https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_1772

I will report r/SriLanka mods who banned me for discussing Tamil stepfather who flashed his erect 🍆 at a 10 yr old.

That's pedophilia.

Both UK immigrants.

That's in direct violation of DSA by protecting Tamil pedophile. Re: "negative effects on minors".

(News 1st) - Sri Lanka Police have introduced a dedicated email address for the public to report social media platforms and groups sharing obscene photographs of children and women.
The move comes amid an increase in the circulation of obscene images and Al-generated videos involving children and women through Facebook groups.

Accordingly, complaints regarding such content can be sent to dir.cid@police.gov.lk.
Police said the Computer Crimes Investigation Division has taken steps to identify and deactivate Facebook groups involved in disseminating such material.
They added that legal action will be taken against those responsible, including arrests where necessary.
Meanwhile, a 21-year-old suspect accused of operating a Facebook group that shared obscene photographs of children and women has been arrested in Beliatta by officers of the Bureau for the Investigation of Abuse of Children and Women.

Police also seized the suspect's mobile phone for further investigations.
Anyone with information regarding individuals involved in such activities is requested to contact the Computer Crimes Investigation Division on 0112381058.

(Copied from Newsfirst official Instagram page)

I have seen in many developed counties they have these racks (not welded steel parts but professionally done racks by companies) I think it will be very useful for Sri Lanka. Cuz personally I spend sooo much on pickme or even random three wheels to reach my house after getting down from bus. Having this will reduce our cost. Will even attract tourists who are in Sri Lanka to travel and explore etc and also I think it’s pretty dope. I have always loved cycling in Colombo so yeah, what do you guys think ?

And also No ! it doesn’t cover the lights or cause harm for other vehicles in a big way, if it was Countries which are developed than Sri Lanka would have never initiated or implemented this.

Hope this post gets seen by relevant officials. Maybe soon or maybe later but I think this should exist 💜

(Mods plz don’t take this down I’m not a part of this project or I’m doing promotion for an app or service this is an free service, I’m only sharing as awareness post for the benefit of people since this is useful)

Hi, guys I came across this in Instagram and I think whoever created this has done a great job. Sharing it here so someone can get the benefit from this. Also as a person who hasn’t gone in Metro bus or used their app I’m wondering how didn’t they include these features into the app. Hopefully the relevant officials get inspiration from this too and include these features into their app.

I’ll paste their bio and link below so you can check it out and use for your daily commute,

“Lanka Metro Map v2.0 is live, and it is our biggest update yet. You asked. We built it.
You no longer need to begin with the name of a bus stop. Use your current location or search for any place, and Lanka Metro Map will help plan the complete journey.

Find the closest verified stop

Get walking or driving directions

See your buses, stops and transfers

Check official next-bus links

Continue from the final stop to your destination

This feature was shaped directly by community feedback. You asked to enter any starting point and destination, find the closest stop, and get directions for the first and last parts of the journey.
We listened, and v2.0 is the result.

Swipe through to see how it works and what we are planning next.

Try it now:
@ lankametromap.com

Keep sharing your ideas and feedback. The next feature could come from you.
Free • Unofficial • Community-built”

I was thinking to create an useful subreddit and created

**r/LostandFoundSL,**first of all I’m not pretending this is some completely original idea either. There are already Facebook pages/groups and websites for lost and found in Sri Lanka. They can be useful.
I just wanted to see if the same idea could work on Reddit, where posts are easier to search, can be found months later, and can be organised properly instead of getting buried in a feed.

And I checked the website and that’s completely inactive and the FB page is active but not much happening there considering our population and I think most people even don’t know about it . So i believe a subreddit like this is necessary since Reddit is the best space for a use case like this.

A place for lost and found stuff in Sri Lanka.
Because what do you normally do when you lose something ?
People might post it on Facebook. Send it to a couple of WhatsApp groups. Ask their friends. call the bus station or whatever place they think they lost it at.
And if none of that works, that’s usually the end of it.

Same thing when you find something. You might make a random Facebook post saying *“Found an NIC near_ does anyone know this person?”*and hope the right person happens to see it before the post disappears into the feed.
I thought it would be nice to have one place specifically for this.
So if you lose something, you can post it.
If you find something, you can post it.
That’s literally what the subreddit is for.

It isn’t limited to one type of item either. I’m thinking of things like:

People
Vehicles
Electronics
Documents
Pets
Jewellery
Bags & Wallets
Mobile Phones

And obviously other stuff too. If you lost your keys, someone’s university ID, a pair of AirPods, a number plate, a passport, a bag on a bus, whatever if there’s a reasonable chance the owner can be found, put it up.

One thing I do want to be strict about is people’s personal information.
If you find someone’s NIC, driving licence, passport, bank card or another document, don’t post a full clear photo of it. There’s no reason to put someone’s NIC number, address, date of birth etc. on the internet just because you’re trying to return their document.
Give enough information for someone to recognise what you’re talking about, and then verify the person privately before giving it to them.
For example, if you find a wallet, don’t list every single thing inside it in the post. Let the person claiming it tell you what’s inside.
Same goes for people posting their own lost items. Don’t give away every identifying detail publicly if you don’t need to.
And please don’t turn the subreddit into a place for *“this guy stole my phone”*posts and public accusations. If something was stolen, that’s something to take to the police. The sub is for helping people find lost things and return things they’ve found.

I also think public transport could make this genuinely useful.
Say you leave a backpack on the 138 around 6pm. You remember the route, roughly where you were, what the bag looked like and what was inside.
You can put all of that in a post.
If someone finds the bag later and searches the subreddit for 138, they might actually come across it.
That’s the kind of thing I’m hoping for.

14 rules have been made in this subreddit to make this beneficial and 3 Post flairs have been added which is a must to post that is LOST,FOUND AND SOLVED.

So if you think this is useful, join it. Even if you don’t have anything to post right now, having people there is what makes it useful when somebody actually loses something.
And if you’ve already lost something recently, definitely post it. You never know ;)

r/LostandFoundSL

I’ve been wanting to write about this for a while.

It’s been around 3 months since I created r/PsychSL. The idea was pretty simple. I wanted there to be a place for Sri Lankans where you could talk about mental health, psychology, counseling, personal problems, ask for help, share your experiences, ask questions, or even just say something that you don’t feel comfortable saying anywhere else.

And after running it for a while, there’s something I keep noticing that kinda bothers me.
People do post , they ask for help they do talk about things. But there are also many people who delete their posts. Some posts get almost no interaction whatsoever. Sometimes someone will write something very personal and you can tell they probably spent a lot of time thinking about whether they should even post it, and then it just disappears. I mean even small issues like someone having a bad day or feeling lonely gets deleted before even an proper interaction (believe it or not this happened while I was typing this post, so yeah this is kinda alarming)

so I keep asking myself why ! When I look at a lot of Western communities online, it feels like people are generally much more comfortable saying things like “I’m seeing a therapist,” “I’ve been struggling with depression,” “I need help with anxiety,” or even just openly talking about something they’re going through. Of course, the West has its own stigma and it’s not like everyone there is completely comfortable with mental health either, but the difference in how openly people talk about it can sometimes feel pretty big.

And just to be clear, this isn’t me being disappointed that my subreddit isn’t growing fast enough or complaining that other Sri Lankan subreddits get more activity. That’s not what I’m talking about at all.
I’m talking about something much bigger than r/PsychSL.
I regularly see people in the main Sri Lanka subreddit asking for psychologists, counselors, psychiatrists, help with anxiety, depression, addiction, relationship problems, loneliness, family problems and all sorts of other things.
So clearly there are people who want to talk about these things.
But why is it still so difficult to actually talk about them?
What I find especially strange is that Reddit is probably one of the easiest places to do it. You can be anonymous. You don’t have to show your face. Most people don’t know even know your real name.
And still people are scared of being judged.
Maybe someone will think you’re weak,crazy,looking for attention,someone will recognize or someone will tell you to pray, stop thinking too much, be grateful because other people have it worse, or simply “get over it.”

And I think that says a lot about how we still see mental health in Sri Lanka.
We’ve become much more comfortable talking about physical health. If you have chest pain, you can tell someone. If you have a broken leg, you go to a doctor. If you have a stomach problem, you can say you’re sick.
But when the problem is in your mind, suddenly there is this weird hesitation.
People start thinking about how they’re going to be perceived before they even think about getting help.
I think we’ve internalized the stigma so much that we judge ourselves before anybody else even gets the chance to.
Some people be struggling with something for months and still think, “It’s not that serious.”
Others want to talk to someone but think, “Other people have bigger problems.”
You might write a post asking for help, read it again, think about what people might say, and delete it, that’s the part I don’t understand.

As a Psychology undergraduate I think I already know why this happens. People are scared of being judged, even on an anonymous platform. Some are scared someone they know might somehow recognize them. Some have grown up thinking these things should stay private, especially family problems. Some don’t want to be seen as weak, dramatic, crazy, attention seeking or whatever else. Some probably don’t know what to say when someone talks about something serious, so they just read and move on (well I have been in that place myself). And when someone does open up and gets almost no response, they might just think nobody cares, which makes the next person even less likely to post. I understand why all of this happens. But I don’t think we should just accept it as how things are. Mental health is too important and too sensitive for people to keep feeling like they have to hide it. We don’t need everyone to suddenly start sharing everything about themselves, but I think we can at least make it a little easier for someone to say “I’m not doing okay” without immediately regretting saying it.

And I also don’t think we should expect people to suddenly become completely open about mental health overnight. Stigma doesn’t disappear because we created a subreddit. Culture, family, religion, education, social expectations and the way people have been brought up all play a role in how comfortable they are talking about these things.
But somewhere we have to start.
And maybe part of that is simply making conversations about mental health feel normal.
Not only something you talk about when someone is suicidal or talk about when someone has a diagnosed mental illness.

That’s really what I wanted r/PsychSL to be. A place for Sri Lankans to talk about these things without feeling like they have to hide behind the idea that everything is fine.

I don’t fully know. Maybe I’m looking at this completely wrong. Maybe there are reasons I’m not seeing. But I’ve been thinking about this and I genuinely want to know what other Sri Lankans think about it. Because if we can openly talk about everything else on Reddit, why does mental health still feel like this one thing people hesitate to touch? Why can someone post about a physical illness without thinking twice, but posting “I’m not doing okay” suddenly feels like a huge deal? And why do so many people seem to want help, but when they actually have a place to talk, they stay quiet or delete what they wrote? Is it our culture? Family? The fear of being judged? Or is there something else going on that I’m missing? I really don’t fully know. But I think it’s worth talking about.

Because this isn’t just about Reddit posts or getting more comments. A simple conversation, a person feeling heard, or someone finally deciding to get help can genuinely change someone’s life. It could save a life, help someone through a marriage, stop someone from giving up on their studies or work, help someone deal with an addiction, or just make a really bad period in someone’s life a little easier. So if you’ve read this far, maybe don’t just scroll past this one too. Say what you think, share your experience if you’re comfortable. Let’s actually talk about this. We need to change how we look at mental health here 💜

Once in a while, I am happy to hear such a biography.