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09-13 WARNING. How Social Media Became a Storefront for Fake Pills as Families Struggle

Fentanyl overdoses have become a leading cause of death for minors in the last five years or so, even as overall drug use has dropped slightly. In a 2022 analysis of fentanyl-laced prescription pills, the DEA found that six out of 10 contained a potentially lethal dose of the drug.

And social media, where tainted, fake prescription drugs can be obtained with just a few clicks, is a big part of the problem. Experts, law enforcement and children’s advocates say companies like Snap, TikTok, Telegram and Meta, which owns Instagram, are not doing enough to keep children safe.

In 2022, two weeks after she turned 17, Coco left home just outside New York City to meet with a dealer she’d messaged through Instagram who promised to sell her Percocet, her mom, Julianna Arnold, recalled recently. She never made it home. She was found dead the next day, two blocks from the address that the guy had provided her.

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lynnswarriors09-13 WARNING. How Social Media Became a Storefront for Fake Pills as Families Struggle
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09-12 Sean Diddy Combs Ordered to Pay 100 Million Dollars to Sexual Assault Accuser

A judge granted a default judgment against Sean “Diddy” Combs for $100 million Monday after the rapper failed to appear at a court hearing.

Combs was ordered to pay Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith, 51, $100 million by Lenawee County Circuit Court Judge Anna Marie Anzalone, Fox News Digital confirmed. A court can grant a default judgment if a party fails to meet certain obligations within a specific time frame.

Cardello-Smith originally filed his lawsuit against Combs on June 10. The Michigan inmate requested a temporary restraining order and the court granted his motion after Diddy failed to appear at the hearing on Aug. 7.

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lynnswarriors09-12 Sean Diddy Combs Ordered to Pay 100 Million Dollars to Sexual Assault Accuser
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09-10 Hollywood is Making Sex Scenes in Films More Explicit Than Ever

The Parents Television and Media Council (PTC) is calling on Hollywood to stop pushing more explicit sex scenes into movies, as reported by a new study, and warning parents of this disturbing trend.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, some of the explicit sex scenes mentioned in the study were “erect penises (in movies like May December) and characters performing oral sex while their partners were menstruating (Saltburn, Fair Play).”

“Hollywood is ensuring sex scenes in films are more explicit than ever, despite that the same study found that sex scenes on the big screen aren’t as frequent. Violence and explicit language are also still very present in films and have seen no decline. Families, beware,” said Melissa Henson, vice president, Parents Television and Media Council.

“Audiences, and teenagers in particular, are turned-off by gratuitous sex in movies. Hollywood’s response is apparently to make sexual content less frequent, but more explicit.

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09-09 NYC’s Top Doc Says Kids Shouldn’t Get Phones Before Age 14 to Safeguard Mental Health

Social media has become such a menace for kids that the city health commissioner is recommending parents don’t give their children cell phones till at least age 14.

Pediatrians also should make talking to parents and children about social media part of check-ups, says Big Apple Health Commish Ashwin Vasan.

“Adolescents using social media have a greater risk of experiencing poor mental health, including symptoms of depression and anxiety,” wrote Vasan and city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Chief Medical Officer Michelle Morse in a Sept. 5 letter to doctors and other medical professionals.

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lynnswarriors09-09 NYC’s Top Doc Says Kids Shouldn’t Get Phones Before Age 14 to Safeguard Mental Health
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09-08 WARNING. Sound the Alarm! OnlyFans is 99.99% Predatory and Not What You Think. Talk to Your Kids. Now.

The pandemic boom might be over for many tech companies, but OnlyFans is still a money-making machine.

Its parent company, Fenix International, posted annual earnings on Friday for the fiscal year ending November 30, 2023. The company’s revenue grew by $217 million to $1.3 billion, up from $1.09 billion in 2022.

The filing shows that the total number of creator and fan accounts also surged by 29% and 28%, respectively, to 4.1 million creators and 305 million fans.

OnlyFans takes a 20% cut of creators’ earnings through its platform. Gross payments made through OnlyFans, representing how much fans pay creators for messages, photos, and videos, amounted to $6.6 billion, up by $1 billion from the prior year.

The group’s pretax profit jumped from $525 million to $658 million in 2023.

The subscription site popular with adult-content creators boomed during the pandemic, boosted by new creators and subscribers signing up during lockdown.

Company filings show that Leo Radvinsky, the owner of OnlyFans, was paid a dividend of $338 million in 2022 after earning more than $500 million from OnlyFans in the prior two years.

OnlyFans was founded in the UK in 2016 by the British entrepreneur Tim Stokely before he sold the company Radvinsky two years later for an undisclosed amount.

Keily Blair, the CEO of OnlyFans, said in a statement shared with Business Insider: “OnlyFans had a strong year in 2023. We have cemented our place as a leading digital entertainment company and a UK tech success story.”

Blair added that it helped its creator community “monetize their content and grow their global fan base” and that it will continue to invest in the creator economy.

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lynnswarriors09-08 WARNING. Sound the Alarm! OnlyFans is 99.99% Predatory and Not What You Think. Talk to Your Kids. Now.
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09-05 WARNING: Child Mind Institute – How to Talk With Your Children About School Shootings

Anxiety over school shootings has become a common fear in America. When something that once seemed unthinkable happens with some regularity, added to our feeling of horror that it’s happened (again!) is another kind of alarm: Could this happen at my child’s school?

And many parents have begun to worry whether the news of school shootings, along with the active-shooter drills most schools are now conducting, are frightening children in a damaging way.

Responding to this concern, Jamie Howard, PhD, director of the Trauma and Resilience Service at the Child Mind Institute, says that parents tend to worry about school shootings more than their children do. “Even though they’re the ones going into school every day, I just don’t hear a lot of kids worrying about it,” she says. “When children are younger they’re more egocentric. As they get to become teenagers this changes.” Thisdevelopmental selfishness is a quality that often protects younger children from the kind of anxiety that the adults around them are experiencing.

This is good news for parents who worry about their children feeling afraid. But kids are very good at picking up on the fears of their parents, and if they sense that Mom or Dad is afraid, they will take notice.

Read more here. 

lynnswarriors09-05 WARNING: Child Mind Institute – How to Talk With Your Children About School Shootings
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