter,’ he said. ‘Discussion has started and that is what this is about. And I do appreciate the fact so many people were prepared to join in.’ 

There are some 9.7 million Facebook users in the Netherlands.

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Health insurers track website visitors, pass information to Facebook

Facebook to verify identities for political ads

Yahoo – AFP, April 6, 2018

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the network will hire "thousands" of new
employees to verify the identity of political advertisers (AFP Photo/JUSTIN SULLIVAN)

Washington (AFP) - Facebook announced Friday that it will require any political ads on its platform to state who is paying for the message, and would verify the identity of the payer, in a bid to curb outside election interference.

The social network, which is under fire for enabling manipulation of its platform in the 2016 election, said the new policy would require any messages for candidates or public issues to include the label "political ad" with the name of the person or entity paying for it.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg said the change will mean "we will hire thousands of more people" and will take place this year ahead of US mid-term elections in November.

"These steps by themselves won't stop all people trying to game the system," Zuckerberg said on his Facebook page. "But they will make it a lot harder for anyone to do what the Russians did during the 2016 election and use fake accounts and pages to run ads."

A separate Facebook statement said the changes would help improve transparency and accountability of the network.

"We believe that when you visit a page or see an ad on Facebook, it should be clear who it's coming from," the statement said.

"We also think it's important for people to be able to see the other ads a page is running, even if they're not directed at you."

To get authorized by Facebook, "advertisers will need to confirm their identity and location," the statement said.

"Advertisers will be prohibited from running political ads -- electoral or issue-based -- until they are authorized."

Facebook made the announcement as Zuckerberg prepares to appear before Congress next week to answer questions about the harvesting of personal data on 87 million users by a British political consultancy working for Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

Gay dating app Grindr scorched for handling of HIV data

Yahoo – AFP, 3 April 2018

Grindr founder and CEO Joel Simkhai attends an event at Milk Studios in
Hollywood, California, in October 2015

Gay dating app Grindr was under fire on Monday for sharing information about users' HIV status or locations with two companies enlisted to optimize its software.

Grindr chief technology officer Scott Chen said in a Tumblr post that sharing data with partners such as Apptimize and Localytics was "industry practice" and that steps were taken to protect people's privacy.

"As a company that serves the LGBTQ community, we understand the sensitivities around HIV status disclosure," Chen said.

"Our goal is and always has been to support the health and safety of our users worldwide."

Grindr users have the option of sharing their HIV status and when they were most recently tested.

Researchers worried that including the health information with other data such as location and email address could result in people being identified.

Online rights champion Electric Frontier Foundation called Grindr's response "disappointing."

The Los Angeles-based company said that it uses Apptimize and Localytics to test and validate its platform, and that data it shares with them could include users' HIV status or location fields.

Sensitive data are encrypted when sent, and vendors are under strict contractual terms to keep it secure and confidential, according to Chen.

Norwegian nonprofit research group SINTEF uncovered the data sharing, and concern spread in the US after Buzzfeed reported the findings.

"Grindr has never, nor will we ever sell personally identifiable user information –- especially information regarding HIV status or last test date -– to third parties or advertisers," Chen said.

He noted though that Grindr is a public platform, and that should be kept in mind when deciding what to put in profiles.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) called Grindr's data sharing "an egregious breach of confidentiality laws," demanding it "immediately cease and desist the reckless practice."

"It is extremely unfortunate that those men who have been courageous enough to share their HIV status, be it positive or negative, on their Grindr profiles, may have now had that most personal data indiscriminately shared by Grindr," said Michael Weinstein, the AHF president.

"We laud those Grindr members for their courage and challenge Grindr to quickly get its act together to restore the confidentiality all members deserve."

News website Axios reported that Grindr's security chief said the company has stopped sharing users' HIV status with its third-party vendors.

"You guys should just close up now," read one of the few comments in an online chat forum under the Grindr post at Tumblr.

"No one cares about your efforts or industry standards. You betrayed the LGBT community in more than just the one way."