Social media

Domestic Abuse In Social Media

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Psychologist and anti-domestic violence advocate Rodney Vlais, the 24/7 reach of social media and smartphones are attractive to abusive partners who are not satisfied with the amount of control they can exert unaided.

“Men who use violence against their current or former partner often do so to control her actions and to limit her world,” he explains. “The violence often has a purpose, so that he can maintain power over her, to stop her from doing things that he doesn’t want her to do, to make her do certain things, or to punish her for not meeting his demands.”

“Fear is often used here. Social media provides a new way for these men to monitor her movements, control her social word, harass and limit her freedom by keeping her afraid,” Vlais adds.

Experts are warning of a growing form of domestic violence they call “digital abuse.” Officials say digital abuse is when one partner uses technology to control and intimidate a significant other.

Mental health professionals say it’s such a new problem, couples could be in a digitally abusive relationship and not realize it.

The constant calls and threatening texts, Gina (not real name) says her ex-boyfriend’s electronic communication was relentless.

“I was always fearful of not answering my phone when he called and not responding to his text messages,” says Gina.

After months of high-tech harassment, Gina says she realized she was a victim of digital domestic abuse. Psychiatrist Gail Saltz says it is a growing issue.

“Now, sadly people are using digital technology to exert their power, their influence and control,” explains Saltz.

Digital abuse is just starting to be recognized by experts and goes beyond constant phone calls and text messages.

“Things that range from constantly checking to what they’re posting on social media and asking for passwords to more extreme cases as where partners create fake identifies on Facebook to see if they can get their partner to engage with someone else, and then accusing them of cheating and flirting in appropriately,” says Katie Ray-Jones of the US-based National Domestic Violence Hotline.

The popularity of being constantly connected can make recognizing a problem difficult.

“Isn’t this what everybody does? You know, everybody is on social networking, everybody is texting. Isn’t that just normal behavior?” asks Saltz.

Ray-Jones says that normal behavior can turn to obsession. It’s important to recognize warning signs. These signs include extreme jealousy, monitoring and isolation.

Technology expert Dave Hatter warns that digital abusers can escalate their surveillance by using apps which monitor their partner’s location through their phone GPS or installing keylogging software that records what they type on their computer.

“Even without GPS, you may go in a building where there are wayfinding techniques and the phone signal itself to try and triangulate your position won’t be as accurate as GPS,” says Hatter. “There’s a lot of ways you can track those devices. I always come to it from a perspective as you might be tracking me without me knowing it, but you literally could be using it like an ankle bracelet on someone and basically insist that they do it and basically track their every move, even with their full knowledge.”

Saltz says even more troubling, digital abuse can turn dangerous.

“People of all ages are vulnerable to the use of digital technology to basically be abusive and that abuse that starts in that way can often lead to, directly to physical abuse,” she says.

Gina says when her ex-boyfriend’s digital abuse became physical, she ended the relationship. Now, she warns others who think their digital boundaries may be violated to reach out for help right away.

“When I was going through this,” explains Gina. “I felt like I was completely alone. I didn’t tell anybody about what was happening.”

Ray-Jones says it’s difficult to estimate exactly how many people digital abuse affects because some people don’t even recognize it.

(Fox19.com/Clem Bastow – Dailylife.com.au)

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New Paradigm For Recruiting OFWs

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By Archie Almeida

LBS Recruitment Solutions Corporation isone of the prime movers in usingsocial media to recruit OFWs. Its president and CEO, Lito B. Soriano, explained that in social media recruitment, everything is transparent and much better than the classical way of recruitment. There are no hidden terms, unlike in some recruiting agencies where they refuse to divulge information.

During the 1980s, recruiting agencies do their information campaign through major newspapers. The job-seeker’s fingers will do the walking line by line on the pages of the ads section, to look for the right and suitable job position.

Nowadays,withone click of themouse, job hunters could find vacancies for jobs both local or abroad.OFWs no longer face the burden of going back and forth from theirhomes, the office of the agency, and the offices of the government for submitting required documents to look for work abroad.

Modality of Recruitment

The worker-to-employer system is commonly known as direct hiring. Mostly, this kind of hiring deviates from the legal processes and requirements of POEA. The eagerness of the applicant to work abroad can end up in a no-fair-deal.

There are a lot of downsides in this kind of situation. A foreign individual will pose as an employer but in fact he is an agent or recruiter with an agency abroad. When the recruit arrives in the destination of deployment, another contract can be entered in for another employer. At this point the recruit is helpless.

The very prevalent recruitingsystem now for jobs-abroad applicants is the worker-agency-employer. If the applicant is qualified for the job position, he is required by the agency to fulfill all the requirements, which includes passport, diploma, transcript of records, and more.It is duly authenticated by Malacañang and the Department of Foreign Affairs. Afterwards, visa will be processed for departure. Job order is verified by the POEA, alongside all the pre-requisites to be complied with.Usually, recruitment in this system is done through newspaper ads, radio, or TV.

In contrast,with the worker-agency-broker- employer system,an established broker in a foreign country will look for an employer in the local agency.In turn, the agency will look for a qualified applicant to be deployed. Terms and conditions of employment contract are explained to the OFW. Sometimes there are terms and conditionsobscured by the recruiters in the contract that can put the applicant in a compromising situation where he could no longer back off.

The last type of hiring system is the worker-worker’s agent-agency-broker-employer system. Here, the interested Filipino worker will be recruited by an individual who stands in as the worker’s agent, endorsed by the agency, who in turn will contact the broker in the foreign country looking for an employer. More often than not, in this kind of recruitment, the applicant could not do anything but to adhere to the agency’s contract and policy of unconscionable fees, either by immediate payment or salary deductions.

The sad thing is, only a few agencies are using the new hiring method, because there is a need to be transparent in dealing with the applicant. This is because the potential OFW often asks questions on salary, the placement fee, how much will be spent in order to get the job, and other perks.

The New Thrust

The profile of users of social media the country is unevenly distributed. The working force from 18 to 24 years old is around 36% or equivalent to 10.41 million whilethose whose age ranges from 25 to 44 is 6.91 million or 21.5%.

This is why the LBS put a new thrust in the manpower-pooling business by way of utilizing Internet technology, not only for the applicants but for the prospective  employers as well. It uses the worker-agency-employer modality.

“In the advent of fast-paced change in technology, the traditional recruitment channels has changed as well. It’s online and in social media. Gone are days of placing ads in the newspapers in recruiting OFWs.This is the new thrust of the manpower-pooling business,” Soriano says.

Applicants can fill up forms or download it using and easily received updates, notifications on-line anytime and anywhere in the world they are via email and cellphone.

“They can also just sign up for an account with all the profile and resume and requirements, for the job position they are applying for, and we will look for employers. All questions and queries of the applicants are answered in the website e.g. from salary up to minute details of employment. In this way, meeting of minds between the applicants and the agency are done without the appearance,” Soriano adds.

LBS boosted the chain of qualified applicants in its online application system from February 2012 to March 31, 2014.It dramatically reached more than 28,000 users, higher than the past years.

By using mobile recruitment applications in Android and iOS Apple mobile phones, it is easy and accessible for recruits to apply and monitor the status of their applications. There are real-time customer care services for applicants that are immediately responded to as well.It also lessens the burden and costs of marketing, and the number of quality and ethical employers abroad increases.

Digital technology and social media has changed the game of looking for manpower.  It is a new paradigm that other recruitment agencies should adapt. LBS Recruitment Solutions’ use of online sourcing gives the company an edge that other traditional manpower agencies do not have. This is what makes the company a leader and gamechanger in the recruitment business.

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The Continuing Attack On The Left

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By Richard James Mendoza

These past weeks have witnessed the reactionary brigade attacking the Left through the channels of traditional and social media. Though this has been going on for so long in the undercurrents of the people’s discourse, it suddenly got a revival in social media through a “Thought Leaders” article by a yellow publicist entitled “How the Left has lost”. She narrated in her article how she used to be sympathetic to the leftists starting from her days as a college student when, though not becoming a member, she took the side of the militant youth group Kabataang Makabayan and being “borderline Pink” (what’s that’s supposed to mean?). She also mentions how she campaigned for Bayan Muna sometime ago.

That is, until she saw “how it has become harder to empathize with the Left”, whatever that means. She then began to attack the Left on the basis that they’ve become “indistinguishable from the trapos they despise”, basing on such flimsy arguments such as how they’ve supposedly benefited from pork barrel while being against it, as well as “[placing]…their beliefs on hold and allowed themselves to be used – in exchange for campaign funds”. She also rants on how “silent” the Left was on the supposed bullying of China.

First and foremost, the leftists in Congress have barely benefited from their pork barrel because they’ve voiced their opposition against the previous and present regimes. As a matter of fact, their allocated pork wasn’t being released to them. It’s only recently that they’ve received it, and in small amounts at that. Yet, the publicist was silent on Abad’s pork barrel that exceeds the congressional allotment.

She also confuses ‘utilizing the united front’ as “being used”. Funds aren’t necessarily the problem, since the Left is used to arousing, mobilizing, and organizing even as they lack the funds to do so (just ask some full-time activists). The aim of forging alliances is to mobilize the populace to achieve a certain goal, and that erstwhile goal is to gain a seat in the Senate which was seen as a gargantuan objective to achieve. One does not need to compromise his principles in forging an alliance with a well-known reactionary party.

And perhaps she ought to read the websites of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) and Prof. Jose Maria Sison in order to look for herself how the left criticizes the actions of China in the South China Sea (I refuse to call it the West Philippine Sea, for it only legitimizes the arrogance of the Philippines in its combative stance in the issue just because it’s riding on the back of the imperialist white tiger like a naive gadfly).

To get over her nonsense-ridden “thought”, she rants that the CPP-NPA-NDF has “all but left the negotiating table” and, seemingly frustrated, exclaims hastily to “just exterminate the dwindling force permanently!”, referring to what she calls the “National People’s Army” (sic). Such attitude only rationalizes the violence being done by the PNP and the AFP against legitimate activists in the cities and in the countryside; to quote Randy Malayao, “Hitlerite” is a term apropos for the kind of “thought” she had propagated.

Afterwards, Rappler posted an article which seemed to be a response written by Raymond Palatino, the former representative of Kabataan partylist. Then came an article titled “A Catholic and a leftist” by Ted Tuvera, the spokesperson of the League of Filipino Students (LFS)-UST chapter. Compliments to these two for giving the social media public another perspective in the mainstream media.

Of course, the yellow’s not the only one attacking the Left. The Armed Forces of the Philippines is ever present in attacking the left since time immemorial, both literally and figuratively. Just as the campaign for the abolishment of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) had begun to escalate, a series of Letters to the Editor directed against Anakbayan have been published in the Inquirer, red-baiting the group as a “communist front” and also calling it a “nuisance”. One Google search reveals that the names and emails used in the LTTE’s were not real; perhaps this is how the taxpayer’s money is being spent by the ISAFP.

In the midst of these bogus letters, a news item surfaced that a member of Anakbayan-Abra chapter, along with his kin, were found dead in a shallow grave. Members of the 41st Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army led by a certain Lt. Col. Domingo are seen to be the perpetrators of the murder. The said member was supposed to give a testimony to a human rights office on how he was forcibly being used as a “guide” by the Army in their operations against the New People’s Army.

Whether through the likes of PR publicists, misinformed bloggers, or internet sock-puppets (trolls) funded by reactionaries, attacking the Left has always been a favorite pastime of the reactionary State, its puppets and gofers. They’ve found the Left as their eternal scapegoat for its incompetence as well as to cover up their crimes against the populace. “Oh, our Armed Forces is having trouble with the rebels? Let’s blame the Left because they don’t like foreign intervention!” “Human rights violations? Nah, that’s just leftist propaganda! We have no political prisoners here!” “Huh, those urban poor settlers are fighting back against the police and demolition teams? They were probably instigated by those activists again!”

Sarcasm aside, I must commend them for having all the time in the world for attacking a force that has a long history of serving the people. If the Left has truly lost, then why have they been relentless in attacking them? If the Left has truly lost, then why do they keep on saying so? If that is the case, then the Left should have died a long time ago.

But it hasn’t died, and it will not die for as long as the people are being oppressed by the ruling class that are lording over the world, exploiting the labor of the people for their own gain. It will not die as long as the people continue to fight for a society that benefits everyone and not just the minority. Let’s struggle for genuine social change.

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Food Photos May Ruin Your Appetite

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THIS article is perfect for Filipino net junkies.

You enjoyed surfing social media sites. A friend, who’s obsessed of taking pictures in everything they ate, posted a picture of their meal on a restaurant and you loved viewing the photos. The next time you want to try the food they ate, you lose your appetite and didn’t enjoyed it much.

instagram-food

Researchers from Brigham Young University (BYU) and the University of Minnesota say their study, published in The Journal of Consumer Psychology, shows that looking at too many pictures of food can actually make it less enjoyable to eat.

“In a way, you’re becoming tired of that taste without even eating the food,” said study coauthor and BYU professor Ryan Elder. “It’s sensory boredom – you’ve kind of moved on. You don’t want that taste experience anymore.” #OpinYon #Health #Satiation #Appetite

read cont | http://bit.ly/H0OAan

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