title: Covenanters

text: 'Old Mortality', an 1816 novel by Sir Walter Scott, features a character who spends his time travelling around Scotland, renewing inscriptions on Covenanter graves. In 1966, the Scottish Covenanter Memorial Association was established, which maintains these monuments throughout Scotland. One of the most famous is that erected at Greyfriars Kirkyard in 1707, commemorating 18,000 martyrs killed from 1661 to 1680.


title: Covenanters

text: In 1721 and 1722, Robert Wodrow published "The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the Revolution", detailing the persecution of the Covenanter movement from 1660 to 1690. This work would be brought forward again when elements in the Church of Scotland felt it to be suffering state interference, as at the Disruption of 1843.


title: Covenanters

text: Throughout the 17th century, Covenanter congregations were established in Ireland, primarily in Ulster; for a variety of reasons, many subsequently migrated to North America. In 1717, William Tennent moved with his family to Philadelphia, where he later founded Log College, the first Presbyterian seminary in North America.


title: Covenanters

text: In North America, many former Covenanters joined the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, which was founded in 1743.


title: Conformity

text: Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms, politics or being like-minded. Norms are implicit, specific rules, shared by a group of individuals, that guide their interactions with others. People often choose to conform to society rather than to pursue personal desires - because it is often easier to follow the path others have made already, rather than forging a new one. Thus, conformity is sometimes a product of group communication. This tendency to conform occurs in small groups and/or in society as a whole and may result from subtle unconscious influences (predisposed state of mind), or from direct and overt social pressure. Conformity can occur in the presence of others, or when an individual is alone. For example, people tend to follow social norms when eating or when watching television, even if alone.


title: Conformity

text: The Asch Conformity Experiment demonstrates how much influence conformity has on people. In a laboratory experiment, Asch asked 50 male students from Swarthmore College in the US to participate in a 'vision test'. Asch put a naive participant in a room with seven confederates/stooges in a line judgment task. When confronted with the line task, each confederate had already decided what response they would give. The real members of the experimental group sat in the last position, while the others were pre-arranged experimenters who gave apparently incorrect answers in unison; Asch recorded the last person's answer to analyze the influence of conformity. The results were very surprising on average, about one third (32%) of the participants who were placed in this situation sided with the clearly incorrect majority on the critical trials. Over the 12 critical trials, about 75% of participants conformed at least once. After being interviewed, subjects acknowledged that they did not actually agree with the answers given by others. The majority of them, however, believe that groups are wiser or do not want to appear as mavericks and choose to repeat the same obvious misconception. It is clear from this that conformity has a powerful effect on human perception and behavior, even to the extent that it can be faked against a person's basic belief system.


title: Conformity

text: Changing our behaviors to match the responses of others, which is conformity, can be conscious or not. People have an intrinsic tendency to unconsciously imitate other's behaviors such as gesture, language, talking speed, and other actions of the people they interact with. There are two other main reasons for conformity: informational influence and normative influence. People display conformity in response to informational influence when they believe the group is better informed, or in response to normative influence when they are afraid of rejection. When the advocated norm could be correct, the informational influence is more important than the normative influence, while otherwise the normative influence dominates.


title: Conformity

text: People often conform from a desire for security within a group, also known as normative influence—typically a group of a similar age, culture, religion or educational status. This is often referred to as groupthink: a pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics, which ignores realistic appraisal of other courses of action. Unwillingness to conform carries the risk of social rejection. Conformity is often associated in media with adolescence and youth culture, but strongly affects humans of all ages.


title: Conformity

text: Although peer pressure may manifest negatively, conformity can be regarded as either good or bad. Driving on the conventionally-approved side of the road may be seen as beneficial conformity. With the appropriate environmental influence, conforming, in early childhood years, allows one to learn and thus, adopt the appropriate behaviors necessary to interact and develop "correctly" within one's society. Conformity influences the formation and maintenance of social norms, and helps societies function smoothly and predictably via the self-elimination of behaviors seen as contrary to unwritten rules.


title: Conformity

text: According to Herbert Kelman, there are three types of conformity: 1) compliance (which is public conformity, and it is motivated by the need for approval or the fear of disapproval; 2) identification (which is a deeper type of conformism than compliance); 3) internalization(which is to conform both publicly and privately).


title: Conformity

text: Major factors that influence the degree of conformity include culture, gender, age, size of the group, situational factors, and different stimuli. In some cases, minority influence, a special case of informational influence, can resist the pressure to conform and influence the majority to accept the minority's belief or behaviors.


title: Conformity

text: Conformity is the tendency to change our perceptions, opinions, or behaviors in ways that are consistent with group norms. Norms are implicit, specific rules shared by a group of individuals on how they should behave. People may be susceptible to conform to group norms because they want to gain acceptance from their group.


title: Conformity

text: Some adolescents gain acceptance and recognition from their peers by conformity. This peer moderated conformity increases from the transition of childhood to adolescence. It follows a U-shaped age pattern wherein conformity increases through childhood, peaking at sixth and ninth grades and then declines. Adolescents often follow the logic that "if everyone else is doing it, then it must be good and right". However, it is found that they are more likely to conform if peer pressure involves neutral activities such as those in sports, entertainment, and prosocial behaviors rather than anti-social behaviors. Researchers have found that peer conformity is strongest for individuals who reported strong identification with their friends or groups, making them more likely to adopt beliefs and behaviors accepted in such circle.


title: Conformity

text: There is also the factor that the mere presence of a person can influence whether one is conforming or not. Norman Triplett (1898) was the researcher that initially discovered the impact that mere presence has, especially among peers. In other words, all people can affect society. We are influenced by people doing things beside us. Whether this is in a competitive atmosphere or not. People tend to be influenced by those who are their own age especially. Co-actors that are similar to us tend to push us more than those who are not.


title: Conformity

text: According to Donelson Forsyth, after submitting to group pressures, individuals may find themselves facing one of several responses to conformity. These types of responses to conformity vary in their degree of public agreement versus private agreement.


title: Conformity

text: When an individual finds themselves in a position where they publicly agree with the group's decision yet privately disagrees with the group's consensus, they are experiencing "compliance" or "acquiescence". This is also referenced as apparent conformity. This type of conformity recognizes that behavior isn't always consistent with our beliefs and attitudes, which mimics Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory. In turn, "conversion", otherwise known as "private acceptance" or "true conformity", involves both publicly and privately agreeing with the group's decision. In the case of private acceptance, the person conforms to the group by changing their beliefs and attitudes. Thus, this represents a true change of opinion to match the majority.


title: Conformity

text: Another type of social response, which does not involve conformity with the majority of the group, is called "convergence". In this type of social response, the group member agrees with the group's decision from the outset and thus does not need to shift their opinion on the matter at hand.


title: Conformity

text: In addition, Forsyth shows that nonconformity can also fall into one of two response categories. Firstly, an individual who does not conform to the majority can display "independence". "Independence", or "dissent", can be defined as the unwillingness to bend to group pressures. Thus, this individual stays true to his or her personal standards instead of the swaying toward group standards. Secondly, a nonconformist could be displaying "anticonformity" or "counterconformity" which involves the taking of opinions that are opposite to what the group believes. This type of nonconformity can be motivated by a need to rebel against the status quo instead of the need to be accurate in one's opinion.


title: Conformity

text: To conclude, social responses to conformity can be seen to vary along a continuum from conversion to anticonformity. For example, a popular experiment in conformity research, known as the "Asch situation" or Asch conformity experiments, primarily includes "compliance" and "independence". Also, other responses to conformity can be identified in groups such as juries, sports teams and work teams.


title: Conformity

text: Muzafer Sherif was interested in knowing how many people would change their opinions to bring them in line with the opinion of a group. In his experiment, participants were placed in a dark room and asked to stare at a small dot of light 15 feet away. They were then asked to estimate the amount it moved. The trick was, there was no movement, it was caused by a visual illusion known as the autokinetic effect. The participants stated estimates ranging from 1-10 inches. On the first day, each person perceived different amounts of movement, but from the second to the fourth day, the same estimate was agreed on and others conformed to it. Over time, the personal estimates converged with the other group members' estimates once discussing their judgments aloud. Sherif suggested this was a simulation for how social norms develop in a society, providing a common frame of reference for people. His findings emphasize that people rely on others to interpret ambiguous stimuli and new situations.


title: Conformity

text: Subsequent experiments were based on more realistic situations. In an eyewitness identification task, participants were shown a suspect individually and then in a lineup of other suspects. They were given one second to identify him, making it a difficult task. One group was told that their input was very important and would be used by the legal community. To the other it was simply a trial. Being more motivated to get the right answer increased the tendency to conform. Those who wanted to be more accurate conformed 51% of the time as opposed to 35% in the other group. Sherif's study provided a framework for subsequent studies of influence such as Soloman Asch's 1955 study.


title: Conformity

text: Solomon E. Asch conducted a modification of Sherif's study, assuming that when the situation was very clear, conformity would be drastically reduced. He exposed people in a group to a series of lines, and the participants were asked to match one line with a standard line. All participants except one were accomplices and gave the wrong answer in 12 of the 18 trials.


title: Conformity

text: The results showed a surprisingly high degree of conformity: 74% of the participants conformed on at least one trial. On average people conformed one third of the time. A question is how the group would affect individuals in a situation where the correct answer is less obvious.


title: Conformity

text: After his first test, Asch wanted to investigate whether the size or unanimity of the majority had greater influence on test subjects. "Which aspect of the influence of a majority is more important – the size of the majority or its unanimity? The experiment was modified to examine this question. In one series the size of the opposition was varied from one to 15 persons." The results clearly showed that as more people opposed the subject, the subject became more likely to conform. However, the increasing majority was only influential up to a point: from three or more opponents, there is more than 30% of conformity.


title: Conformity

text: Besides that, this experiment proved that conformity is powerful, but also fragile. It is powerful because just by having actors giving the wrong answer made the participant to also give the wrong answer, even though they knew it was not correct. It is also fragile, however, because in one of the variants for the experiment, one of the actors was supposed to give the correct answer, being an "ally" to the participant. With an ally, the participant was more likely to give the correct answer than he was before the ally. In addition, if the participant was able to write down the answer, instead of saying out loud, he was also more likely to put the correct answer. The reason for that is because he was not afraid of being different from the rest of the group since the answers were hidden.


title: Conformity

text: This experiment was conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram in order to portray obedience to authority. They measured the willingness of participants (men aged 20 to 50 from a diverse range of occupations with different levels of education) to obey the instructions from an authority figure to supply fake electric shocks that would gradually increase to fatal levels. Regardless of these instructions going against their personal conscience, 65% of the participants shocked all the way to 450 volts, fully obeying the instruction, even if they did so reluctantly. Additionally, all participants shocked to at least 300 volts.


title: Conformity

text: However, here are certain scenarios that would reduce this conformity: 1. physical contact with the subject that would increase empathy for them 2. the presence of a fellow dissenter as an "ally" to the participant like in Asch's experiment 3. a second authority figure disagreeing with the first.


title: Conformity

text: Although Kelman's distinction has been influential, research in social psychology has focused primarily on two varieties of conformity. These are "informational" conformity, or informational social influence, and "normative" conformity, also called normative social influence. In Kelman's terminology, these correspond to internalization and compliance, respectively. There are naturally more than two or three variables in society influential on human psychology and conformity; the notion of "varieties" of conformity based upon "social influence" is ambiguous and indefinable in this context.


title: Conformity

text: According to Deutsch and Gérard (1955), conformity results from a motivational conflict (between the fear of being socially rejected and the wish to say what we think is correct) that leads to normative influence, and a cognitive conflict (others create doubts in what we think) which leads to informational influence.


title: Conformity

text: Informational social influence occurs when one turns to the members of one's group to obtain and accept accurate information about reality. A person is most likely to use informational social influence in certain situations: when a situation is ambiguous, people become uncertain about what to do and they are more likely to depend on others for the answer; and during a crisis when immediate action is necessary, in spite of panic. Looking to other people can help ease fears, but unfortunately, they are not always right. The more knowledgeable a person is, the more valuable they are as a resource. Thus, people often turn to experts for help. But once again people must be careful, as experts can make mistakes too. Informational social influence often results in "internalization" or "private acceptance", where a person genuinely believes that the information is right.


title: Conformity

text: Normative social influence occurs when one conforms to be liked or accepted by the members of the group. This need of social approval and acceptance is part of our state of humans. In addition to this, we know that when people do not conform with their group and therefore are deviants, they are less liked and even punished by the group. Normative influence usually results in "public compliance", doing or saying something without believing in it. The experiment of Asch in 1951 is one example of normative influence. Even though John Turner et al. argued that the post experimental interviews showed that the respondents were uncertain about the correct answers in some cases. The answers might have been evident to the experimenters, but the participants did not have the same experience. Subsequent studies pointed out the fact that the participants were not known to each other and therefore did not pose a threat against social rejection. See: Normative influence vs. referent informational influence


title: Conformity

text: In a reinterpretation of the original data from these experiments Hodges and Geyer (2006) found that Asch's subjects were not so conformist after all: The experiments provide powerful evidence for people's tendency to tell the truth even when others do not. They also provide compelling evidence of people's concern for others and their views. By closely examining the situation in which Asch's subjects find themselves they find that the situation places multiple demands on participants: They include truth (i.e., expressing one's own view accurately), trust (i.e., taking seriously the value of others' claims), and social solidarity (i.e., a commitment to integrate the views of self and others without deprecating). In addition to these epistemic values, there are multiple moral claims as well: These include the need for participants to care for the integrity and well-being of other participants, the experimenter, themselves, and the worth of scientific research.


title: Conformity

text: Deutsch & Gérard (1955) designed different situations that variated from Asch' experiment and found that when participants were writing their answer privately, they were giving the correct one


title: Conformity

text: Normative influence, a function of social impact theory, has three components. The "number of people" in the group has a surprising effect. As the number increases, each person has less of an impact. A group's "strength" is how important the group is to a person. Groups we value generally have more social influence. "Immediacy" is how close the group is in time and space when the influence is taking place. Psychologists have constructed a mathematical model using these three factors and are able to predict the amount of conformity that occurs with some degree of accuracy.


title: Conformity

text: Baron and his colleagues conducted a second "eyewitness study" that focused on normative influence. In this version, the task was easier. Each participant had five seconds to look at a slide instead of just one second. Once again, there were both high and low motives to be accurate, but the results were the reverse of the first study. The low motivation group conformed 33% of the time (similar to Asch's findings). The high motivation group conformed less at 16%. These results show that when accuracy is not very important, it is better to get the wrong answer than to risk social disapproval.


title: Conformity

text: An experiment using procedures similar to Asch's found that there was significantly less conformity in six-person groups of friends as compared to six-person groups of strangers. Because friends already know and accept each other, there may be less normative pressure to conform in some situations. Field studies on cigarette and alcohol abuse, however, generally demonstrate evidence of friends exerting normative social influence on each other.


title: Conformity

text: Although conformity generally leads individuals to think and act more like groups, individuals are occasionally able to reverse this tendency and change the people around them. This is known as "minority influence", a special case of informational influence. Minority influence is most likely when people can make a clear and consistent case for their point of view. If the minority fluctuates and shows uncertainty, the chance of influence is small. However, a minority that makes a strong, convincing case increases the probability of changing the majority's beliefs and behaviors. Minority members who are perceived as experts, are high in status, or have benefited the group in the past are also more likely to succeed.


title: Conformity

text: Another form of minority influence can sometimes override conformity effects and lead to unhealthy group dynamics. A 2007 review of two dozen studies by the University of Washington found that a single "bad apple" (an inconsiderate or negligent group member) can substantially increase conflicts and reduce performance in work groups. Bad apples often create a negative emotional climate that interferes with healthy group functioning. They can be avoided by careful selection procedures and managed by reassigning them to positions that require less social interaction.


title: Conformity

text: Stanley Milgram found that individuals in Norway (from a collectivistic culture) exhibited a higher degree of conformity than individuals in France (from an individualistic culture). Similarly, Berry studied two different populations: the Temne (collectivists) and the Inuit (individualists) and found that the Temne conformed more than the Inuit when exposed to a conformity task.


title: Conformity

text: Bond and Smith compared 134 studies in a meta-analysis and found that there is a positive correlation between a country's level of collectivistic values and conformity rates in the Asch paradigm. Bond and Smith also reported that conformity has declined in the United States over time.


title: Conformity

text: Influenced by the writings of late-19th- and early-20th-century Western travelers, scholars or diplomats who visited Japan, such as Basil Hall Chamberlain, George Trumbull Ladd and Percival Lowell, as well as by Ruth Benedict's influential book "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword", many scholars of Japanese studies speculated that there would be a higher propensity to conform in Japanese culture than in American culture. However, this view was not formed on the basis of empirical evidence collected in a systematic way, but rather on the basis of anecdotes and casual observations, which are subject to a variety of cognitive biases. Modern scientific studies comparing conformity in Japan and the United States show that Americans conform in general as much as the Japanese and, in some situations, even more. Psychology professor from the University of Tokyo, along with Eiko Osaka reviewed four behavioral studies and found that the rate of conformity errors that the Japanese subjects manifested in the Asch paradigm was similar with that manifested by Americans. The study published in 1970 by Robert Frager from the University of California, Santa Cruz found that the percentage of conformity errors within the Asch paradigm was significantly lower in Japan than in the United States, especially in the prize condition. Another study published in 2008, which compared the level of conformity among Japanese in-groups (peers from the same college clubs) with that found among Americans found no substantial difference in the level of conformity manifested by the two nations, even in the case of in-groups.


title: Conformity

text: Societal norms often establish gender differences and researchers have reported differences in the way men and women conform to social influence. For example, Alice Eagly and Linda Carli performed a meta-analysis of 148 studies of influenceability. They found that women are more persuadable and more conforming than men in group pressure situations that involve surveillance. Eagly has proposed that this sex difference may be due to different sex roles in society. Women are generally taught to be more agreeable whereas men are taught to be more independent.


title: Conformity

text: The composition of the group plays a role in conformity as well. In a study by Reitan and Shaw, it was found that men and women conformed more when there were participants of both sexes involved versus participants of the same sex. Subjects in the groups with both sexes were more apprehensive when there was a discrepancy amongst group members, and thus the subjects reported that they doubted their own judgments.


title: Conformity

text: Sistrunk and McDavid made the argument that women conformed more because of a methodological bias. They argued that because stereotypes used in studies are generally male ones (sports, cars..) more than female ones (cooking, fashion..), women are feeling uncertain and conformed more, which was confirmed by their results.


title: Conformity

text: Research has noted age differences in conformity. For example, research with Australian children and adolescents ages 3 to 17 discovered that conformity decreases with age. Another study examined individuals that were ranged from ages 18 to 91. The results revealed a similar trend – older participants displayed less conformity when compared to younger participants.


title: Conformity

text: In the same way that gender has been viewed as corresponding to status, age has also been argued to have status implications. Berger, Rosenholtz and Zelditch suggest that age as a status role can be observed among college students. Younger students, such as those in their first year in college, are treated as lower-status individuals and older college students are treated as higher-status individuals. Therefore, given these status roles, it would be expected that younger individuals (low status) conform to the majority whereas older individuals (high status) would be expected not to conform


title: Conformity

text: Researchers have also reported an interaction of gender and age on conformity. Eagly and Chrvala examined the role of age (under 19 years vs. 19 years and older), gender and surveillance (anticipating responses to be shared with group members vs. not anticipating responses being shared) on conformity to group opinions. They discovered that among participants that were 19 years or older, females conformed to group opinions more so than males when under surveillance (i.e., anticipated that their responses would be shared with group members). However, there were no gender differences in conformity among participants who were under 19 years of age and in surveillance conditions. There were also no gender differences when participants were not under surveillance. In a subsequent research article, Eagly suggests that women are more likely to conform than men because of lower status roles of women in society. She suggests that more submissive roles (i.e., conforming) are expected of individuals that hold low status roles. Still, Eagly and Chrvala's results do conflict with previous research which have found higher conformity levels among younger rather than older individuals.


title: Conformity

text: Although conformity pressures generally increase as the size of the majority increases, Asch's experiment in 1951 stated that increasing the size of the group will have no additional impact beyond a majority of size three. Brown and Byrne's 1997 study described a possible explanation that people may suspect collusion when the majority exceeds three or four. Gerard's 1968 study reported a linear relationship between the group size and conformity when the group size ranges from two to seven people. According to Latane's 1981 study, the number of the majority is one factor that influences the degree of conformity, and there are other factors like strength and immediacy.


title: Conformity

text: Moreover, a study suggests that the effects of group size depend on the type of social influence operating. This means that in situations where the group is clearly wrong, conformity will be motivated by normative influence; the participants will conform in order to be accepted by the group. A participant may not feel much pressure to conform when the first person gives an incorrect response. However, conformity pressure will increase as each additional group member also gives the same incorrect response.


title: Conformity

text: Research has found different group and situation factors that affect conformity.  Accountability increases conformity, if an individual is trying to be accepted by a group which has certain preferences, then individuals are more likely to conform to match the group. Similarly, the attractiveness of group members increases conformity. If an individual wishes to be liked by the group, they are increasingly likely to conform.


title: Conformity

text: Accuracy also effects conformity, as the more accurate and reasonable the majority is in their decision than the more likely the individual will be to conform. As mentioned earlier, size also effects individuals’ likelihood to conform. The larger the majority the more likely an individual will conform to that majority. Similarly, the less ambiguous the task or decision is, the more likely someone will conform to the group. When tasks are ambiguous people are less pressured to conform. Task difficulty also increases conformity, but research has found that conformity increases when the task is difficult but also important.


title: Conformity

text: Research has also found that as individuals become more aware that they disagree with the majority they feel more pressure, and hence are more likely to conform to the decisions of the group. Likewise, when responses must be made face-face, individuals increasingly conform, and therefore conformity increases as the anonymity of the response in a group decreases. Conformity also increases when individuals have committed themselves to the group making decisions.


title: Conformity

text: Conformity has also been shown to be linked to cohesiveness. Cohesiveness is how strongly members of a group are linked together, and conformity has been found to increase as group cohesiveness increases. Similarly, conformity is also higher when individuals are committed and wish to stay in the group.  Conformity is also higher when individuals are in situations involving existential thoughts that cause anxiety, in these situation individuals are more likely to conform to the majority's decisions.


title: Conformity

text: In 1961 Stanley Milgram published a study in which he utilized Asch's conformity paradigm using audio tones instead of lines; he conducted his study in Norway and France. He found substantially higher levels of conformity than Asch, with participants conforming 50% of the time in France and 62% of the time in Norway during critical trials. Milgram also conducted the same experiment once more, but told participants that the results of the study would be applied to the design of aircraft safety signals. His conformity estimates were 56% in Norway and 46% in France, suggesting that individuals conformed slightly less when the task was linked to an important issue. Stanley Milgram's study demonstrated that Asch's study could be replicated with other stimuli, and that in the case of tones, there was a high degree of conformity.


title: Conformity

text: Evidence has been found for the involvement of the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC) in conformity, an area associated with memory and decision-making. For example, Klucharev et al. revealed in their study that by using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on the pMFC, participants reduced their tendency to conform to the group, suggesting a causal role for the brain region in social conformity.


title: Conformity

text: Neuroscience has also shown how people quickly develop similar values for things. Opinions of others immediately change the brain's reward response in the ventral striatum to receiving or losing the object in question, in proportion to how susceptible the person is to social influence. Having similar opinions to others can also generate a reward response.


title: Conformity

text: The amygdala and hippocampus have also been found to be recruited when individuals participated in a social manipulation experiment involving long-term memory. Several other areas have further been suggested to play a role in conformity, including the insula, the temporoparietal junction, the ventral striatum, and the anterior and posterior cingulate cortices.


title: Conformity

text: More recent work stresses the role of orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in conformity not only at the time of social influence, but also later on, when participants are given an opportunity to conform by selecting an action. In particular, Charpentier et al. found that the OFC mirrors the exposure to social influence at a subsequent time point, when a decision is being made without the social influence being present. The tendency to conform has also been observed in the structure of the OFC, with a greater grey matter volume in high conformers.


title: Mass versus weight

text: In common usage, the mass of an object is often referred to as its weight, though these are in fact different concepts and quantities. Nevertheless, one object will always weigh more than a second object, if the first object has greater mass, and the two objects are subject to the same gravity (i.e. the same gravitational field strength).


title: Mass versus weight

text: In scientific contexts, mass is the amount of "matter" in an object (though "matter" may be difficult to define), whereas weight is the force exerted on an object by gravity. In other words, an object with a mass of 1.0 kilogram weighs approximately 9.81 newtons on the surface of the Earth, which is its mass multiplied by the gravitational field strength. The object's weight is less on Mars, where gravity is weaker; more on Saturn, where gravity is stronger; and very small in space, far from significant sources of gravity; but it always has the same mass.


title: Mass versus weight

text: Objects on the surface of the Earth have weight, although sometimes the weight is difficult to measure. An example is a small object floating in water, which does not appear to have weight since it is buoyed by the water; but it is found to have its usual weight when it is added to water in a container which is entirely supported by and weighed on a scale. Thus, the "weightless object" floating in water actually transfers its weight to the bottom of the container (where the pressure increases). Similarly, a balloon has mass but may appear to have no weight or even negative weight, due to buoyancy in air. However the weight of the balloon and the gas inside it has merely been transferred to a large area of the Earth's surface, making the weight difficult to measure. The weight of a flying airplane is similarly distributed to the ground, but does not disappear. If the airplane is in level flight, the same weight-force is distributed to the surface of the Earth as when the plane was on the runway, but spread over a larger area.


title: Mass versus weight

text: A better scientific definition of mass is its description as being a measure of inertia, which is the tendency of an object to not change its current state of motion (to remain at constant velocity) unless acted on by an external unbalanced force. Gravitational "weight" is the force created when a mass is acted upon by a gravitational field and the object is not allowed to free-fall, but is supported or retarded by a mechanical force, such as the surface of a planet. Such a force constitutes weight. This force can be added to by any other kind of force.


title: Mass versus weight

text: While the "weight" of an object varies in proportion to the strength of the gravitational field, its "mass" is constant, as long as no energy or matter is added to the object. For example, although a satellite in orbit (essentially a free-fall) is "weightless", it still retains its mass and inertia. Accordingly, even in orbit, an astronaut trying to accelerate the satellite in any direction is still required to exert force, and needs to exert ten times as much force to accelerate a 10ton satellite at the same rate as one with a mass of only 1 ton.


title: Mass versus weight

text: Mass is (among other properties) an "inertial" property; that is, the tendency of an object to remain at constant velocity unless acted upon by an outside force. Under Sir Isaac Newton's -year-old laws of motion and an important formula that sprang from his work, an object with a mass, "m", of one kilogram accelerates, "a", at one meter per second per second (about one-tenth the acceleration due to earth's gravity) when acted upon by a force, "F", of one newton.


title: Mass versus weight

text: Inertia is seen when a bowling ball is pushed horizontally on a level, smooth surface, and continues in horizontal motion. This is quite distinct from its weight, which is the downwards gravitational force of the bowling ball one must counter when holding it off the floor. The weight of the bowling ball on the Moon would be one-sixth of that on the Earth, although its mass remains unchanged. Consequently, whenever the physics of "recoil kinetics" (mass, velocity, inertia, inelastic and elastic collisions) dominate and the influence of gravity is a negligible factor, the behavior of objects remains consistent even where gravity is relatively weak. For instance, billiard balls on a billiard table would scatter and recoil with the same speeds and energies after a break shot on the Moon as on Earth; they would, however, drop into the pockets much more slowly.


title: Mass versus weight

text: In the physical sciences, the terms "mass" and "weight" are rigidly defined as separate measures, as they are different physical properties. In everyday use, as all everyday objects have both mass and weight and one is almost exactly proportional to the other, "weight" often serves to describe both properties, its meaning being dependent upon context. For example, in retail commerce, the "net weight" of products actually refers to mass, and is expressed in mass units such as grams or ounces (see also "Pound: Use in commerce)". Conversely, the load index rating on automobile tires, which specifies the maximum structural load for a tire in kilograms, refers to weight; that is, the force due to gravity. Before the late 20th century, the distinction between the two was not strictly applied in technical writing, so that expressions such as "molecular weight" (for molecular mass) are still seen.


title: Mass versus weight

text: Because mass and weight are separate quantities, they have different units of measure. In the International System of Units (SI), the kilogram is the basic unit of mass, and the newton is the basic unit of force. The non-SI kilogram-force is also a unit of force typically used in the measure of weight. Similarly, the avoirdupois pound, used in both the Imperial system and U.S. customary units, is a unit of mass, and its related unit of force is the pound-force.


title: Mass versus weight

text: When an object's weight (its gravitational force) is expressed in "kilograms", this actually refers to the kilogram-force (kgf or kg-f), also known as the "kilopond" (kp), which is a non-SI unit of force. All objects on the Earth's surface are subject to a gravitational acceleration of approximately 9.8 m/s. The General Conference on Weights and Measures fixed the value of standard gravity at precisely 9.80665 m/s so that disciplines such as metrology would have a standard value for converting units of defined mass into defined forces and pressures. Thus the kilogram-force is defined as precisely 9.80665 newtons. In reality, gravitational acceleration (symbol: "g") varies slightly with latitude, elevation and subsurface density; these variations are typically only a few tenths of a percent. See also "Gravimetry".


title: Mass versus weight

text: Engineers and scientists understand the distinctions between mass, force, and weight. Engineers in disciplines involving weight loading (force on a structure due to gravity), such as structural engineering, convert the mass of objects like concrete and automobiles (expressed in kilograms) to a force in newtons (by multiplying by some factor around 9.8; 2 significant figures is usually sufficient for such calculations) to derive the load of the object. Material properties like elastic modulus are measured and published in terms of the newton and pascal (a unit of pressure related to the newton).


title: Mass versus weight

text: Usually, the relationship between mass and weight on Earth is highly proportional; objects that are a hundred times more massive than a one-liter bottle of soda almost always weigh a hundred times more—approximately 1,000 newtons, which is the weight one would expect on Earth from an object with a mass slightly greater than 100 kilograms. Yet, this is not always the case and there are familiar objects that violate this proportionality.


title: Mass versus weight

text: A common helium-filled toy balloon is something familiar to many. When such a balloon is fully filled with helium, it has buoyancy—a force that opposes gravity. When a toy balloon becomes partially deflated, it often becomes neutrally buoyant and can float about the house a meter or two off the floor. In such a state, there are moments when the balloon is neither rising nor falling and—in the sense that a scale placed under it has no force applied to it—is, in a sense perfectly weightless (actually as noted below, weight has merely been redistributed along the Earth's surface so it cannot be measured). Though the rubber comprising the balloon has a mass of only a few grams, which might be almost unnoticeable, the rubber still retains all its mass when inflated.


title: Mass versus weight

text: Again, unlike the effect that low-gravity environments have on weight, buoyancy does not make a portion of an object's weight vanish; the missing weight is instead being borne by the ground, which leaves less force (weight) being applied to any scale theoretically placed underneath the object in question (though one may perhaps have some trouble with the practical aspects of accurately weighing something individually in that condition). If one were however to weigh a small wading pool that someone then entered and began floating in, they would find that the full weight of the person was being borne by the pool and, ultimately, the scale underneath the pool. Whereas a buoyant object (on a properly working scale for weighing buoyant objects) would weigh less, the "object/fluid system" becomes heavier by the value of object's full mass once the object is added. Since air is a fluid, this principle applies to object/air systems as well; large volumes of air—and ultimately the ground—supports the weight a body loses through mid-air buoyancy.


title: Mass versus weight

text: The effects of buoyancy do not just affect balloons; both liquids and gases are fluids in the physical sciences, and when all macrosize objects larger than dust particles are immersed in fluids on Earth, they have some degree of buoyancy. In the case of either a swimmer floating in a pool or a balloon floating in air, buoyancy can fully counter the gravitational weight of the object being weighed, for a weighing device in the pool. However, as noted, an object supported by a fluid is fundamentally no different from an object supported by a sling or cable—the weight has merely been transferred to another location, not made to disappear.


title: Mass versus weight

text: The mass of "weightless" (neutrally buoyant) balloons can be better appreciated with much larger hot air balloons. Although no effort is required to counter their weight when they are hovering over the ground (when they can often be within one hundred newtons of zero weight), the inertia associated with their appreciable mass of several hundred kilograms or more can knock fully grown men off their feet when the balloon's basket is moving horizontally over the ground.


title: Mass versus weight

text: Buoyancy and the resultant reduction in the downward force of objects being weighed underlies Archimedes' principle, which states that the buoyancy force is equal to the weight of the fluid that the object displaces. If this fluid is air, the force may be small.


title: Mass versus weight

text: Normally, the effect of air buoyancy on objects of normal density is too small to be of any consequence in day-to-day activities. For instance, buoyancy's diminishing effect upon one's body weight (a relatively low-density object) is that of gravity (for pure water it is about that of gravity). Furthermore, "variations" in barometric pressure rarely affect a person's weight more than ±1 part in 30,000. However, in metrology (the science of measurement), the precision mass standards for calibrating laboratory scales and balances are manufactured with such accuracy that air density is accounted for to compensate for buoyancy effects. Given the extremely high cost of platinum-iridium mass standards like the international prototype of the kilogram ("the" mass standard in France that defined the magnitude of the kilogram), high-quality "working" standards are made of special stainless steel alloys with densities of about 8,000 kg/m, which occupy greater volume than those made of platinum-iridium, which have a density of about 21,550 kg/m. For convenience, a standard value of buoyancy relative to stainless steel was developed for metrology work and this results in the term "conventional mass". Conventional mass is defined as follows: "For a mass at 20 °C, ‘conventional mass’ is the mass of a reference standard of density 8,000 kg/m which it balances in air with a density of 1.2 kg/m." The effect is a small one, 150 ppm for stainless steel mass standards, but the appropriate corrections are made during the manufacture of all precision mass standards so they have the true labeled mass.


title: Mass versus weight

text: Whenever a high-precision scale (or balance) in routine laboratory use is calibrated using stainless steel standards, the scale is actually being calibrated to conventional mass; that is, true mass minus 150 ppm of buoyancy. Since objects with precisely the same mass but with different densities displace different volumes and therefore have different buoyancies and weights, any object measured on this scale (compared to a stainless steel mass standard) has "its" conventional mass measured; that is, its true mass minus an "unknown" degree of buoyancy. In high-accuracy work, the volume of the article can be measured to mathematically null the effect of buoyancy.


title: Mass versus weight

text: When one stands on a balance-beam-type scale at a doctor’s office, they are having their mass measured directly. This is because balances ("dual-pan" mass comparators) compare the gravitational force exerted on the person on the platform with that on the sliding counterweights on the beams; gravity is the force-generating mechanism that allows the needle to diverge from the "balanced" (null) point. These balances could be moved from Earth's equator to the poles and give exactly the same measurement, i.e. they would not spuriously indicate that the doctor's patient became 0.3% heavier; they are immune to the gravity-countering centrifugal force due to Earth's rotation about its axis. But if you step onto spring-based or digital load cell-based scales (single-pan devices), you are having your weight (gravitational force) measured; and variations in the strength of the gravitational field affect the reading. In practice, when such scales are used in commerce or hospitals, they are often adjusted on-site and certified on that basis, so that the mass they measure, expressed in pounds or kilograms, is at the desired level of accuracy.


title: Mass versus weight

text: In the United States of America the United States Department of Commerce, the Technology Administration, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have defined the use of mass and weight in the exchange of goods under the Uniform Laws and Regulations in the areas of legal metrology and engine fuel quality in NIST Handbook 130.


title: Mass versus weight

text: The mass of an object is a measure of the object’s inertial property, or the amount of matter it contains. The weight of an object is a measure of the force exerted on the object by gravity, or the force needed to support it. The pull of gravity on the earth gives an object a downward acceleration of about 9.8 m/s. In trade and commerce and everyday use, the term "weight" is often used as a synonym for "mass." The "net mass" or "net weight" declared on a label indicates that the package contains a specific amount of commodity exclusive of wrapping materials. The use of the term "mass" is predominant throughout the world, and is becoming increasingly common in the United States. (Added 1993)


title: Mass versus weight

text: When used in this handbook, the term "weight" means "mass". The term "weight" appears when inch-pound units are cited, or when both inch-pound and SI units are included in a requirement. The terms "mass" or "masses" are used when only SI units are cited in a requirement. The following note appears where the term "weight" is first used in a law or regulation.


title: Mass versus weight

text: NOTE 1: When used in this law (or regulation), the term "weight" means "mass." (See paragraph V. and W. in Section I., Introduction, of NIST Handbook 130 for an explanation of these terms.) (Added 1993) 6"


title: Mass versus weight

text: U.S. federal law, which supersedes this handbook, also defines weight, particularly Net Weight, in terms of the avoirdupois pound or mass pound. From 21CFR101 Part 101.105 – Declaration of net quantity of contents when exempt:


title: Mass versus weight

text: (a) The principal display panel of a food in package form shall bear a declaration of the net quantity of contents. This shall be expressed in the terms of weight, measure, numerical count, or a combination of numerical count and weight or measure. The statement shall be in terms of fluid measure if the food is liquid, or in terms of weight if the food is solid, semisolid, or viscous, or a mixture of solid and liquid; except that such statement may be in terms of dry measure if the food is a fresh fruit, fresh vegetable, or other dry commodity that is customarily sold by dry measure. If there is a firmly established general consumer usage and trade custom of declaring the contents of a liquid by weight, or a solid, semisolid, or viscous product by fluid measure, it may be used. Whenever the Commissioner determines that an existing practice of declaring net quantity of contents by weight, measure, numerical count, or a combination in the case of a specific packaged food does not facilitate value comparisons by consumers and offers opportunity for consumer confusion, he will by regulation designate the appropriate term or terms to be used for such commodity.


title: Mass versus weight

text: See also 21CFR201 Part 201.51 – "Declaration of net quantity of contents" for general labeling and prescription labeling requirements.


title: Alpine Linux

text: Alpine Linux is a Linux distribution designed to be small, simple and secure. Alpine Linux uses musl, BusyBox and OpenRC instead of the more commonly used glibc, GNU Core Utilities and systemd respectively.


title: Alpine Linux

text: For security, Alpine compiles all user-space binaries as position-independent executables with stack-smashing protection.


title: Alpine Linux

text: Because of its small size and rapid startup, it is commonly used in containers providing quick boot-up times, on virtual machines as well as on real hardware in embedded devices, such as routers, servers and NAS.


title: Alpine Linux

text: Originally, Alpine Linux began as a fork of the LEAF Project. The members of LEAF wanted to continue making a Linux distribution that could fit on a single floppy disk, whereas the Alpine Linux wished to include some more heavyweight packages: Squid and Samba. They also added security features and a newer kernel.


title: Alpine Linux

text: Alpine's package management system, apk-tools, was originally a collection of shell scripts but was later rewritten in C.


title: Alpine Linux

text: A hardened kernel was included in the default distribution for up to and including Alpine 3.7, which aided in reducing the impact of exploits and vulnerabilities.


title: Alpine Linux

text: Alpine Linux can be installed as a run-from-RAM operating system. The "LBU" (Alpine Local Backup) tool optionally allows all configuration files to be backed up to an APK overlay file (usually shortened to "apkovl"), a tar.gz file that by default stores a copy of all changed files in /etc (with the option to add more directories). This allows Alpine to work reliably in demanding embedded environments or to (temporarily) survive partial disk failures as sometimes experienced in public cloud environments.


title: Alpine Linux

text: Alpine has reliably had excellent support of Xen hypervisors in up-to-date versions, which avoids issues as experienced with Enterprise Distributions. (The standard Linux hypervisor KVM, is also available.)


title: Alpine Linux

text: Alpine Configuration Framework (ACF): While optional, ACF is an application for configuring an Alpine Linux machine, with goals similar to Debian's debconf. It is a standard framework based on simple Lua scripts.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Virgin Mobile is a wireless communications brand used by seven independent brand-licensees worldwide. Virgin Mobile branded wireless communications services are available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Poland, South Africa, and Mexico. Virgin Mobile branded services used to be offered in Australia, France, Singapore, India, Qatar and the United States.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Each Virgin Mobile branded entity acts independently from the others, thus the handsets, service plans and network radio interfaces vary from country to country. In a given country, the Virgin Mobile wireless entity is typically a partnership between Richard Branson's Virgin Group and an existing mobile network operator or mobile virtual network operator (MVNO).


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Virgin Mobile Canada experienced substantial growth in 2008, launching approximately 60 'Virgin Mini Stores' (VMS) across the country. VMS are kiosks usually located in shopping malls that especially target the 18- to 35-year-old demographic. For four years running, Virgin Mobile Canada has received J.D. Power and Associates' annual award for "Highest Customer Satisfaction for Prepaid Wireless". Post-paid plans were introduced to Virgin Canada in February 2008.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Bell Mobility acquired Virgin Mobile Canada in May 2009 for CAN$142 million. Some of its stores in Ontario and Quebec are operated by the largest Bell franchise, Cellcom Communications. In early 2010, Virgin Mobile Canada launched the iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4 post-paid service in Virgin Mobile Retail Stores and online, all around Canada. Virgin Mobile became the fifth brand offering the iPhone in Canada, after Fido, Rogers Wireless, Telus, and Bell Mobility.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Virgin Mobile Poland is a mobile phone service provider operating in Poland. The company launched in 2012. Being a virtual operator, Virgin Mobile does not maintain its own network, and instead has contracts to use the existing network of Play and T-Mobile.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Virgin Mobile South Africa (VMSA) is a joint-venture between Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Cell C. Virgin Mobile South Africa launched in 2006. In February 2011 it was reported that Cell C's 50% stake in Virgin Mobile is to be sold to Virgin Group of the UK and Calico Investments of the Bahamas.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Virgin Mobile KSA is a telecommunication company operating in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It offers both pre-paid and post-paid plans through over 20,000 sale points in the country. Its offering targets mainly younger population, with flexible price plans and bundles.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: On 22 March 2021, STC Kuwait and Virgin Mobile Middle East and Africa (VMMEA) received the Communication and Information Technology Regulatory Authority’s approval for the first MVNO licence in Kuwait. They will launch Virgin Mobile Kuwait using STC’s network, with STC acting as a host facilities provider.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Virgin Mobile UAE is a telecommunication company operating in the United Arab of Emirates. It offers both pre-paid and post-paid plans. Its offering targets mainly younger population, with flexible price plans and bundles.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Virgin Mobile UK is a mobile virtual network operator and a division of Virgin Media (which is joint-owned by Liberty Global and Telefónica). Virgin Mobile UK was the world's first mobile virtual network operator which launched in 1999, and later became part of NTL Telewest. It originally used the coverage of network operator One2One (which later became T-Mobile UK, and then EE). In 2019, Virgin Mobile UK signed an agreement to move itself from EE to the Vodafone network. However, it later gave notice of plans to terminate the Vodaphone deal in its Q2 2021 financial report, due to Telefónica (owners of O2) acquiring 50% of the business. It is planning to move to the O2 network in the near future.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Virgin Mobile Ireland was launched in 2015, at the same time UPC Ireland was rebranded Virgin Media Ireland. Both Virgin Mobile UK and Virgin Mobile Ireland are operated by Virgin Media Limited, a subsidiary of Liberty Global.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Virgin Mobile Russia was launched on 27 November 2017 as a mobile virtual network operator under the Tele2 Russia network.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Virgin Mobile Latin America (VMLA) launched operations in Chile in April 2012, after receiving regulatory approval from Chile's telecommunications regulator and signing an agreement with Movistar, one of the country's leading mobile network operators. VMLA announced in June of this year its plan to become Latin America's leading mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). Since then, the company has made significant progress towards its goal of beginning commercial operations in many countries. Chile was its first commercial operation in early 2012. Richard Branson commented: "We are excited to have made such good progress towards launching our first mobile business in Latin America in Chile. This is an exciting project for Virgin and we believe Virgin Mobile Chile customers will be delighted by the services we will be offering them at launch. We are very appreciative of Subtel’s (Chile’s Subsecretaría de Telecomunicaciones) prompt approval of our application," said VMLA's chairman Phil Wallace.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Virgin Mobile won for three consecutive years the ALCO Customer Loyalty award for having the highest Net Promoting Score (NPS) index in the telecommunications industry in Chile. As of January 2016 Virgin Mobile Chile has a net portability balance of 322,560 customers that have transferred their phone numbers from or to other companies. This figure does not include "non-ported" customers that started with a new phone number.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Some notable product offerings include no contract prepaid plans and a variety of payment options, from top up terminals to PayPal.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Colombia was the second South American country that received the Virgin Mobile network. It launched officially plans and services on 3 April 2013, working with Movistar's electromagnetic frequency. The high rate of active mobile lines in Colombia makes this country a good place to set telecom and networks operations. Virgin Mobile took advantage of the 4G spectrum auction in Colombia in June 2013 to release more data services with the fastest mobile speed in the world.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Operations in Ecuador were rumored to start in 2017, using Movistar's network. On 23 September 2019, the Ecuadorian government through a tweet from its former Communications Minister Andrés Michelena, informed about the signature of an agreement that allows Virgin Mobile to start officially its operations in the country. Richard Branson (Virgin Mobile CEO) and Ecuadorian president Lenín Moreno met in NY and signed the agreement.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: In early 2014, Virgin Mobile Latin America's site for Virgin Mobile Mexico was launched. Since 10 April 2014, it has been possible to purchase micro, nano and regular sim cards through several points of sale located in shopping malls or over the internet. They have reached an agreement to use Movistar's network. In April 2014 they only offered basic prepaid service (voice SMS Data) on a pay-as-you-go basis, and were expected to introduce more diverse offers soon. In June 2016 Virgin Mobile Mexico started to offer LTE access using Band 2.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Virgin Mobile Australia (VMA) was a telecommunications company based in Sydney, Australia. They sold through over 73 retail outlets, including flagship stores in Perth, Sydney, Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane, as well as via telesales and online. Virgin Mobile Australia operated on the Optus network.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: On 30 May 2018, Optus announced that they would be phasing out the Virgin Mobile brand and would transfer Australian Virgin Mobile customers over to Optus. They said the phase out would take them roughly two years. On 15 June 2018, Virgin stopped selling all prepaid and postpaid plans to customers.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: In June 2020 Virgin Mobile announced that they were temporarily extending the closure of Virgin Mobile Australia to 30 September 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic to help customers stay connected.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Virgin Mobile France was a mobile virtual network operator in France that began as a subsidiary of Virgin Group.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Launched in France on 3 April 2006, Virgin Mobile was the fifth mobile operator on the French market and the first MVNO by number of subscribers, with over 2 million customers. Chaired by Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, Virgin Mobile was commercialized by OMEA TELECOM, a joint venture between Virgin Group and Carphone Warehouse before it was bought in 2015 by the French communication group SFR.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: They failed to achieve the 2% market share they targeted, and the first MVNO from the Peruvian mobile market was eventually sold to another company: Inkacel of Spain.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Was introduced as a secondary brand for QTel Qatar Telekom, but, after a process with Vodafone Qatar, Qtel renounced to the Virgin Mobile brand and eventually changed even the main brand to a new one: Ooredoo.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Virgin Singapore was launched in October 2001 as a joint venture with Singtel. The operations were closed down on 11 October 2002 after failing to attract a significant number of customers.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Failure of the joint venture was attributed to a saturated mobile market and Virgin Mobile's positioning as a "premium" brand.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: On 1 March 2008, Virgin launched the Mobile brand in India through a franchise arrangement with NTT DoCoMo. This was Virgin's seventh launch globally and its largest. However, on 29 March 2008, the Department of Telecom (DoT) cleared the deal after clarification from Tata Teleservices indicated that Virgin had not entered India as an MVNO.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Virgin Mobile USA was a no-contract mobile virtual network operator owned by Sprint Corporation. It licensed the Virgin Mobile brand from United Kingdom-based Virgin Group. Virgin Mobile USA was headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, and provided service to approximately 6 million customers.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: Founded in 2001 as a joint venture between Virgin Group and Sprint Corporation, Virgin Mobile USA commenced operations in June 2002 as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), providing services via the Sprint 1900 MHz CDMA network. In 2009, Sprint Nextel bought out joint-venture partner Virgin Group, becoming the sole owner of Virgin Mobile USA.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: In June 2017, Virgin Mobile dropped all Android and began to only offer iPhones to new customers under its new "Inner Circle" unlimited plan. Following the discontinuation of the plan in 2018, it began to restore Android devices to its lineup.


title: Virgin Mobile

text: In January 2020, Virgin Mobile announced that it would shut down, and transfer its remaining customers to its sister brand Boost Mobile the following month.


title: John Pilger

text: John Richard Pilger (; born 9 October 1939) is an Australian journalist, writer, scholar, and documentary filmmaker. He has been mainly based in Britain since 1962. He was also once visiting professor at Cornell University in New York.


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger is a strong critic of American, Australian, and British foreign policy, which he considers to be driven by an imperialist and colonialist agenda. Pilger has also criticised his native country's treatment of Indigenous Australians. He first drew international attention for his reports on the Cambodian genocide.


title: John Pilger

text: His career as a documentary film maker began with "The Quiet Mutiny" (1970), made during one of his visits to Vietnam, and has continued with over 50 documentaries since. Other works in this form include "" (1979), about the aftermath of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, and "" (1993). His many documentary films on indigenous Australians include "" (1985) and "Utopia" (2013). In the British print media, Pilger worked at the "Daily Mirror" from 1963 to 1986, and wrote a regular column for the "New Statesman" magazine from 1991 to 2014.


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger won Britain's Journalist of the Year Award in 1967 and 1979. His documentaries have gained awards in Britain and worldwide, including multiple BAFTA honours. The practices of the mainstream media are a regular subject in Pilger's writing.


title: John Pilger

text: John Richard Pilger was born on 9 October 1939 in Bondi, New South Wales, the son of Claude and Elsie Pilger. His older brother, Graham (1932–2017), was a disabled rights activist who later advised the government of Gough Whitlam. Pilger is of German descent on his father's side, while his mother had English, German, and Irish ancestry; two of his maternal great-great-grandparents were Irish convicts transported to Australia. His mother taught French in school. Pilger and his brother attended Sydney Boys High School, where he began a student newspaper, "The Messenger". He later joined a four-year journalist trainee scheme with the Australian Consolidated Press.


title: John Pilger

text: Beginning his career in 1958 as a copy boy with the "Sydney Sun", Pilger later moved to the city's "Daily Telegraph," where he was a reporter, sports writer, and sub-editor. He also freelanced and worked for the Sydney "Sunday Telegraph", the daily paper's sister title. After moving to Europe, he was a freelance correspondent in Italy for a year.


title: John Pilger

text: Settling in London in 1962, working as a sub-editor, Pilger joined British United Press and then Reuters on its Middle-East desk. In 1963 he was recruited by the English "Daily Mirror," again as a sub-editor. Later, he advanced to become a reporter, a feature writer, and Chief Foreign Correspondent for the title. While living and working in the United States for the "Daily Mirror", on 5 June 1968 he witnessed the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles during his presidential campaign. He was a war correspondent in Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Biafra. Nearly eighteen months after Robert Maxwell bought the "Mirror" (on 12 July 1984), Pilger was sacked by Richard Stott, the newspaper's editor, on 31 December 1985.


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger was a founder of the "News on Sunday" tabloid in 1984, and was hired as Editor-in-Chief in 1986. During the period of hiring staff, Pilger was away for several months filming "The Secret Country" in Australia. Prior to this, he had given editor Keith Sutton a list of people who he thought might be recruited for the paper, but found on his return to Britain that none of them had been hired.


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger resigned before the first issue and had come into conflict with those around him. He disagreed with the founders' decision to base the paper in Manchester and then clashed with the governing committees; the paper was intended to be a workers' co-operative. Sutton's appointment as editor was Pilger's suggestion, but he fell out with Sutton over his plan to produce a left wing "Sun" newspaper. The two men ended up producing their own dummies, but the founders and the various committees backed Sutton. Pilger, appointed with "overall editorial control", resigned at this point. The first issue appeared on 27 April 1987 and "The News on Sunday" soon closed.


title: John Pilger

text: His most frequent outlet for many years was the "New Statesman", where he had a fortnightly column from 1991 when Steve Platt was editor to 2014. In 2018, Pilger said his "written journalism is no longer welcome" in the mainstream and that "probably its last home" was in "The Guardian". His last column for "The Guardian" was in April 2015.


title: John Pilger

text: With the actor David Swift, and the film makers Paul Watson and Charles Denton, Pilger formed Tempest Films in 1969. "We wanted a frontman with a mind of his own, rather like another James Cameron, with whom Richard <nowiki>[Marquand]</nowiki> had worked", Swift once said. "Paul thought John was very charismatic, as well as marketing extremely original, refreshingly radical ideas." The company was unable to gain commissions from either the BBC or ITV, but did manage to package potential projects.


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger's career on television began on "World in Action" (Granada Television) in 1969, directed by Denton, for whom he made two documentaries broadcast in 1970 and 1971, the earliest of more than fifty in his career. "The Quiet Mutiny" (1970) was filmed at Camp Snuffy, presenting a character study of the common US soldier during the Vietnam War. It revealed the shifting morale and open rebellion of American troops. Pilger later described the film as "something of a scoop" – it was the first documentary to show the problems with morale among the drafted ranks of the US military. In an interview with the "New Statesman", Pilger said:


title: John Pilger

text: When I flew to New York and showed it to Mike Wallace, the star reporter of CBS' "60 Minutes", he agreed. "Real shame we can't show it here".


title: John Pilger

text: He made other documentaries about the United States involvement in Vietnam, including "Vietnam: Still America's War" (1974), "Do You Remember Vietnam?" (1978), and "" (1995).


title: John Pilger

text: During his work with BBC's "Midweek" television series during 1972–73, Pilger completed five documentary reports, but only two were broadcast.


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger was successful in gaining a regular television outlet at ATV. The "Pilger" half-hour documentary series was commissioned by Charles Denton, then a producer with ATV, for screening on the British ITV network. The series ran for five seasons from 1974 until 1977, at first running in the UK on Sunday afternoons after "Weekend World". The theme song for the series was composed by Lynsey de Paul. Later it was scheduled in a weekday peak-time evening slot. The last series included "A Faraway Country" (September 1977) about dissidents in Czechoslovakia, then still part of the Communist Soviet bloc. Pilger and his team interviewed members of Charter 77 and other groups, clandestinely using domestic film equipment. In the documentary Pilger praises the dissidents' courage and commitment to freedom, and describes the communist totalitarianism as "fascism disguised as socialism".


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger was later given an hour slot at 9 pm, before "News at Ten", which gave him a high profile in Britain. After ATV lost its franchise in 1981, he continued to make documentaries for screening on ITV, initially for Central, and later via Carlton Television.


title: John Pilger

text: In 1979, Pilger and two colleagues with whom he collaborated for many years, documentary film-maker David Munro and photographer Eric Piper, entered Cambodia in the wake of the overthrow of the Pol Pot regime. They made photographs and reports that were world exclusives. The first was published as a special issue of the "Daily Mirror", which sold out. They also produced an ITV documentary, "Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia", which brought to people's living rooms the suffering of the Khmer people. During the filming of "Cambodia Year One", the team were warned that Pilger was on a Khmer Rouge 'death list.' In one incident, they narrowly escaped an ambush.


title: John Pilger

text: Following the showing of "Year Zero", some $45 million was raised, unsolicited, in mostly small donations, including almost £4 million raised by schoolchildren in the UK. This funded the first substantial relief to Cambodia, including the shipment of life-saving drugs such as penicillin, and clothing to replace the black uniforms people had been forced to wear. According to Brian Walker, director of Oxfam, "a solidarity and compassion surged across our nation" from the broadcast of "Year Zero".


title: John Pilger

text: William Shawcross wrote in his book "The Quality of Mercy: Cambodia, Holocaust and Modern Conscience" (1984) about Pilger's series of articles about Cambodia in the "Daily Mirror" during August 1979:


title: John Pilger

text: A rather interesting quality of the articles was their concentration on Nazism and the holocaust. Pilger called Pol Pot 'an Asian Hitler' — and said he was even worse than Hitler . . . Again and again Pilger compared the Khmer Rouge to the Nazis. Their Marxist-Leninist ideology was not even mentioned in the "Mirror", except to say they were inspired by the Red Guards. Their intellectual origins were described as 'anarchist' rather than Communist".


title: John Pilger

text: Ben Kiernan, in his review of Shawcross's book, notes that Pilger did compare Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge to Stalin's terror, as well as to Mao's Red Guards. Kiernan notes instances where other writers' comparisons of Pol Pot to Hitler or the Vietnamese to the Nazis are either accepted by Shawcross in his account, or not mentioned.


title: John Pilger

text: Shawcross wrote in "The Quality of Mercy" that "Pilger's reports underwrote almost everything that refugees along the Thai border had been saying about the cruelty of Khmer Rouge rule since 1975, and that had already appeared in the books by the "Reader's Digest" and François Ponchaud. In "Heroes", Pilger disputes François Ponchaud and Shawcross's account of Vietnamese atrocities during the Vietnamese invasion and near famine as being "unsubstantiated". Ponchaud had interviewed members of anti-communist groups living in the Thai refugee border camps. According to Pilger, "At the very least the effect of Shawcross's 'exposé'" of Cambodians' treatment at the hands of the Vietnamese "was to blur the difference between Cambodia under Pol Pot and Cambodia liberated by the Vietnamese: in truth, a difference of night and day". In his book, Shawcross himself doubted that anyone had died of starvation.


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger and Munro made four later films about Cambodia. Pilger's documentary "Cambodia – The Betrayal" (1990), prompted a libel case against him, which was settled at the High Court with an award against Pilger and Central Television. "The Times" of 6 July 1991 reported:


title: John Pilger

text: Two men who claimed that a television documentary accused them of being SAS members who trained Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge to lay mines, accepted "very substantial" libel damages in the High Court yesterday. Christopher Geidt and Anthony De Normann settled their action against the journalist John Pilger and Central Television on the third day of the hearing. Desmond Browne, QC, for Mr Pilger and Central Television, said his clients had not intended to allege the two men trained the Khmer Rouge to lay mines, but they accepted that was how the program had been understood.


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger said the defence case collapsed because the government issued a gagging order, citing national security, which prevented three government ministers and two former heads of the SAS from appearing in court. The film received a British Academy of Film and Television Award nomination in 1991.


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger has long criticised aspects of Australian government policy, particularly what he regards as its inherent racism resulting in the poor treatment of Indigenous Australians. In 1969, Pilger went with Australian activist Charlie Perkins on a tour to Jay Creek in Central Australia. He compared what he witnessed in Jay Creek to South African apartheid. He saw the appalling conditions that the Aboriginal people were living under, with children suffering from malnutrition and grieving mothers and grandmothers having had their lighter-skinned children and grandchildren removed by the police and welfare agencies. Equally, he learned of Aboriginal boys being sent to work on white run farms, and Aboriginal girls working as servants in middle-class homes as undeclared slave labour.


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger has made several documentaries about Indigenous Australians, such as "" (1985) and "Welcome to Australia" (1999). His book on the subject, "A Secret Country", was first published in 1989. Pilger wrote in 2000 that the 1998 legislation that removed the common-law rights of Indigenous peoples:


title: John Pilger

text: is just one of the disgraces that has given Australia the distinction of being the only developed country whose government has been condemned as racist by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.


title: John Pilger

text: In East Timor Pilger clandestinely shot "Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy" about the brutal Indonesian occupation of East Timor, which began in 1975.


title: John Pilger

text: "Death of a Nation" contributed to an international outcry which ultimately led to Indonesian withdrawal from East Timor and eventual independence in 2000. When "Death of a Nation" was screened in Britain it was the highest rating documentary in 15 years and 5,000 telephone calls per minute were made to the programme's action line. When "Death of a Nation" was screened in Australia in June 1994, Foreign Minister Gareth Evans declared that Pilger "had a track record of distorted sensationalism mixed with sanctimony."


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger's documentary "Palestine Is Still the Issue" was released in 2002 and had Ilan Pappé as historical adviser. Pilger


title: John Pilger

text: said the film describes how an "historic injustice has been done to the Palestinian people, and until Israel's illegal and brutal occupation ends, there will be no peace for anyone, Israelis included". He said the responses of his interviewees "put the lie to the standard Zionist cry that any criticism of Israel is anti-semitic, a claim that insults all those Jewish people who reject the likes of Ariel Sharon acting in their name". Its broadcast resulted in complaints by the Israeli embassy, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and the Conservative Friends of Israel that it was inaccurate and biased. Michael Green, chairman of Carlton Communications, the company that made the film, also objected to it in an interview with the Jewish Chronicle.


title: John Pilger

text: The UK television regulator, the Independent Television Commission (ITC), ordered an investigation. The ITC investigation rejected the complaints about the film, stating in its report:


title: John Pilger

text: The ITC raised with Carlton all the significant areas of inaccuracy critics of the programme alleged and the broadcaster answered them by reference to a range of historical texts. The ITC is not a tribunal of fact and is particularly aware of the difficulties of verifying 'historical fact' but the comprehensiveness and authority of Carlton's sources were persuasive, not least because many appeared to be of Israeli origin.


title: John Pilger

text: The ITC concluded that in Pilger's documentary "adequate opportunity was given to a pro-Israeli government perspective" and that the programme "was not in breach of the ITC Programme Code".


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger's documentary "Stealing a Nation" (2004) recounts the experiences of the late 20th-century trials of the people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean. The documentary primarily focuses on the expulsion of the Chagossians by Britain and the USA between 1967 and 1973 to Mauritius, and the poor economic situation faced by the islanders as a result of the deportation. Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos Islands, was given to the United States government which began the construction of a major military base for the region. In the 21st century, the US used the base for planes which were bombing targets in Iraq and Afghanistan.


title: John Pilger

text: In a 2000 ruling on the events, the International Court of Justice described the wholesale removal of the Chagossian peoples from the Chagos Islands by Britain as "a crime against humanity". Pilger strongly criticised Tony Blair for failing to respond in a substantive way to the 2000 High Court ruling that the expulsion of the Chagossian people to Mauritius was illegal.


title: John Pilger

text: The documentary "The War on Democracy" (2007) was Pilger's first film to be released in the cinema. In "an unremitting assault on American foreign policy since 1945", according to Andrew Billen in "The Times", the film explores the role of US interventions, overt and covert, in toppling a series of governments in the region, and placing "a succession of favourably disposed bullies in control of its Latino backyard". It discusses the US role in the overthrow in 1973 of the democratically elected Chilean leader Salvador Allende, who was replaced by the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Pilger interviews several ex-CIA agents who purportedly took part in secret campaigns against democratic governments in South America. It also contains what Peter Bradshaw in "The Guardian" described as "a dewy-eyed interview" with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, which has moments of "almost "Hello!"-magazine deference".


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger explores the US Army School of the Americas in the US state of Georgia. Generations of South American military were trained there, with a curriculum including counter-insurgency techniques. Attendees reportedly included members of Pinochet's security services, along with men from Haiti, El Salvador, Argentina and Brazil who have been implicated in human rights abuses.


title: John Pilger

text: The film also details the attempted overthrow of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez in 2002, and the response of the people of Caracas. It looks at the wider rise of populist governments across South America, led by figures calling for loosening ties with the United States and attempting a more equitable redistribution of the continent's natural wealth. Of "Chávez's decision to bypass the National Assembly for 18 months, and rule by decree", Peter Bradshaw writes "Pilger passes over it very lightly".


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger said the film is about the struggle of people to free themselves from a modern form of slavery. These people, he says,describe a world not as American presidents like to see it as useful or expendable, they describe the power of courage and humanity among people with next to nothing. They reclaim noble words like democracy, freedom, liberation, justice, and in doing so they are defending the most basic human rights of all of us in a war being waged against all of us.


title: John Pilger

text: The subject of "The War You Don't See" is the role of the media in making war. It concentrates on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories. It begins with the Collateral Murder video leaked by Chelsea Manning and released by WikiLeaks. In an interview, Julian Assange describes WikiLeaks as an organisation that gives power to 'conscientious objectors' within 'power systems'. The documentary contends that the CIA uses intelligence to manipulate public opinion and that the media collude by following the official line. During the documentary Pilger states that "propaganda relies on us in the media to aim its deceptions not at a far away country but at you at home".


title: John Pilger

text: John Lloyd in the "Financial Times" said "The War You Don't See" was a "one-sided" documentary which "had no thought of explaining, even hinting, that the wars fought by the US and the UK had a scrap of just cause, nor of examining the nature of what Pilger simply stated were "lies" – especially those that took the two countries to the invasion of Iraq".


title: John Pilger

text: With "Utopia", Pilger returned to the experiences of Indigenous Australians and what he termed "the denigrating of their humanity". A documentary feature film, it takes its title from Utopia, an Aboriginal homeland (also known as an outstation) in the Northern Territory. Pilger says that "in essence, very little" has changed since the first of his seven films about the Aboriginal people, "A Secret Country: The First Australians" (1985). In an interview with the UK based "Australian Times" he commented: "the catastrophe imposed on Indigenous Australians is the equivalent of apartheid, and the system has to change".


title: John Pilger

text: Reviewing the film, Peter Bradshaw wrote: "The awful truth is that Indigenous communities are on mineral-rich lands that cause mouths to water in mining corporation boardrooms". "When the subject and subjects are allowed to speak for themselves – when Pilger doesn't stand and preach – the injustices glow like throbbing wounds", wrote Nigel Andrews in the "Financial Times", but the documentary maker "goes on too long. 110 minutes is a hefty time in screen politics, especially when we know the makers' message from scene one".


title: John Pilger

text: Geoffrey Macnab described it as an "angry, impassioned documentary" while for Mark Kermode it is a "searing indictment of the ongoing mistreatment" of the first Australians.


title: John Pilger

text: The film premiered in the UK on Thursday 1 December 2016, and was shown on ITV at 10.40 pm on Tuesday 6 December and on the Australian public broadcaster SBS on 16 April 2017. In the documentary, according to Pilger, "the evidence and witnesses warn that nuclear war is no longer a shadow, but a contingency. The greatest build-up of American-led military forces since the Second World War is well under way. They are on the western borders of Russia, and in Asia and the Pacific, confronting China. Like the renewal of post-Soviet Russia, the rise of China as an economic power is declared an 'existential threat' to the divine right of the United States to rule and dominate human affairs".


title: John Pilger

text: "The first third told, and told well, the unforgivable, unconscionable tale of what has overtaken the Marshall Islanders since 1946, when the US first nuked the test site on Bikini Atoll" beginning an extended series of tests, wrote Euan Ferguson in "The Observer". "Over the next 12 years they would unleash a total of 42.2 megatons. The islanders, as forensically proved by Pilger, were effectively guinea pigs for [the] effects of radiation". Ferguson wrote that the rest of the film "was a sane, sober, necessary, deeply troubling bucketful of worries". Peter Bradshaw in "The Guardian" wrote that the film "lays bare the historical horrors of the US military in the Pacific, exposing the paranoia and pre-emptive aggression of its semi-secret bases," adding: "This is a gripping film, which though it comes close to excusing China ... does point out China's insecurities and political cruelties". Neil Young of "The Hollywood Reporter" called the film an "authoritative indictment of American nefariousness in the western Pacific".


title: John Pilger

text: Kevin Maher wrote in "The Times" that he admired the early sequences on the Marshall Islands, but that he believed the film lacked nuance or subtlety. Maher wrote that, for Pilger, China is "a brilliant place with just some 'issues with human rights', but let's not go into that now". "Diplomat" columnist David Hutt said "Pilger consistently glosses over China's past crimes while dwelling on America's".


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger's "The Dirty War on the National Health Service" was released in the UK on 29 November 2019 and examined the changes that the NHS has undergone since its founding in 1948. Pilger makes the case that governments beginning with that of Margaret Thatcher have waged a secret war against the NHS with a view to privatising it slowly and surreptitiously. Pilger predicted that moves toward privatisation would create more poverty and homelessness and that the resulting chaos would be used as an argument for further "reform". Peter Bradshaw described the documentary as a "fierce, necessary film".


title: John Pilger

text: In 2003 and 2004, Pilger criticised United States President George W. Bush, saying that he had used the 9/11 terrorist attacks as an excuse to invade Iraq as part of a strategy to increase US control of the world's oil supplies. In 2004, Pilger criticised British Prime Minister Tony Blair as equally responsible for the invasion and the bungled occupation of Iraq. In 2004, as the Iraq insurgency increased, Pilger wrote that the anti-war movement should support "Iraq's anti-occupation resistance:


title: John Pilger

text: We cannot afford to be choosy. While we abhor and condemn the continuing loss of innocent life in Iraq, we have no choice now but to support the resistance, for if the resistance fails, the "Bush gang" will attack another country".


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger described Australian Prime Minister John Howard as "the mouse that roars for America, whipping his country into war fever and paranoia about terrorism within". He thought Howard's willingness to "join the Bush/Blair assault on Iraq ... evok[ed] a melancholy history of obsequious service to great power: from the Boxer Rebellion to the Boer war, to the disaster at Gallipoli, and Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf".


title: John Pilger

text: On 25 July 2005, Pilger ascribed blame for the 2005 London bombings that month to Blair. He wrote that Blair's decision to follow Bush helped to generate the rage that Pilger said precipitated the bombings.


title: John Pilger

text: In his column a year later, Pilger described Blair as a war criminal for supporting Israel's actions during the 2006 Israel–Lebanon conflict. He said that Blair gave permission to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 to initiate what would ultimately become Operation Defensive Shield.


title: John Pilger

text: In 2014, Pilger wrote that "The truth about the criminal bloodbath in Iraq cannot be "countered" indefinitely. Neither can the truth about our support for the medievalists in Saudi Arabia, the nuclear-armed predators in Israel, the new military fascists in Egypt and the jihadist "liberators" of Syria, whose propaganda is now BBC news".


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger criticised Barack Obama during his presidential campaign of 2008, saying that he was "a glossy Uncle Tom who would bomb Pakistan" and his theme "was the renewal of America as a dominant, avaricious bully". After Obama was elected and took office in 2009, Pilger wrote, "In his first 100 days, Obama has excused torture, opposed "habeas corpus" and demanded more secret government".


title: John Pilger

text: Sunny Hundal wrote in "The Guardian" during November 2008 that the "Uncle Tom" slur used against Obama "highlights a patronising attitude towards ethnic minorities. Pilger expects all black and brown people to be revolutionary brothers and sisters, and if they veer away from that stereotype, it can only be because they are pawns of a wider conspiracy".


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger supported Julian Assange by pledging bail in December 2010. Pilger said at the time: "There's no doubt that he is not going to abscond". Assange sought asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador in London in 2012 and Pilger's bail money was lost when a judge ordered it to be forfeited.


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger has been critical of the media's treatment of Assange saying: "The same brave newspapers and broadcasters that have supported Britain's part in epic bloody crimes, from the genocide in Indonesia to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, now attack the "human rights record" of Ecuador, whose real crime is to stand up to the bullies in London and Washington".


title: John Pilger

text: He criticised the failure of the Australian government to object when it "repeatedly received confirmation that the US was conducting an "unprecedented" pursuit of Assange" and noted that one of the reasons Ecuador gave for granting asylum to Assange was his abandonment by Australia.


title: John Pilger

text: In a February 2016 webchat on the website of "The Guardian" newspaper, Pilger said "Trump is speaking straight to ordinary Americans". Although his opinions about immigration were "gross", Pilger wrote that they are "no more gross in essence than, say, David Cameron's – he is not planning to invade anywhere, he doesn't hate the Russians or the Chinese, he is not beholden to Israel. People like this lack of cant, and when the so-called liberal media deride him, they like him even more". In March 2016, Pilger commented in a speech delivered at the University of Sydney during the 2016 United States presidential election, that Donald Trump was a less dangerous potential President of the United States than Hillary Clinton.


title: John Pilger

text: In November 2016, Pilger said that "notorious terrorist jihadist group called ISIL or ISIS is created largely with money from [the government of Saudi and the government of Qatar] who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation".


title: John Pilger

text: In August 2017, in an article published on his website, Pilger wrote that a "coup against the man in the White House is under way. This is not because he is an odious human being, but because he has consistently made clear he does not want war with Russia. This glimpse of sanity, or simple pragmatism, is anathema to the 'national security' managers who guard a system based on war, surveillance, armaments, threats and extreme capitalism". According to Pilger, "The Guardian" has published "drivel" in covering the claims "that the Russians conspired with Trump". Such assertions, he writes, are "reminiscent of the far-right smearing of John Kennedy as a 'Soviet agent'".


title: John Pilger

text: On the Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal on 4 March 2018, Pilger said in an interview on Russia's RT: "This is a carefully constructed drama as part of the propaganda campaign that has been building now for several years in order to justify the actions of NATO, Britain and the United States, towards Russia. That's a fact". Such events as the Iraq War, "at the very least should make us sceptical of Theresa May's theatrics in Parliament". He hinted that the UK government may have been involved in the attack, saying it had motive and that the nearby Porton Down laboratory has a "long and sinister record with nerve gas and chemical weapons".


title: John Pilger

text: According to Pilger, "American bases form a giant noose encircling China with missiles, bombers, warships - all the way from Australia through the Pacific to Asia and beyond. ... There are no Chinese naval ships and no Chinese bases off California".


title: John Pilger

text: On the UK vote to leave the European Union, Pilger wrote in 2016 "The majority vote by Britons to leave the European Union was an act of raw democracy. Millions of ordinary people refused to be bullied, intimidated and dismissed with open contempt by their presumed betters in the major parties, the leaders of the business and banking oligarchy and the media. This was, in great part, a vote by those angered and demoralised by the sheer arrogance of the apologists for the "remain" campaign and the dismemberment of a socially just civil life in Britain. The last bastion of the historic reforms of 1945, the National Health Service, has been so subverted by Tory and Labour-supported privateers it is fighting for its life."


title: John Pilger

text: Pilger has criticised many journalists of the mainstream media. During the administration of President Bill Clinton in the US, Pilger attacked the British-American Project as an example of "Atlanticist freemasonry". He asserted in November 1998 that "many members are journalists, the essential foot soldiers in any network devoted to power and propaganda". In 2002, he said that "many journalists now are no more than channellers and echoers of what Orwell called the official truth".