The New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference (NZCBC) warns that two social media accounts of Bishop Steve Lowe on Facebook have been faked. Lowe serves both as the Catholic Bishop of Auckland and President of the New Zealand Bishops’ Conference. The fake social media accounts impersonating Lowe have surfaced on Meta’s Facebook and Messenger platforms and, Read more
A video of a man smashing pounamu with a hammer has caused outrage on social media. The destruction of the taonga appears to relate to a fringe fundamentalist Christian belief held by the two people in the video that the wearing of pounamu is idolatry. Throughout the video, uploaded to Facebook by the account Ahi Read more
The Christian mystic and philosopher Simone Weil wrote that “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.” Indeed, we can only love something insofar as we direct our pure, generous attention toward it—be that to God, to a neighbour or to ourselves. And in a world that so hungrily demands it, Read more
Facebook already asks for your thoughts. Now it wants your prayers. The social media giant has rolled out a new prayer request feature, a tool embraced by some religious leaders as a cutting-edge way to engage the faithful online. Others are eyeing it warily as they weigh its usefulness against the privacy and security concerns Read more
The ultraconservative website LifeSiteNews has been removed from Facebook, with the tech giant accusing the group of violating policies regarding COVID-19. LifeSiteNews, an often faith-themed website that Snopes.com describes as “a known purveyor of misleading information,” announced the Facebook ban on its own website May 4. “Facebook has just permanently banned LifeSiteNews’ Facebook page,” the Read more
A two-year audit of Facebook’s civil rights record found that the company’s elevation of free expression – especially by politicians – above other values has hurt its progress on other matters like discrimination, elections interference and protecting vulnerable users. Facebook hired former American Civil Liberties Union executive Laura Murphy in May 2018 to assess its Read more
Hong Kong’s Facebook and WhatsApp laws have drawn criticism from around the world. Several countries, including the UK, have criticised China for imposing new security laws, which they say threaten the territory’s long-standing autonomy. Facebook said it would stop considering the requests, “pending further assessment” of the human rights issues. No personal information about users Read more
There is no power on this earth that is capable of holding Facebook to account. No legislature, no law enforcement agency, no regulator. The US Congress has failed. The EU has failed. When the Federal Trade Commission fined it a record $5bn for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, its stock price actually went Read more
An Italian priest is one of the millions of people currently locked-down due to the coronavirus pandemic. He is also one of the many who are still trying to bring a sense of normality in these uncertain and scary times. As we are not able to leave our homes, except to shop or go to Read more
Social media giant Facebook ran into determined opposition after describing a St Augustine quote as “hate speech” and removing it from its site. Domenico Bettinelli, a pro-life activist from Massachusetts, immediately wrote a blog post about Facebook taking down the Divine Office passage. Facebook had said it took it down because it violated Facebook’s “Community Read more