Month: June 2023

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Twitter owner Elon Musk invited Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a discussion on his Twitter Spaces after Kennedy said his campaign was suspended by Meta-owned Instagram.

“Interesting… when we use our TeamKennedy email address to set up @instagram accounts we get an automatic 180-day ban. Can anyone guess why that’s happening?” he wrote on Twitter.

An accompanying image shows that Instagram said it “suspended” his “Team Kennedy” account and that there “are 180 days remaining to disagree” with the company’s decision.

In response to his post, Musk wrote: “Would you like to do a Spaces discussion with me next week?” Kennedy agreed, saying he would do it Monday at 2 p.m. ET.

Hours later, Kennedy wrote that Instagram “still hasn’t reinstated my account, which was banned years ago with more than 900k followers.” He argued that “to silence a major political candidate is profoundly undemocratic.”

“Social media is the modern equivalent of the town square,” the candidate, who is the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, wrote. “How can democracy function if only some candidates have access to it?”

The Epoch Times approached Instagram for comment.

Interesting… when we use our TeamKennedy email address to set up @instagram accounts we get an automatic 180-day ban. Can anyone guess why that’s happening? pic.twitter.com/0G8oRnoXTv

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 2, 2023

It’s not the first time that either Facebook or Instagram has taken action against Kennedy. In 2021, Instagram banned him from posting claims about vaccine safety and COVID-19.

After he was banned by the platform, Kennedy said that his Instagram posts raised legitimate concerns about vaccines and were backed by research. His account was banned just days after Facebook and Instagram announced they would block the spread of what they described as misinformation about vaccines, including research saying the shots cause autism, are dangerous, or are ineffective.

“This kind of censorship is counterproductive if our objective is a safe and effective vaccine supply,” he said at the time.

Read more here…

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

In an excellent display of how US foreign policy can be used as a means of pandering to domestic interest groups, the Biden administration has threatened to impose sanctions on Uganda as punishment for that regime’s adoption of new laws criminalizing some types of homosexual behavior. 

While it is abundantly clear that this move from the Ugandan state presents absolutely no threat to any vital US interest, the Biden administration apparently believes the situation requires immediate action by the US regime.

According to Axios, the Biden Administration’s proposed actions

includ[e] whether the U.S. will continue to safely deliver services under the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and other forms of assistance and investments. … Biden administration officials will also review Uganda’s eligibility for the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which provides eligible sub-Saharan African countries with duty-free access to the U.S. market for hundreds of products.

What exactly are these new laws that require the State Department to get involved in the internal affairs of a country 8,000 miles away? According to The Hill, 

The new anti-gay law would impose the death penalty in cases of “aggravated homosexuality” and would impose a life sentence for engaging in gay sex. The state defines “aggravated homosexuality” as homosexual acts carried out by those infected with H.I.V. or homosexual acts that involve children, disabled people, or those drugged against their will. 

Or put another way, the death penalty will be imposed in many cases on those found guilty of engaging in sex with children and with people unable to consent. Even in those cases, these are pretty harsh penalties, and certainly few Americans—from any part of the political spectrum—would support such measures. 

The proposed method of punishing Ugandans is rather curious, however. Note that the sanctions being discussed include—ironically—cutting off AIDS relief dollars, plus dollars that the regime has long insisted are absolutely vital to economic development and poverty relief in the developing world. If that’s true, then the US regime proposes trying to impoverish ordinary Ugandans as punishment for acts of the Ugandan regime. 

It is also notable that the US regime appears to now be fixated on such laws in Uganda when similar laws already exist on the books of several US allies. For example, the death penalty can be imposed for various homosexual acts in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. “Death by stoning” is also inflicted on alleged homosexuals in US ally Pakistan. Moreover, after 20-years of US occupation, Afghanistan imposes similar punishments. Those are just the places where the death penalty is potentially imposed. Homosexual acts are criminalized in a variety of countries that retain friendly relations with the US including Egypt—the top recipient of US foreign aid—plus Iraq, Jordan, South Sudan, and Nigeria. Homosexual sex between males can bring life imprisonment in Tanzania. 

So why is Uganda now so much in the crosshairs while Saudi Arabia escapes notice? 

The fact is the US regime is threatening sanctions on ordinary Ugandans because it can.  Given that there is no sizable or electorally powerful Ugandan population in the US, it costs the administration nothing to denounce Uganda while also virtue signaling to extremely powerful and well-funded domestic LGBT interest groups. Denouncing the Saudis or the Qataris, on the other, hand might bring geopolitical “complications” and thus you won’t hear much about Saudi or Qatari punishment of homosexual acts in the US media or in Washington. 

The US’s Moralistic and Imperialist Impulses 

Moreover, Washington’s willingness to immediately begin threatening sanctions against some faraway country has been part of the overall imperialist impulse that has prevailed in Washington since the end of the Cold War. This was when the US shifted toward become an ever-more-aggressive world morality police that would attempt to globally “protect right” in vague mimicry of how the federal government—via the federal courts and threats of cutting off federal funding—dictates to the states what counts as acceptable law.

This new scheme was apparent by 1994 when Murray Rothbard wrote a sarcastic article suggesting that the US be prepared to invade any foreign country where the local regime has not sufficiently embraced the American regime’s cultural ideals. The key, Rothbard contends, was to define every foreign “deviation” as a threat to US national security. Rothbard noted that even by the mid 1990s, American interventionists such as the neoconservatives had already “cunningly redefined ‘national interest’ to cover every ill, every grievance, under the sun.”

This naturally would lead, Rothbard suggested, to the need to intervene in nearly every foreign country on earth:

Is someone starving somewhere, however remote from our borders? That’s a problem for our national interest. Is someone or some group killing some other group anywhere in the world? That’s our national interest. Is some government not a “democracy” as defined by our liberal-neocon elites? That challenges our national interest. Is someone committing Hate Thought anywhere on the globe? That has to be solved in our national interest. …And so every grievance everywhere constitutes our national interest, and it becomes the obligation of good old Uncle Sam, as the Only Remaining Superpower and the world’s designated Mr. Fixit, to solve each and every one of these problems. For “we cannot stand idly by” while anyone anywhere starves, hits someone over the head, is undemocratic, or commits a Hate Crime.

And so, since no other countries shape up to U.S. standards in a world of Sole Superpower they must be severely chastised by the U.S., I make a Modest Proposal for the only possible consistent and coherent foreign policy: the U.S. must, very soon, Invade the Entire World! Sanctions are peanuts; we must invade every country in the world, perhaps softening them up beforehand with a wonderful high-tech missile bombing show courtesy of CNN. 

The good news in the Uganda case is that at least we’re not hearing any calls for actual regime change or “boots on the ground” in Uganda (so far). 

Fortunately, many Americans haven’t yet bought into the idea that every objectionable act by foreign regimes can be defined as a threat to US national interests. This is why even today, when Washington targets some foreign regime for “regime change” or economic sanctions or a volley of cruise missiles, the American interventionists usually try to at least suggest that the target regime is some kind of threat to US “national interests.” 

Experience suggests that if the regime really wants to get the American public riled up about a new war, Washington has to make the case for something beyond mere “humanitarian” intervention. This is why the Bush administration felt it had to trump up accusations of “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq. It’s why President Obama claimed the US has a “national security interest in … ensuring that we’ve got a stable Syria.” It’s why those who wanted a US war with Bosnia insisted that conflict in the Balkans in the mid 1990s provided a threat to “vital” US interests such as “European stability” and NATO unity. 

Sometimes, though, some foreign countries are so obviously not a threat to the US that “humanitarian” meddling through military action isn’t politically viable. In those cases, the regime usually falls back on “sanctions.” 

This strategy has been around a long time. Murray Rothbard noticed this trend in 1994 as well, and he listed just some of the real-life suggested sanctions that could be employed to whip foreign regimes into line:

In recent weeks, in addition to humanitarian troops, there had been escalating talk of American “sanctions”: against North Korea of course, but also against Japan (for not buying more U.S. exports), against Haiti, against the Bosnian Serbs… Jesse Jackson wants the U.S. to invade Nigeria pronto, and now we have Senato[r] Kerry (D., Mass.) calling for sanctions against our ancient foe, Canada, for not welcoming New England fishermen in its waters.

Uganda is just one of a great many regimes targeted in this fashion in recent decades. 

Yet the landscape has changed considerably since 1994. In 2023, the US obsession with sanctioning dozens of countries has backfired and begun to isolate the US more and more from the developing world and from any regime that doesn’t enjoy taking orders from Washington. This includes the regimes in some of the world largest economies, including China, India, and Brazil. The US’s tendency to incessantly turn to sanctions to make a political point—and the apparent capriciousness with which the US regime is willing to do so—only motivates the world’s regimes to insulate themselves from the US, whether through minimizing dollar transactions or forming tighter alliances with potential allies outside the US orbit. We may soon find Uganda looking for a similar way out. 

Read More:

• “Thanks to Sanctions, the US Is Losing Its Grip on the Middle East“

• “Will Biden Sanction Half the World to Isolate Russia?“

• “Why Sanctions Don’t Work, and Why They Mostly Hurt Ordinary People” 

The war from across the border has impacted citizens in the Belgorod region of Russia to the point that many towns and villages have been evacuated, with some looking like ghost towns–this after armed groups mounted multiple raids since the war’s start–as well as increased shelling and rocket fire. Just two days ago the anti-Moscow “Russian Volunteer Corps” said they launched another attack out of Ukraine, after a bigger one nearly two weeks ago left multiple casualties and many saboteurs killed. 

The New York Times wrote on Saturday that “Shebekino, a town of 40,000 six miles from the border, has effectively become a new part of the front line as Ukraine has intensified attacks inside Russia, including on residential areas near its own borders.” This is all upending the lives of residents in the border region, akin to what already happened long ago on the Ukrainian side of the border. “The spate of assaults, most recently by militia groups aligned against Moscow, has sparked the largest military evacuation effort in Russia in decades,” the report underscored. The past days have witnessed area residents move into temporary shelters, including the large Belgorod arena in the oblast capital.

On Saturday the controversial founder and leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has offered in a message to the public that he stands ready to send his fighters to protect the border region. 

But as part of the ongoing public spat with the regular military chain of command, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin blamed the army for failing in its duties, given all the latest Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod. 

“If the defense ministry, in the near future, does not stop what is happening in the Belgorod region.. then of course we will come to defend Russian land,” Prigozhin said on Telegram. 

“The civilian population is dying in Belgorod,” he added, and warned that he would not wait for an “invitation” to deploy his forces there. Earlier in the week Prigozhin went so far as to say some top Russian military commanders should be investigated for crimes related to failure of duty.

Already the Russian military has been active in the region, particularly after the May 21-22 ground incursion by a militia group sent from Ukraine, which saw armed groups take over multiple villages for a short period of time. 

On Saturday two more civilians were killed in cross-border fire from Ukraine. This brings the overall death toll from the area to seven killed just this week. “Since this morning, the district of Shebekino has been under shelling of the Ukrainian armed forces,” Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a statement. One victim was described as an elderly woman, while another woman died from her wounds in the village of Bezlyudovka. 

⚡️Town of Shebekino in the Belgorod region of Russia; June, 2023.

Due to the nonstop shelling of the armed forces of Ukraine, some residents have resorted to looting local stores. pic.twitter.com/urk1LrfsE2

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) June 3, 2023

A couple of others were wounded in the shelling. Prigozhin’s message of potentially sending his fighters to defend the area comes amid rising frustration over the ramped-up attacks. Governor Gladkov has as of the end of this week counted 500 total attacks throughout the conflict, which has included instances of rocket and mortar fire. 

Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times,

Some Apple customers have found it difficult to access their savings from a new account program in partnership with Goldman Sachs.

After the new Apple savings account was launched in April to great fanfare, the system has been facing serious teething problems, according to customers.

The annual yield on an Apple savings account offers a generous 4.15 percent interest rate, dwarfing the current savings account yield of 0.39 percent, according to Bankrate.

The account’s interest rate is about ten times the average yield offered by mainstream banks, making it attractive to new customers and falls well below the Federal Reserve’s borrowing rate of between 5 percent and 5.25 percent.

This allows users to earn a sizeable amount in interest over the course of a year.

Some reports suggest that the launch had already attracted as many as $1 billion in deposits within four days of launch.

Goldman is the primary issuer of Apple’s new credit card, which is the only way a customer can open a savings account with the tech giant.

Apple views its new account program as a way to expand iPhone usage into its customer’s daily financial interactions and keep them linked to its networks, while Goldman benefits from additional depositors.

After signing up for the credit card, Apple users can open an account in less than a minute from their iPhones, with no minimum balance requirement.

The accounts have zero deposit fees and offer a maximum balance of $250,000.

Depositors are free to access their money at any time, unlike many normal bank accounts, which limit customers to six major cash withdrawals a year.

New Apple Accounts Face Severe Teething Issues

However, some customers have faced delayed money transfers, while others reported having trouble transferring money from their new Apple accounts, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A few are even reported having trouble accessing their funds or even seeing them vanish during transfers from Apple to another bank.

Nathan Thacker, a resident of Georgia, told The Wall Street Journal he had trouble transferring $1,700 from his Apple account to JPMorgan Chase since May 15.

After contacting Goldman Sachs’ customer service department multiple times, he was told to wait a few days.

The money only arrived in Thacker’s account after The Wall Street Journal contacted the bank about his problem and similar experiences from other customers.

Stories on social media are filled with similar experiences from customers unable to access their Apple savings accounts.

Large transfers from new account programs like Apple’s have been triggering anti-money laundering red flags or other security concerns that require additional reviews by the banks, according to experts in the AML field.

The experts said that anti-money laundering alerts tend to cause delays that last, on average, about five or so days.

Kevin Smyth, from Minnesota, wrote in a May 25 post on Twitter directed at Apple CEO Tim Cook: “Was your plan to partner with a bank that holds people’s life savings hostage?”

Smyth claimed he had been trying to transfer $10,000 from his Apple account to U.S. Bank on May 16.

The following morning, he was forced to sell about $12,000 of stock in order to have cash on hand.

Smyth has since decided to pull $200,000 savings from his Apple account, move it back to American Express and close it, despite Goldman having resolved the issue.

Goldman Sachs Defends Partnership With Apple

Goldman Sachs said the difficulties were being faced by a “limited” number of customers and that the delays were often added due to rigorous processes designed to protect user identity.

A spokesman for Goldman Sachs told The Daily Mail in regard to consumer complaints, “The customer response to the new Savings account for Apple Card users has been excellent and beyond our expectations.”

“While the vast majority of customers see no delays in transferring their funds, in a limited number of cases, a user may experience a delayed transfer due to processes in place designed to help protect their accounts,” he added.

“While we would not comment on specific customer interactions, we take our obligation to protect our customers’ deposits very seriously and work to create a balance between a seamless customer experience and that protection,” the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Goldman has announced cutbacks on its consumer lending and announced in February that it was “considering strategic alternatives” for the unit that operates its credit-card partnership with Apple.

The investment bank has also faced recent controversies over problems such as regulatory probes, particularly when dealing with lower net-worth clients.

The Epoch Times reached out to Apple for comment.

Recovery efforts are underway, with large excavators trying to untangle the wreckage, after India’s worst train disaster in decades happened in the eastern state of Odisha on Friday.

At least 288 people have been confirmed killed with more than 900 injured, many seriously, in what’s being described as a “three-way accident”. Two passenger trains collided, with the massive wreck then impacting a nearby idled freight train. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to the site on Saturday, seeking to console the families of the deceased. “The people we have lost, we will not be able to bring them back. But the government is with their families in their grief,” Modi said. “This is a very serious incident for the government. We have given directions for all lines of inquiry, and whoever is found responsible will be given the strongest punishment. They will not be spared.”

International correspondents from the site are describing gut-wrenching, horrific scenes. “In humid air filled with the odor of human flesh, relatives went through the harrowing exercise of identifying their loved ones from about 120 dead bodies lined up on the ground after the crash on Friday night,” a New York Times report describes. 

“Among those searching was Miyah Jan Mullah, who had come from neighboring West Bengal to look for his son, Musavir, who had been on his way to his tailoring job in Chennai,” the tragic account continues. “When Mr. Mullah finally found Musavir’s body, most of it was burned, but his face was largely intact.”

Footage shows a huge area of mangled wreckage stretching dozens of cars…

Amid rising frustration and anger directed at authorities among families searching for answers, a preliminary government reports has said the derailment was possibly the result of a signal error.

A consensus sequence of events and timeline has emerged as follows: 

The high-speed passenger train traveling from Kolkata, the Coromandel Express, slammed into a freight train that had been idling at a small-town station, Bahanaga Bazar, around 7 p.m. local time Friday. The passenger train was “going at full speed across the station as it was not supposed to stop” there, the report said, according to The New York Times.

After hitting the freight train, the passenger train, which was carrying 1,257 passengers, derailed. Twenty-one of its coaches bounced off the track, with three more cars landing onto another track.

 “Simultaneously” the Yesvantpur-Howrah Express, a passenger train with 1,039 aboard heading in the opposite direction from Bengaluru to Kolkata, was on the track that the three dislocated coaches lay. This second collision knocked the two coaches of the third train off its tracks.

Emergency services with rescue dogs have reportedly halted the search for live victims and have now turned to body recovery and identification. One survivor and eyewitness told Reuters he saw “Families crushed away, limbless bodies and a bloodbath on the tracks.” 

BREAKING: Drone footage of damage from India train crash, as death toll nears 300.pic.twitter.com/u8XaWi6CSQ

— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) June 3, 2023

Given the still rising death toll this could in the end surpass the country’s biggest disaster in its history, which occurred in August 1995. The Firozabad Train Collision near New Delhi killed 358 people.

Authored by Jessie Zhang via Thje Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

An Australian and Swedish investigation has found that among the hundreds of COVID-19 research papers that have been withdrawn, a retracted study linking the drug hydroxychloroquine to increased mortality was the most cited paper.

With 1,360 citations at the time of data extraction, researchers in the field were still referring to the paper “Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis” long after it was retracted.

Authors of the analysis involving the University of Wollongong, Linköping University, and Western Sydney Local Health District wrote (pdf) that “most researchers who cite retracted research do not identify that the paper is retracted, even when submitting long after the paper has been withdrawn.”

“This has serious implications for the reliability of published research and the academic literature, which need to be addressed,” they said.

“Retraction is the final safeguard against academic error and misconduct, and thus a cornerstone of the entire process of knowledge generation.”

Scientists Question Findings

Over 100 medical professionals wrote an open letter, raising ten major issues with the paper.

These included the fact that there was “no ethics review” and “unusually small reported variances in baseline variables, interventions and outcomes,” as well as “no mention of the countries or hospitals that contributed to the data source and no acknowledgments to their contributions.”

Other concerns were that the average daily doses of hydroxychloroquine were higher than the FDA-recommended amounts, which would present skewed results.

They also found that the data that was reportedly from Australian patients did not seem to match data from the Australian government.

Eventually, the study led the World Health Organization to temporarily suspend the trial of hydroxychloroquine on COVID-19 patients and to the UK regulatory body, MHRA, requesting the temporary pause of recruitment into all hydroxychloroquine trials in the UK.

France also changed its national recommendation of the drug in COVID-19 treatments and halted all trials.

Currently, a total of 337 research papers on COVID-19 have been retracted, according to Retraction Watch.

Further retractions are expected as the investigation of proceeds.

Demographic data can reveal all kinds of insights about a population, from the country’s fertility and mortality rates to how certain events and policies have shaped the makeup of a population.

As Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte and Bhabna Banerjee detail below, population pyramids are one of the best ways to visualize population data, and comparing the pyramids of various countries and regions side-by-side can reveal unexpected insights and differences between groups.

This graphic uses population data from the United Nations to compare the demographics of some select nations and regions of the world, showcasing how much age distributions can vary.

Three Types of Population Pyramids

Although population pyramids can come in all shapes and sizes, most generally fall into three distinct categories:

• Expansive Pyramids: Recognized by their traditional “pyramid-like” shape with a broad base and narrow top, expansive pyramids reflect a population with a high birth rate along with a high mortality rate which is most common in developing countries.

• Constrictive Pyramids: With a narrow base and thicker middle and top sections of the pyramid, constrictive pyramids often occur in developed economies whose populations have low birth rates and long life expectancies.

• Stationary Pyramids: These pyramids showcase an evenly distributed population across age groups, often found in newly-developed countries which have stable birth and mortality rates.

Each population pyramid is essentially a visual snapshot of a nation’s current demographic breakdown, shaped by fluctuating birth and mortality rates as well as changes to immigration and social policies.

Understanding the inherent risks associated with different pyramid types can help give insight into the challenges these populations face.

The Risks of Different Population Pyramid Types

Each type of population pyramid structure has unique challenges and advantages often characterized by the country or region’s current stage of economic development.

Populations with expansive pyramids, such as the one representing the continent of Africa, have the advantage of a larger youth and working-aged population, however this advantage can be rendered null if job growth, education, and health care aren’t prioritized.

Countries with constrictive pyramids like Japan face the challenge of supporting their outsized aging population with a diminishing working-aged population. While immigration and increasing birth rates can help in both the short and long term, due to the working population being outnumbered, countries with constrictive pyramids must find ways to increase their productivity to avoid potential declines in economic growth.

China and India’s Demographics Compared

After the world’s population reached eight billion people last year, 2023 brought a new population milestone as India overtook China as the world’s most populous country.

When you compare the two nations’ population pyramids, you can see how India’s population has a strong base of young and working-aged people compared to China’s more constrictive population pyramid that also features a higher median age.

This demographic difference is largely shaped by China’s one-child policy which since 2021 was loosened to be a three-child policy. As a result, China’s total fertility rate is around 1.2 today, in contrast to India’s total fertility rate of 2.0.

While India is set to ride the productivity boom of its large working-age population, the country will have to ensure it can keep its population pyramid stable as the majority of the population ages and total fertility rates continue to decline.

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

An upcoming Furry convention in Florida will ban children from attending this year’s event due to a new state law.

The Megaplex 2023 convention, scheduled for Sept. 15–17 in Orlando, caters to a subculture of people interested in anthropomorphic characters—animals with human characteristics.

Furry enthusiasts dress in animal costumes that reflect human characteristics or personas.

But sexual predators have taken advantage of the Furry craze because they know the fun-looking costumes and play-acting helps attract children, an expert told The Epoch Times.

And in 2021, a woman said she reported to Megaplex organizers that she was assaulted by a “convicted pedophile” at the event. Convention organizers later responded with an apology.

This year, children won’t be allowed, the organizer announced with regret on Twitter. The May 24 post explained that attendance this year would be limited to participants 18 or older in order to comply with Florida’s new “The Protection of Children Act.”

The bill, signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in May, responded to parental concerns over live drag performances in front of children. The law prohibits minors from attending any “adult live performance.”

The state can pull the license of any establishment that allows a child to attend a prohibited performance. Or it can issue a $5,000 fine for a first offense, and a $10,000 fine for a second offense and beyond.

Laws Protecting Children in Florida

Since signing the legislation, DeSantis has announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president in the 2024 race.

In his campaign, DeSantis frequently calls attention to his actions to strengthen parental rights laws in his state.

Those same laws, such as the Parental Rights in Education Act that he signed in 2022, have made him a target of the political Left.

That legislation, misleadingly dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law, prevents teachers from initiating class discussions on sexual orientation and gender ideology with students in 3rd grade and younger.

The law doesn’t prevent teachers from answering children’s questions about LGBT topics and doesn’t prevent children from talking about their LGBT loved ones.

Yet media misinformation has swirled about the measure, with many pundits and reporters claiming that saying the word “gay” has been outlawed in Florida, and can draw penalties.

The law was amended in 2023, to be expanded through 8th grade.

Though the Furry trend has become popular in schools, adults have been participating in “Furry fandom” for years, attending conferences and congregating online and in person.

Megaplex issued a statement saying restricting minors from the event may only be temporary.

“Megaplex has welcomed younger fandom members and their families since its inception, and making this change was very difficult,” an organizer wrote on Twitter.

“While this change impacts the 2023 convention, it is unsure if this will have to continue for future years. It is our hope that this change is temporary and that we can welcome members of all ages back next year,” the statement continued.

Megaplex made no mention of the alleged 2021 assault on Twitter.

But the incident led the organization to issue an online apology and revise its convention rules to prohibit registered sex offenders from attending conventions.

“Our apology for yesterdays [sic] post and our commitment to do better” was posted to the organization’s website on Aug. 12, 2021, saying the initial response “was insensitive, hurt the survivor, and it didn’t address the concerns of our community. We downplayed the severity of the affected attendee’s experiences.”

That was followed by another Megaplex update promising to improve safety.

The alleged female victim said she reported to Megaplex that a man attending the Furry event came into her convention hotel room she was sharing with friends. He held her arms and tried to force her onto the bed while others were present.

According to her Aug. 10 posts, the man continued to stalk and grab her after she told him to leave her alone.

Her posts the next day expressed her disappointment that convention organizers didn’t get involved, telling her it was a police matter. She also posted information alleging the man who assaulted her was a “convicted pedo.”

Her account appeared in an article on Sankaku Complex, an adult website dedicated to anime and Furry fandom discussion.

Read more here…