Facebook’s 2018 Year In Review Video

Today we are releasing our 2018 Year In Review, highlighting the top ways people around the world connected with their communities on Facebook.

First, people made their voices heard about issues that matter to them:

• International Women’s Day: For the second year in a row, International Women’s Day on March 8 was the #1 most talked about moment of the year. But in 2018, IWD conversation was about more than the day itself. Women and men around the world discussed a wide range of topics, issues and causes related to women.
• March for Our Lives: Survivors of the violence in Parkland, Florida announced the March for Our Lives movement on February 18, which drove conversation and action around the world. Over the next month, more than 1 million people showed interest in attending a Facebook Event for March for Our Lives, and more than $2.5 million was raised through Facebook Fundraisers.
• Civic Engagement: The Brazilian Presidential Election on October 7 and the US Midterm Elections on November 6 were top moments for conversation about voting and elections.

We also saw communities join together in celebration of global moments in culture:

• World Cup: More than 383 million soccer fans from around the world took to Facebook to cheer on their favorite teams through 2.3 billion posts, comments, reactions and shares. France’s World Cup victory on July 15 and England’s Semi-Final match against Croatia on July 11 were two of the top most-discussed moments of the year.
• Super Bowl 52: The Philadelphia Eagles secured their first Super Bowl win against the New England Patriots on February 4. More than 62 million people turned to Facebook following Tom Brady’s incomplete Hail Mary pass at the end of the game, and Justin Timberlake’s halftime performance paying tribute to Prince.

• The Royal Wedding: The much-anticipated nuptials between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on May 19 connected 42 million people on Facebook who about posted about the ceremony, the newlyweds, and the pomp and circumstance.

Finally, people came to Facebook to honor prominent figures who have had a significant impact around the world:

• Nelson Mandela 100: July 18 marked 100 years since Nelson Mandela was born, and millions of people came to Facebook to celebrate Mandela’s life of dedication to human rights and social justice.
• Keeping Legacies Alive: The world lost many influential and inspirational people in 2018. From musical icons Aretha Franklin, Avicii, and Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries, to scientific visionaries like Stephen Hawking, influential storytellers like Anthony Bourdain and Hollywood stars like Burt Reynolds. People around the world shared millions of posts on Facebook to memorialize the global impact and work of these individuals.

Your Year In Review

Starting on December 10, you may see a personalized Year in Review video in your News Feed. This video aims to show special moments from 2018 that you’ve shared or been tagged in, and compiles them in a short video that can be edited and shared. See your video at facebook.com/memories.

Methodology
The top moments of this year’s Year In Review were determined by gathering a list of the top keywords by volume mentioned in a single day on Facebook between January 1 and November 11, 2018. To identify which topics were unique to 2018, we compared these keywords to the previous year’s maximum single-day volume. This means that keywords like Mother’s Day and Halloween, which typically represent the top moments every year, do not repeatedly appear at the top of the list.

Stop Bullfighting

Every year, about 250,000 bulls are killed in bullfights -- stabbed multiple times with barbed lances and banderillas (spiked wooden sticks) before suffering slow, agonizing deaths in front of an audience, including children. 

Please sign our petition to the Prime Minister of Spain calling for a national ban on bullfights and bull runs in Spain:

Now, even though bullfighting attendance is at an all-time low and bans have been enacted by several countries and cities, France and Spain are trying to protect this cruel bloodsport by getting it listed as a form of "cultural heritage". 

Bullfights aren't "fair fights" between a bull and a matador. They're highly staged forms of animal cruelty, sanctioned and subsidized by governments. A UNESCO "cultural heritage" listing would give a veneer of respectability to the torture of animals for public entertainment and mean subsidies may be made available to financially safeguard the future of bullfighting. 

They call this sport. This isn't sport this is animal cruelty! The poor bull is in pain. They throw spears in the animal and let it bleed out. They stab it. This poor animal doesn't deserve this. Bulls are beautiful and powerful animals. 

The bull is acting in self defense against these people. It's trying to protect itself, it is the people that are attacking the bull.

I've even seen where they will light the bull's horns on fire. 

God's beautiful creature, the bull.

Torturous bull runs and bullfights are condemned by the public internationally—and with good reason. Every year, more than 40,000 bulls are slaughtered in rings in Spain alone.

In that country’s infamous bull runs, bulls who are chased by screaming participants down the narrow streets—slipping and sliding, crashing into walls, and breaking bones—will be tortured and killed in the town’s bullring shortly afterward.

It’s no surprise that the majority of Spaniards oppose these bloody, violent, and archaic spectacles. Just this week, Spain’s Balearic Islands voted to criminalize killing bulls during bullfights. Several other regions in Spain, including Barcelona and 38 Catalan municipalities, have made strides to ban the centuries-old blood sport.

Spanish animal rights group PACMA, which released the footage, reports that attendance at the school is dwindling. The number of students enrolled has gone from 111 in 2003 to just 48 in 2013. This is hardly surprising. We’ve known for a long time that most Spanish people have no interest in bullfights or other barbaric events in which animals are killed for “sport”. But the school is being propped up by the government, from which it just received a €30,000 prize.

These bullfighting schools must be shut down, not awarded cash. In addition to ignoring the right of bulls not to be tortured, they are flagrantly ignoring the United Nation’s (UN) Committee on the Rights of the Child‘s report that exposure to bullfighting violates children’s rights. Committee Vice President Sara Oviedo says:

[T]he participation of children and adolescents in bullfighting activities constitutes a grave violation of the articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child … as they are being indoctrinated for a violent act.

For a child, being forced to watch a bullfight can be traumatic enough, but encouraging children to participate in deliberately harming and killing an animal for “amusement” sends all the wrong messages to developing young minds and can lead young people to become adults who are dangerously desensitised to violence and have been stripped of their natural empathy. Compassion and kindness, not enthusiasm for inflicting pain and engaging in gratuitous violence, are the qualities that children need.

The UN Committee recommended that children should not attend or participate in bullfighting events because of their extreme violence – it’s time that countries that still prop up this disgusting and dying industry put a stop to it, for the sake of children and bulls alike.

What You Can Do

 Share this page and spread the word that bullfighting is a senseless, archaic practice that should be ended immediately.

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I WANT TO TAKE ACTION FOR BULLS!

You Can Help

Please sign our petition to the Prime Minister of Spain calling for a national ban on bullfights and bull runs in Spain:

TAKE ACTION

Dear UNESCO leaders,

I am concerned that several political bodies have begun the process to recognize bullfighting and bull fiestas as cultural heritage assets.

Whilst I applaud the important work that UNESCO undertakes to preserve many expressions of cultural heritage, I would never support a move to accept bullfighting, or any other act of animal cruelty, as a practice worthy of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Within the countries in which these acts of animal cruelty take place there are large caring communities that oppose such blatant acts against sentient animals. Recent opinion polls have shown that bullfighting is not supported by the majority of citizens.

I would like to join you in celebrating many expressions of cultural heritage, but I could never celebrate animal suffering. Bullfighting is not culture, it is cruelty.

I trust that UNESCO would never give a veneer of respectability to the torment and stabbing to death of animals -- animal cruelty can never be an acceptable form of cultural heritage.

Woman runs hospice for abandoned dying dogs to give them the end of life they deserve

A woman from Mansfield has set up a hospice which treats pups who have less than six months to live.

Imagine being a dog, abandoned in the twilight years of your life, and left to die in the pound.

Heartbreaking, isn’t it?

Dog lover Nicola Coyle thinks so, which is why she set up The Grey Muzzle Canine Hospice Project – a hospice for dying, abandoned dogs.

46-year-old Nicola runs the hospice from her home and gives dogs the end of life they deserve by looking after them and helping them complete their bucket lists.

She takes in dogs from pounds and animal shelters, rescuing dogs who would otherwise be left to die there, or put down.

The retired nurse takes up to two dogs at a time, welcoming dogs who have six months or less to live.

Eating ice cream on the beach (Picture: SWNS)

Instead of living their final days locked away, dogs are treated to birthday parties, ice creams on the beach, steak pub dinners, and unlimited cuddles.

She even takes them through the McDonald’s drive-thru.

When the dogs’ final day comes, Nadine has them cremated and buries them in a special plot at her Nottingham home.

Eating ice cream in the park(Picture: SWNS)

Each dog has a different story, but Nicole thinks most of the dying dogs are abandoned by owners unwilling to pay for expensive vets bills or are ‘working dogs’ no longer considered useful.

One charity she regularly helps said they ‘couldn’t be more grateful’ to Nicola who has given some of their most desperate pets ‘love and care like they have never received’.

Eating ice cream on the road (Picture: SWNS)

‘It can be an utterly heartbreaking job, but someone has to do it,’ says Nicola.

‘I’m a complete animal lover and I just can’t bear the thought of them spending their final days, weeks or months without the love they deserve.

‘It can be really tough, but ultimately it’s so rewarding when you can make those times special.

‘I normally have a maximum of two dogs at any one time.

‘We’ll only take them in if the vet says they’ve got less than six months to live, so we’re focusing on end of life care.

‘I think the longest I’ve had one is around one year and the shortest was about two weeks.

‘I don’t know when their birthdays are so we make sure we throw all of them birthday party. If they’re well enough, we take them for a day at the seaside, they get fish and chips on the beach and ice cream.

‘We’ll also take them down to the local pub, it’s really dog friendly, and they’ll get a steak dinner too.’

Getting to ride in a police van (Picture: SWNS)

Nadine spends up to £500 on each dog, and pays for that with her own money, and cash raised through fundraising.

She’s been running the hospice out of her home for years, but only gave it an official name a year ago after caring for one of her favourites, Dougie the bulldog.

‘Dougie was found tied up outside a vet surgery one morning, and only given weeks to live after they found he had lymphoma.

‘He had the best temperament and just wanted to feel loved and safe,’ she says.

‘He was really poorly and not with us for long, but the difference I saw in him once he came with us from the pound, in just a matter of days, was incredible.

‘He was a totally different dog.

‘Dougie was about a year ago and that’s when I decided I didn’t want to see any more dogs go through that. I really believe they should get a nice ending.’

Living his best life at the Macca’s drive thru (Picture: SWNS)

Nicola asks the local vets, charities and pounds in the Sheffield and Nottingham area if they have any dying dogs that need end of life care.

Most are taken from places where they will be put to sleep if they are not re-homed within seven days.

Take Bumble, for example – a German Shepherd who was found as a stray, struggling to walk, with matted fur and an extremely painful back, in December 2017.

He was taken to Helping Yorkshire Poundies, a rescue and re-homing charity for abandoned dogs, but was extremely distressed and about to be put down when Nicola stepped in.

She threw him a birthday party and took him to the beach, before he passed away six weeks later.

amazing things you did in the 90s that no longer exist

amazing things you did in the 90s that no longer exist

It seems as though modern popular culture is more nostalgic than ever.

 From constant reboots of TV shows, a fashion re-generation and even throwback-style music, it seems as though we’re living in the midst of 90s culture for the second time – just with mobiles and the internet.

Many aspects of the 90’s have come back into fashion recently, but there are a few things we enjoyed back then, that we weirdly long for even now.

But it is my genuine belief that the best of our human society reached its peak in the year 2000 – modern enough that we weren’t really missing out on too much when it came to technology (mobiles and the internet were in their infancy, but still readily available) but without the cynical climate of fear that seems to permeate in the modern world.

Here are  amazing things that we could all do in the 90s that no longer exist:

Getting about ONE good play session out of a plastic rainbow Slinky before it got all tangled up:

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We had to work so hard

Go on MSN messenger and chat with our friends

Coming in just before the turn of the century was MSN messenger. As soon as you got back from school, you’d sign in to see who was online, and in many cases, the last question you would get asked at the end of the school day would be: “Will you be on MSN tonight?”

It started off as just a way of making competition against the AOL messenger service, but when AOL went belly-up in the early 2000s, MSN became the firm-favourite messenger for an entire generation. It started off as a fairly simple format, but then it developed with nudges, winks, emoticons and all sorts of nonsense like that. After a while, you could even play bowling and tic tac toe against your friends.

After 15 years, the service was shut down, but by this point, everybody had already moved onto other platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp.

 I spent so many hours with my finger on the ‘record’ button waiting for

 a good song to come on the radio

 Go to the shop and come out with a Push Pop

Who doesn’t remember these delights you used to get in after a hard day at school? I can always remember popping to the shop with my mum and pleading for her to buy me sweets…but in the end, my choice was always a Push Pop!

And of course, who can forget the slogans?! ‘Give life a push’, ‘Isn’t it time you pushed a Push Pop?’ and ‘don’t push ME, push a Push Pop!’. Classic stuff.

 Go and switch on the dial up modem to connect to the internet

I’m telling you now, you kids don’t know you’re born these days! Instant Wi-Fi connection? Ha! I remember the days when your internet connection was basically powered by potatoes and coal. My generation can also still vividly remember the pain of not having an instant internet connection.

We are the very last generation who remember the internet being a new fad, and also the constraints of dial-up. Oh, and that horrible, ghostly noise it used to make, as though every time you were trying to check your e-mails, you got an emergency broadcast message to alert you that either zombies or nuclear war was coming.

I’ll remind you of a typical scenario we all had to deal with.

You tell your friends at the end of the school day – “I’ll speak to you on MSN later”, and when you get home, what do you find? Your mom on the phone for hours…and hours…and hours…and hours.

And hours.

And hours.

…And hours.

Or god forbid if you were trying to organise a night out in the 90s or early 2000s, way back before group chats when you had to make about 50 different phone calls to each and every friend.

Okay, so these days the noise does bring back a sense of nostalgia, but maybe dial-up is where it belongs – in the past.

 Get a pair of Adidas trackies from JJB Sports

JJB Sports was always the place to go if you wanted sports merch or equipment. Perhaps you wanted to buy shin pads for cricket, a pair of goggles or the Argentina football jersey? JJB Sports was the shop.

It was always really reasonably priced too, considering these days you have to pay upwards of a hundred quid for a football shirt. If you wanted a pair of Adidas trackies, you would go to JJB’s without a second thought.

Unfortunately, bankruptcy sealed the fate of the high-street chain store and it was bought out by Sports Direct in 2012.

What Happens To Your Body When You Drink Two Cups Of Coffee Every Day?

Between a cup of coffee and a red bull, is it the red bull that is really giving you wings? Not exactly because the main ingredient in red bull is caffeine. 

Caffeine is such an ingredient that it is also used in certain headache medication simply because of its cognitive properties that stimulate the brain helping you stay awake, focus and concentrate. 

The morning cup of coffee is so very important for people around the world without which not many would be able to function. But coffee is simply taken for granted and we never question how good or bad is it. How much should we drink and how much we shouldn’t. So let’s find out.

1The main ingredients in coffee

Caffeine is the main stimulant in coffee. Theobromine the active ingredient in cocoa is also found in coffee and increases metabolism. Theophylline is also a stimulant found both in coffee and cocoa. Chlorogenic acid is an active compound in coffee that decreases the absorption of carbs.

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Caffeine is also found in food items

There are a number of food items that contain caffeine like soft drinks, chocolate and tea. But there is nothing that can compare to coffee where caffeine is concerned. Coffee remains on top of the list as the primary source of caffeine.

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3Here’s the type of nutrients coffee contains

Did you even once think if there is any nutrition in coffee or not. Many coffee drinkers have been led to believe that by default coffee may be bad but yet they just have to drink it. You’ll be surprised to know that coffee too has its fair share of vitamins and minerals, more than you could ever contemplate. The below mentioned ingredients are contained in one cup of coffee which will give you more antioxidants than fruits and veggies.

• Vitamin B1 (Thiamin): RDA 2% (RDA means recommended dietary allowance)
• Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin): RDA 11%
• Vitamin B3 (Niacin): RDA 2%
• Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid): RDA 6%
• Folate: RDA 1%
• Manganese: RDA 3%
• Potassium: RDA 3%
• Magnesium: RDA 2%
• Phosphorus: RDA 1%

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4Coffee increases metabolism

Coffee has several health benefits. Given the fact that too much of a good thing is bad, drinking in moderation will give you all of its health advantages such as an improved metabolism. The rate at which your body burns calories is your resting metabolic rate. Studies have proved that caffeine increases this rate by 3 to 11%. What is interesting to note is that the increase is mostly related to fat burning in the body. However, the same study also found the effect was less pronounced in obese people.

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5Coffee can help you burn fat

As you read above, coffee increases the fat burning process in the body. It is also a nerve stimulant that signals fat cells to start breaking down fat. It first increases the hormone epinephrine (adrenaline) in the blood which then reaches fat tissues to inform them to start breaking down and releasing fat into the blood. However, if you consume more calories by eating, this process may not help you lose fat. Studies found that caffeine increased fat burn by 29% in lean people and just 10% in overweight people. Its effect also decreases with age.

But be warned. Do not think by drinking excess coffee, you may burn more fat by increasing this process. Instead, your body may be overstimulated which is why you may have observed why you feel hyperactive, possibly irritable and a bunch of nerves after consuming too much coffee without activity.

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Increases short-term brain functioning

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The reason why many people drink coffee while working is that it helps them focus and concentrate, but then again, this is a short-term effect of coffee and should not be relied on for longer intervals. Continuously drinking coffee throughout the day isn’t advisable.

Studies have found that caffeine can improve short-term brain function because it blocks adenosine that decreases neuron activity in the brain. However, it also stimulates the CNS or central nervous system by releasing neurotransmitters like noradrenaline, dopamine and serotonin. Incidentally, the second two are known as happy hormones that improve mood. So it’s only logical to assume that coffee improves mood too.

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7Alzheimer’s risk is reduced

Studies have found that coffee can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s by 65%. Alzheimer’s is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases that affect almost 500,000 people in the USA every year. While studies provided a mixed response to the effects of coffee on all cognitive impairment diseases, it was found to be most effective in reducing the risk of Alzheimers over dementia which requires more study.

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8It reduces the risk of Parkinson’s

Ronald Postuma MD and his team had published an interesting study that found how drinking coffee in moderation reduced the risks of Parkinson’s and could improve the motor symptoms of the disease.

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9Regular coffee consumption reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is caused by elevated levels of sugar in the blood. Almost 300 million people are affected by this lifestyle disease. Coffee drinkers drinking moderate amounts of coffee can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by23-67%. However again there is mixed responses for those already with the condition where it was found that caffeine decreased insulin sensitivity and could increase sugar levels in the blood. It means that if you don’t have diabetes, then black coffee can reduce your risk of the disease but if you already have it, caution is advised and it is best to consult with your doctor.

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10Reduces risk of liver disease

High consumption of alcohol and sugar is now making liver disease a common affair. When scar tissue starts forming on the liver, it means the end stages of the disease because the liver isn’t regenerating and cirrhosis sets in. Regular coffee consumption has been found to reduce the risk of liver cirrhosis by 84%.

Although studies have found that drinking BLACK coffee reduces the risk of liver disease and could also undo some of the damage caused by alcohol, it is still unknown what ingredient in coffee causes the benefit to the liver.

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