Dinesh D’Souza election fraud film, book ’2000 Mules’ pulled after defamation suit; CNBC, May 31, 2024

Christina Wilkie , CNBC; Dinesh D’Souza election fraud film, book ’2000 Mules’ pulled after defamation suit

"The conservative gadfly Dinesh D’Souza’s film and book “2000 Mules,” which pushes false conspiracies about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, has been removed from distribution by its executive producer and publisher, according to an announcement Friday.

Salem Media Group has announcement that it had yanked D’Souza’s film and book also apologized to Mark Andrews, a Georgia man falsely accused in “2000 Mules” of ballot stuffing.

Andrews in late 2022 filed a federal defamation lawsuit against the company, D’Souza, and the non-profit advocacy group True The Vote, which contributed to the “2000 Mules’ project."

Beatle late than never – stolen 'Life' magazine featuring Fab 4 returned to library after 50 years; News 5 Cleveland, February 28, 2019

Ian Cross, News 5 Cleveland; Beatle late than never – stolen 'Life' magazine featuring Fab 4 returned to library after 50 years

"Cuyahoga County Public Library representatives may be doing the twist and shout after they received the Life magazine from 1968, along with a money order for $100 and a letter that read: 

“I stole this magazine from the Parma Ridge Road Library when I was a kid. I’m sorry I took it. I’ve enclosed a check for the late fee.” 

In a Facebook post, library officials thanked the anonymous paperback burglar for returning the “borrowed” magazine that was able to get back to where it once belonged."

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg On Data Privacy Fail: 'We Were Way Too Idealistic'; NPR, April 5, 2018

Vanessa Romo, NPR; Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg On Data Privacy Fail: 'We Were Way Too Idealistic'

[Kip Currier: Interesting Public Relations strategy that Facebook's COO Sheryl Sandberg tested out with NPR.
What do you think--was it "idealistic" naivete, careless indifference, an intentional component of Facebook's business model and strategic planning, willful blindness, negligence, and/or something else?]

""We really believed in social experiences. We really believed in protecting privacy. But we were way too idealistic. We did not think enough about the abuse cases," [Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg] said.

Facebook, the world's largest social media company, is in the middle of a reputational crisis and faces questions from lawmakers and regulatory agencies after the political research firm Cambridge Analytica collected information on as many as 87 million people without their permission. Previous estimates had put the number of users affected at 50 million.

Now the company, which has lost about $100 billion in stock value since February, is reviewing its data policies — and changing some of them — to find better methods of protecting user data.

And its leaders are apologizing.

"We know that we did not do enough to protect people's data," Sandberg said. "I'm really sorry for that. Mark [Zuckerberg] is really sorry for that, and what we're doing now is taking really firm action."

The Federal Trade Commission is looking into whether Facebook violated a 2011 consent decree by allowing third parties to have unrestricted access to user data without users' permission and contrary to user preferences and expectations.

The penalties for violating the order would be devastating, even for Facebook. At $40,000 per violation, the total cost could theoretically run into the billions."

More advertisers drop Laura Ingraham's Fox News show despite apology to David Hogg; Los Angeles Times, March 30, 2018

Stephen Battaglio, Los Angeles Times; More advertisers drop Laura Ingraham's Fox News show despite apology to David Hogg

"Ingraham is often the fourth most-watched program in all of cable news with about 2.6 million viewers nightly.

Ingraham's apology came quickly, considering that Fox News commentators have typically resisted backing down when under attack for their controversial statements. But the support and sympathy for Hogg and other Parkland students has prompted advertisers to continue to bail from her program.

Hogg did not accept Ingraham's apology. He told the New York Daily News on Friday that Ingraham will have to admit she slandered his classmates in her coverage of their gun protests....

Ingraham said at the end of her Friday program that she will be on vacation with her children next week. Fill-in hosts will appear on "The Ingraham Angle" in her absence."

Three CNN employees resign over retracted story on Russia ties; Washington Post, June 26, 2017

Erik Wemple, Washington Post; Three CNN employees resign over retracted story on Russia ties

"CNN announced on Monday afternoon that three network officials are leaving their jobs over the incident: Frank, the reporter on the story; Eric Lichtblau, a recent CNN addition from the New York Times who edited the piece; and Lex Haris, the executive editor of “CNN Investigates.” The moves follow an investigation carried out by CNN executives over the weekend, with the conclusion that longstanding network procedures for publishing stories weren’t properly followed. “There was a significant breakdown in process,” says a CNN source. “There were editorial checks and balances within the organization that weren’t met.”...

Regarding the personnel changes, a CNN source said, “The individuals all stated that they accepted responsibility and wanted to resign.”...

Critics will long cite this episode as evidence that CNN is precisely what Trump has called it — “fake news.” Yet the departure of three journalists immediately following a mangled story provides a counterpoint to this particular slander. Purveyors of fake news, after all, don’t take drastic personnel moves following a bogus story. They rejoice in it."

VW Moves Beyond Criminal Case, but Not Without a Scolding; New York Times, April 21, 2017

Bill Vlasic, New York Times; 

VW Moves Beyond Criminal Case, but Not Without a Scolding

"The criminal case against Volkswagen for its decade-long scheme to cheat on diesel emissions tests ended Friday with a scolding, an apology and $4.3 billion in penalties.

The sentence, affirmed at a court hearing, had been recommended by federal prosecutors in January as part of a deal in which the German automaker agreed to plead guilty to three felony charges for illegally importing nearly 600,000 vehicles equipped with devices to circumvent emissions standards.

The conclusion of the criminal case, 19 months after the vast cheating operation was first revealed, was a milestone in Volkswagen’s recovery from a scandal that badly damaged its reputation and sales. This week it delivered an encouraging quarterly report, and the company has even been given permission to sell — with modifications — the diesel cars at the center of the case."

Woman Wants To Find Boy Who Left $5 And Apology Note On Door; Huffington Post, March 6, 2017

David Moye, Huffington Post; 

Woman Wants To Find Boy Who Left $5 And Apology Note On Door

"Marie said she knows stealing is a crime, but she is sympathetic to the child.

“I’m not condoning the stealing part but he did try to do right for what his sister did, and I lost my mom at a young age so I know how hard it is,” she said.

Marie now wants to find Jake, not to punish him, but to give the boy his money back as well an additional butterfly wind chime, so he and his sister can both have one to remember their mom by."

Trolls decided I was taking pictures of Rex Tillerson’s notes. I wasn’t even there.; Washington Post, 1/12/17

Doris Truong, Washington Post; Trolls decided I was taking pictures of Rex Tillerson’s notes. I wasn’t even there.

"Why are people so quick to look for someone to condemn? And during the confusion about the woman’s identity, why is it presumed that she is a journalist? Or that taking pictures of notes in an open hearing is illegal? Or, for that matter, that she was even taking pictures of Tillerson’s notes?

The bright spot is that a few people have acknowledged that they erred. One person left this note on my Facebook timeline: “I was shocked to find that you are in fact not the fox in the henhouse. For that I do apologize. As penance I have gone to several sites that have posted the untrue information about you and corrected them. I doubt it will do a bit of good. I am terribly sorry and wanted you to know that not all Trump supporters are mindless and that the real truth does matter. Hope this mess gets cleared up real soon. God bless.”

The whole episode is not going to drive me off social media, which provides a way for me to connect with people across the miles, including strangers, and to be exposed to a diversity of opinions — including ones I disagree with. But I hope the ridiculousness of what happened to me in less than 12 hours makes others think critically before sharing something that can be easily disproved." 

Members Of Congress Rip Into Mylan CEO; Huffington Post, 9/21/16

Lauren Weber, Huffington Post; Members Of Congress Rip Into Mylan CEO:

"“To have companies like yours take advantage of the situation, take advantage of these people who are really in need of this medication, I think it speaks to something that we are better than that,” Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) said. “How did we get to this point that we have a culture like this in corporate America that wants to stick it to consumers?”...

Cummings emphasized his disgust that pharmaceutical companies would continue to ratchet up drug prices for life-saving medication and said he hoped Bresch would apologize. She did not.

“After Mylan takes our punches, they’ll fly back to their mansions in their private jets and laugh all the way to the bank while our constituents suffer, file for bankruptcy, and watch their children get sicker and die,” Cummings said. “It’s time for Congress to act.”"

Wells Fargo CEO Takes Responsibility For ‘All Unethical’ Practices; Reuters via Huffington Post, 9/20/16

Reuters via Huffington Post; Wells Fargo CEO Takes Responsibility For ‘All Unethical’ Practices:

"The chief executive officer of Wells Fargo & Co on Tuesday apologized for the bank’s opening as many as 2 million bogus customer accounts that could generate fees for the lender.

“I accept full responsibility for all unethical sales practices,” CEO John Stumpf told a congressional panel...

[Ohio. Sen. Sherrod] Brown said employees were caught “forging signatures, and stealing identities, Social Security numbers, and customers’ hard-earned cash, so as to hang on to their low-paying jobs and make money for the high-paying executives at Wells Fargo.”"

The Other Olympic Sport in Rio: Swiping; Daily Beast, 8/11/16

Nico Hines, Daily Beast; The Other Olympic Sport in Rio: Swiping:

"Editor's Note: A number of readers complained to The Daily Beast after the publication of the original iteration of this story. We take such complaints seriously because a central part of The Daily Beast's mission is to fight for full equality and equal treatment for LGBT people around the world. Publishing an article that in any way could be seen as homophobic is contrary to our mission.

There was legitimate concern that the original version of this story might out gay male athletes, even by implication, or compromise their safety. This was never our reporter’s intention, of course. No names were ever used and some of the profiles described were of straight women. But there was a concern that even mentioning the home nation of some gay athletes could compromise their safety. We apologize for potentially jeopardizing that safety in any way. As a result, we have removed all descriptions of the men and women’s profiles that we previously described.

The concept for the piece was to see how dating and hook-up apps were being used in Rio by athletes. It just so happened that Nico had many more responses on Grindr than apps that cater mostly to straight people, and so he wrote about that. Had he received straight invitations, he would have written about those. He never claimed to be anyone he was not, did not offer anything to anyone, and immediately admitted that he was a journalist whenever he was asked who he was.

Some readers have read Nico as mocking or sex-shaming those on Grindr. We do not feel he did this in any way. But it’s up to us to deliver stories that are so clear, they can’t be misinterpreted—and we clearly fell short of that standard in this article.

Accordingly, we have made some editorial changes to the article, responding to readers' concerns, and are again sorry for any upset the original version of this piece inspired."

—John Avlon, Editor in Chief

Pope Francis Says Church Should Apologize For Discriminating Against Gays, Ask For Forgiveness; Reuters via Huffington Post, 6/26/16

Reuters via Huffington Post; Pope Francis Says Church Should Apologize For Discriminating Against Gays, Ask For Forgiveness:

"Pope Francis said on Sunday that Christians and the Roman Catholic Church should seek forgiveness from homosexuals for the way they had treated them.

Speaking to reporters aboard the plane taking him back to Rome from Armenia, he also said the Church should ask forgiveness for the way it has treated women, for turning a blind eye to child labor and for “blessing so many weapons” in the past."

‘I hated this man more than my rapists’: Woman confronts football coach 18 years after alleged gang rape; Washington Post, 6/23/16

Michael E. Miller, Washington Post; ‘I hated this man more than my rapists’: Woman confronts football coach 18 years after alleged gang rape:

"“I said everything I needed to say. I asked everything I needed to ask,” Tracy told the Lincoln Journal Star. “We talked about 1,000 different topics. … I feel like I put everything on the table and left it all there.”

“He answered everything,” she told the World-Herald.

And he apologized.

For not digging more into what really happened during those six hours back in 1998...

And when she told the players that she used to hate Riley “more than my rapists,” she could feel 150 faces turn from her to the coach and back again.

But she also told them that Riley didn’t have to bring her to Lincoln.

“This is what accountability looks like,” she told the players, according to USA Today. “This is what transparency looks like. This is how we get things done.”"

Volkswagen apologizes, stops diesel sales in wake of US emissions scandal; CNet.com, 9/21/15

Antuan Goodwin, CNet.com; Volkswagen apologizes, stops diesel sales in wake of US emissions scandal:

"Volkswagen Group is apologizing after the US Environmental Protection Agency accused the automaker of using illegal software in its TDI diesel cars to skirt US emissions standards.

In a statement over the weekend, Volkswagen Group CEO Dr. Martin Winterkorn said he's "deeply sorry that we have broken the trust of our customers and the public." The German automaker ordered its US Volkswagen and Audi dealerships to halt sales of affected vehicles until a fix can be issued. In a further statement, issued Tuesday morning, VW indicates that 11 million Volkswagen Group autos (which includes Audi, Porsche and other brands) contain the software, and that the company has set aside EUR 6.5b to address costs.

The EPA claims certain VW and Audi vehicles use software that meets clean diesel emissions standards when hooked up to testing equipment but then switches to a dirtier mode when disconnected."

Facebook’s Secret Manipulation of User Emotions Faces European Inquiries; New York Times, 7/2/14

Facebook’s Secret Manipulation of User Emotions Faces European Inquiries:

"In response to widespread public anger, several European data protection agencies are examining whether Facebook broke local privacy laws when it conducted the weeklong investigation in January 2012.

That includes Ireland’s Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, which regulates Facebook’s global operations outside North America because the company has its international headquarters in Dublin. The Irish regulator has sent a series of questions to Facebook related to potential privacy issues, including whether the company got consent from users for the study, according to a spokeswoman.

The Information Commissioner’s Office of Britain also said that it was looking into potential privacy breaches that may have affected the country’s residents, though a spokesman of the office said that it was too early to know whether Facebook had broken the law. It is unknown where the users who were part of the experiment were located. Some 80 percent of Facebook’s 1.2 billion users are based outside North America...

The Federal Trade Commission, the American regulator that oversees Facebook’s conduct under a 20-year consent decree, has not publicly expressed similar interest in the case, which has caused an uproar over the company’s ethics and prompted the lead researcher on the project to apologize."

The NSA's next move: silencing university professors?; Guardian, 9/10/13

Jay Rosen, Guardian; The NSA's next move: silencing university professors? : "In commenting critically on a subject he is expert in, and taking an independent stance that asks hard questions and puts the responsibility where it belongs, Matthew Green is doing exactly what a university faculty member is supposed to be doing. By putting his thoughts in a blog post that anyone can read and link to, he is contributing to a vital public debate, which is exactly what universities need to be doing more often. Instead of trying to get Matthew Green's blog off their servers, the deans should be trying to get more faculty into blogging and into the public arena. Who at Johns Hopkins is speaking up for these priorities? And why isn't the Johns Hopkins faculty roaring about this issue? (I teach at New York University, and I'm furious.)"

Psychiatrist’s Apology Stands Out From Typical Scientific Regrets; Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/18/12

Josh Fischman, Chronicle of Higher Education; Psychiatrist’s Apology Stands Out From Typical Scientific Regrets:

"Dr. Spitzer, on the other hand, has a keen awareness of the larger effects of his work. His study was taken up by anti-homosexual activists and therapists who said they could “cure” patients of their sexual orientation. (Mr. Arana, the American Prospect journalist and a gay man, spent years in such therapy.) Dr. Spitzer also apologized to those patients. He said he did not start the study to show that homosexuality could be done away with. He did it, rather, to debunk the claim that “reparative therapy” was completely ineffective in changing sexual orientation.

But he did so with bad science. He interviewed 200 people who said they used to be gay, and asked them if therapy helped them make the switch. There was, he now says, no way to determine if they were telling the truth, and no comparison group of people who didn’t undergo therapy. And there was no replication of the study. It didn’t validate anti-gay therapy for most scientists, but it did give ammunition to anti-gay groups. So he asked Mr. Arana to print his retraction. Dr. Spitzer wants not only to set the research record straight, but correct a mistaken cultural idea.

Bad science then, but few could say a bad scientist now."