SARS-CoV-2 antibodies detectable up to seven months post COVID-19 onset, shows new Portuguese study

INSTITUTO DE MEDICINA MOLECULAR

Research News

 

A new study led by Marc Veldhoen, principal investigator at Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes (iMM; Portugal) with an interdisciplinary team of clinicians and researchers from Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa (FMUL) and Centro Hospitalar Lisboa Norte (CHLN) and collaborators at Instituto Português do Sangue e Transplantação (IPST), shows that 90% of subjects have detectable antibodies 40 days up to 7 months post contracting COVID-19. These results, now published in the scientific journal European Journal of Immunology, also show that age is not a confounding factor in levels of antibodies produced, but disease severity is.

This comprehensive and cross-sectional study was thought off in the early days of the pandemic, back in March 2020. The researchers Patrícia Figueiredo-Campos and Birte Blankenhaus, first authors of this study, setup an in-house sensitive specific and versatile COVID-19 serology test. The optimization and validation of the assay was performed as part of Serology4COVID, a consortium of 5 research institutes of Lisbon and Oeiras. Collaborating with physicians in the campus of the Santa Maria Hospital, the research team started to monitor the antibody levels of over 300 COVID-19 hospital patients and healthcare workers, and over 200 post-COVID-19 volunteers.

"Our immune system recognizes the virus SARS-CoV-2 as harmful and produces antibodies in response to it, which helps to fight the virus." "The results of this 6 months cross-sectional study show a classic pattern with a rapid increase of antibody levels within the first three weeks after COVID-19 symptoms and, as expected, a reduction to intermediate levels thereafter", explains Marc Veldhoen, adding that "in this early response phase, on average men produce more antibodies than women, but levels equilibrate during the resolution phase and are similar between the sexes in the months after SARS-CoV-2 infection". In the acute phase of the immune response, the team observed higher antibody levels in subjects with more severe disease. Also, the results show that age is not a confounding factor for the production of antibodies, as no significant differences were observed between age groups. Globally, 90% of subjects have detectable antibodies up to 7 months post contracting COVID-19.

Next, the research team, evaluated the function of these antibodies, i.e. their neutralizing activity against the virus SARS-CoV-2. In collaboration with Instituto Português do Sangue e Transplantação (IPST), the research team analysed the neutralizing capacity of the antibodies produced by the patients and volunteers. "Although we observed a reduction in the levels of antibodies over time, the results of our neutralizing assays have shown a robust neutralisation activity for up to the seventh month post-infection in a large proportion of previously virus-positive screened subjects", explains Marc Veldhoen.

On the importance of this study, Marc Veldhoen states: "Our work provides detailed information for the assays used, facilitating further and longitudinal analysis of protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2. Importantly, it highlights a continued level of circulating neutralising antibodies in most people with confirmed SARS-CoV-2. The next months will be critical to evaluate the robustness of the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection, and to find clues for some open questions, such as the duration of circulating antibodies and the impact of reinfection."

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This study was conducted at iMM in collaboration with the Biobank-IMM, Lisbon Academic Medical Centre, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa (FMUL), Centro Hospitalar Lisboa Norte (CHLN) and Instituto Português do Sangue e Transplantação (IPST). The SARS-CoV-2 protein used in the serology testing was produced at Instituto de Biologia Experimental e Tecnológica (iBET) as part of the Serology4COVID consortium. This work was funded by the European Union H2020 ERA project EXCELLtoINNOV (No 667824), the Fundação para a Ciência a Tecnologia and Sociedade Francisco Manuel dos Santos.

 New data on increasing cloth mask effectiveness

Widespread use of masks remains the primary tool for combating COVID-19 and economic shutdowns, cost benefit analysis suggests government subsidies for masks bear great returns

SOCIETY FOR RISK ANALYSIS

Research News

 

Recent FDA chief Dr. Scott Gottlieb argued that he'd "rather try to get everyone in masks" and "try to get them in high-quality masks because we know it's going to slow down the transmission."

Against this backdrop, a new study published in Risk Analysis, "Reinventing cloth masks in the face of pandemics," by Stephen Salter, P.Eng., describes how Effective Fiber Mask Programs (EFMPs) can help communities find a balance between the economy and curbing community spread.

A separate study by Stadnytskyi, et al. estimates that one minute of loud speaking generates at least 1,000 virion-containing droplets that remain airborne for more than eight minutes. If everyone uses effective masks, the benefit is compounded because each person's mask reduces the number of particles they transmit, and also the number of particles they inhale.

The new study in Risk Analysis suggests that the effectiveness of cloth masks can be improved by using a non-woven material such as cotton batting. Increasing the surface area of fibers exposed to moving air improves filtering efficiency because the smaller particles are absorbed onto the fibers. In May and June of 2020, 17 handmade cotton batting masks underwent 35 tests using commercial quantitative fit testing equipment to determine their filtering effectiveness. The results showed average filtering effectiveness of 76 to 90 percent against aerosol particles.

If an Effective Fiber Mask (EFM) costs $6 and can be used 30 times for four hours each, the cost per hour of use would be $0.05. Another study, by Abaluck et al., estimated the value of cloth masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, and concluded, "...the benefits of each additional cloth mask worn by the public are conservatively in the $3,000-$6,000 range due to their impact in slowing the spread of the virus." This cost-benefit ratio suggests governments should consider subsidizing the cost of EFMs for the public.

Governments can take a leadership role by rapidly implementing EFMPs to help reduce transmission of COVID-19, according to Salter. To implement an EFMP, a government would set performance standards for cloth masks, invite manufacturers to submit their mask designs for testing, allow manufacturers to label their approved designs, ask or require the public to wear only approved cloth masks, educate the public to use face masks correctly, and encourage manufacturers to continuously improve their designs.

"I am confident Effective Fiber Masks can play an important role in reducing the risk of transmission of COVID-19," states Salter. "Every country can rapidly implement an Effective Fiber Mask Program, and I hope leaders will act quickly to reduce suffering in this way."

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Abaluck, J., Chevalier, J. A., Christakis, N. A., Forman, H. P., Kaplan, E. H., Ko, A., & Vermund, S. H. (2020). The case for universal cloth mask adoption and policies to increase supply of medical masks for health workers. SSRN Electronic Journal, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3567438

Stadnytskyi, V., Bax, C. E., Bax, A., & Anfinrud, P. (2020). The airborne lifetime of small speech droplets and their potential importance in SARS?CoV?2 transmission. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117(22), 11875- 11877. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2006874117

About SRA

The Society for Risk Analysis is a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, scholarly, international society that provides an open forum for all those interested in risk analysis. SRA was established in 1980 and has published Risk Analysis: An International Journal, the leading scholarly journal in the field, continuously since 1981. For more information, visit http://www.sra.org.

 

Study reveals bat-winged dinosaurs had short-lived gliding abilities

THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

Research News

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IMAGE: FIGURE 1. LASER-STIMULATED FLUORESCENCE (LSF) IMAGE OF THE FOSSIL OF YI QI, A BAT-WINGED DINOSAUR FROM THE LATE JURASSIC OF NORTHERN CHINA. view more 

CREDIT: DECECCHI ET AL. 2020.

Research Assistant Professor Dr Michael PITTMAN (Vertebrate Palaeontology Laboratory, Division of Earth and Planetary Science & Department of Earth Sciences) at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), recently showed that powered flight potential evolved at least three times and that many ancestors of close bird relatives neared the thresholds of powered flight potential, suggesting broad experimentation with wing-assisted locomotion before flight evolved (see Notes). In a new study, Dr Pittman and Dr Thomas DECECCHI, Assistant Professor of Biology at Mount Marty University, broadened their collaboration on flight origins research to the scansoriopterygids, a rare group of theropod dinosaurs believed to glide using strange bat-like wings. Living around 160 million years ago in what is now northern China, they weighed about 1kg and probably feed on insects, seeds, and other plants. For the first time, Dr Dececchi, Dr Pittman and the rest of the international team tested this gliding hypothesis through quantitatively reconstructions of scansoriopterygid flight capabilities. If confirmed, this bat-winged gliding lifestyle will be unique to scansoriopterygids as it is not found in any other dinosaurs. It would also make scansoriopterygids the most distantly related theropod dinosaurs to birds that could glide. Thus, testing this gliding hypothesis is important for understanding how flight evolved among theropod dinosaurs.

Scansoriopterygids were an evolutionary dead-end

To do this, fossils were scanned using Laser-Stimulated Fluorescence (LSF), a laser-based imaging technique co-developed at HKU, which can reveal bone and soft tissue details that can't be seen under standard white light. The team then used mathematical models to predict how scansoriopterygids might have flown, testing many different variables, including weight, wingspan, and muscle placement. They found that scansoriopterygids did not have powered flight potential but were capable of clumsy gliding. "They could glide, but they weren't very good at it. If I were them I would have been particularly worried about predators!" says Dr Pittman. Scansoriopterygids were not part of the independent originations of powered flight in dinosaurs, which happened at least three times: once in birds and twice in dromaeosaurid 'raptors'. Their poor gliding capabilities and existence in a short interval of time suggests that they were an evolutionary dead-end. But what exactly doomed this strange experiment? "The two scansoriopterygid species we studied were so poorly capable of being in the air that they just got squeezed out," says Dr Thomas Dececchi. "Maybe you can survive a few million years underperforming, but with birds, pterosaurs, gliding mammals all around, scansoriopterygids were simply squeezed out until they disappeared."

Gliding is not an efficient form of flight as it can only be done if the scansoriopterygids are already at a high point. However, it did help keep them out of danger. "If an animal needs to travel long distances, gliding costs a bit more energy at the start, but it's faster. It can also be used as an escape hatch. It's not a great thing to do, but sometimes it's a choice between losing a bit of energy and being eaten," says Dececchi. "Once scansoriopterygids were put under pressure, they just lost their space. They couldn't win on the ground. They couldn't win in the air. They were done." The new findings support the emerging picture that dinosaurs evolved flight in several different ways before modern birds evolved. Asked about future plans, Pittman added, "Our team continues to uncover a greater sense of the breadth of experimentation involved in getting dinosaurs into the air. We plan to reveal even more details moving forward, particularly the different routes taken by dinosaurs to occupy the skies."

The paper 'Aerodynamics show membranous-winged theropods were a poor gliding dead-end' is published in iScience and can be accessed here: https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(20)30766-5

Images download and captions:

https://www.scifac.hku.hk/press

Notes:

1. Bird beak revealed by HKU-codeveloped laser imaging informs early beak form, function, and development (Sept 2020):
https://www.hku.hk/press/news_detail_21574.html

2. Landmark HKU-led volume on past progress and new frontiers in the study of early birds and their close relatives (August 2020):
https://hku.hk/press/press-releases/detail/21459.html

3. Most close relatives of birds neared the potential for powered flight but few crossed its thresholds (August 2020):
https://www.hku.hk/press/press-releases/detail/21405.html

4. Ancient birds out of the egg running(March 2019):
https://www.hku.hk/press/press-releases/detail/19256.html

5. HKU imaging technology shows first discovered fossil feather did not belong to iconic bird Archaeopteryx (Feb 2019):
https://www.hku.hk/press/press-releases/detail/19063.html

6. HKU palaeontologist discovers new bird-like dinosaur with flight associated feathers - Jianianhualong tengi (May 2017):
https://www.hku.hk/press/news_detail_16295.html

7. Major breakthrough in knowledge of dinosaur appearance HKU palaeontologist reconstructs feathered dinosaurs in the flesh with new technology (March 2017):
https://www.hku.hk/press/press-releases/detail/15989.html

8. Scientists reveal how dinosaurs became able to shake their tail feathers (May 2013):
https://www.hku.hk/press/press-releases/detail/9693.html

  

 

Metal deposits from Chinese coal plants end up in the Pacific Ocean, USC research shows

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Research News

 

Emissions from coal-fired power plants in China are fertilizing the North Pacific Ocean with a metal nutrient important for marine life, according to new findings from a USC-led research team.

The researchers believe these metals could change the ocean ecosystem, though it's unclear whether it would be for better or worse.

The study shows that smoke from power plants carries iron and other metals to the surface waters of the North Pacific Ocean as westerly winds blow emissions from Asia to North America. Peak measurements show that up to nearly 60% of the iron in one vast swath of the northern part of the ocean emanates from smokestacks.

"It has long been understood that burning fossil fuels alters Earth's climate and ocean ecosystems by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere," said Seth John, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of Earth sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "This work shows fossil fuel burning has a side effect: the release of iron and metals into the atmosphere that carry thousands of miles and deposit in the ocean where they can impact marine ecosystems."

"Certain metal deposits could help some marine life thrive while harming other life,'' he added. "There are inevitable tradeoffs when the ocean water's chemistry changes."

The study was published on Thursday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers from USC, Columbia University, University of Washington, MIT and the University of Hawaii, among others, collaborated.

USC-led team confirms that ocean metals stem from China

While wind-blown mineral dust from deserts has long been considered an important source of iron to open ocean waters, the new study shows how manmade sources contribute important micronutrients that plankton and algae need. Moreover, the study shows how fossil fuel burning affects not only global warming but marine environments, too.

Previous studies have shown widely divergent estimates about how much iron is carried from various land-based sources to the ocean, especially from anthropogenic sources. Iron is a key limiting factor for marine productivity for about one-third of the world's oceans.

Instead, the USC-led research team measured metals in surface seawater. They focused on a remote part of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles north of Hawaii and about midway between Japan and California. The region is downwind of industrial emissions in east Asia.

In May 2017, they boarded a research vessel and took water samples along a north-south transect at latitudes between 25 degrees and 42 degrees north. They found peak iron concentrations in about the middle, which corresponded with a big wind event over east Asia one month before. The peak iron concentrations are about three times greater than background ocean measurements, the study shows.

In addition, the scientists found elevated lead concentrations coincided with the iron hot spots. Other research has shown that most of the lead at the ocean surface comes from manmade sources, including cement plants, coal-fired power plants and metal smelters.

Moreover, the metals in the seawater samples bear telltale traces of Chinese industrial sources, the study says.

"When we collected samples in the ocean, we found that the iron isotope and lead isotope 'fingerprints' from seawater matched those of anthropogenic pollution from Asia," said Paulina Pinedo-Gonzalez, a USC post-doctoral scientist and study author who is now at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University.

Finally, the scientists also ruled out upwelling from the deep ocean as a source of the metals by testing water samples at depth.

What does the abundance of metals mean for marine life?

The study has important implications for marine life in the ocean. The North Pacific notably lacks iron, a key micronutrient, so an influx of metals and other substances can help build the foundation for a new ecosystem -- a 'good news, bad news' outcome for Earth.

"Microscopic iron-containing particles released during coal burning impacts algae growth in the ocean, and therefore the entire ecosystem for which algae form the base of the food chain," John explained. "In the short term, we might think that iron in pollution is beneficial because it stimulates the growth of phytoplankton, which then take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as they grow to offset some of the carbon dioxide released during the initial burning process.

"However, it's totally unsustainable as a long-term geoengineering solution because of the deleterious effects of pollution on human health. Thus, the take-home message is perhaps a better understanding of an unintended side effect of coal burning and the ways in which that can impact ocean ecosystems thousands of miles away."

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The study authors are Paulina Pinedo-Gonzalez, a former post-doctoral scholar at USC, now affiliated with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University; Seth John and Nicholas J. Hawco of USC; Randelle M. Bundy and E. Virginia Armbrust of the University of Washington; Michael J. Follows of MIT; B.B. Cael of National Oceanography Center of the United Kingdom; and Angelicque E. White, Sara Ferron and David M. Karl of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

The research was supported by the Simons Foundation (award #4265705SP).

 

Texas A&M expert: New clues revealed about Clovis people

A study by professor Michael Waters shows that tools made by some of North America's earliest inhabitants were made only during a 300-year period.

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: CLOVIS SPEAR POINTS FROM THE GAULT SITE IN TEXAS. view more 

CREDIT: CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF THE FIRST AMERICANS, TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

There is much debate surrounding the age of the Clovis -- a prehistoric culture named for stone tools found near Clovis, New Mexico in the early 1930s -- who once occupied North America during the end of the last Ice Age. New testing of bones and artifacts show that Clovis tools were made only during a brief, 300-year period from 13,050 to 12,750 years ago.

Michael Waters, distinguished professor of anthropology and director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans, along with Texas A&M anthropologist David Carlson and Thomas Stafford of Stafford Research in Colorado, have had their new work published in the current issue of Science Advances.

The team used the radiocarbon method to date bone, charcoal and carbonized plant remains from 10 known Clovis sites in South Dakota, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Montana and two sites in Oklahoma and Wyoming. An analysis of the dates showed that people made and used the iconic Clovis spear-point and other distinctive tools for only 300 years.

"We still do not know how or why Clovis technology emerged and why it disappeared so quickly," Waters said.

"It is intriguing to note that Clovis people first appears 300 years before the demise of the last of the megafauna that once roamed North America during a time of great climatic and environmental change," he said. "The disappearance of Clovis from the archaeological record at 12,750 years ago is coincident with the extinction of mammoth and mastodon, the last of the megafauna. Perhaps Clovis weaponry was developed to hunt the last of these large beasts."

Waters said that until recently, Clovis was thought to represent the initial group of indigenous people to enter the Americas and that people carrying Clovis weapons and tools spread quickly across the continent and then moved swiftly all the way to the southern tip of South America. However, a short age range for Clovis does not provide sufficient time for people to colonize both North and South America. Furthermore, strong archaeological evidence "amassed over the last few decades shows that people were in the Americas thousands of years before Clovis, but Clovis still remains important because it is so distinctive and widespread across North America," he said.

Waters said the revised age for Clovis tools reveals that, "Clovis with its distinctive fluted lanceolate spear point, typically found in the Plains and eastern United States, is contemporaneous with stemmed point-making people in the Western United States and the earliest spear points, called Fishtail points, in South America.

"Having an accurate age for Clovis shows that people using different toolkits were well settled into multiple areas of North and South America by 13,000 years ago and had developed their own adaptation to these various environments."

Waters noted that a new accurate and precise age for Clovis and their tools provides a baseline to try to understand the mystery surrounding the origin and demise of these people.

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Bronze Age herders were less mobile than previously thought

UNIVERSITY OF BASEL

Research News

 

IMAGE: GRAZING ANIMALS ON CAUCASUS MOUNTAIN PASTURES. view more 

CREDIT: SABINE REINHOLD

Bronze Age pastoralists in what is now southern Russia apparently covered shorter distances than previously thought. It is believed that the Indo-European languages may have originated from this region, and these findings raise new questions about how technical and agricultural innovations spread to Europe. An international research team, with the participation of the University of Basel, has published a paper on this topic.

During the Bronze Age (ca. 3900 - 1000 BCE), herders and their families moved across the slopes of the Caucasus and the steppes to the north, taking their sheep, goats and cattle with them. It is believed that the Indo-Germanic groups, who brought the Indo-European languages and technical innovations such as wagons, domestic horses and metal weapons to Europe, may have originated from this region.

Until now, experts assumed that this transfer of technology was based on the long-distance migrations and trade contacts of these mobile pastoral communities, and that this mobility connected the Middle East with Europe. An international research team, with the participation of the University of Basel, has now questioned whether these communities did actually travel over such long distances. They published their study in the journal Plos One.

Nutrition reveals low levels of mobility

The researchers reconstructed the diet of the Bronze Age pastoral societies in order to draw conclusions about their migration. Their analysis was based on skeletal remains from burial mounds and flat grave cemeteries on the plateaus of the Caucasus and the steppes bordering to the north. "These human bones and teeth are archaeological treasures," says the study's author Professor Kurt Alt, visiting professor at the University of Basel and professor at Danube Private University in Krems. "They are fundamental resources for gaining a deeper understanding of economic strategies, the mobility patterns associated with them and social differentiation."

The research team analyzed the isotopic composition of carbon and nitrogen in bone collagen from the skeletal remains of 150 people, taken from eight sites. The finds date back to a period from about 5000 to about 500 BCE. In addition, the scientists compared this data with the isotope ratios in the bone collagen of 50 animals, as well as with the local vegetation of that time. The isotope ratios in bone collagen reflect the isotope ratios in the main foodstuffs that a person eats.

As it turns out, the diets of these groups were mainly based on the foodstuffs within the landscapes where their remains were found. "The communities apparently remained within their respective ecological areas and did not switch between the steppes, forest steppes or higher regions," explains Sandra Pichler from the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Basel, co-author of the study. According to the isotope analysis, meat, milk and dairy products formed a large part of these individuals' basic diets, but they were supplemented by wild plants, too. It was not until the end of the Bronze Age that their diets began to be based more on cultivated cereals, with millet presumably the main crop in this regard.

Technology transfer by word of mouth

"This study's findings imply that Caucasian communities were not highly mobile and did not undertake large-scale migrations, suggesting that the revolutionary technical innovations of the 4th and 3rd millennium BCE, such as wagons or metal weapons, were transmitted in other ways."

If the pastoral communities of the time only moved across shorter distances, technologies could have been passed on from one group to the next transmitting the knowledge of metal weapons, the processing of bronze and the domestication of horses into Europe by word of mouth.

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For the study, researchers from the University of Basel and the Berlin German Archaeological Institute (DAI) collaborated with scientists from the Curt Engelhorn Centre Archaeometry in Mannheim (Germany), the Nasledie heritage organization in Stavropol (Russia) and the Universities of Moscow (Russia) and Krems (Austria).

French NGOs take Twitter to court for failing to moderate hate speech

CIVIL SOCIETY NOT THE STATE

Issued on: 19/10/2020 - 

Twitter's logo displayed on a mobile phone on May 27, 2020, in Arlington, Virginia, USA.

 © Olivier Douliery, AFP

Text by:Sophie GORMAN


French NGOs took Twitter to court in Paris on Monday morning, accusing the social media giant of not doing enough to tackle hate speech online.

Four French NGOs – SOS Racisme, SOS Homophobie, the Union of Jewish Students of France and J'accuse – filed suit against Twitter on May 11. A Paris court began hearing the case on Monday before postponing further hearings until December 1; Twitter and the NGOs have agreed to take part in mediation ahead of the next session.

At the heart of the case is Twitter’s refusal to provide information on its moderation processes. The four NGOs have filed to obtain this data.

Social network platforms are required by the new French Avia Law combatting online hate speech (May 2020) to make public how they limit the dissemination of such content and how they respond to reports. For example, they need to reveal the number of moderators, where they work and the training they have received. Twitter does not share this information.

Social media networks have come under renewed fire in France in recent days after the decapitation of a teacher was posted on Twitter. A photograph of the teacher's body, accompanied by a message claiming responsibility, was posted on the social network. It was also discovered on the assailant's phone, found near his body. France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor, Jean-François Ricard, confirmed on Saturday that the Twitter account belonged to the attacker.

The post was swiftly removed by Twitter, which also said it had suspended the account for violating its company policies.

Twitter’s low removal policy

In the European Commission’s 5th code of conduct on countering hate speech online, published in June 2020, Twitter came bottom of the league when it came to removing hate speech. The review covered a period of six weeks at the end of 2019. Facebook removed 87.6 percent of the content, YouTube removed 79.7 percent, but Twitter only took down 35.9 percent.

So is Twitter the worst offender when it comes to content moderation? “Yes, if you only consider the top four (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube) – but there are hundreds of other social media platforms,” said lawyer Philippe Coen, who founded the Respect Zone NGO to target cyber violence. “Twitter has, in fact, made many efforts to improve its moderation in recent months. It just needs to make a lot more.”

“Interestingly, the CEOs of all the main social media platforms are themselves asking for more defined regulations in terms of hate content. They cannot act without the supporting legislation. And there are many ways to fight cyber bulling other than just in court. You need to start with schools and companies and societies. We don’t want to work against the social media platforms, we want to work with them.”

Twitter refused to comment on the case.

Is Twitter responsible for bullying?

As cyber violence has risen exponentially in recent years, there has also been a move to increase the obligation of host providers to moderate content. However, it is still not clearly regulated.

Social networks are not currently legally responsible for their content. They have the legal status of a host, which limits their legal responsibility for content published on their networks. They are only required to delete content after a report has been made and if it clearly breaches the law.

The question at issue in the courts is whether Twitter has neglected its legal responsibility to moderate content.

“The term negligence legally refers to a fault of imprudence, a breach of the duty of care or a lack of diligence,” said French information technology and data privacy lawyer Olivia Luzi, speaking with FRANCE 24. “Given the legal obligations currently imposed on platforms and, in reality, the enormous task of monitoring all content at the exact moment it appears online rather than from the moment it is reported, it is difficult to qualify what constitutes negligence.”

“Twitter currently has in place reporting and removal measures which are within the European Commission's recommendations. They must review the majority of reports within 24 hours and, if necessary, block access to them,” explains Luzi.

“This case against Twitter will affect all hosting providers and therefore all social media, particularly online journals and their comment sections,” says Luzi. “They can no longer systematically hide behind the great and beautiful principles of freedom of expression to tolerate that social media tools are hijacked from their purpose and used as a vector of hatred. It is up to these organisations to take initiatives to moderate without necessarily being accused of censorship, and to collaborate in building a digital world that reflects the values they advocate.”

Defining hate speech

In September, the World Federation of Advertisers announced it had reached an agreement with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. For the first time, they agreed on common definitions of content such as hate speech and aggression, established harmonised reporting standards across platforms and empowered external auditors to oversee the system, which will launch in the second half of 2021.

In July, an independent audit conducted by Facebook itself accused the social network of failing to tackle hate speech and fake news. Auditors, who included the Anti-Defamation League, denounced it for putting free speech above all else.

A week ago, Facebook explicitly banned Holocaust denial for the first time.

The social network said its new policy prohibits "any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust". Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote that he had "struggled with the tension" between free speech and banning such posts, but that "this is the right balance".

“This move by Facebook is a revolution, it surprised everyone,” said Coen. “It’s a long, long battle for all the social media platforms, though, and we are only at the beginning of it. We are working now to try to convince digital companies to include in their digital design the ideas of human dignity and respect, which has been completely forgotten by the architects of these platforms. These sites are designed to catch your money and your data, but not your decency.”

GOTCHA JOURNALISM

Giuliani denies any wrongdoing in new 'Borat' movie bedroom scene


Issued on: 22/10/2020 

Rudy Giuliani is shown in a compromising position in a hotel room with a young woman acting as a television journalist in a scene in Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest mockumentary, a sequel to his hit “Borat” film.

The scene shot in a New York hotel room in July — which resulted in Giuliani calling police — includes a moment when Giuliani is seen lying on a bed, tucking in his shirt with his hand down his pants and the young woman nearby.

Giuliani went to the hotel room thinking he was being interviewed about the Trump administration's COVID-19 response. The young woman is flirtatious with him and invites him to the bedroom, which is rigged with hidden cameras.

Giuliani then asks for her phone number and address. He lies back on the bed to tuck in his shirt after she helps remove his recording equipment, and he has his hands in his pants when Baron Cohen rushes in wearing an outlandish outfit.

Baron Cohen, who was disguised as part of the crew, screams that the young woman is 15 years old. Up to that point, there is no indication she is underage. The character, who is Borat's daughter, is played by Maria Bakalova, who is listed as 24 years old on the Internet Movie Database site, IMDb.com.

Speaking on his weekly radio program on WABC on Wednesday afternoon, Giuliani called the scene “a hit job.”

“I am tucking my shirt in, I assure you, that’s all that I was doing,” he said. He said he realized he was being set up when the woman asked whether he wanted a massage.

“At no time before, during, or after the interview was I ever inappropriate,” Giuliani tweeted. “If Sacha Baron Cohen implies otherwise, he is a stone-cold liar.”

The former New York City mayor called police after that encounter, but there is no indication an investigation was launched. Giuliani spoke to the New York Post's Page Six column about the encounter in July but did not mention the bedroom aspect.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who profiled Baron Cohen ahead of the the film's release, tweeted Wednesday about the scene: “It’s even wilder than it sounds. Beyond cringe.”

I’ve seen the Giuliani moment in Borat 2. It’s even wilder than it sounds. Beyond cringe.— Maureen Dowd (@maureendowd) October 21, 2020

Trolling those close to President Donald Trump is a central theme of the new “Borat” film, a sequel to the 2006 mockumentary that saw Baron Cohen’s character travel the United States, espousing sexist, racist and anti-Semitic views and eliciting similar responses from unwitting subjects.

For “Borat Subsequent Movie film: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” Baron Cohen returns as his alter ego from Kazakhstan in a plot that involves trying to give his daughter as a gift to Vice President Mike Pence.

The closest Borat gets is the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he shouts to Pence that he’s brought a woman for him. Dressed in a Donald Trump costume and with Borat’s daughter, played by Bakalova, slung over his shoulder, Baron Cohen is swiftly escorted out by security.

That leads to a second scheme involving Giuliani that ends up in the hotel room scene.

Giuliani finalized his divorce from his wife of 15 years in December.

Baron Cohen has made a history of poking fun at conservative figures. For his 2018 Showtime series “Who Is America,” the British comedian got former Vice President Dick Cheney to sign a waterboarding kit. A sketch with former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore involved the comedian administering a “pedophile test.” Moore has sued over the encounter.

(AP)

ON THE GROUND
In Pennsylvania, fracking might not be the winning issue US presidential candidates think it is

Issued on: 13/10/2020 - 

Lois Bower-Bjornson, southwestern Pennsylvania field organiser with Clean Air Council, points out a fracking well site just over the hill from her home in Scenery Hill, Pennsylvania. © Colin Kinniburgh

Text by:Colin KINNIBURGH

In the battle for the White House, Pennsylvania and fracking have become all but synonymous. Yet in one of the state’s largest gas-producing counties, FRANCE 24 found residents’ relationship with the industry to be far more vexed than the national debate suggests

Rose Friend’s family has a long history with natural gas. For decades, the family’s home in rural Washington County, Pennsylvania, got a free supply of the fuel from a local conventional well, as compensation for one of the several active gas lines running across the property.

It was a straightforward, convenient arrangement for the family, and a testament to the region’s longer-running relationship with fossil fuels. Alongside coal, which powered the area’s iconic steel mills, oil and natural gas production in southwestern Pennsylvania dates back to the late 19th century. For Friend, who grew up ploughing the land with horses, and whose nephew worked in the coal mines, the benefits of the area’s abundant energy reserves were obvious.

Then, around the mid-2000s, a new variable entered the equation. In Friend’s case, it was a company called Atlas America, which was looking to capitalise on a lucrative new industry: hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking. The technology allows drillers to extract oil and gas from deep inside underground rock formations by injecting them at high pressure with water and a cocktail of chemicals.

Atlas was an early player in what would soon prove to be a fossil fuel resurgence. In 2007, when Friend first signed a contract with the company, it was one of the many companies seeking to gain a stake in the Marcellus shale, the gas-rich formation on which her home sits.

Since 2014, fracking has allowed the United States to become the largest oil and gas producer in the world. Pennsylvania alone produced more natural gas in 2019 than any country besides Russia and Iran – some 195 billion cubic metres, according to figures published by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) and Enerdata.

The site opposite Friend’s home, however, lay untouched for a decade after Atlas first approached her. By that time, the company had been sold to Chevron and then again to EQT, now the largest gas producer in the country. And that’s when the trouble started.

“They just moved in,” said Friend, who is in her eighties. “It was totally crazy. I looked out my window one day and they were cutting all my hedges down!”

 

Rose Friend has spent has much the last two years battling with a natural gas company that she says built a road across her property without her agreement. Still, she says fracking is “necessary”, and plans to vote for Donald Trump. © Colin Kinniburgh

Without warning, she says, the company started chopping down decades-old trees along her road, in order to clear access to a well pad on the neighbouring property. That began a more than two-year-long battle between Friend’s family and EQT, as the company sought to build an “impoundment” – a kind of storage pond for fracking wastewater – on her land, as well as the road.

The family says the company’s activity threatened not just their immediate environment, but also a Native American burial ground on the site, which had been registered with the state’s historic preservation commission since the 1980s and prompted multiple archaeological teams to intervene in their dispute with EQT.

Standing on the gravel road that EQT built across their land, overlooking the Hunter well pad, Karen LeBlanc is furious with the company and politicians alike over what she describes as their dishonesty. She plans to vote for Trump, but says, “Truly, it’s not to do with the fracking”. © Colin Kinniburgh

Ultimately, Friend and her daughter Karen LeBlanc were able to prevent the company from building the impoundment, but not the gravel road that now cuts across what they describe as the “best” of their farmland. The access road is essential for EQT, as the fracking process requires hundreds if not thousands of truck trips per well to bring materials in and out.

One day, LeBlanc says, one of those trucks blocked her mother’s car in when she needed to go to chemotherapy for her colon cancer. Another day, she says, a bulldozer ran over the active gas line that supplied free gas to the family’s home. The line cracked, cutting off Friend’s gas and leaking all night.

To this day, the family says, they haven’t reached an agreement with EQT or received any compensation for the damage to their property. LeBlanc’s anger at the company is palpable.

“It was important that they let [my mother] retire here with some kind of dignity, and putting this road here didn’t allow that,” she said.

EQT did not respond to a request for comment.

‘Fracking is necessary’

Still, Friend doesn’t harbor any ill will toward the industry as a whole.

“I think that fracking is necessary,” she said. “But done the correct way and regulated.”

Leblanc agrees.

“If they can find some way to stop contaminating the water, stop contaminating the air… that’s what they need to work for,” she said.

That’s essentially the position of local Democrats, several of whom FRANCE 24 interviewed just a few hours before meeting LeBlanc and Friend.

Yet both mother and daughter support Donald Trump, as a Trump-Pence yard sign outside Friend’s house makes clear. When asked why, she stressed the president’s signature campaign themes.

“I just don't like the way Biden’s headed... with Kamala Harris, and all the socialism,” Friend said.

“They want to take away your guns, and I have lots of guns,” she continued, with a laugh. “They’re very pro-abortion, and that is a big thing with me.”

A Trump-Pence yard sign outside Friend’s home. The house has been in her family for over 100 years. © Colin Kinniburgh

LeBlanc agreed, calling Trump the “lesser of two evils”. She said she’s not a single-party voter, and previously supported Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Tom Wolf. But her distrust of the political class pushed her towards Trump.

“Truly, it’s not to do with the fracking,” she said. Her mother agreed.

‘JOBS!’

In the increasingly fevered battle for the White House, Pennsylvania and fracking have become all but synonymous. The state went to Democratic presidential candidates from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama, but flipped to Trump by 0.7 points in 2016 – a key step to his Electoral College victory.

The result there could prove just as decisive this year. And if there’s one thing Trump and Biden’s campaigns agree on, it’s that they can’t win the state without standing by natural gas.

“How does Biden lead in Pennsylvania Polls when he is against Fracking (JOBS!), 2nd Amendment and Religion? Fake Polls. I will win Pennsylvania!” he wrote on October 6.

How does Biden lead in Pennsylvania Polls when he is against Fracking (JOBS!), 2nd Amendment and Religion? Fake Polls. I will win Pennsylvania!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2020

Vice President Mike Pence also pressed the issue at last Wednesday’s vice-presidential debate with Kamala Harris, insisting that Biden would ban fracking if elected. Biden has made it clear he has no such plans – bucking pressure from environmental groups and the progressive wing of his party, who say that continued oil and gas drilling are incompatible with a livable climate. Yet the Republicans have succeeded in putting their opponents on the defensive, forcing Harris to repeat twice that Biden “will not end fracking”.

Bob Sabot, supervisor of North Franklin Township, a suburb of the county seat of Washington, says that fracking has become a “dangerous issue” for Democrats, “because Donald Trump has politicised it so much”.

Biden’s official climate plan does not mention fracking explicitly, but says that if elected, he would ban “new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters”. Sabot stands by this position.

“He wants to make sure it’s clear that in the future we are going to move in a different direction,” he said. “Cause … if we don’t start to deal with climate issues, we are going to continue to see wildfires and hurricanes, and oceans are going to continue to rise.”

Bob Sabot, supervisor of North Franklin Township, a suburb of the county seat of Washington, says that fracking has become a “dangerous issue” for Democrats. 

© Colin Kinniburgh

“Joe Biden wants to use fracking as a change of type of fuel to the future,” he continued. “Biden does not want to throw people out of work. He does not want to close the fracking industry and the coal mines.”

The actual number of jobs that fracking brings to the Pennsylvania are highly disputed. The Trump campaign says that shutting down the industry would “kill 609,000 jobs” in the state, citing a study from the country’s largest business lobby, the US Chamber of Commerce.

However, the national Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) counted less than 20,000 jobs directly linked to shale industry in Pennsylvania in 2019 – just 0.3 percent of all jobs in the state.

Industry proponents typically argue that such figures do not account for indirect or “induced” jobs supported by the industry, which are notoriously difficult to count. (The Chamber of Commerce provides no sources or methodology for its job estimates.)

What’s clearer from the employment numbers is the boom and bust nature of the industry, which shed some 10,000 direct jobs in just two years when oil and gas prices crashed in 2015-16. They haven’t recovered since.

Larry Maggi, a Democratic Commissioner for Washington County, is confident that the energy sector will bounce back.

“We are just in a down cycle since one or two years,” he said. “No matter who is president, we are going to come out of it.”

As for environmental concerns, Maggi maintains that fracking today is “done safely” in the state.

“We’ve been able to collaborate with the energy sector here without sacrificing our environment,” he said.

‘Lies and lies and lies’

LeBlanc, the Trump supporter, doesn’t share his assessment.

“They don’t need to preach how safe it is when you can see how many other lies I’ve caught them in,” she said of EQT. “We’ve seen video of the emissions coming from there. We’ve seen the water leaking out… It’s lies and lies and lies.”

Lois Bower-Bjornson has seen the videos too – a lot of them. A school classmate of LeBlanc’s, she is a dancer by trade and an anti-fracking activist by “necessity”. She now works as the southwestern Pennsylvania field organiser with Clean Air Council, serves on the board of the Washington County-based Center for Coalfield Justice and gives tours of local fracking sites to anybody who’s willing to listen.

She’s collected testimony from a wide swath of her neighbours who’ve been harmed by fracking, and brought their stories to state and national regulators. Besides Friend and LeBlanc, she’s worked with people like Janice and Kurt Blanock, who lost their son to a rare bone cancer called Ewing’s Sarcoma in 2016, when he was just 19; his case and a string of other diagnoses of the same cancer in the area led the state to open an investigation into possible links to fracking.

Bjornson’s own children have experienced a range of symptoms that she attributes to the many gas wells within walking distance of her home in the town of Scenery Hill.

“My third son has the absolute worst health impacts, because he was the youngest and he grew up in it more, she said. “He will have severe nosebleeds, sometimes two a day, to the point that he has clots coming out of his nose and out of his mouth.”

Lois Bower-Bjornson says she has become an anti-fracking activist by “necessity”, after seeing the impacts on her own family and the surrounding community. Yet she believes it’s unrealistic to think that fracking could be banned in the area. © Yona Heloua

Studies conducted in both Pennsylvania and Colorado have linked headaches, nosebleeds and respiratory symptoms to local pollution created by shale gas wells.

Bjornson is disgusted with the way the natural gas industry operates in her state, and at the ways that it has influenced politicians of both parties, including Biden himself. But she agrees with pro-gas Democrats on at least one thing: “They’re not banning fracking here. It’s not happening.”

She agrees that calling for a ban would doom Biden’s chances in the state, too. And she cautions liberals from states like New York, which have banned fracking, and want to “shame” Pennsylvania for not doing the same.

“You can sit up there on your little high horse, and say stupid stuff like that, but this is what we have to work with,” she said. “And that’s not our fault.”

Economics could trump politics

The sentiment may sound surprising coming from someone who has been wrangling with the industry for the better part of the past decade. Yet for Bjornson, it makes sense that the fracking fight doesn’t fall along straightforward partisan lines.

“People want to make this political when it’s not a political issue. It’s a human rights issue. It’s a, hey, species issue,” she said, referring to the threat of climate change. “Do you want to live? That’s what it is.”

Statewide, a CBS/YouGov poll conducted in August found that a slim majority (52 percent) “oppose the process of fracking”, with Black, Democratic and young voters most likely to oppose it.

Bjornson has seen that split even in predominantly rural, white, conservative Washington County, where she says the issue is “straight down the middle, completely divisive”.

Those divisions may only deepen if the industry’s current financial woes continue. Over the years, Bjornson says she’s encountered a few people who have profited handsomely from fracking, whether by finding a high-paying technical job or earning hefty royalties from drilling underneath their land. Others “made a lot of money, and now aren’t making any money because of the price of gas”.

Wall Street is flashing warning signs, too, as author Bethany McLean and others have explained. Oil giants Chevron and Shell are in the process of selling off their assets in the region. EQT disclosed a major writedown of its assets in January.

That was even before Covid-19 hit, contributing to an unprecedented oil price crash in April and casting further uncertainty over the market.

Ultimately, it’s these economic forces, not politicians, that may decide the future of fracking in the state. The question is: if Pennsylvania’s gas industry goes the way of coal and steel, will either party be able to offer a viable alternative?