Want to stay healthy, both emotionally and physically? Researchers from UC San Diego and Yale have some simple advice for you: Limit the amount of time you spend on Facebook. While this may sound like typical anti-social media crankiness from academia, this time they have some impressive research to back up their case. Holly Shakya, assistant professor at UC San Diego, and Yale professor Nicholas Christakis spent two years following 5,208 adults who are part of a Gallup long-term study. After asking permission, they monitored these subjects’ Facebook use directly from Facebook, rather than asking subjects to report their own use. (People often don’t realize how much time they spend on the social network.) And they checked in with subjects on their emotional and physical well-being, as well as their body-mass index (BMI), three times over the course of two years.

“Overall, our results showed that, while real-world social networks were positively associated with overall well-being, the use of Facebook was negatively associated with overall well-being,” the researchers wrote in a Harvard Business Review article. “These results were particularly strong for mental health; most measures of Facebook use in one year predicted a decrease in mental health in a later year.” Yikes.

Why is too much Facebook bad for your emotional health? Previous research has shown that the social network creates a sort of false peer pressure. Since most people are cautious about posting negative or upsetting experiences on Facebook, the social network creates a misleading environment where everyone seems to be doing better and having more fun than you are. As the researchers put it, “Exposure to the carefully curated images from others’ lives leads to negative self-comparison.” (Read more from “Study: Facebook Could Destroy Both Your Mental and Physical Health” HERE)

[Image used in article belongs to Shop Catalog and can be found HERE]

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

A group of Republican senators is calling out Facebook for suppressing the views of a pro-life organization by rating its abortion-related content as “false” based on the opinions of abortionists.

“Yet again, Facebook’s pattern of censorship has reared its ugly head,” begins a letter sent to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg from GOP Sens. Josh Hawley, Mo.; Ted Cruz, Texas; Kevin Cramer, N.D.; and Mike Braun, Ind., on Wednesday.

In late August, Facebook hit pro-life advocacy group Live Action with a “false” rating after a “fact check” on two videos that claimed abortion is not medically necessary. One video featured board-certified neonatologist Dr. Kendra Kolb and was titled “The Pro-Life Reply to ‘Abortion Can Be Medically Necessary.’” The other featured Live Action founder and president Lila Rose explaining why abortion isn’t medically necessary.

At the time of the “false” rating, Rose described the action as “potentially the most devastating thing a tech company has done against a pro-life message” and accused Facebook of “effectively taking a position in this debate.” Rose also said she had been told that the group’s reach would be suppressed as a result of the action.

Facebook’s third-party “fact-checking” mechanism made the determination based on the viewpoints of abortionists Robyn Schickler and Daniel Grossman. Schickler went so far as to say that “all reasons for deciding to seek abortion care are valid; no one reason is better than another.”

“No reasonable person would describe Grossman or Schickler as neutral or objective when it comes to the issue of abortion, yet Facebook relied on their rating to suppress and censor a pro-life organization with more than 3 million followers,” the group of senators wrote, calling the actions “clear violations” of “Facebook’s supposed commitment to non-partisanship.”

In contrast, the position that abortion isn’t medically necessary is “a widely-held view, one shared by the thousands of members of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstretricians & Gynecologists, among others,” the senators added.

“Your company, like Twitter, Google, Pinterest and so many other major Silicon Valley social media firms, has been repeatedly confronted with evidence of bias against those with conservative viewpoints, especially on the issue of abortion,” the letter reads. “And in response you have repeatedly insisted that these numerous incidents of discrimination, censorship, and suppression of speech are merely glitches, not evidence of systemic bias.”

“But if this isn’t bias, what is?” the lawmakers asked Zuckerberg. “The only thing more astonishing than your claim to nonpartisanship is your complete failure to back that claim with proof.”

The senators conclude by calling on the social media company to “immediately issue a correction, remove any restrictions placed on the pages of Live Action and Lila Rose, and submit to an external audit.”

Last week, Live Action also announced that it had sent out legal “cease and desist” letters to YouTube and Pinterest on claims that the tech companies had “violated the law by engaging in illegal and discriminatory action against the organization based on its pro-life ideology and mission.” (For more from the author of “Facebook Labels Pro-Life Group as Fake News Based on Abortionists’ Advice” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

AJ+ has become a major video creator on Facebook, with its viral videos in the style of Buzzfeed or NowThis targeting liberal millennials. But unknown to some, it’s actually a branch of Al Jazeera and is owned by the government of Qatar, a Middle Eastern nation long accused of meddling in the affairs of other countries.

The AJ+ videos often focus on progressive ideals and are framed in a way that emphasizes the divisions in U.S. policy and politics. And Facebook doesn’t disclose the Qatar connection on videos AJ+ posts and apparently hasn’t blocked its content, even as the social media platform cracks down on fake news and hidden foreign influence.

“If AJ+ reaches a larger audience with its façade of progressivism, it doesn’t mean Qatar is more progressive. It just means its influence campaign is more effective,” a researcher with the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, Gilead Ini, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. . .

Meanwhile, AJ+ publishes videos criticizing policies and politics that are particularly divisive in the U.S., but are contrary to Qatar’s own laws. For example, AJ+ posted a video on Facebook on May 15 portraying Alabama abortion legislation as dangerous, yet Qatar imprisons women for unauthorized abortions.

AJ+ “targets young, left-leaning Americans by focusing on areas of young progressive interest, such as the ‘patriarchy,’ LGBT rights, and even the lives of indigenous American ‘punk rockers,’” wrote the Middle East Forum’s Samantha Rose Mandeles. “Though promoting intersectionality, feminism, same-sex marriage, and punk rock is not part of the traditional Qatari rhetoric … AJ+’s branding allows Doha to peddle anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism to a younger audience under the guise of minority rights.” (Read more from “Viral Media Outlet with Ties to Qatar Tricks Young Liberals into Spreading Anti-American Propaganda” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE