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Friday, November 04, 2022

The companies responsible for the $1.5 trillion-a-year US opioid crisis will pay a total of $53 billion for it

Annalisa Merelli
Wed, November 2, 2022

CVS and Walgreens have agreed to a $10 billion settlement with state and local governments accusing them of mishandling prescription painkillers and fueling the US opioid crisis. They each would pay roughly $5 billion. Walmart, too, is reportedly ready to settle, to the tune of $3 billion.

The settlement amounts still require formal approval, but they’re a good indication of how much the pharmacy chains will have to pay. Earlier this year, the Sackler family—the owners of Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of the blockbuster opioid drug OxyContin—reached a $6 billion settlement agreement after a federal judge rejected an initial settlement of $4.5 billion.

The latest round of settlements all but ends the big lawsuits brought against a dozen companies accused of precipitating what is arguably the worst addiction epidemic in American history. Drug distributor McKesson settled for the largest amount ($7.4 billion). Overall, the settlements add up to $53 billion.

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That’s still less than $206 billion paid by tobacco companies sued over the health costs of treating smoking-related illnesses—and a tiny fraction of the estimated $1 trillion a year that the opioid crisis is currently costing the US.

The lawsuits might be over, but the opioid crisis is worse than ever

A combination of the growing numbers of people buying illegal opioids, and the ubiquity of fentanyl have driven up overdose deaths in the US to unprecedented levels. In 2020, 92,000 people died of drug overdoses. Opioids accounted for nearly 70,000 of those, up from 50,000 in 2019. Estimates for 2021 put overall overdose deaths at 103,000, with at least 82,000 tied to opioids.

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What the opioid crisis is costing the US

The costs of such a monumental crisis are hard to estimate. The most recent estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the crisis cost over $1 trillion a year, between the loss of life, expenses for medical treatments, and spending on criminal justice.

But that cost estimate is from 2017, when only 2 million Americans had an opioid-use disorder, and 48,000 died from an overdose because of it. In 2021, the number of patients with an opioid addiction is at least 3 million, and deaths reached 82,000. This makes the current epidemic at least 50% larger than it was in 2017, which would bring up the yearly cost estimate to $1.5 trillion, in line with recent cost estimates from the US Congress Joint Economic Committee.

That would mean the total amount paid in the settlements cover about 0.3% of the bill for one year only. Altogether, the 12 major companies involved in the settlements had total revenues of $1.8 trillion in 2021.

Quartz

CVS, Walgreens announce opioid settlements totaling $10B

GEOFF MULVIHILL
Wed, November 2, 2022

The two largest U.S. pharmacy chains, CVS Health and Walgreen Co., announced agreements in principle Wednesday to pay about $5 billion each to settle lawsuits nationwide over the toll of opioids, and a lawyer said Walmart, a third pharmacy behemoth, is in discussions for a deal.

The prospective settlements are part of a shift in the legal landscape surrounding the opioid epidemic. Instead of suspense over whether companies in the drug industry would be held to account through trials or settlements, the big question is now how their money will be used and whether it will make a difference in fighting a crisis that has only intensified.

The deals, if completed, would end thousands of lawsuits in which governments claimed pharmacies filled prescriptions they should have flagged as inappropriate. With settlements already proposed or finalized between some of the biggest drugmakers and distribution companies, the recent developments could be the among the last multibillion-dollar settlements to be announced.

They also would bring the total value of all settlements to more than $50 billion, with most of it required to be used by state and local governments to combat opioids, which have been linked to more than 500,000 deaths in the U.S. over the last two decades.

“It's one more culprit of the overdose crisis that is having to pay their dues," said Courtney Gary-Allen, organizing director of the Maine Recovery Advocacy Project. "Average Americans have been paying it for a long time."

Gary-Allen, who is a member of a council that will help determine how Maine uses its opioid settlement funds, said more money to address the problem will help. In her state, she said, the needs include more beds for medical detox and for treatment.

Neither Woonsocket, Rhode Island-based CVS nor Deerfield, Illinois-based Walgreens is admitting wrongdoing.

The plans spring from mediation involving a group of state attorneys general. Before they move ahead, state and then local governments would need to sign on. So far, the detailed, formal deals have not been presented to the government entities so they can decide whether to join.

Under the tentative plans, CVS would pay $4.9 billion to local governments and about $130 million to Native American tribes over a decade. Walgreens would pay $4.8 billion to governments and $155 million to tribes over 15 years. The exact amount depends on how many governments join the deals.

Both noted they have been addressing the crisis through such measures as starting educational programs and installing safe disposal units for drugs in stores and police departments. And both said the settlements would allow them to help while staying focused on their business.

“We are pleased to resolve these longstanding claims and putting them behind us is in the best interest of all parties, as well as our customers, colleagues and shareholders,” Thomas Moriarty, CVS chief policy officer and general counsel, said in a statement.

Walgreens said in a statement: “As one of the largest pharmacy chains in the nation, we remain committed to being a part of the solution, and this settlement framework will allow us to keep our focus on the health and wellbeing of our customers and patients, while making positive contributions to address the opioid crisis,” Walgreens said in a statement.

Paul Geller, a lawyer for governments in the lawsuits, said talks with Walmart continue. Walmart representatives would not comment Wednesday.

“These agreements will be the first resolutions reached with pharmacy chains and will equip communities across the country with the much-needed tools to fight back against this epidemic and bring about tangible, positive change,” lawyers for local governments said in a statement. “In addition to payments totaling billions of dollars, these companies have committed to making significant improvements to their dispensing practices to help reduce addiction moving forward.”

If these settlements are completed, they would leave mostly smaller drug industry players as defendants in lawsuits. Just this week, a group of mostly regional pharmacy chains sent to a judge, who is overseeing federal litigation, information about claims they face, a possible precursor to scheduling trials or mediating settlements involving some of those firms.

“One by one, we are holding every player in the addiction industry accountable for the millions of lives lost or devastated by the opioid epidemic,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in a statement. “The companies that helped to create and fuel this crisis must commit to changing their businesses practices, and to providing the resources needed for treatment, prevention and recovery.”

Most of the nation's opioid overdose deaths initially involved prescription drugs. As governments, doctors and companies took steps to make them harder to abuse and obtain, people addicted to them increasingly switched to heroin, which proved more deadly.

In recent years, opioid deaths have soared to record levels around 80,000 a year. Most of those deaths involve illicitly produced version of the powerful lab-made drug fentanyl, which is appearing throughout the U.S. supply of illegal drugs.

Only a handful of opioid settlements have had bigger dollar figures than the CVS plan. Distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson this year finalized a combined settlement worth $21 billion, and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson finalized a $5 billion deal.

Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, and members of the Sackler family who own the company have a proposed settlement that would involve up to $6 billion in cash, plus the value of the company, which would be turned into a new entity with its profits used to combat the epidemic. That plan has been put on hold by a court.

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Associated Press writer Tom Murphy in Indianapolis contributed to this report.

Cannabis holds promise for pain management, reducing the need for opioid painkillers – a neuropharmacology expert explains how

Benjamin Land, Research Associate Professor of Pharmacology, University of Washington

THE CONVERSATION
Wed, November 2, 2022

The cannabis plant produces both THC – the psychoactive component in marijuana – and the compound commonly known as CBD, which does not lead to a 'high.'

Jena Ardell/Moment via Getty Images

Drug overdose deaths from opioids continue to rise in the U.S. as a result of both the misuse of prescription opioids and the illicit drug market.

But an interesting trend has developed: Opioid emergency room visits drop by nearly 8% and opioid prescriptions are modestly lower in states where marijuana is legalized.

Marijuana is produced by the cannabis plant, which is native to Asia but is now grown throughout the world. Individuals use marijuana for both its psychoactive, euphoria-inducing properties and its ability to relieve pain.

Chemicals produced by the cannabis plant are commonly known as cannabinoids. The two primary cannabinoids that occur naturally in the cannabis plant are THC – the psychoactive compound in marijuana – and CBD, which does not cause the sensation of being high.

Many marijuana users say they take it to treat pain, suggesting that readily available cannabinoids could potentially be used to offset the use of opioids such as morphine and oxycodone that are commonly used in pain treatment. A safer, natural alternative to opioid painkillers would be an important step toward addressing the ongoing opioid epidemic.

Intriguingly however, research suggests that cannabis use could also lessen the need for opioids directly by interacting with the body’s own natural opioid system to produce similar pain-relief effects.

I am a neuropharmacology scientist who studies both opioids and cannabinoids as they relate to pain treatment and substance abuse. My research focuses on the development of drug compounds that can provide chronic pain relief without the potential for overuse and without the tapering off of effectiveness that often accompanies traditional pain medications.

How opioids work

Our bodies have their own built-in opioid system that can aid in managing pain. These opioids, such as endorphins, are chemicals that are released when the body experiences stress such as strenuous exercise, as well as in response to pleasurable activities like eating a good meal. But it turns out that humans are not the only organisms that can make opioids.

In the 1800s, scientists discovered that the opioid morphine – isolated from opium poppy – was highly effective at relieving pain. In the last 150 years, scientists have developed additional synthetic opioids like hydrocodone and dihydrocodeine that also provide pain relief.

Other opioids like heroin and oxycodone are very similar to morphine, but with small differences that influence how quickly they act on the brain. Fentanyl has an even more unique chemical makeup. It is the most powerful opioid and is the culprit behind the current surge in drug overdoses and deaths, including among young people.

Opioids, whether naturally produced or synthetic, produce pain relief by binding to specific receptors in the body, which are proteins that act like a lock that can only be opened by an opioid key.

One such receptor, known as the mu-opioid receptor, is found on pain-transmitting nerve cells along the spinal cord. When activated, mu-receptors tamp down the cell’s ability to relay pain information. Thus, when these opioids are circulating in the body and they reach their receptor, stimuli that would normally cause pain are not transmitted to the brain.

These same receptors are also found in the brain. When opioids find their receptor, the brain releases dopamine – the so-called “feel-good” chemical – which has its own receptors. This is in part why opioids can be highly addicting. Research suggests that these receptors drive the brain’s reward system and promote further drug-seeking. For people who are prescribed opiates, this creates the potential for abuse.

Opioid receptors are dynamically regulated, meaning that as they get exposed to more and more opioids, the body adapts quickly by deactivating the receptor. In other words, the body needs more and more of that opioid to get pain relief and to produce the feel-good response. This process is known as tolerance. The drive to seek more and more reward paired with an ever-increasing tolerance is what leads to the potential for overdose, which is why opioids are generally not long-term solutions for pain.
The potential of THC and CBD for pain treatment

Both THC and CBD have been shown in numerous studies to lessen pain, though – importantly – they differ in which receptors they bind to in order to produce these effects.

THC binds to cannabinoid receptors that are located throughout the central nervous system, producing a variety of responses. One of those responses is the high associated with cannabis use, and another is pain relief. Additionally, THC is believed to reduce inflammation in a manner similar to anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen.

In contrast, CBD appears to bind to several distinct receptors, and many of these receptors can play a role in pain reduction. Importantly, this occurs without the high that occurs with THC.

Because they target different receptors, THC and CBD may be more effective working in concert rather than alone, but more studies in animal models and humans are needed.

Cannabinoids may also be helpful for other conditions as well. Many studies have demonstrated that cannabinoid drugs approved for medical use are effective for pain and other symptoms like spasticity, nausea and appetite loss.

Moving pain research forward

Along with the pairing of THC and CBD, researchers are beginning to explore the use of those two cannabinoids together with existing opioids for pain management. This research is being done in both animal models and humans.

These studies are designed to understand both the benefits – pain relief – and risks – primarily addiction potential – of co-treatment with cannabinoids and opioids. The hope would be that THC or CBD may lower the amount of opioid necessary for powerful pain relief without increasing addiction risk.

For example, one study tested the combination of smoked cannabis and oxycontin for pain relief and reward. It found that co-treatment enhanced pain relief but also increased the pleasure of the drugs. This, as well as a limited number of other studies, suggests there may not be a net benefit.

However, many more studies of this type will be necessary to understand if cannabinoids and opioids can be safely used together for pain. Still, using cannabinoids as a substitution for opioids remains a promising pain treatment strategy.

The next decade of research will likely bring important new insights to the therapeutic potential of cannabinoids for chronic pain management. And as marijuana legalization continues to spread across the U.S., its use in medicine will undoubtedly grow exponentially.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Benjamin Land, University of Washington.

Read more:

Designing less addictive opioids, through chemistry

How gene editing a person’s brain cells could be used to curb the opioid epidemic

Benjamin Land receives funding from the NCCIH for cannabinoid work distinct from opioids, and has received cannabinoid related funding from the University of Washington Addiction and Drug Abuse Institute and SCAN Design Foundation.

In the Amazon, a giant fish helps save the rainforest

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Brazil Sustainable Big Fish

Fishermen join boats to pass fish from the boat used to catch, left, to the motorized one, right, used to transport it faster to the processing ship, in San Raimundo settlement lake, Carauari, Brazil, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022. Along the Jurua River, a tributary of the Amazon, riverine settlers and Indigenous villages are working together to promote the sustainable fishing of near magic fish called pirarucu.

(AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

FABIANO MAISONNAVE and JORGE SAENZ
Thu, November 3, 2022

CARAUARI, Brazil (AP) — Even in the most biodiverse rainforest of the world, the pirarucu, also known as arapaima, stands out.

First, there is its mammoth size: It can weigh up to 200 kilos (440 pounds), by far the largest of 2,300 known fish species in the Amazon. It is found primarily in floodplain lakes across the Amazon basin, including the region of Medio Jurua.

Second, the giant fish not so long ago nearly vanished from Jurua, as vessels swept the lakes with large nets. The illegal and unsustainable fishing left river and Indigenous communities struggling to catch their staple food. And it left pirarucu designated as threatened with extinction, unless trade in the fish is closely controlled by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

But now something remarkable has happened. The fish has come back to the lakes of Medio Jurua. The story of how involves people of different backgrounds cooperating on many levels — a vision of what's possible that veterans of the Amazon say they've seen nowhere else across the vast region.

Change began in the late 1990s. With the assistance of a Dutch Catholic priest, rubber tappers organized and led a campaign to persuade the federal government to create the Medio Jurua Extractive Reserve. They proposed that river communities could take from the forest and its lakes — up to a point — and within protected areas.

It worked. Now, local communities produce açai, vegetable oils and rubber, and they leave the forest standing. Most successful of all has been the management of pirarucu.

Riverine settler communities, organized into associations, also reached agreement with neighboring Deni Indigenous people, who have suffered in the past from invasions by rubber-tappers and fishermen. Now they are part of the managed fishing of pirarucu, which improved relations between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous.

Managing the comeback has required social organization, cooperation and complex logistics. Illegal fishing has been sharply reduced. Pirarucu are flourishing.

The virtuous cycle plays out in the region of Carauari, which stretches along 650 kilometers (404 miles) of the Jurua River and is home to 35,000 people.

To see how things could have gone, look no further than the neighboring Javari Valley, where British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were murdered last June.

The backdrop of that tragedy is a decades-old dispute between Indigenous communities and former rubber tappers who were hired by local businessmen to do illegal fishing, targeting mostly the pirarucu. Two local fishermen confessed to the crimes.

Illegal fishing is rampant in Brazil. It's the second most frequent environmental crime on protected land, after logging, according to an academic study based on official data. Brazil´s conservation agency issued 1,160 infraction notices for illegal fishing — a quarter of all infractions — over a recent five-year period.

“Javari is a portrait of what Medio Jurua was like in the 1980s,” Manoel Cunha, the main leader of the local rubber tappers, told The Associated Press during a boat trip to Sao Raimundo, his home community and one of the ones that takes part in regulated fishing. “We managed to get rid of fishing companies and invading fishermen by monitoring and management. You have been on this river for days now, and you have not seen any fishing boats except the ones from our organizations. There is no more room for them here.”

Pirarucu fishing is done once a year, around September, the period of lowest water. Fishing quotas are possible due to another remarkable characteristic of the pirarucu: It is one of the few fish species in the world that surfaces to breathe. It does that with a big splash, flashing its red tail out of the water.

A local fisherman and a researcher in the nearby Mamirarua region developed a way to take advantage of this, and count the fish since they stay underwater for no more than 20 minutes. The government now recognizes this counting method.

The survey is done once a year by certified fishermen, after taking a course. By law, only 30% of the pirarucu in a certain area can be fished the following year.

This controlled fishing has led to a surge in its population in regions where it's employed. In Sao Raimundo region, there were 1,335 pirarucus in the nearby lakes in 2011, when the managed fishing began. Last year, there were 4,092 specimens, according to their records.

In the Carauari region, the number of pirarucu spiked from 4,916, in 2011, to 46,839, ten years later.

An AP team accompanied the first of the seven days of fishing in Sao Raimundo. Picture a few dozen houses, with running water, connected by well-maintained wooden footbridges amid açai palm trees. Thirty-four families call it home. Most belong to Cunha´s extended family, whose ancestors arrived in the region from the impoverished and drought-ravaged Northeast during the rubber boom to work as tappers.

“Our pirarucu is so tasty, everybody that eats it falls in love with it and wants more," Rosilda da Cunha, a sister of Manoel who lives in Sao Raimundo, told the AP.

Pirarucu bring money into the community, she said. This year, the goal is to buy a solar panel system to replace the diesel-fueled generator. Another share of the money goes to the community members who participate in the fishing. Women's and men's salaries are equal.

To catch pirarucu, fishermen use special, stronger nets they weave themselves. The holes are large enough to allow smaller specimens to go through, as taking fish under five feet is prohibited.

When the fishers catch one, they haul in the net and club the fish in the head. Then they put it in their small boat. When it´s very heavy, two or three men are required to do the job.

The pirarucus are then taken from the lakes to a large boat by the Jurua River. There they are gutted, a task that is mostly done by women, and put on ice. All the production is bought by the Association of Rural Producers of Carauari, known as Asproc, the region´s umbrella organization, so the fishers are never at the mercy of middlemen.

Founded by rubber tappers who wanted to liberate themselves from slave-like labor conditions, Asproc has grown to be one of the most important grassroots entities in the entire Amazon. It runs programs on everything from sanitation, to community markets to higher education, innovating along the way. It now sells pirarucu to Brazil´s main cities including Sao Paulo and Brasília, a complex endeavor that involves several days of transport by boat and road and usually takes more than two weeks.

Asproc´s success has attracted several partnerships. One is counterintuitive — the United States Forest Service, which supported the creation of a brand, the Gosto da Amazônia (Amazon Taste), that promotes the pirarucu nationwide, and the Agency for International Development (USAID), which helped to finance a warehouse for processing fish in Carauari city, where the pirarucu is cut, frozen and packaged.

“This project is unique as it requires a strong governance structure,” Ted Gehr, USAID mission director in Brazil, told the AP during his first visit to the Sao Raimundo community. “Everybody is in agreement that they may have to sacrifice and not be able to fish all of the pirarucu that are available but knowing that they’ll reproduce more, and that in the long run they will be more valuable."

The Medio Jurua region is blessed with remoteness. It has no access by road. So far it is free from the deforestation and fire that have been devastating elsewhere in the Amazon. But the smoke that has left the skies grayish in September is a reminder that the destruction is not far away. The challenge is to be a strong organization and economy to stave off future threats, says Cunha.

“Had we not organized ourselves through fishing management to protect our environments and take our fish, instead of others taking them from us, we could be in the same situation as our colleagues from Javari,” says Cunha, who is the head of the Medio Jurua Extractive Reserve, a position usually held by government officials. “Had they organized themselves earlier, they could have saved the lives of those two comrades.”

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Hungary picks PwC partner to lead new anti-graft body overseeing EU funds

Fri, November 4, 2022

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary's State Audit Office has picked PricewaterhouseCoopers forensic partner Ferenc Biro to lead a new anti-graft body to be launched by mid-November as part of efforts to regain access to European Union funds locked up over corruption risks.

Nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government has been locked in battles with Brussels over corruption, migration, LGBTQ rights and democratic standards.

In September, the EU executive recommended suspending some 7.5 billion euros ($7.3 billion) in funding for Hungary over corruption, the first such case in the 27-nation bloc under a new sanction meant to better protect the rule of law.

With inflation running at two-decade highs and the economy headed for a sharp slowdown due to fallout from the war in neighouring Ukraine, Hungary needs the funds to stave off recession and stabilise its indebted economy.

State Audit Office Chairman Laszlo Windisch has picked Biro, whose application received the highest score and was also endorsed by a committee screening applicants for the role, part of 17 commitments made by Hungary to unlock EU funding.

Biro, a partner at PwC since September 2020, has experience in preventive, detective and compliance tasks based on his LinkedIn profile, with clients including high net worth individuals and major law firms.

Biro has also worked at Ernst & Young, where he built up and led a fraud detection and prevention team for more than 13 years. Hungarian President Katalin Novak is due to appoint the new leaders of the Integrity Authority on Friday.

The body, to be launched by Nov. 19, will be tasked with reinforcing the prevention, detection and correction of fraud, conflicts of interest and corruption.

The Authority and members of its board must be fully independent. It will have extensive powers such as instructing contracting authorities to suspend a procurement procedure and requesting probes.

($1 = 1.0229 euros)

(Reporting by Gergely Szakacs; Editing by Mark Potter)

Mass migration from Twitter is likely to be an uphill battle – just ask ex-Tumblr users

Casey Fiesler, Associate Professor of Information Science, University of Colorado Boulder
THE CONVERSATION

Thu, November 3, 2022

The turmoil inside Twitter headquarters is sparking discussion of a mass exodus of users. What will happen if there is a rush to the exits? AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

Elon Musk announced that “the bird is freed” when his US$44 billion acquisition of Twitter officially closed on Oct. 27, 2022. Some users on the microblogging platform saw this as a reason to fly away.

Over the course of the next 48 hours, I saw countless announcements on my Twitter feed from people either leaving the platform or making preparations to leave. The hashtags #GoodbyeTwitter, #TwitterMigration and #Mastodon were trending. The decentralized, open source social network Mastodon gained over 100,000 users in just a few days, according to a user counting bot.

As an information scientist who studies online communities, this felt like the beginning of something I’ve seen before. Social media platforms tend not to last forever. Depending on your age and online habits, there’s probably some platform that you miss, even if it still exists in some form. Think of MySpace, LiveJournal, Google+ and Vine.

When social media platforms fall, sometimes the online communities that made their homes there fade away, and sometimes they pack their bags and relocate to a new home. The turmoil at Twitter is causing many of the company’s users to consider leaving the platform. Research on previous social media platform migrations shows what might lie ahead for Twitter users who fly the coop.

Several years ago, I led a research project with Brianna Dym, now at University of Maine, where we mapped the platform migrations of nearly 2,000 people over a period of almost two decades. The community we examined was transformative fandom, fans of literary and popular culture series and franchises who create art using those characters and settings.

We chose it because it is a large community that has thrived in a number of different online spaces. Some of the same people writing Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fiction on Usenet in the 1990s were writing Harry Potter fan fiction on LiveJournal in the 2000s and Star Wars fan fiction on Tumblr in the 2010s.

By asking participants about their experiences moving across these platforms – why they left, why they joined and the challenges they faced in doing so – we gained insights into factors that might drive the success and failure of platforms, as well as what negative consequences are likely to occur for a community when it relocates.

‘You go first’

Regardless of how many people ultimately decide to leave Twitter, and even how many people do so around the same time, creating a community on another platform is an uphill battle. These migrations are in large part driven by network effects, meaning that the value of a new platform depends on who else is there.

In the critical early stages of migration, people have to coordinate with each other to encourage contribution on the new platform, which is really hard to do. It essentially becomes, as one of our participants described it, a “game of chicken” where no one wants to leave until their friends leave, and no one wants to be first for fear of being left alone in a new place.

For this reason, the “death” of a platform – whether from a controversy, disliked change or competition – tends to be a slow, gradual process. One participant described Usenet’s decline as “like watching a shopping mall slowly go out of business.”

It’ll never be the same

The current push from some corners to leave Twitter reminded me a bit of Tumblr’s adult content ban in 2018, which reminded me of LiveJournal’s policy changes and new ownership in 2007. People who left LiveJournal in favor of other platforms like Tumblr described feeling unwelcome there. And though Musk did not walk into Twitter headquarters at the end of October and turn a virtual content moderation lever into the “off” position, there was an uptick in hate speech on the platform as some users felt emboldened to violate the platform’s content policies under an assumption that major policy changes were on the way.

So what might actually happen if a lot of Twitter users do decide to leave? What makes Twitter Twitter isn’t the technology, it’s the particular configuration of interactions that takes place there. And there is essentially zero chance that Twitter, as it exists now, could be reconstituted on another platform. Any migration is likely to face many of the challenges previous platform migrations have faced: content loss, fragmented communities, broken social networks and shifted community norms.

But Twitter isn’t one community, it’s a collection of many communities, each with its own norms and motivations. Some communities might be able to migrate more successfully than others. So maybe K-Pop Twitter could coordinate a move to Tumblr. I’ve seen much of Academic Twitter coordinating a move to Mastodon. Other communities might already simultaneously exist on Discord servers and subreddits, and can just let participation on Twitter fade away as fewer people pay attention to it. But as our study implies, migrations always have a cost, and even for smaller communities, some people will get lost along the way.

The ties that bind

Our research also pointed to design recommendations for supporting migration and how one platform might take advantage of attrition from another platform. Cross-posting features can be important because many people hedge their bets. They might be unwilling to completely cut ties all at once, but they might dip their toes into a new platform by sharing the same content on both.

Ways to import networks from another platform also help to maintain communities. For example, there are multiple ways to find people you follow on Twitter on Mastodon. Even simple welcome messages, guides for newcomers and easy ways to find other migrants could make a difference in helping resettlement attempts stick.

And through all of this, it’s important to remember that this is such a hard problem by design. Platforms have no incentive to help users leave. As long-time technology journalist Cory Doctorow recently wrote, this is “a hostage situation.” Social media lures people in with their friends, and then the threat of losing those social networks keeps people on the platforms.

But even if there is a price to pay for leaving a platform, communities can be incredibly resilient. Like the LiveJournal users in our study who found each other again on Tumblr, your fate is not tied to Twitter’s.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Casey Fiesler, University of Colorado Boulder..

Read more:

Elon Musk is wrong: Research shows content rules on Twitter help preserve free speech from bots and other manipulation

Elon Musk takes Twitter private – here’s what that means for the company and its chances of success

Decentralized social network Mastodon grows to 655K users in wake of Elon Musk's Twitter takeover

Sarah Perez
Thu, November 3, 2022

Open source, decentralized social network Mastodon has been benefiting from the chaotic Twitter takeover by Elon Musk. In addition to seeing a record number of downloads for the Mastodon mobile app this past weekend, the nonprofit company today announced a new milestone. In a post on Twitter -- where Mastodon has been successfully marketing its app to those now considering leaving the service -- it noted that 230,000 people have joined Mastodon in the last week alone. Thanks to these new sign-ups as well as people returning to old accounts they had set up previously, the network now has 655,000 active users, the post noted.

This is the highest number of users Mastodon has seen to date, Mastodon said.

This follows the recent news that the open source network had gained over 70,000 new sign-ups on Friday, Oct. 28 -- the day after Musk's deal to acquire Twitter had closed. From Friday through Sunday, the Mastodon mobile app also saw around 91,000 new installs, third-party data from Sensor Tower indicated -- a 658% increase from the 12,000 installs it saw the three days prior.

This rapid growth has not been without its downsides for the Twitter alternative, however.

This week, one of the most popular servers on the Mastodon network, mastodon.social, has been experiencing lags and downtime as it struggled to accommodate the influx of new users. This could turn some people off from using Mastodon as their initial experience was subpar.

Though Mastodon founder and CEO Eugen Rochko has been working long hours to optimize the service and even ordered new hardware, the upgrade process has taken time at this crucial moment for Mastodon's future. Often, when new users who try a service for the first time get frustrated by bugs and other issues, they don't come back a second time.

Plus, some users came to Mastodon without a full understanding of how a decentralized social network works and have found the process confusing or overly technical. Unlike on Twitter, or any other traditional social network, users don't just create an account and start posting. They have to first pick a server to join as their Mastodon home. This is the part that causes people to stumble, as they don't know where to find a server list, how to choose the right one or whether they're limited to chatting with people only on that server. This could also turn them off from exploring Mastodon further.

It's unfortunate because this is actually the key selling point for Mastodon -- you join a server that best fits your interests. And by distributing the load across a network of servers, running Mastodon doesn't require the infrastructure and engineering -- or the massive amount of capital -- that a network like Twitter does. That means Mastodon can be supported through smaller revenue streams, like sponsorships and donations, instead of ads. It also means Mastodon can't be bought or sold to someone like Musk.

Each Mastodon server is operated by a different individual or organization and can set its own moderation policies. But users aren't limited to only communicating with friends on their own server -- you can find and follow friends anywhere on the network. However, you can view your server's timeline feed and the larger, "Federated" feed separately from your own Home feed of people you follow. This is particularly helpful if the server you've joined is filled with community members who post about things you're interested in. There are a number of topic-based servers to choose from, too, to help with this. For example, some topic-based servers focus on areas like technology, music, gaming, art, activism, LGBTQ+, food and more, in addition to general servers for socializing. This allows everyone to find their own niche.

Of note, decentralization is the direction that Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey is going with his new social networking protocol Bluesky, which now has over 30,000 sign-ups on its waitlist, prelaunch. A Bluesky mobile app will help people to connect using this technology in the days to come.

But the open source community -- including those who have been doing the hard work on Mastodon over the years -- have been frustrated with the Silicon Valley exec's decision to go his own way with Bluesky, instead of using established protocols like ActivityPub, which powers Mastodon and others.

Soon, it seems, users will have to choose what sort of decentralized social networking future they want -- or whether the action on Twitter, regardless of its owner, is too enticing to give up.

Videos showing Iranian crackdown on protesters go viral as anger grows

Wed, November 2, 2022

DUBAI, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Videos on social media showing Iranian security forces severely beating protesters have gone viral as anger grows at a widening crackdown with arrests of prominent figures from rappers to economists and lawyers aimed at ending seven weeks of unrest.

Protests ignited by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16 after her arrest for inappropriate attire have shaken Iran's clerical establishment with people from all layers of society demanding wholesale political change.

The nationwide demonstrations which have called for the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are posing one of the boldest challenges since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iranian leaders have blamed the crisis on the United States and other Western powers, a narrative few Iranians believe.

Khamenei said on Wednesday that U.S. officials who support protests are "shameless", state media reported.

"Those who think the U.S. is an untouchable power are wrong," Khamenei said. "It is completely vulnerable as seen with current events."

Defying a harsh warning by the chief of the widely feared elite Revolutionary Guards, Iranians have risked their lives and arrest by remaining in the street despite a bloody crackdown.

One video dated Oct. 22 that went viral on social media showed a dozen riot police beating a man at night on a street in southern Tehran. One of the officers on a motorbike ran him over then another shot him at close range. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the footage.

"This shocking video sent from Tehran today is another horrific reminder that the cruelty of Iran's security forces knows no bounds," Amnesty International said on Twitter about the Oct. 22 video.

"Amid a crisis of impunity, they're given free rein to brutally beat & shoot protesters. @UN_HRC must urgently investigate these crimes."

Other videos of the beating of protesters, which Reuters has been unable to verify, have also spread online.

Iran's police issued a communique on Tuesday saying that a special order was issued to examine the details of a video showing police officers beating a citizen, without giving any detail on the video in question.

"The police does not approve of harsh and unconventional treatment, the offending police officers will certainly be dealt with according to the law," the statement read, according to Tasnim news agency.

The activist HRANA news agency said around 300 people had been killed in the unrest, including 46 minors. Iran said at least 36 members of the security forces were also killed.

Some 14,160 people have been arrested, including about 300 students, in protests in 133 cities and towns, and 129 universities, it said.

The crisis has hit Iran's currency. The U.S. dollar was selling for as much as 342,600 rials on the unofficial market on Wednesday, losing nearly 7% of its value since the protests started, according to Bonbast.com.

On Monday night, security forces went to the house of prominent economist Davoud Souri and arrested him. The officers took his laptop and mobile phone with them, and after his arrest, they informed his family that he was at Evin prison, according to a social media post that Reuters could not verify.

Iranian media published on Wednesday a video of the arrest of famous Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, showing him blindfolded and saying he did not mean what he had said in previous comments critical of the authorities.

He was detained following his release of several rap clips in support of the protests. (Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Why schools' going back to 'normal' won't work for students of color

Adriana Villavicencio, Assistant Professor of Education, University of California, Irvine

THE CONVERSATION
Wed, November 2, 2022

Students of color have long needed more from schools than is typically provided.

THEPALMER/E+ via Getty Images

National test results released in September 2022 show unprecedented losses in math and reading scores since the pandemic disrupted schooling for millions of children.

In response, educational leaders and policymakers across the country are eager to reverse these trends and catch these students back up to where they would have been.

But this renewed concern seems to overlook a crucial fact: Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools were failing to adequately serve children of color. As a scholar of racial equity in K-12 education, I see an opportunity to go beyond getting students caught up. Rather than focus only on trying to close pandemic-related gaps, schools could seek to more substantially improve the quality of education they offer, particularly for students of color, if they want to achieve equitable and sustainable results.

Studying schools

For more than a decade, I’ve been conducting research on how schools can successfully serve Black and Latino students. Most of this work has focused on New York City, but what I have learned is critical for any school.

In one long-term study of a citywide initiative targeted at improving outcomes for Black and Latino boys, my colleagues and I collected data across more than 100 schools and through interviews with over 500 school leaders, teachers and students.

Based on this work, I’d like to highlight four critical conditions to improve the success and well-being of students of color.

1. Classrooms that reflect the students they serve

Research shows students do better overall when their teachers and the books students read reflect their race, ethnicity and cultures. Yet statistics show that seldom happens.

Children’s books depict nonhuman characters, like dogs and bears, almost three times as often as they depict characters who are Black, four times as often than Asian characters, five times as often than Hispanic characters, and nearly 30 times as often than Indigenous characters.

Moreover, while the teacher workforce remains nearly 80% white, research shows that students who had teachers of the same race had better chances of graduating from high school and enrolling in college.

2. Connection, not control

Students of color are more than twice as likely to be arrested at school as their white counterparts. And Black children who behave in the same ways as white children are twice as likely to be suspended for the same actions.

Many schools have established restorative justice programs, which emphasize repairing harm versus doling out punishment. These efforts can help shift teachers’ roles from controlling student behavior to forming connections with young people.

These connections can also be built outside formal classroom environments. Activities such as peer mentoring groups and student-led clubs are good opportunities for cultivating student-faculty connections. In those environments, students are more likely to feel comfortable being themselves and expressing their feelings about both learning and other issues relevant to their lives.

3. Equitable access to academic challenge

Teachers expect less of their Black and Latino students than they do of white and Asian classmates. Black and Latino students are also underrepresented in gifted and talented programs and less likely to be placed in such advanced coursework as eighth-grade algebra or Advanced Placement courses in high school.

When students have less access to rigorous learning opportunities, it can limit their progress in other areas as well. Students are more likely to enroll in college when they have taken four years of math and science. Yet Black and Latino students are less likely to be exposed to more advanced math and science courses, such as calculus and physics.

4. Teacher preparation and support

Teachers need strong preparation to serve an increasingly racially and ethnically diverse student population. But many teacher education programs are not preparing teachers to meet the needs of the students they teach, particularly in schools that primarily serve students of color.

Teachers are required to have ongoing training to keep their subject-matter knowledge up to date. Similarly, school districts could provide ongoing support for teachers to present broader depictions of history and society as part of developing culturally relevant classrooms, which draw on students’ backgrounds, identities and experiences.

The current political climate has become hostile to educators who broach topics of race and racism. Teachers may call on principals and other education leaders to shield them from backlash against exposing students to historical or current examples of racial injustice.

As schools seek to address pandemic-related gaps, there is now a unique opportunity to reimagine public education. For many students of color, business as usual wasn’t enough. Let’s learn from where we’ve been and aim for better than a return to normal.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Adriana Villavicencio, University of California, Irvine.

Read more:

Disasters like Hurricane Ian can affect academic performance for years to come

Pandemic shut down many special education services – how parents can help their kids catch up

Adriana Villavicencio receives funding from the Spencer Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation.

NOT WORTH THE PAPER ITS WRITTEN ON

Bacardi Claims Jay-Z Backed Out on ‘Handshake Deal'

Noah A. McGee
Thu, November 3, 2022

Photo: John Phillips (Getty Images)

The relationship between Hov and Bacardi continues to get messier and messier. Weeks ago, court documents showed that the Brooklyn rap mogul was looking to sell his stake in D’Ussé to Bacardi, which are both currently 50-50 co-owners of the cognac brand, according to TMZ.

Previously, Jay-Z filed a lawsuit to demand financial clarity from Bacardi when it came to the D’Ussé brand, including all of the records, books and the location of the warehouses where D’Usse barrels, bottles and accessories were being stored. The lawsuit also said he needs all of the information regarding Bacardi’s inventory and their inventory process. He wanted it all.

We now know he was trying to discover how much the brand is worth so he can get top dollar when he eventually sells his stake in the company.

But Bacardi said not so fast.

In response to Jay-Z’s lawsuit, Bacardi’s subsidiary, Empire Investments, says that both sides had a “handshake deal” last December that would allow Empire to buy Hov’s 50 percent stake in D’Ussé. But, according to TMZ, Empire claims that the “Holy Grail” rapper backed out of the deal and wanted double the valuation.

Jay’s company, SC Liquor, exercised an option last year for Bacardi to buy him out. They had been 50/50 partners in D’Ussé since its inception in 2012. Bacardi doesn’t disagree with that, but takes issue with Mr. Carter’s attempt to “outrageously inflate” the price ... in their words.

In the new docs, Empire/Bacardi doesn’t say what, if any, price they’d agreed upon when they made the handshake deal — much of the document is redacted as we’re guessing neither side wants any valuation of D’Ussé to be made public at this point.

Clearly, Jay-Z and his team think they are being lowballed on the price and Bacardi claims they have already agreed on a price and that Jay has to accept. Whether he eventually will or not is the big question.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/15/cuba.duncancampbell

Bacardi accused of campaign to oust Castro - The Guardian

Aug 14, 2002 ... The company is accused of bankrolling extreme rightwing groups and American mainstream politicians in an effort to remove Fidel Castro and ...

https://www.theguardian.com/GWeekly/Story/0,3939,778391,00.html

Bacardi accused of bankrolling CIA mission to assassinate Castro

Aug 22, 2002 ... The company is accused of bankrolling extreme rightwing groups and American mainstream politicians in an effort to remove Fidel Castro and ...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122118207525626203

The Family Spirit - WSJ

Sep 12, 2008 ... Bacardi boss Pepin Bosch, who led the reorganization of Bacardi's operations outside Cuba after the Castro government confiscated its ...

https://www.afrocubaweb.com/bacardis.htm

The Bacardí Family - AfroCubaWeb

The Bacardí family sells half the rum in the US and has a long history of supporting right wing Cuban American causes, including terrorist organizations.

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/books/24gewen.html

Cuba Libre: Rum, Revolution and a Family Tale - The New York Times

Sep 23, 2008 ... Yet once Fidel Castro passes from the scene, and the regime he ... The Bacardi Rum Company was founded by a Catalan merchant in 1862, ...

China is bringing industrial policy to the metaverse

Mary Hui
Thu, November 3, 2022

When the Chinese government judges a sector important and sets about shaping its development, it turns to a tried-and-tested economic strategy: industrial policy.

Now China is bringing that strategy to the metaverse.

The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) this week published a 12-page plan (link in Chinese) on developing the virtual reality (VR) sector and integrating VR with industrial applications like manufacturing.

The world’s first national metaverse industrial policy?

The MIIT document is China’s first national-level development plan for the VR sector, according to the financial news site Yicai (link in Chinese). Previously, official efforts to direct state resources towards developing a metaverse mostly took place at the city level.

MIIT did issue a set of “guiding opinions” on developing the VR industry back in late 2018 (link in Chinese), but that document predated mainstream discussions of the metaverse, which didn’t take off until Facebook (now Meta) and Microsoft began publicly discussing the concept in 2019.

How supply chain disruptions will affect the metaverse

Although the latest document doesn’t explicitly use the term “metaverse,” it does discuss at length numerous technologies that building a metaverse would rely on, such as head-mounted near-eye displays, and eye- and gesture-tracking technology.

And just because the metaverse lives in the virtual realm doesn’t mean it can escape the supply chain snarls of the physical world. The MIIT plan recognizes this. It says that China should aim for resilience by making its own breakthroughs in key software and hardware, so as to ensure domestic access to VR equipment and components.

The plan sets a target of cultivating 100 innovative and influential “backbone enterprises” in the VR field, and developing 10 pilot cities and industrial parks to demonstrate the industrial integration of VR and AR technologies in fields like media, education, mining, and natural disaster management.

More broadly, MIIT calls for directing national-level funds to nurture the VR sector. It encourages the development of “little giants” in VR, a nod to another industrial program that offers subsidies, priority access to loans, and other preferential policies to small- and medium-sized firms picked by the government for their special products and know-how in strategic sectors.

China’s metaverse-related stocks surged

The Chinese government wants its domestic VR industry to hit 350 billion yuan ($48 billion) in value by 2026, a sixfold increase from its level last year, according to the development plan.

An index tracking metaverse-related Chinese-listed stocks (link in Chinese) rose more than 5% on the news, with some constituent stocks surging over 20%. AVIT Ltd., a Shenzhen-listed manufacturer of VR games and equipment, saw its shares leap nearly 40% this week.

For China, the metaverse represents an important and emerging internet battleground. Establishing influence and dominance in this arena will be critical to achieving and maintaining Chinese technological prowess, according to a state-supervised metaverse industry group.

Chinese companies are investing heavily in the field. In August, Unity Technologies, a US game developer whose products are increasingly used to develop AR, VR, and the metaverse, struck a deal to form a Chinese joint venture called Unity China, valued at $1 billion. One of the joint venture partners is the Guangzhou-headquartered PCI Technology, an AI firm specializing in facial recognition and video analysis.

Other tech giants including Alibaba, TikTok’s parent ByteDance, and the state-owned telecom firm China Mobile have also invested in Unity China. They have individually also directed other funds into the metaverse. China Mobile, for example, has a subsidiary dedicated to creating digital VR and AR content. In March, Alibaba led a $60 million investment round into Nreal, a Chinese manufacturer of augmented reality glasses.