Chair Girl left us dangling at deadline time
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Marcella Zoia awaited her fate at her sentencing hearing, based on the Crown requesting up to six months in jail for her pleading guilty to mischief endangering life. Chair Girl’s lawyer, Greg Leslie, argued that her “self-medicating with alcohol” factored into the incident. We might as well view the whole thing through a philosophical lens.
Likely not the next Chair Girl
James Potok keeps giving interviews about the video stunt that got a Jamaica-bound plane turned back to Toronto, wanting the likes of Rebel News to know that he technically didn’t say that he had the coronavirus. Coverage for this “rapper” escalated to a story by Rolling Stone, a level up from his goal of virality via 6ixBuzz TV.
The anonymous agenda of @6ixbuzztv. Given how the Instagram meme account was also blamed for stirring panic around the restaurant Wuhan Noodle, its influence was probed by Toronto Star columnist Evelyn Kwong. And yet, the people behind the account remain unquestioned and unnamed, even though their particulars are public.
Who can resist a freebie list
Vice has investigated the apparently lacking effort by Montreal company Mindgeek to remove non-consensual content that turns up on its website, Pornhub, a brand that’s been legitimized by click-baiting press coverage. But then, all the exposés of Amazon don’t intrude upon its ability to earn news media based on lonely data points:
Facebook rapped by Canada’s privacy commissioner over an app. This is Your Digital Life, a personality quiz that collected data of users and their friends, was the focus of a complaint that’s led the commissioner to seek a court date with Facebook, if it can get a federal declaration of broken laws. (The social network banned quiz apps last April.)
It’s been a week for Airbnb
After the deadly shooting in downtown Toronto, and a policy change aimed at curbing party house rentals, an Ontario judge ruled that police had no right to enter a condo where an Airbnb user found a hidden camera in a clock pointed at the bed. No wonder it can feel like daily living is increasingly beholden to its effect:
How to stop the TTC from losing $70 million a year in revenue again. A six-week study of fare evasion on the Toronto transit system brings the conclusion that “a reset of social norms” is required to get more Presto cards tapped on streetcars. TTC CEO Rick Leary promises a new surge of constables and fare inspectors to wield big fines.
Finally, a step into the El Mo
El Mocambo, the storied Toronto nightclub bought by Michael Wekerle in November 2014, has promised multiple re-openings that never transpired. It took until February 2020 for a politician to score a photo-op inside, where there’s another neon palm:
