Court: Arkansas can’t ban treatment of transgender kids

By ANDREW DeMILLO

FILE - Dylan Brandt speaks at a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Little Rock, Ark., on Wednesday, July 21, 2021. Brandt, 15, has been receiving hormone treatments and is among several transgender youth who challenged a state law banning gender confirming care for trans minors. A federal appeals court on Thursday, Aug. 25, 2022, said Arkansas can't enforce its ban on transgender children receiving gender affirming medical care. (AP Photo/Andrew DeMillo, File)


LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday said Arkansas can’t enforce its ban on transgender children receiving gender-affirming medical care.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a judge’s ruling temporarily blocking the state from enforcing the 2021 law. A trial is scheduled for October before the same judge on whether to permanently block the law.

Arkansas was the first state to enact such a ban, which prohibits doctors from providing gender-confirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery to anyone under 18 years old, or from referring them to other providers for the treatment. There are no doctors who perform gender-affirming surgery on minors in the state.

“Because the minor’s sex at birth determines whether or not the minor can receive certain types of medical care under the law, Act 626 discriminates on the basis of sex,” the court’s ruling Thursday said.

The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law on behalf of four transgender youth and their families, as well as two doctors who provide gender-confirming treatments.

“The Eighth Circuit was abundantly clear that the state’s ban on care does not advance any important governmental interest and the state’s defense of the law is lacking in legal or evidentiary support,” Chase Strangio, deputy director for Transgender Justice at the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, said in a statement. “The state has no business categorically singling out this care for prohibition.”

Arkansas argued that the restriction is within the state’s authority to regulate medical practices.

Republican Attorney General Leslie Rutledge will ask the full 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to review the ruling, said spokeswoman Amanda Priest, adding that Rutledge was “extremely disappointed in today’s dangerously wrong decision by the three-judge panel.”

The 8th Circuit covers Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and the Dakotas. The ruling on Arkansas’ law comes after the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals that covers Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia ruled last week that gender dysphoria is covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Experts and advocates have said that decision could help block conservative political efforts to restrict access to gender-affirming care.

Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson vetoed Arkansas’ ban last year, and GOP lawmakers overrode him. Pediatricians, social workers and the parents of transgender youth said the measure would harm a community already at risk for depression and suicide. Hutchinson said the law went too far, especially since it wouldn’t exempt youth already receiving the care.

Multiple medical groups, including the American Medical Association, oppose the ban and have said the care is safe if properly administered. The Justice Department has also opposed the ban as unconstitutional.

An attorney for the ACLU told the appeals panel in June that reinstating the restriction would create uncertainty for families.

A federal judge in May blocked a similar law in Alabama. A Tennessee ban that was enacted last year on transgender treatments for youth, which is limited to providing gender-confirming hormone treatment to prepubescent minors, remains in effect.

In Texas, child welfare officials have been blocked from investigating three families of transgender youth over gender-confirming care the minors have received. A state judge is considering whether to prevent additional investigations.

Arkansas cannot enforce ban on gender-affirming care for trans kids, court rules


Federal appeals court affirms ruling stopping state enforcing 2021 law before trial on possible permanent block in October

Arkansas’s attorney general, Leslie Rutledge, said she was ‘extremely disappointed in today’s dangerously wrong decision by the three-judge panel’. 

Photograph: Staci R Vandagriff/AP

Reuters in Little Rock, Arkansas
Thu 25 Aug 2022 

A federal appeals court on Thursday said Arkansas cannot enforce its ban on transgender children receiving gender-affirming medical care.

A three-judge panel of the eighth US circuit court of appeals affirmed a ruling temporarily stopping the state enforcing the 2021 law. A trial is scheduled in October before the same judge on whether to permanently block the law.



Arkansas governor who vetoed anti-trans law defends other anti-trans bills

Arkansas was the first state to enact such a ban, which prohibits doctors from providing gender-confirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery to anyone under 18 years old, or from referring them to other providers for the treatment.

There are no doctors who perform gender-affirming surgery on minors in the state.

“Because the minor’s sex at birth determines whether or not the minor can receive certain types of medical care under the law, Act 626 discriminates on the basis of sex,” the ruling on Thursday said.

The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law on behalf of four transgender youth and their families, as well as two doctors who provide gender confirming treatments.

“The eighth circuit was abundantly clear that the state’s ban on care does not advance any important governmental interest and the state’s defense of the law is lacking in legal or evidentiary support,“ Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU LGBTQ & HIV Project, said in a statement.

“The state has no business categorically singling out this care for prohibition.”

Arkansas argued that the restriction is within the state’s authority to regulate medical practices. The Republican attorney general, Leslie Rutledge, plans to ask the full eighth circuit court of appeals to review Thursday’s decision, said a spokesperson, Amanda Priest, adding that Rutledge was “extremely disappointed in today’s dangerously wrong decision by the three-judge panel”.

The Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson, vetoed the ban last year, but GOP lawmakers overrode him.

Medical groups including the American Medical Association oppose the ban and have said the care is safe if properly administered. The US justice department has also opposed the ban as unconstitutional.

An attorney for the ACLU told the appeals panel in June reinstating the restriction would create uncertainty for families around the state.

Hutchinson vetoed the ban following pleas from pediatricians, social workers and the parents of transgender youth who said the measure would harm a community already at risk for depression and suicide. Hutchinson said the law went too far, especially since it would not exempt youth already receiving the care.

A federal judge in May blocked a similar law in Alabama, and that state has appealed.

A Tennessee ban that was enacted last year on transgender treatments for youth, which is limited to providing gender-confirming hormone treatment to prepubescent minors, remains in effect.

Hypocrisy of Christian nationalism on display as GOP ignores Bible in its panic over student loans: columnists

Bob Brigham
August 25, 2022

College graduation / Shutterstock.

The Republican outrage over President Joe Biden's student loan debt relief has exposed the hypocrisy of Christian nationalism, according to a new analysis by Time magazine.

"While President Biden’s announcement of student-debt forgiveness elicited shouts of joy from many of the 43 million Americans who could experience relief under his plan, Republicans have responded by declaring their opposition to the very idea of debt forgiveness," Bishop William Barber, Jr. and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove wrote in Time.

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) argued, "Democrats' student loan socialism is a slap in the face to working Americans who sacrificed to pay their debt or made different career choices to avoid debt."

"'Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,' is more than a line from the Lord’s Prayer that children memorize in Sunday school," Barber and Wilson-Hartgrove wrote.

IN OTHER NEWS: Texas Right to Life political director arrested for 'soliciting a minor' online

"For practicing Christians, it is a regular reminder of the Jubilee tradition that Jesus embraced in his first sermon in Luke’s gospel. 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,' Jesus declared from the prophet Isaiah, 'and has anointed me to proclaim… the favorable year of the Lord.' As his 1st-century hearers knew, Jesus was referring to the debt forgiveness laid out in Leviticus 25, which prescribes a regular social practice of clearing debts in order to correct for the accumulated injustice of an unequal distribution of resources in society," the two explained. "The idea doesn’t come from Karl Marx, as McConnell suggests, but from ancient Scripture."

The two explained the biblical history of debt forgiveness.

"While the Jubilee is a clear command of Scripture, biblical scholars have debated how often it was actually practiced in ancient Israel," the two wrote. "But the economic historian Michael Hudson, who has directed a decades-long study at Harvard’s Peabody Museum, argues in his book …and forgive them their debts that the notion of Jubilee wasn’t simply an ideal for ancient Israel, but rather a practical lesson learned during the Babylonian exile. Ancient Mesopotamian societies had learned from experience that crippling debt was an inevitable consequence of lending at interest (what the Bible calls 'usury'). For the good of the whole, a practice of 'Clean Slate' debt forgiveness emerged to keep society functioning. The children of Israel came to understand this practice as God’s design."

Barber and Wilson-Hartgrove argue the GOP's talking points have exposed hypocrisy.

"For decades, Republicans have claimed to champion biblical values, and MAGA enthusiasts like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have more recently embraced the goal of a “Christian nation.” But nothing exposes the hypocrisy of Christian nationalism more than Republicans’ knee-jerk reaction against debt forgiveness," they wrote. "As Christian pastors, we know that the false promise of a 'Christian nation' has persuaded millions of Americans to support policies that hurt God’s people. In a multi-faith democracy, we don’t need our faith to be privileged by state power. But every faith can and should inform our vision for our common life. The tradition of debt forgiveness, which is shared by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, offers a powerful vision for a way forward from the historic inequality that currently harms our economy."

Read the full analysis.

BEHIND PAYWALL

Who's winning from Biden's student-debt relief? Millennials, public servants, and Black borrowers are seeing the biggest gains.

Jacob Zinkula, Ayelet Sheffey, and Madison Hoff

President Joe Biden AP Photo/Evan Vucci

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden announced student loan debt relief for millions of Americans.
Public servants, millennials, and Black borrowers are among the groups with the most to celebrate.
Even future students could have an easier time paying off their student loans.

Many low-to-middle income Americans with federal student loans can breathe a bit easier after the Biden administration's Wednesday announcement on student debt relief. But some groups in particular have a reason to celebrate.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden announced the cancellation of up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year or $250,000 for married couples. The plan is expected to help many of the over 40 million Americans with student loans and completely wipe out the balances of as many as 15 million borrowers.

Among the over 40 million receiving relief, Pell Grant recipients, public servants, millennials, Black borrowers, and even future students could stand to benefit most from the administration's announcement and accompanying proposals.

About 27 million Pell Grant recipients are getting up to $20,000 in forgiveness

Eligible federal student loan borrowers making under $125,000 per year will see their loan balances cut by up to $10,000 for those who aren't Pell Grant recipients. Pell Grant recipients, however, which account for over 60% of federal loan borrowers, could receive up to $20,000 in debt cancellation. Pell Grants are a form of federal financial aid that are intended to help low-income students afford a college education.

Per the White House's fact sheet, Pell Grants once covered almost 80% of the tuition for a four-year public university, but now only cover a third of the cost. The administration is seeking to help these borrowers, around two-thirds of whom come from families with incomes of $30,000 or below.

9 million Americans who work as public servants are eligible for student loan debt relief

Public Service Loan Forgiveness is intended to forgive student debt for public servants, like government and nonprofit workers, after ten years of qualifying payments. But prior to the reforms, 98% of PSLF applicants had been denied, blocking many teachers, firefighters, and others in careers working for the public good from debt relief. Over the last year, the federal government has approved over $10 billion in loan forgiveness for over 175,000 borrowers following reforms to the PSLF program.

As part of Wednesday's announcement, the Biden administration said it plans to build on the reforms to the PSLF in the hopes that more of the roughly 9 million eligible public servants with student loan debt will benefit from the program in the years ahead.
Millennials between ages 26 and 39 make up nearly half of affected borrowers

Per the White House's fact sheet, 44% of the borrowers eligible for debt relief are between the ages of 26-39, 21% of eligible borrowers are 25 and under, and over a third are age 40 or older.

Student debt burdens have made it difficult for millennials to purchase homes, start families, and save for retirement. Wednesday's announcement will offer some relief.
Black and Latino borrowers are big winners

The Biden administration also said its actions will help to narrow the racial wealth gap.

Black students are more likely to take out student loans and take out larger loans when they do so compared to white students. They are also twice as likely as their white peers to receive Pell Grants, meaning many will be eligible for the up to $20,000 in loan forgiveness. A May analysis found that $10,000 in debt forgiveness would wipe out student loan balances for two million Black borrowers.

"For too many — especially borrowers of color and Black women — student debt makes it hard to get ahead and make ends meet," Maya Wiley, CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement issued Wednesday, adding that her organization welcomed the Biden administration's announcement.

Additionally, almost half of all Latino borrowers are expected to see their debt balances wiped out, according to Excelencia in Education, a think tank focused on Latino college completion. "Most Latinos in postsecondary education come from low-income households and are the first in their families to go to college, often at the cost of enormous financial sacrifices from them and their family," Janet Murgía, president and CEO of UnidosUS, told CNN in a statement.

Future students could see a very different loan and repayment landscape

Critics of the administration's announcement have argued that it does nothing to reduce the rising cost of a college education, and that future borrowers will continue to struggle as a result. But while there's little reason to expect college tuition to decline anytime soon, the administration laid out plans to make student debt payment more manageable for future students.

The Department of Education announced it is working on the expansion of income-driven repayment plans, which "cap what borrowers pay each month based on a percentage of their discretionary income" and typically cancel all remaining debt after 20 years of monthly payments.

Under the proposal, borrowers with undergraduate loans would put 5% of their discretionary income per month towards loan repayment, down from the current 10%. A public school teacher making $44,000 per year, for instance, would pay only $56 a month in student loans, compared to the $197 they would pay under the current income-driven repayment plan, according to the White House's fact sheet.

Biden also proposed a plan to stop interest from creating ballooning student-loan balances — a big reason many borrowers end up paying off more than they originally borrowed.

The changes to income-based plans are part of the department's regulatory proposals, and they are headed for final approval in November with implementation by July 2023.

A First Step, But We Have to Do More on Student Debt

BY BERNIE SANDERS  AUGUST 25, 2022

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The president’s decision to reduce the outrageous level of student debt in our country is an important step forward in providing real financial help to a struggling middle class. Today’s announcement to reduce up to $10,000 in student debt for working class Americans and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients will eliminate student debt for some 20 million Americans and reduce debt for some 43 million. The result of this decision is that millions of Americans will now be in a better position to start families, or buy the homes and cars they have long needed. This is a big deal.

But we have got to do more. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, education, from pre-school through graduate school, must be a fundamental right for all, not a privilege for the wealthy few. If the United States is going to effectively compete in the global economy we need the best educated workforce in the world, and that means making public colleges and universities tuition free as many other major countries currently do – and that includes trade schools and minority-serving institutions as well. In the year 2022, in the wealthiest country on earth, everyone in America who wants a higher education should be able to get that education without going into debt.

Bernie Sanders is a US Senator, and the ranking member of the Senate budget committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress.

We Can Do So Much More on Student Loan Forgiveness

BY INDIA WALTON – SAM ROSENTHAL 

 AUGUST 25, 2022
 AUGUST 25, 2022

Photograph Source: Bryan Alexander – CC BY 2.0

As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden was hardly bullish on student debt cancellation. He was cajoled by progressives and his presidential primary opponents into adopting a more forceful student debt cancellation stance, one which ultimately helped win him the support of young voters.

Now, after a series of tepid moves, President Biden’s grand statement in the student debt saga has arrived. To put it mildly, it’s not very inspiring. Over the last half year, we’ve heard that the administration was mulling steps to cancel debt completely, to create a pathway to free public college, to ensure that Americans never fell into debt bondage again over the price of higher education. This new policy ensures none of those things. The president may bill his executive action as a bold, progressive step forward, but in reality, it’s much closer to the business-as-usual Democratic Party policymaking of the last 30 years: minimal, means-tested, and not likely to make a major impact.

That the president is calling for just $10,000 in loan cancellation, or, in the case of Pell Grant recipients, $20,000, is an insult especially to people of color who are still carrying student debt burdens. NAACP President Derrick Johnson made that much clear in early June. “The black community will be watching closely when you make your announcement, but $10,000 is not enough,” he said then.

As we’ve noted before, black Americans’ net worth is uniquely impacted by student loan debt. Compared to white Americans, a higher percentage of black people have student loan debt, that debt is a higher figure on average, and it has a greater impact on black families’ overall net worth than that of white families. The disparity is so stark, in fact, that canceling $50,000 in student loan debt, as Biden was once reportedly considering, could boost black wealth by 40 percent. That the Biden administration would pass on this obvious opportunity to create material change for black borrowers, when he has black voters to thank for the presidency, is unconscionable.

At RootsAction, our policy is the same that it has always been: Joe Biden, and Democrats in Congress, should cancel student debt, all of it. Furthermore, they should focus on ensuring that students can attend trade schools and public universities debt-free, so that future generations do not need to again suffer the burden of massive student loan debt. This policy is politically popular, economically sound, and morally right. The American people do not want another means-tested, narrowly defined policy that amounts to a drop in the bucket in the fight against inequality. We want material steps towards dismantling an obscene system that has profited off the backs of working people whose only crime was to desire an education. The administration still has time to take real action on student loan debt, but they need to get moving.

India Walton is senior strategic organizer at RootsAction. Sam Rosenthal is RootsAction’s political director.

Whistleblower’s allegations 

could mean trouble for Twitter

By Mathew Ingram

COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW (CJR)

AUGUST 25, 2022

ON TUESDAY MORNING, the Washington Post and CNN simultaneously published stories alleging that senior executives at Twitter—including Parag Agrawal, its CEO of Twitter—had deliberately misled federal regulators about how secure the company’s operations were, and gave foreign agents access to “sensitive user data.” The allegations came from Peiter Zatko, the former head of security at Twitter, in a lengthy document that was shared with both the Post and CNN, as well as several members of Congress, the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Justice Department, and the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Post says the complaint “depicts Twitter as a chaotic and rudderless company beset by infighting, unable to properly protect its 238 million daily users, including government agencies, heads of state, and other influential public figures.”

Rebecca Hahn, a Twitter spokesperson, told the Post that Zatko was fired after 15 months for “poor performance and leadership,” and that his allegations were “riddled with inaccuracies.” She also said, per the Post, that Twitter has “tightened up” its security processes since 2020, and that it also has “rules about who can access company systems,” adding that Twitter removes more than a million spam accounts every day “fully stands by” its SEC filings. According to the Post‘s report, “a person familiar with Zatko’s tenure said the company investigated Zatko’s security claims during his time there and concluded they were sensationalistic and without merit.” In an interview with the Post, Zatko, who was fired in January, said he “felt ethically bound” to blow the whistle on Twitter because of the potential security implications of the company’s behavior. He is being represented by Whistleblower Aid, the same nonprofit legal organization that represented Frances Haugen, the former Facebook staffer turned whistleblower. 

According to CNN’s report, Zatko, 51, is a well-respected hacker and security expert who “led an influential cybersecurity grantmaking program at the Pentagon, worked at a Google division for developing cutting-edge technology, helped build the cybersecurity team at fintech firm Stripe, and advised US lawmakers and officials on how to plug security holes in the internet” before he joined Twitter. The Post says that by the time he was 30, Zatko had “written one of the most powerful tools for cracking passwords, testified to Congress under his hacker handle about the susceptibility of the internet to drastic hacks, and co-founded one of the first hacking consultancies backed by venture capital.” Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, hired Zatko in late 2020 after a hacker gained access to the Twitter accounts of famous users such as Barack Obama.

ICYMI: How commenting on Roy Cohn got me suspended from Twitter

Zatko’s allegations against Twitter cover a wide range of behavior, from under-counting spam—an accusation similar to that at the core of Elon Musk’s ongoing legal battles over his attempted-then-suspended $45 billion acquisition of the company—to “negligence and even complicity with respect to efforts by foreign governments to infiltrate, control, exploit, surveil and/or censor the company’s platform.” Casey Newton writes in his technology newsletter, Platformer, that the complaints “go on for dozens of pages, and have a kitchen-sink quality reminiscent of a jilted husband suing for custody of a child.” On the topic of Zatko’s credibility, Newton writes that some people he knows “deeply respect and trust him, and many of them tweeted tributes to him,” but others had less favorable opinions, and some of those tweeted their thoughts as well. (A Twitter staffer who worked with Zatko told the Post, “He’s a total savant, but also a bit of a bull in a china shop”).

Newton argues that Zatko’s allegations fall into several categories, including “what seems plausible and worrisome” and “what seems likely wrong.” The fact that Twitter’s security seems lax is believable, Newton says, given other such events (the accidental suspension of Dorsey’s Twitter account in 2016; the brief disabling of Trump’s account by a contractor in 2017). One thing Newton questions, however, is whether the “foreign agents” in India that Zatko refers to are just the local Twitter employees required by the country’s new information laws. “If Zatko’s ‘agent’ is just the legally required grievance officer that Twitter and every other platform like it is required to have, it would significantly damage the credibility of his allegations,” Newton writes. The details of those and other accusations are likely to come out during investigations by the Senate Intelligence Committee or other hearings with congressional representatives, which are already in the works

Much of the speculation following the release of Zatko’s document, which alleges that Twitter doesn’t properly count spam and bots, has focused on whether it might help the case of Musk, who halted his acquisition of the company after accusing it of providing “misleading representations” of the number of spambots on the platform. Matt Levine argues in his Bloomberg column that it probably will not; the central issue in the Musk case, Levine says, “is whether Twitter has been lying in its securities filings when it says it estimates that fewer than 5% of its ‘monetizable daily active users’ are spam or bot accounts. And Zatko is pretty unambiguous that, no, Twitter’s numbers are correct.” Zatko’s complaint is that Twitter doesn’t discuss how many spam and bot accounts there are outside of the “monetizable daily active users” figure, whereas Musk is arguing there are too many accounts like that inside the estimate of MDAU.

One potentially serious implication of Zatko’s whistleblowing is that Twitter could be found to be in breach of an FTC consent order it agreed to in 2011, after accusations that it mishandled users’ private information and allowed too many employees to have access to Twitter’s controls. Under the order, Twitter promised to create and maintain “a comprehensive information security program.” Zatko alleges that the company has never been in full compliance with the order, which could lead to a significant fine if the FTC agrees. “Twitter employees have already been through the ringer over the last year: The CEO switch. The on-again, off-again takeover bid by the platform’s biggest, richest troll. Executive firings. The mass staff exodus,” Issie Lapowsky of Protocol wrote. As the company tries to defend itself against Zatko’s accusations, she noted, “the worst may be yet to come.”

Here’s more on Twitter:

• Attack template: Nirit Weiss-Blatt, a researcher and former fellow at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication, writes for Tech Policy Press about how Twitter’s response to Zatko’s accusations and Meta’s response to Frances Haugen’s follow a “template for attacking whistleblowers.” This template, Weiss-Blatt argues, includes five key elements, including: claiming the whistleblower is pushing a “false narrative” and the documents are taken out of context; suggesting it is frustrating to read accusations that distract from the company’s “important work”; and delegitimizing and discrediting the former employee turned whistleblower.
• Next steps: Frank Pallone, Jr., the Democratic congressman from New Jersey and chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a member of Congress from Washington and the top Republican on the committee, said in a joint statement that if the whistleblower’s allegations are true, they “reaffirm” the need for Congress to pass consumer privacy legislation to safeguard Americans’ data, the Post’s Cat Zakrzewski reports. They’re not alone; Zakrzewski also notes that “Richard Blumenthal, the Democratic senator from Connecticut and head of the Senate Commerce panel focused on consumer protection, wrote a letter Tuesday to the Federal Trade Commission, calling for the agency to investigate Zatko’s claims and bring enforcement actions, including fines, against Twitter if appropriate.”
• Health products: Twitter is combining the team that works on reducing toxic content and the team that deals with spam bots, according to a staff memo sent Tuesday that was seen by Reuters. “The social media company will combine its health experience team, which works on reducing misinformation and harmful content, with the Twitter service team, which is responsible for reviewing profiles that users report and taking down spam accounts,” the wire service reports.
• Uncertainty: Twitter recently warned its employees that they might receive only half of their typical annual bonuses this year, as the company grapples with economic uncertainty, the New York Times reports. “Twitter, which is fighting a legal battle to complete a $44 billion sale to Elon Musk, made the announcement in an email to employees and blamed its financial performance for the potential bonus cut,” write Kate Conger and Ryan Mac. “When the company reported quarterly earnings last month, its revenue declined for the first time since 2020 and it swung to a net loss.”

 

Other notable stories:

• Emily Maitlis, a former host of Newsnight on the BBC, called a BBC board member an “active agent of the Conservative party,” who is trying to shape the broadcaster’s news output by acting “as the arbiter of BBC impartiality,” according to The Guardian. Maitlis made the comments about Sir Robbie Gibb, who was appointed to the BBC’s board last year by Boris Johnson, and previously worked as director of communications for Theresa May, the former leader of the Conservative party and a former prime minister. Gibb also helped to found the rightwing GB News channel.
• Researchers at the Stanford Internet Observatory collaborated with Graphika to analyze a large network of accounts that were removed from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for violating the terms of service of those platforms. It was an organized operation that the Observatory says likely originated in the United States and targeted a range of countries in the Middle East and Central Asia. “Our joint investigation found an interconnected web of accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and five other social media platforms that used deceptive tactics to promote pro-Western narratives,” the report states.
• Jigsaw and YouTube are planning to distribute a series of video ads in Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic that are designed to help people identify and refute derogatory tropes about migrants, Protocol reported. “The campaign, which will run for a month across several social media platforms, including YouTube, is expected to garner at least 55 million impressions — roughly equal to the population of those three countries combined,” Issie Lapowsky wrote. “But the videos are more than just a marketing push to burnish YouTube’s reputation. They’re part of a years-long research project at Jigsaw on the efficacy of using video to ‘inoculate’ people against misinformation on social media.”
• Dan Misener, co-founder of a podcast marketing company, analyzed all of the episodes of all the podcasts that Spotify recommends via various lists, and then used those to generate more recommendations until he had hundreds of thousands of recommendations. Looking at the most popular showed an unsurprising tendency to suggest Spotify originals, but Misener also found that the top recommendations also included shows that play soothing music designed to help listeners relax. This phenomenon “may be a contributing factor to the success of so-called ‘white noise podcasters,’ a trend identified by Ashley Carman in June 2022,” he wrote.
• Twitter has restored the account belonging to David M. Stone, a senior adviser to the president of Columbia University who wrote for CJR recently about having his account suspended after he tweeted about the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the context of the FBI search of Trump’s residence at Mar-A-Lago. According to the note Stone received from Twitter, Stone was guilty of “abuse and targeted harassment.” After he wrote the piece, Stone says he got a note from the company saying his account had been restored and admitting that “it looks like we made an error.”
• iHeartMedia, the radio-station conglomerate, says it has launched a virtual music venue called iHeartLand that is part of Fortnite, a massively multiplayer video game, according to The Hollywood Reporter. iHeartMedia announced plans earlier this year to launch its own branded virtual worlds on platforms like Roblox, another popular multiplayer video game, as part of the radio giant’s larger “Web3” strategy. “Wednesday’s launch of iHeartLand in Fortnite marks the first unveiling of iHeartMedia’s virtual world and will serve as the testing ground for future iterations of iHeartLand on other world-building games,” executives told The Hollywood Reporter.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today.

Mathew Ingram is CJR’s chief digital writer. Previously, he was a senior writer with Fortune magazine. He has written about the intersection between media and technology since the earliest days of the commercial internet. His writing has been published in the Washington Post and the Financial Times as well as by Reuters and Bloomberg.

UN Ocean Treaty Talks on Verge of Collapse Due to Rich Nations' Greed, Greenpeace Warns

"We are sad and angry," said one campaigner. "Billions of people rely on healthy oceans, and world leaders have failed all of them."

A green sea turtle swims among the corals of the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia on October 10, 2019. (Photo: Jonas Gratzer/LightRocket via Getty Images)

KENNY STANCIL

August 25, 2022

A fledgling international effort to protect the world's oceans from further damage is "on the brink of failure," and the governments of wealthy countries are primarily to blame, Greenpeace International warned Thursday.

"Failure at these talks will jeopardize the livelihoods and food security of billions."

Diplomats gathered at the United Nations headquarters in New York City are nearing the end of the fifth and final round of negotiations on a much-needed pact to protect biodiversity in the "high seas"—a global commons comprising the two-thirds of the ocean that lie outside the jurisdiction of any single country and where legally binding regulations are virtually nonexistent.

Conservationists have long hoped that the ongoing summit—described by some as the "last chance" to forge a robust global ocean treaty—would lead to the establishment of "Marine Protected Areas" and rules mandating environmental assessments prior to deep-sea mining and other industrial activities.

But a handful of mostly rich countries—including the United States, Canada, and members of the so-called High Ambition Coalition on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction—have derailed progress made on the text by prioritizing "hypothetical future profits" that could be derived from extracting marine genetic resources over protecting aquatic species, according to Greenpeace.

"The oceans sustain all life on Earth, but the greed of a few countries means this round of talks for a U.N. ocean treaty are now set to fail," Laura Meller of Greenpeace's Protect the Oceans campaign said Thursday in a statement. "The High Ambition Coalition has utterly failed. They should be the No Ambition Coalition."

Members of the coalition have "obsessed over their hypothetical future profits, undermining all the other progress made at these talks," said Meller. "Unless ministers urgently pick up the phone today to their counterparts and hammer out a deal, this treaty process will fail."

The health of the world's oceans, which cover roughly 70% of the Earth and are indispensible to life on the planet, has been rapidly deteriorating as a result of unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions, surging plastic pollution, and overexploitation.

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The high ambition coalition pledged earlier this year to finalize a treaty in 2022 that would protect 30% of the world's oceans by 2030, but the proposed text is "lowering its ambition by the minute," said Greenpeace.

"Less than two months ago I was in Lisbon, at the U.N. Ocean Conference, listening to these leaders promise they would deliver a strong global ocean treaty this year," said Meller. "Now we are in New York and the leaders are nowhere to be found. They've broken their promises."

"We are sad and angry," Meller continued. "Billions of people rely on healthy oceans, and world leaders have failed all of them."

"It now looks like protecting 30% of the world's oceans [by 2030] will be impossible," she added. "Scientists say this is the absolute minimum necessary to protect the oceans, and failure at these talks will jeopardize the livelihoods and food security of billions. We're beyond disappointed."

Greenpeace also accused rich nations of taking "an unfair and neocolonial approach by refusing to commit any finance for the benefit of all countries."

The refusal of the U.S., Canada, and others to provide funding "will stop a treaty from being agreed here," the group added. "With talks set to fail, countries must now take urgent action, show flexibility, and find compromise to deliver a strong treaty text" by Friday.

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