Image by ❤️ Remains Healthy ❤️ from Pixabay 

 

Yes - proof positive FACEBOOK IS BEING STUPID!

This is from the USA Conversation, and I am posting from Austria!!!!!

There are no Kangaroos in Austria, you Zuckerberg Morons!

Quote:

In response to Australian government legislation, Facebook restricts the posting of news links and all posts from news Pages in Australia. Globally, the posting and sharing of news links from Australian publications is restricted.

Subsequently, I shared this on Facebook from my Twitter Feed:

How the media may be making the COVID-19 mental health epidemic worse

This happened to me yesterday already when I tried to share a UK Conversation Article, but yesterday there was no warning, just a error message, and subsequently I posted a question on Facebook which caused a lot of head scratching, until he mystery got solved today.  

​Eventually, I resorted to the same "trick" of posting my Twitter feed. 

From trippy drugs to therapeutic aids – how psychedelics got their groove back

Both of these articles are highly recommended to read, they deal directly, and the second one indirectly, with Corona Virus issues, so please follow the links.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES

SOCIAL CREDIT IN CHINA

Here is a video from the post from one of my friends on Facebook . A frightening future awaits us if this is indeed the "blueprint" and example for our governments!

PLEASE NOTE - THE VIDEO FROM FACEBOOK MUST HAVE BEEN DELETED
HERE IS A SIMILAR VERSION ON YOUTUBE: 

This was the full text of the Post: 

China has shown us excellent ways of dealing with "The Situation", and these ways are being emulated by our glorious leaders. Our leaders also mentioned Big Data, and other stuff. Just by the way, without too much attention placed on it. They are easing us into it, not too much at once, allowing us to get used to the idea, so we can accept it more easily. I think it's not bad to be informed about various great trends that are on the rise. I already posted a little bit about this earlier. It is seen as a helpful development of society which benefits people tremendously, as you will hear several of them explain: "It's a good thing! A society has to have rules." Therefore, any and all rules, whatever they may be, are a good thing! You see? It's a remarkable logic... And so, as long as you live life exactly according to specifications, there are perks to be had, like paying only half the bus fare. Do you remember when you saw Asian tourists walking around with protective face masks, and you thought that was weird?(Yes, I have asked this question before.) This year, you have witnessed the birth of a new narrative. It grabbed hold of many, creating a wide-spread paralyses of the spirit. Trapped within fear, it was additionally reinforced by a dictated pretense of "caring for others". Removing some of the new regulations, by way of demonstration etc., isn't going to do much. The narrative is a power-tool, it is an enabler. THAT is the single most important thing to keep in mind. It allows for almost anything to be pushed through, "in the name of the narrative". On the other side of this narrative are love, nature, the human spirit... I think some of you have forgotten how powerful it can be. The human spirit is immeasurable, and uncontainable.... UNLESS, we detain it ourselves, or allow others to convince us of mental/emotional traps. 

I wrote this text two weeks ago, but decided not to share it back then, but... why not. It's just information, about a "great new trend", and some thoughts. It can't harm to know a bit more, right? Oh! Starting Monday, the Bank Austria will be measuring the customers' temperature at the entrance. A heightened temperature or refusal to be measured means denial of service. There is absolutely no justification for that at this point, in Austria, but they don't need a justification, you see? They have the narrative. That's all they need.

The original post on Facebook had been deleted 

what you see here is a copy from the text that went with a uploaded video

SINCE I WAS EDITING THIS ANYWAY, here a some other videos on the subject:

An Introduction to China’s Social Corporate Credit System

China’s social credit system is a database or set of databases that keep up-to-date information on the behavior of individuals, corporations, and governmental entities across China.  The social credit system has some similarities with the credit ratings provide for individuals and corporations in other countries, but captures information on a wider variety of behaviors.
READ MORE

Updates to begin the New Year

That I have not posted for a while is not due to that there is nothing new, just the opposite - I was very busy and just did not get around to post updates.

◄ a gratuitous selfie from New Years Day - dressing up with a fez given to me by a friend that day. 

So here are some of the things I had been working on late 2017:

STEEMIT:

I joined this blockchain posting platform in late August and had been a steady contributor since (slowing down a little toward the end of the year, Christmas and New Years holydays). It is in my opinion a better way to socialize than other social platforms, in particular: where you get likes on Facebook that you cannot take to the bank, on Steemit you get upvotes that translate into earnings of Steem, a cryptocurrency.

Here is my page:

I find I had good results with my posts and am satisfied that this network, founded in 2016, will quickly develop into a major social network, with the added incentive of being able to earn money from your posts. Added bonus: no annoying ads cluttering your page, nor in the news feeds, like they do on Facebook. There are some bots that monitor content, but none of this bothersome censoring you would find on Facebook, where the nipple-police is out in full force! Here it is your option to mark your posts as NSFW. 

 

NING PLATFORM for the Private Visionary Art Network:

I used this platform already since 2009 to gather some of the best Artists of my genre. The private network is not accessible to the general public, but I used embed features to put slide shows from this platform on a public website, the VISIONARY ART GALLERY (VAG). 

Late in 2017, Ning eliminated Flash content, which resulted in all the embedded slide shows not functioning anymore. This in advance to the announcement that Adobe’s Flash Player will officially be put to rest in 2020. While it primarily affected the Visionary Art Gallery site, to some extend it also affected its spin-off VISIONARY ART EXHIBITION and VISIONARY ART HALL OF FAME, as well as other sites I control that also occasionally use the embed codes, including some posts on this blog. This also affects my own website, ART OF THE MYSTIC OTTO RAPP.

Subsequently, I posted a message on the VAG Homepage regarding this, with a link to a more detailed explanation: IMPORTANT NETWORK INFORMATION: SLIDE SHOW EMBEDDING DOES NOT WORK ANYMORE!

Because of this development, these Websites had become construction Zones!

There are over 500 artists on the VAG site, plus uncounted other pages and features. My own website and the VAG spin-off contain also many pages that need to be worked on. This is a project that will keep me busy for quite some time. Thus I decided to also at the same time switch the outdated templates of the VAG and my own website to a more modern look, which also requires additional work on each page to customize them (I strive to give each artist a distinct personal look). The Hall of Fame and VA Exhibition are on attractive templates already, so no need for changes to those sites, other than the changes necessary because of the problems with Flash. But there may be older blog content on my sites that might still contain outdated coding which is near impossible to fix unless I hunt down each blog entry for all the years the sites had been active.  

To all the artist members of the Visionary Art Network on Ning:

I am in the process of downloading your images from the network, and uploading it to your pages on the public VAG site, as galleries and HTML5 slide shows.

The network fees are paid up until Summer 2018. By this time, I expect to be finished with the task of updating the public VAG and its affiliated sites. Once the changes to the VAG are complete, I will delete the Ning Network, which is no longer serving its main purpose of feeding content to our public pages. This will save me a major drain on my personal finances, since the costs came out of my own pocket, only partially offset by donations. There are still costs involved maintaining the public sites on Weebly and paying for the domains of these sites, so your donations are still needed and welcome to help me keep these sites on line.

Additional Notes:

The websites powered by Weebly (on my account there) had just recently security certificates (SSL) added. While the URL's now show this (https://) there also appears a info icon on the address bar (it does so with Chrome) where it says that there are some security problems on the site - when you mouse over this icon, it leads to an information page on Google Chrome: Check if a site's connection is secure. This would be important on merchandising sites where you enter sensitive information such as credit card numbers etc. My sites are not Merchandising sites, though you will find links to secure sites where prints are sold, for example. There is nothing on my sites where you would enter any information, other than maybe the contact pages, but there you have the choice of directly contacting my email, instead of using the contact form. 

I checked on Padlock which items would trigger this warning and found that this had to do with share buttons and some advertising banners. So there is nothing much to worry about the content.

WISHING EVERYONE A HAPPY AND SAFE NEW YEAR! 

 

 

WTF Facebook - I am royally pissed off!

Check out the original post HERE - I had also updated it since then!

wtf facebook – i am royally pissed off!
THIS IS WHAT I INITIALLY WROTE – I WILL UPDATE AS I GET MORE INFO.

This is my Facebook profile picture.
My Facebook Personal Page is here: https://www.facebook.com/otto.rapp
But I cannot access that page anymore, nor my artist page https://www.facebook.com/ArtistOttoRapp/

Just to see what is going on, and to re-establish contact with my closest friends, I opened a account under a different name: https://www.facebook.com/otto.rappottensteiner.9

Now if you read the details below, the fact that I opened this new account from the same computer that Facebook claims is infected and wants me to download a Kaspersky scan proves that this is bogus!

Update: I now tried to log in from a different computer, and as it says further down in the Norton Community Forum post comment, I get the same bogus message from Facebook on there as well, but again, the “new” account I opened opens without problem!

READ ALL ABOUT IT:

I’ve been trying to share a web page on Facebook when I get a message to log in. I log in, this page comes up:



In case you can't read the tex from this screen clip, this is what it says:

Let's Check Your Device for Malicious Software Hi Otto, we're continuously working to keep your account secure. We've noticed that this device may be infected with malicious software. To continue to use Facebook, you can either use other devices or clean this device by downloading the scanner provided by Facebook and Kaspersky Lab.

I have Norton Security, I ran a quick check, nothing found:



So I am checking out the Norton History:


Scrolling further down the history, I find that several attempts occurred on seemingly a daily basis to screw with my Security Software. These are blocked and classified as Medium. Here is one of the (identical) type blocked by Norton:

Category: Norton Product Tamper Protection
Date & Time,Risk,Activity,Status,Recommended Action,Date,Actor,Actor PID,Target,Target PID,Action,Reaction
9/8/2017 12:54:57 PM,Medium,Unauthorized access blocked (Access Process Data),Blocked,No Action Required,9/8/2017 12:54:57 PM,C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\WBEM\WMIPRVSE.EXE,7844,C:\Program Files (x86)\Norton Internet Security\Engine\22.10.1.10\nis.exe,2348,Access Process Data,Unauthorized access blocked

Running the text of this Facebook message in a search, I find this in my Norton Community Forum:

I have been blocked from logging onto Facebook as it claims that I ... – this was posted 12.7.2015 – on top it says “This forum thread needs a solution” which means that for over 2 years, nobody found a solution yet.

But scrolling through the tread, I find this detailed description from swamper777 in his comment posted on 7.6.2017

here is the link to the comment:
#comment-7492371
If you open the link, aside from the comment, you will also find 3 PDF documents attached.
But for the comment, so you wont have to follow the URL, I copy the entire text below :

QUOTE:
“Re: I have been blocked from logging onto Facebook as it claims that I have malware and must add a ESET program to scan all my files
Posted: 07-Jun-2017 | 6:01AM • Edited: 07-Jun-2017 | 6:03AM • Permalink
I’ve been using Facebook for nine years. During that time, I’ve only been put in Facebook jail about seven years ago, and then, only for 24 hours. I have 800+ FB friends, all of whom I’ve met in person or otherwise known in other circles.

I’m also an IT security specialist with 29 years of experience, one who has written 20+ articles for Network World.

It is my opinion that Facebook use of it’s “Let’s Check Your Device for Malicious Software” pop-up (attached) has nothing to do with “malicious software” as it claims, but rather, as a means of gaining access to the computing devices and personal information of people it has, for whatever reason, deemed “unfavorable.” I base my opinion on the process of systematic elimination, as described below:

1. I run several anti-virus/malware programs on my computer, including Norton Security and Norton’s recommended Malwarebytes. The only problem any of them found was pua.opencandy, a low-threat undesirable which I fixed before reattempting my Facebook login, still to no joy — same “malicious software” error message.
2. I next attempted to login to Facebook using other browsers, including Firefox and Opera. same “malicious software” error message.
3. I flushed the cache of all browsers, system-wide, and attempted to log in using a different local machine user account on my computer (same FB user account): same “malicious software” error message.

CONCLUSION 1: This issue has nothing to do with any specific browser.

1. I moved to a backup computer, one I haven’t used in about three weeks. Result: same “malicious software” error message.

CONCLUSION 2: This issue has nothing to do with my computer.

1. I hiked over to the library, and asked a friend to login to their Facebook account using one of the library’s machines. No problem. After they logged out, I tried logging in using my Facebook account. Result: same “malicious software” error message.

CONCLUSION 3: This issue has nothing to do with my IP address, but may have to do with my FB account.

1. I repeated Step 5 using a friend’s computer. He could access FB, but I could not. After I logged out, he was able to log back in without a problem.

CONCLUSION 4: This issue not only has nothing to do with either any machine or any browser, but is definitely associated with my FB user account.

1. I researched this problem on several different user forums, including both here and on Facebook. None of the information I found conflicted with the steps I took and conclusions I reached as denoted above. In fact, the account about the lady who contacted the Better Business Bureau who subsequently contacted Facebook who magically resolved the issue confirms the conclusions I have reached above. I also noted that Facebook usually responds to users’ posts in their Help forum. They did not, however, respond to any of the five posts reporting this problem in their Help forum.

CONCLUSION 5: Facebook may not be interested in helping resolve this issue, because for them, it’s not a legitimate issue.

1. I asked my friend to come over to my apartment, login using my computer and browser, to see if he can duplicate the problem. I log in and receive the “malicious software” message. I log out. He logs in with his own FB user account. Result: NO error message. I log in, receive the error message. He logs in, no error message. We repeat this several times just to be certain, both with cache flushing, no flushing, and multiple browsers.

CONCLUSION 6: Conclusion 4 was thoroughly and incontrovertibly verified. This issue has absolutely NOTHING to do with any purported “malicious software” on my machine (or on any machine) or in my or any other browser. The ONLY possible culprit is my specific login (along with the logins of others who have been put into the same penalty box by Facebook for whatever reason).

I therefore surmise that Facebook may have implemented this as a means of doing one of two things:

A. Blocking users whom it deems “undesirable.” Unfortunately, all it takes is just one FB moderator to block a legitimate user, even if all that user did was disagree with the status quo with respect to an issue like abortion or man-made climate change, and there’s no way to contact FB without first allowing them to scan your system.

B. Creating a false premise upon which it can gain access to a user’s computer. I would hate to think that any of the four antivirus/malware products with which Facebook has partnered (Kaspersky, ESET, TrendMicro, F-Secure) would ever be complicit in such an affair, but given the observations and test results as stated above, along with Facebook’s decidedly left political bent and the countless similar tactics the left has used over the last decade at all levels, it’s entirely reasonable to question that this is indeed what Facebook is doing now. The problem with this is that the only way to contact Facebook at this point is to allow them to scan your entire system, during which time they could record the entire contents of your hard drive – a definite NO-NO with respect to security. Furthermore, this even gives them the ability to actually place files on your hard drive during that process, also a BIG FAT NO-NO.

I have every confidence in Norton Security to detect any such problem that Facebook purports to exist, should it actually exist. In fact, I implore Norton to find out what in the world Facebook purports to exist and work with them and their four partners in order to identify and eliminate this supposed “malicious software” threat FB claims is on my computer but which I have clearly and incontrovertibly proven not to be present.

In the meantime, I am filing a formal report with my Congressman, asking that he open a Congressional investigation into Facebook’s deceptive practices.”
UNQUOTE

So my conclusion to all this is:

SCREW FACEBOOK

Facebook Morality Apostles

It disturbs me deeply to see some of my Facebook artist friends get repeatedly into trouble by having their artwork flagged by those self-appointed morality-apostles that have nothing better to do than visiting artist pages in order to flag what they deem 'inappropriate' content.

this is a old painting of mine that had also been flagged once!

Plain and simple, this is a form of harassment that should at least be filtered as to whether the 'complaints' are actually warranted. 

As it stands, warnings and take-downs happen automatically without much recourse. Blocking and banning such people does not help any: they can still have access to your public pages and continue their harassment unabated, albeit they can no longer post comments once you block them (if indeed you can find out who it is in the first place). 

There really is no protection against such - and let me make this perfectly clear, lest you think this does not affect you: one can flag ANYTHING as 'inappropriate' and Facebook response is automatic and handled by a robot. Complain about it and all you get is a reply that is also just a formulated auto reply.

UPDATE:  In some instances a complaint about a post on facebook is referred to a outsourcing company called oDesk - to learn more about what this could mean to you (and your privacy), read this article by Emma Barnett, Digital Media Editor, The Telegraph:

 Facebook in new row over sharing users’ data with moderators

One instance I remember a picture of Michelangelo's David had been flagged (on another network that was supposed to be a art site!) so these morality-sniffers are all over the internet.

This is a ongoing problem, and I had posted about this subject before, several years ago (Wednesday, October 1, 2008):

Vatican plea to uncover Virgin Mary and show her breast-feeding baby Jesus

Joos van Cleve - Virgin and Child, 1525

While back then my trongue-in-cheek response was humorous (read MORE HERE), after all this time I cannot find any humor in the insane actions that continue to haunt sites such as facebook!

OK - better? 

I myself had been flagged on Facebook  before for posting this picture, titled 'Godina' by fellow artist

DRAGAN ILIĆ DI VOGO 

Dragan Ilić Di Vogo - Godina

One of the latest artist to fall victim to the "facebook morality squad" is my friend PETER GRIC - a 'signature work' of his that currently hangs in the Phantasten Museum in Vienna, simply called 'Angel' has been flagged and a take-down noticed sent. Potentially the repercussions might be serious, since Peter had been a co-administrator of the Visionary Art Page on which the above painting by di Vogo was posted, and so he had also been warned about this before (though it was I that posted it) - therefore, he is deemed a 'repeat offender'.

PETER GRIC - Metamorphosis III (Angel)

We live in sad and disturbing times indeed. Even the Victorian Age was more tolerant than this!

And here is a recent post on my site VISIONARY ART EXHIBITION:

Susannah Martin article in Huffington Post hit by Facebook censorship 

ANOTHER UPDATE: I found this great article on Gawker, titled 

How Facebook Lets Whining Trolls Censor Everyone

Visit us at the Visionary Art Gallery

 

Facebook Shenanigans

 

A couple of days ago I discovered that Facebook was blocking weebly hosted sites, which includes our VISIONARY ART GALLERY.

Apparently, this has something to do with a handful of sub-domains on weebly, supposedly having been  flagged by McAffee (what does McAffe say to this? check HERE). The same supposed  flags had also caused similar blocks on MySpace before. I do not understand why a few sites could cause such a problem for all the weebly sites (there are over 4 million users on weebly!). I can assure you, our site is perfectly safe, as are the sites of several of our members who also have their websites hosted on weebly (and are also blocked on facebook and MySpace). 

In order to continue bringing our content to the attention of facebook users, I had already in the past copied whole pages from our gallery onto my posterous blog, which in turn is auto-fed to facebook and several other sites. I will now increase this activity, and would encourage those who blog to do the same.

The feature I like on posterous is that when the blog contains a embedded slide show, it is also shown on the feed to facebook. Check out my latest posts on my facebook wall: http://www.facebook.com/otto.rapp 

Love, Peace and Happiness

Otto Rapp

De Es Schwertberger

De Es

A few days ago, my friend De Es had been featured with a page on facebook by someone unknown.
Since De Es has no control over that page, both Leo Plaw and myself, on behalf of De Es whom we were in contact with, reported the unauthorized page to Facebook Administration and I am happy to announce that the page was deleted. De Es has since joined our group of Visionary Artists on facebook.

Please visit his website:

http://www.dees.at/

Personal Information:

De Es Schwertberger (born Dieter Schwertberger 1942, Gresten, Austria), commonly known simply as De Es (since 1972), is an Austrian artist, painter and modeller. His work has been shown in exhibitions in New York City, where he lived for a short time, and Switzerland.
In 1973 De Es went on to serve as the assistant to Ernst Fuchs, at the Summer Academy in Reichenau. It was in this time that De Es went through the Stone Period, in which his art work consisted mainly of objects and people made from cracked rock and stone. De Es moved to SoHo, New York City in 1975, continuing his Stone Period of art work. In the 1979 he opened his own Gallery, Studio Planet Earth, before ending the Stone Period with a series of 'Time-Portals' paintings.
De Es' 1980s period of work opened with his work on the vast Transformation cycle of paintings, depicting 'Planetarians' (fictional beings invented by De Es), which were displayed at the Dome of Peace exhibition in 1980.
In the early 1990s he continued with the Planetarian sculptures, with an outdoor exhibition of forty Planetarians at Gurten Mountain, near Bern, Switzerland, marking the 800th 'birthday' anniversary of the city. In 1993 he published his book Heavy Light, a selection of his work from throughout his life. He also started work on another book, Prime Matter, which covered his Stone Period, which was published over the following years.
He lives and continues to work in Austria.

Facebook | Visionary Art

The avatar for the gallery is a work by
Abdul Mati Klarwein

Christian De Boeck, administering the Visionary Art Gallery on Facebook had done an exemplary job of rallying together like-minded artists from around the globe, many of which had been friends for decades.

I am honoured to have been named co-administrator of the gallery, together with Laurence Caruana, Laurie Lipton, Robert Venosa and Oleg Korolev .

WHAT IS VISIONARY ART?

Christian De Boeck posted under the discussion topic What is Visonary Art, Science, Engineering, Technology? (Post #5) an interesting exchange of letters (almost a decade ago) between himself and Alex Grey.

SOME OF THE OUTSTANDING WORK ON DISPLAY:

ERNST FUCHS

MARC SPENCER

LAURIE LIPTON

JOE HACKBARTH

KURT REGSCHEK

VLADISLAV ERKO

KD MATHESON

Visit this site and immerse yourself in the visions!

Facebook Visionary Art