Over 3 years ago in the US: several police officers murdered a black man named George Floyd over him using a counterfeit bill within a local convenience store. They placed him on the ground and at least 2 of them placed their knees on Mr. Floyd, including one officer named Derek Chauvin who placed his knee on the neck of Mr. Floyd.

Chauvin would hold his knee there for over 7 minutes until Mr. Floyd was unresponsive. He was declared dead not even an hour later. The death of Mr. Floyd caused a wave of protests across the nation as a result of his death, and there was a greater emphasis placed on murders done by American Police. This was also essentially back to back with the public’s discovery of the murder of Ahmaud Abrey who was killed by a former cop; as well as the murder of Brianna Taylor by cops who went to the wrong house in plain clothes and started shooting.

Simply put, a lot of people don’t trust police in the US. Many find that police are often useless in investigations, and the body count that they rack up as alleged professionals is terrifying. This sentiment has only grown over the past several years, and there is an ever growing list of murder done by the police in the US with a very large portion being innocent civilians such as the ones mentioned above.

I hope this helped some.

I deserve all of the flack lol. I either misclicked or had a load issue with jerboa. My bad y’all

News pundit claims that a proposed new law would make it 1) “illegal for store employees to confront shoplifters”, and that 2) “it is legal to shoplift” in California.

What can we make of these claims?

Let’s start with claim one. This claim is specifically referencing Senate Bill 553 in California. The bill has so far cleared the Senate and is currently working it’s way through committees within the house.

I have not done a thorough reading of the bill, but there is only two parts I see that reference shoplifting, and only one in relation to confronting shoplifters. That reads:

6401.9 (b) (12) Provisions prohibiting the employer from maintaining policies that require employees to confront active shooters or suspected shoplifters.

It would prevent companies from having policies that would try and stop shoplifters/active shooters. Anecdotally, I work in retail and it’s my store’s policy to let all shoplifters be. I don’t live in California but a southern state. So even with the politics of the area it isn’t encouraged to confront shoplifters.

And in my (unasked for) opinion realistically it’s just not worth it; even if they end up stealing hundred or thousands of dollars in merchandise it’s not worth my life to fight over it. Especially at the wage I make.

For part two, it’s entirely hyperbole to completely factitious. Shoplifting in California is illegal and always has been to my knowledge. In order for it to qualify as felony shoplifting it has to be over $950 as of 2014. But it is still a misdemeanor if it’s any amount up to $950. Here is the specific text for those interested.

Huffman told NPR in an interview that Reddit needed to start behaving like an “adult” business. Earlier this week, the Reddit CEO compared the moderator-led protest to a child “blowup,” telling staffers in an internal memo that, “like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well.”

I know this point has been hammered in by a lot of people, but this arrogance will eventually sink reddit. Not today, not tomorrow, not automatically after June 30th; but slowly the well will be poisoned until all faith in reddit as a platform evaporates. Both to sponsors as well as users.

I don’t know if Fediverse is the future; it can be difficult to grasp for newer/casual users, the mobile apps that do exist have their flaws, and the content is limited compared to agrigators like reddit (and unfair comparison when comparing each other’s size). But in the few days I’ve been here I’ve seen such a larger form of engagement than I’ve seen in a long time online. That’s purely anecdotal, but I believe at the very least the Fediverse will lead to innovations in this space. And I’m very much looking forward to that.