In what was—hands down—one of the most distasteful ad campaigns ever to grace the pages of Facebook, an online dating site promoted its services using photographs of the late Rehtaeh Parsons under the headline "Find Love in Canada!"
According to an article in the Huffington Post, a Toronto-based man Andrew Ennals discovered images of the 17-year-old teen who committed suicide earlier this year. Rehtaeh was allegedly cyberbullied following a sexual assault, in a case for which two Halifax teens have now been charged.
Ennals had to double-take when he saw the photos; he couldn't believe her image was being used to advertise a dating site.
"Then I was just horrified," Ennals said. "I think Facebook needs to remove it, of course, but it also I think shows some of the flaws with their algorithm for drawing in images," he said. "I can't imagine that any company would do this on purpose."
While Facebook has since recognized the violation of its policies, and locked the account of the dating site, ionechat.com (which then led Canadian users to the calledbe2 site), the damage has been done.
Though the companies may have unwittingly used the image, which could have been scraped from anywhere on the web, the fact that it happened at all has revealed some major cracks in the social media engine. The HuffPost also references a Facebook page called "Lac-Megantic Train Disaster Was Hilarious" on its site, and who can forget this disgusting page?
FB, it's high time you cleaned up your act. Would such offensive and sloppy content persuade you to stop using the site?
When it comes to being manhood, size may not count for much, yet it may determine what kind of dad you are. New research from Emory University in Atlanta found that the size of a man's testicles play a role in how active he is as a father to his children.
According to an article in the BBC, bigger isn't necessarily better. Men with smaller testicles are apparently more likely to be more hands-on dads, engaging in child care activities like diapering, feeding, and bathing.
Those with smaller testes also showed heightened different brain activity (in reward centres) when looking at pictures of their children than their more generously endowed counterparts.
It seems that men with larger testicles are more concerned with producing the children than rearing them, if the evolutionary theory holds true.
Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the study examined the correlation between fatherhood and testicle size of 70 men with kids aged between one and two.
"It tells us some men are more naturally inclined to care-giving than others, but I don't think that excuses other men," said researcher, Dr James Rilling. "It just might require more effort for some than others."
Though the study highlights interesting differences, perhaps due to hormone levels, further research is clearly needed to take into account possible cultural and societal factors.
Do you buy it? More science on why men 'go soft' when they have kids.
Health Canada, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (US CPSC) and Hachette Book Group, Inc. have jointly recalled the children's books, "Count my kisses, 1, 2, 3" and "red, green, blue, I love you" with the following ISBN codes:
The board books have beads strung on metal rods which can detach, posing a potential choking hazard and/or laceration hazard.
While Health Canada nor Hachette Book Group, Inc. have not received any reports of incidents in relation to the books, customers are advised to remove the books from children immediately and return them for a full refund from to the place of purchase.
For further information, customers can contact Hachette Book Group, Inc. by telephone at 1-888-965-5802 from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST Monday through Friday, or visit the company's website.
From June 2013 to August 2013, approximately 3,423 books were sold in Canada, and approximately 70,000 in the United States.
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