Tagged: YL

Every year, hundreds of thousands of undocumented people face deportation. Under the Obama administration, the number of deportations has hit record highs. In 2012 alone, the United States deported 409,849 people.

In June of 2013, a video, released by a group called Legals for the Preservation of American Culture, urged viewers to support the deportation of the Statue of Liberty.

The video was a satire, but the issues facing immigrant women are serious.

Right before the project’s launch, the U.S. Senate began debating an immigration reform bill that could help millions of immigrants -- more than half of them women -- gain legal documentation and U.S. citizenship. This bill could help protect the human rights and workers’ rights of immigrants. Breakthrough partnered with the Yes Lab to focus on how this legislation affects women, and Legals for the Preservation of American Culture (LPAC) was born.

LPAC’s video, which features a charming Lady Liberté being interviewed by an obnoxious Immigration & Customs Enforcement officer, received over 400,000 mentions on its first day on Twitter and over 90,000 video views as of this writing. When it was featured on the Situation Room on CNN, the video helped draw attention to the current debates about immigration reform. The satirical video may seem ridiculous, but it helped highlight the ludicrousness of the current immigration system in the United States.

Selected press:

• CNN: Send Lady Liberty Back to France?
• BBC Mundo: La Estatua de la Libertad puede ser deportada
• UPI: Deport the Statue of Liberty?
• HuffPo: Deport The Statue Campaign ‘Promotes’ Immigration Reform That Preserves American Culture
• Univision: La Estatua de la Libertad será deportada
• MSN: Watch Lady Liberty get deported because she doesn’t have papers

The mandate of the European Investment Bank (EIB) is to further EU sustainable development objectives, including Europe’s 2050 Energy Roadmap, which calls for quickly cutting carbon emissions. On their website, the EIB claims to be "among the largest providers of finance for climate action." But they fail to mention one little detail: They also make massive loans to coal-fired power plants and other dirty energy sources.

So Counter Balance teamed up with the Yes Lab to reveal the EIB's hypocrisy. The day before the Bank was scheduled to have its exclusive annual press conference, the activists sent out a fake EIB press release announcing that the Bank would finally do the right thing and stop financing coal power plants. The story was immediately picked up by business press, and the EIB responded with a denial, threatening legal retaliation.

At the press conference the next day, a Counterbalance agent with journalist’s credentials gained entry to the exclusive event and presented EIB President Werner Hoyer with a stunning award, thanking him and the bank for their commitment to divestment from fossil fuels. If only! Until they change, we’ve all got to suck their second-hand smoke. Thanks, Europe!

Selected Press:

• EIB Fake Site - EIB will exclude all future coal finance as part of its new energy policy
• EU Business - EIB will exclude all future coal finance as part of its new energy policy
• Wind Power Offshore - Offshore wind likely winner from EIB "no coal" rule
• Bloomberg - EIB Says It Hasn’t Made Statement on Energy Lending
• Platts - European Investment Bank loans for coal
• Business Green - European Investment Bank considers legal action over hoax coal statement
• European Voices - A bizarre hoax on the EIB

In July of 2012, U.S. Attorney for Southern California Laura Duffy announced that, contrary to the policy guidelines of head U.S. Attorney Eric Holder, medical marijuana facilities in San Diego would have to close.

Shortly afterwards, an email went out from her office announcing that she would begin closing pharmacies in the La Jolla district of San Diego. "These pharmacies are not only about providing medicine to the sick," wrote Duffy. "They are part of a pervasive for-profit industry that facilitates the distribution of drugs for illegitimate use. Doctors are prescribing unneeded medication; kids are overdosing on aspirin; police are finding pill bottles at junior high schools."

The release, of course, was fake, but those excuses were the same her office was using to close the medical marijuana facility.

As her office scrambled to deny the release, a fake "denial" release also went out, that further illuminated the absurdity of Duffy's real actions. Then, the right-wing "Federal Accountability Coalition" took credit for the hoax, claiming to oppose Duffy because she was a "Benedict Arnold."

"I’m not a pot smoker or an Obama supporter, but... Duffy’s a Benedict Arnold," said a "FAC" spokesperson. "She’s not following orders. And what’s more, if she shuts down a proper medical marijuana facility, how long until she goes after the pharmacies?"

Finally, the real perpetrators—Americans for Safe Access (ASA) and Canvass for a Cause—revealed the action's true motives. All along the wild ride, the press had a field day.

Selected press:

• SD City Beat - How Laura Duffy exacerbated the prank against her
• UT San Diego - Medical Pot Group Plays Hoax On U.S. Attorney
• HuffPo - Fake Drug War Press Release Fools The LA Times
• UT San Diego -  Hoax claims legal drugs crackdown; feds unamused
• ASA - DuffyHoax Revealed - Medical Marijuana Advocates Tell All

To compensate victims of their racist and abusive "stop and frisk" policy, the New York Police Department partnered with McDonald’s to offer free Happy Meals™ to anyone stopped and frisked three times without charge or summons. Too yummy to be true?

Selected press:

• Website spoofs 'Stop and Frisk' and McDonald's, ABC News
• Three Stop-and-Frisks = One Happy Meal, New York Magazine
• Get A McDonald's Happy Meal For Every Third Stop And Frisk! , Gothamist
• 365Black: Here's A Free Happy Meal Voucher, Good After 3 NYPD Cops Frisk And Let You Go, Business Insider
• McDonald’s Denies NYPD Deal to Give Happy Meals to Stop and Frisk Victims, Color Lines
• Three strikes, you're in!, Homeland Security Newswire (Note: This reprint of the press release was up for about 24 hours, until HSN realized it wasn't actual homeland security news)

How would you like to force children to mine precious metals, save suicidal workers from jumping to their deaths so they can labor another day, or find the cheapest way to dispose of mountains of e-waste—all while keeping productivity up so you can toss shiny trinkets to adoring consumers? Each of the levels of "Phone Story," the iPhone app from Molleindustria (with some help from the Yes Lab), contains a mini-game exploring a different problem in the consumer electronics supply chain. Players of the first anti-iPhone iPhone game are placed in the digital shoes of forces within the lifespan of a smartphone—from Coltan mines in the Congo to e-waste facilities all over the developing world. It's a simplified virtual tour of a world that doesn’t want to be changed.

Phone Story was released in the iTunes store, but Apple pulled it a few hour later, citing bizarre excuses like the "depiction of child abuse." If you see the game you'll see how funny that excuse really is. And luckily, you can see the game again now, because the designers adapted it overnight and released it for Android. All revenues of the new anti-iPhone and anti-Android app will go directly to organizations helping to put a stop to the horrors that smartphone production causes. And meanwhile, Apple's action to supress the content of this game became yet another an object-lesson in censorship that resulted in lots of media attention like this.

Selected press:

• The Guardian  "Apple bans satirical iPhone game Phone Story from its App Store"
• The New York Times  "Game That Critiques Apple Vanishes From App Store"
• Wired UK  "Apple bans Phone Story game which exposes the seedy side of smartphone creation"
• Gamasutra  "'Banned' iPhone Title Phone Story Released For Android"
• Washington Post "Banned From The App Store: An Anti-iPhone Game Complete With Foxconn Suicide Mini-Game"

An ad-hoc group called CRIME (Committee for the Reimbursement of Indemnity Money Extorted from Haiti) announced, on France’s behalf, the repayment of €17 billion to Haiti in relief aid—a payment equal to France extorted from Haiti in 1804 as a condition for their independence. Because of France’s ham-fisted reaction, the story received global attention, alerting many to the deep colonial roots of Haiti’s problems. The activists then used the media attention that was generated by the project as a springboard for a petition campaign to pressure the French government.