Online platforms embroiled in Supreme Court cases on content moderation spend millions lobbying on internet legislation

• By Harshawn Ratanpal
• March 2, 2023 

A smart phone with the icons for the Facebook, Twitter, Google applications is seen in Ankara, Turkey on September 5, 2018. (Photo by Emin Sansar/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

The Supreme Court heard arguments last week in two cases that could drastically change current regulations on online content moderation. Google, Twitter and Facebook are being sued for allowing terrorist content and activity on their platforms.

The lawsuits are the latest battle in the war over regulation of platform content moderation that has played out in courts and in Congress. Over the last few years, these tech giants have spent millions lobbying the federal government on legislation that attempts to strip away online platform immunity appearing frequently in lobbying reports. 

Families of ISIS victims sue media platforms

In Gonzalez v. Google, the Supreme Court is faced with challenging regulations that typically grant online platforms legal immunity when hosting third-party content.

The family of Nohemi Gonzalez seeks to hold Google liable for a 2015 ISIS attack at a Paris concert hall that killed Nohemi. The Gonzalez family alleges that Google should be held accountable for algorithmically recommending ISIS videos to YouTube users.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 ensures that online platforms are not treated as publishers and generally grants them immunity from being held liable for not removing offensive content. It also allows platforms to voluntarily restrict access to objectionable material.

The core question the Supreme Court is tasked with answering is whether or not recommendation systems like YouTube’s also fall under the purview of Section 230’s protection. 

In a 2021 opinion, the Ninth Circuit agreed with Google that under Section 230, the company is not liable for removing content from third parties. The Supreme Court heard the case last Tuesday and reportedly seems hesitant to weaken Section 230 despite its supposed drawbacks. 

The Supreme Court also heard oral arguments in Twitter v. Taamneh, in which the social media platform is being sued for allegedly failing to remove — and even promoting — ISIS content. After an ISIS gunman killed 39 people in Istanbul including Nawras Alassaf, the Jordanian citizen’s American relatives sued Twitter, Google and Facebook over ISIS’ alleged use of the platforms for recruitment and messaging. 

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed Taamneh v. Twitter in 2018. Rather than applying Section 230 immunity, the judge ruled that the actions of the tech giants failed to meet the standards of the Anti-Terrorism Act. But the Ninth Circuit reversed Taamneh v. Twitter three years later, leading the companies to petition the Supreme Court. 

The case gives the Supreme Court an opportunity to determine whether online platforms can be held liable for violating the Anti-Terrorism Act if they could have taken more “meaningful” or “aggressive” action to prevent terrorists from using their services.

Meta, Alphabet and Twitter lobby on legislation attacking Section 230  

Alphabet, parent company of Facebook, Meta, parent company of Google, and Twitter spent a combined total of nearly $100 million lobbying the federal government since 2020, according to OpenSecrets data. Meta spent $59 million, and Alphabet spent $34 million. Twitter spent $4.6 million. 

Based on lobbying reports analyzed by OpenSecrets, some of these efforts involved legislation that would reduce the immunity granted by Section 230. None of them became law.

The EARN IT Act of 2020 was introduced with bipartisan support in the Senate and House of Representatives. The act would have created the National Commission on Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention, which would be tasked with developing “best practices for interactive computer services providers (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) to prevent, reduce, and respond to the online sexual exploitation of children.”

The bill would have also directly weakened Section 230 immunity, exposing service providers to civil and criminal lawsuits for child sexual abuse material posted by users. 

The EARN IT Act of 2020 showed up six times in lobbying reports for Alphabet, making it the second most listed bill that year. Lobbyists for Twitter and Meta also disclosed lobbying activity related to the bill throughout 2020. 

After failing to come to a vote before the end of the 116th Congress, the bill was reintroduced again in 2022. The EARN IT Act of 2022 appeared in the three companies’ lobbying reports. It also failed to pass before Congress’s last session ended.

The PACT Act, which was reintroduced in the Senate after failing to pass in 2020, showed up both in Twitter and Meta’s lobbying reports. The act would have required online platforms to publish a policy “explaining the types of content permissible on the service and provide a system for users to submit complaints about content that may violate the policy or involve illegal content.” 

In 2021, Meta’s lobbyists also reported lobbying related to the SAFE TECH Act, which would have weakened Section 230 protections in cases of “civil rights law; antitrust law; stalking, harassment, or intimidation laws; international human rights law; and civil actions for wrongful death.” 

The Kids Online Safety Act showed up in all three technology companies’ lobbying reports last year. The bill would have mandated that platforms provide safeguards for minors using their site and provide parents “tools to supervise the minor’s use of a platform.” 

Alphabet and Twitter did not respond to OpenSecrets’ requests for comment. Meta declined to comment on the company’s lobbying. 

At least two bills that failed to pass previously have already been reintroduced this year by both Democrats and Republicans. 

In late January, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) reintroduced the See Something, Say Something Online Act that would revoke Section 230 immunity if an online platform failed to report suspicious activity, like terrorism, to law enforcement. 

Also in January, Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) reintroduced the CASE–IT Act, which would remove a platform’s immunity if it “facilitates (1) illegal online content; (2) certain exploitive contact between adults and minors; or (3) content that is indecent, obscene, or otherwise harmful to minor.”

Prior iterations of the bills did not make it to vote in either the 116th or 117th Congress, and none of the three tech giants reported lobbying on them in either session. 

Liberty groups lobby to safeguard Section 230

Tech companies are not the only ones opposed to weakening Section 230 immunity. 

The American Civil Liberties Union filed amicus briefs in Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google, supporting the online service providers in each case.

“In order to facilitate the free exchange of ideas on the Internet, Section 230 provides critical immunity to social media platforms,” the ACLU wrote in its Gonzalez v. Google amicus brief. 

The ACLU and Americans For Prosperity both lobbied against the EARN IT Act. The groups publicly raised concerns over the erosion of privacy and online speech that undermining Section 230 and encryption technology could lead to. 

“The measure would lead to a “backdoor” in encrypted services, thereby jeopardizing the security of every individual. Technology experts and civil society organizations have repeatedly warned that backdoors could be exploited by bad actors and that no backdoor could guarantee only law-abiding officials have access,” the ACLU wrote in a joint statement with the AFP. 

The ACLU also lobbied against the Kids Online Safety Act. Along with more than 90 LGBTQ and human rights organizations, the ACLU argued that the bill’s mandates are overly vague, censorial and invasive. 

“In short, while KOSA has laudable goals, it also presents significant unintended consequences that threaten the privacy, safety, and access to information rights of young people and adults alike,” the ACLU wrote in a letter to Congress. 

The ACLU spent nearly $1.5 million on lobbying the federal government last year and over $4.5 million since 2020. The ACLU did not respond to OpenSecrets’ request for comment.

The Supreme Court is expected to deliver its decisions in Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh before the end of the term in June. 

RECESSION = LAYOFFS & AUSTERITY

Citigroup cuts hundreds of jobs weeks after JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs announce layoffs

BYJENNY SURANE AND BLOOMBERG
March 2, 2023 


Citigroup Inc. is cutting hundreds of jobs across the company, with the Wall Street giant’s investment banking division among those affected.

The cuts amount to less than 1% of Citigroup’s 240,000-person workforce, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named discussing personnel information. Staffers across the firm’s operations and technology organization and US mortgage-underwriting arm are also among those affected.

The routine cuts are part of Citigroup’s normal business planning, the people said. There’s been no broad mandate for managers to cut staffers; instead, various divisions have been grappling with different reasons for the cuts.

A spokeswoman for Citigroup declined to comment.

The move comes just weeks after rival JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut hundreds of mortgage employees. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., for its part, embarked on one of its biggest rounds of job cuts ever in January when it planned to eliminate thousands of positions across the company.

In the technology division, Citigroup has spent billions in recent years upgrading its underlying infrastructure. Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser has long said those investments would ultimately allow the bank to reduce its reliance on manual processes.

“As our investment in transformation and control initiatives mature, we expect to realize efficiency as those programs transition from manually intensive processes to technology-enabled ones,” Fraser said in January. Play Video

In investment banking, on the other hand, the firm is grappling with an industrywide slowdown in deals. The dearth of activity sparked a 53% drop in revenue from the business last year and analysts are expecting additional declines in the first quarter.

Citigroup’s recent moves in its mortgage division — which is largely based in O’Fallon, Missouri — come after the bank already dismissed dozens of staffers last year. Mortgage demand has dropped in recent months amid rising prices and a rapid increase in mortgage rates.

“We’re actively hiring to execute against our strategy, but we’re also re-pacing where that makes sense in light of the environment that we’re in,” Chief Financial Officer Mark Mason said in January. “We’re constantly combing talent and making sure we’ve got the right people in the right roles, and, where necessary to restructure, we do that as well.”


Amid the cuts, Citigroup continues to hire and build teams dedicated to resolve a pair of consent orders received in 2020 from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve. Those additions helped swell firmwide headcount by 30,000 in the last two years alone.

“We continue to invest in our transformation to address our consent orders and to modernize our bank,” Fraser said in January. “We’re streamlining our processes and making them more automated, whilst improving the quality and accessibility of our data. This will make us a better bank.”

Opinion
Clean energy can be an inexpensive option

March 2, 2023
WASHINGTON POST

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The Feb. 25 Metro article “Virginia is set to rein in utility” noted that Virg of them would be less expensive to run if their generation capacity was replaced with renewables such as solar or wind powerng Dominion to convert to renewable energy — such as wind and solar — on asn aggressive timetable, driving up rates for customers.”

Forbes recently reported that of the 210 U.S. coal plants it investigated, 209 of them would be less expensive to run if their generation capacity were replaced with renewable such as solar or wind power. A transition from coal to clean energy across the country was estimated to be worth $589 billion.

Dominion Energy is in the process of closing its coal facilities. The company is also building a huge offshore wind farm that will eventually power more than 650,000 Virginia homes with clean power.

The governor should do some research before he starts blaming Democrats for high electricity rates.

Earle Mitchell, Springfield
The writer is a member of the Sierra Club.

U$A

UK,EU,NZ,AUS,CANADA IT'S ALL THE SAME

Address the nursing shortage with realistic staffing and fair contracts

BY MARINA ZHAVORONKOVA, NICOLE RAPFOGEL AND EMILY GEE, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS - 

03/02/23 

AP/Craig Ruttle
Nurses stage a strike in front of Mt. Sinai Hospital in the Manhattan borough of New York Monday, Jan. 9, 2023, after negotiations broke down hours earlier. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

America’s persistent nursing shortage reached a dramatic new inflection point earlier this year when 7,000 New York City nurses went on strike, alleging that their hospitals are so short staffed they’re unsafe. New York’s strike comes on the heels of 714 strikes or labor actions from healthcare personnel over the past two years, many centered around inadequate staffing and pay. In a 2022 survey, more than 90 percent of nurses reported staffing shortages at their organizations.

Policymakers at all levels of government have taken steps to increase the number of nurses entering the profession through investments in nursing education. However, new programs will be of limited effectiveness if they are not paired with reforms that prevent nurses from leaving the floor altogether, starting with staffing policies that limit the number of patients per nurse and banning all types of health care employers from requiring workers to sign noncompete agreements.


Concerns about healthcare and nursing shortages are nearly as old as the nursing profession itself. During the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale trained a group of women to provide standardized sanitary interventions because insufficient physician staffing led to high rates of patient mortality. Yet the health care system has long struggled to train and retain enough nurses to keep patients safe, which can increase worker injuries, diminish patient safety and leave staff vulnerable to violence, burnout and mental and physical strain.

A 2021 study of New York state hospitals — where nurses were assigned an average of 6.3 patients each — found that each patient added to a nurse’s load was associated with higher rates of in-hospital mortality, longer lengths of stay and higher rates of readmission. Staffing ratios of 4:1 saved an estimated 4,370 lives and $720 million over two years.

Three main factors contribute to the current nursing shortage: demographics, educational pipelines and working conditions. Stereotypes of nursing as a woman’s profession — an example of occupational segregation — mean men are less likely to pursue nursing, while the expansion of professional opportunities for women throughout the 20th century further lessened the pool of available workers. Today, the aging of the Baby Boomer generation and innovations in medical science to extend lives also mean that the nation requires more care. The nursing workforce itself is increasingly nearing retirement, while not enough new nurses are entering the workforce. In 1978, 45 percent of nurses were between the ages of 18 and 34; in 2021, that number was only 29 percent.

And educational institutions lack adequate capacity to train aspiring nursing students. In 2021, nursing colleges turned away more than 90,000 qualified applicants, largely due to a lack of clinical placements, faculty and facilities.

The federal government, states and localities have sought to alleviate the nursing shortage by addressing educational pipelines. Becker’s Hospital Review counts at least 135 new or expanded nursing programs in 2022. Last fall, the U.S. Department of Labor announced an $80 million investment to support career pathways from direct care roles into nursing and increase the number of nursing instructors. The approved federal fiscal year 2023 budget includes nearly two dozen earmarks for nursing education.

And yet, once trained, nurses are increasingly leaving the profession. In 2021 alone, more than 100,000 registered nurses exited the profession, the greatest decline in the last 40 years, and in June 19 percent of nurses surveyed considered leaving direct patient care in the next 6 months. Many nurses report poor workplace conditions resulting from being overburdened.

Some states have enacted laws and regulations to address a common request from nurses: set and enforce patient-staff ratios. Several states including New York require nurse-driven hospital committees to set ratios and/or require hospitals to publish their ratios. Only California has implemented explicit nurse-to-patient ratios across settings, while Massachusetts has ratios for intensive care units. A 2006 survey of California nurses found that the ratios made them more likely to stay at their jobs and improved patient safety. On the federal level, policy proposals such as the Nurse Staffing Standards for Patient Safety and Quality Care Act of 2021, would require hospitals to be more transparent about their staffing levels. Say no to child predators and other criminals going off the radarHow to get serious about climate change

Another step forward is the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed ban on noncompete agreements, employment contract terms that prohibit employees from working for a competitor in their next job. Besides trapping workers in low-paying or poor-quality jobs, noncompete clauses can also force those who do want to quit to leave the profession. The ban would advance worker power, but its effectiveness in health care may be limited by the FTC’s lack of enforcement authority over nonprofit hospitals.

While the New York City strike resolved, the national nursing crisis is far from over. Investing in nursing education expands access to good jobs for many more people and expands the size of a workforce critical to American health care. But policymakers must also support nurses by addressing the factors that are causing nurses, newly trained and experienced alike, to leave.

Marina Zhavoronkova is a senior fellow for workforce development at the Center for American Progress and Nicole Rapfogel is a policy analyst for Health and Emily R. Gee is the senior vice president for Inclusive Growth at the Center.

RIP

Wayne Shorter, jazz musician of innovation and introspection, dies at 89

His complex harmonies and lyrical melodies made him one of the most influential jazz musicians of the past half-century


By Gene Seymour
March 2, 2023

Saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter in 2018, the year he received the Kennedy Center Honors. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)


Wayne Shorter, whose captivating blend of complex harmonies and lyrical melodies in his saxophone performances and compositions made him one of the most influential jazz musicians of the last half-century, died March 2 at a hospital in Los Angeles. He was 89.

His death was confirmed by publicist Alisse Kingsley, who did not cite a cause.

Mr. Shorter’s career encompassed and, to a considerable extent, helped shape the history of jazz in the middle and late 20th century. He was a member of the Miles Davis Quintet in the 1960s and was a featured performer on Davis’s groundbreaking recordings that helped define jazz-rock fusion, a style he continued to cultivate as a co-founder of Weather Report with pianist Joe Zawinul.

But it wasn’t until the turn of the 21st century that the self-effacing Mr. Shorter, entering his 70s, became an influential bandleader in his own right, leading a critically acclaimed acoustic quartet of pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade that showcased inventive versions of such Shorter compositions as “Sanctuary,” “Footprints,” “Juju,” and “Chief Crazy Horse” as well as new ones.

Critic Greg Tate once wrote that Mr. Shorter’s signature compositions — which also included “Speak No Evil,” “Infant Eyes,” “Night Dreamer” and “Nefertiti” — “set a high bar for melodic, harmonic and emotional sophistication. His tenor saxophone playing brought more introspective nuance and intellectual complexity to the horn than anyone since Lester Young.”

Mr. Shorter performs during a tribute to Miles Davis at the 45th Montreux Jazz Festival in 2011. (Valentin Flauraud/Reuters)

Generations of musicians have included Mr. Shorter’s work in their repertoire. His shape-shifting, elliptical approach to playing and writing influenced musicians as varied as trumpeters Wynton Marsalis, a standard-bearer for traditional jazz, and Dave Douglas, a pillar of alternative or progressive jazz.

It took years for Mr. Shorter to be regarded as an original. In the late 1950s, his deep tone on the tenor saxophone and the intricate flow of his solos aroused immediate comparisons with the twin towers of tenor for that era, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. Both artists, however, were among the first to recognize that Mr. Shorter was clearing a path that was strikingly different from theirs.

“Wayne never struck me as an imitator,” Rollins told author Michelle Mercer in “Footprints,” her 2004 Shorter biography. “He liked Trane and maybe me a little, but Wayne was an innovative guy himself, and that would come out in the way he put things together.”

Over time, Mr. Shorter’s tenor style developed weight and dimension while his phrasing floated, swooped, slithered and sometimes hung suspended in midair before shifting unexpectedly to a fresh idea.

The impressionism and succinctness of Mr. Shorter’s playing became stronger and more inimitable over his long career — all the way up to 2018’s “Emanon,” a magnum opus comprising three discs and a graphic novel he had co-written with Monica Sly that won Mr. Shorter his 11th Grammy Award in 2019.

Mr. Shorter at his home in Los Angeles in 2013. (Bret Hartman for The Washington Post)

Mr. Shorter’s interest in comic books dated to his adolescence in Newark, where he was born on Aug. 25, 1933. He was an avid and imaginative consumer of pop culture, imbibing the dance music his father played on the radio as well as the soundtracks he began to memorize and mimic from horror and sci-fi movies he had seen at neighborhood theaters.

A nascent talent for painting and sculpture won Mr. Shorter a scholarship to Newark’s Arts High School, where he also expanded upon his interest in film. At 14, Mr. Shorter shifted his focus to music after encountering the jazz recordings of Young, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk.

This newly awakened passion was buttressed by his longtime fascination with the dramatic structure of classical symphonies by Beethoven and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He started out playing the clarinet but soon switched to tenor saxophone.

     Mr. Shorter in 1996. (Eric Draper/AP)

The deeper Mr. Shorter got into jazz, the more he began to adopt callow, eccentrically hip mannerisms inspired by bebop. Poet, playwright and music critic Amiri Baraka, who grew up in Newark at the same time, recalled in a 1959 article for the short-lived magazine Jazz Review, “Introducing Wayne Shorter,” that Mr. Shorter and his older musician brother, Alan, were regarded among their peers as “the two ‘weird’ Shorter brothers.”

The Shorter boys were so proud of their reputation that Wayne Shorter painted “Mr. Weird” on his saxophone case.

He graduated from high school in 1952, then attended New York University as a music education major, subsidizing much of his tuition with band gigs. After graduating in 1956, he was drafted into the Army, where he became known for his prowess as a musician and a sharpshooter. After his discharge, he wandered the New York scene, working briefly with pianist Horace Silver in 1958 and jamming with other musicians throughout the city.

In July 1959, while playing with trumpeter Maynard Ferguson’s big band at the Newport Jazz Festival, Mr. Shorter was spotted by Lee Morgan, who then was playing trumpet with the Jazz Messengers. Morgan urged leader and drummer Art Blakey to invite Mr. Shorter to fill in for an ailing Hank Mobley as the Messengers’ tenor player. The following month, he began a full-time, five-year stint with Blakey that broadened Mr. Shorter’s profile as both soloist and writer.

His most important musical affiliation began in 1964, when he joined what would become known as Davis’s “second great quintet” following the one that the protean trumpeter led in the 1950s with Coltrane. Mr. Shorter’s quirky, probing approach to music proved harmonious with Davis’s mercurial temperament, melding just as well as with the restless inventiveness of pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams.

Davis, in his 1989 memoir, wrote that he considered Mr. Shorter “the intellectual musical catalyst” for the quintet on such 1960s Columbia albums as “ESP,” “Miles Smiles” and “Sorcerer.” At the same time, Mr. Shorter enhanced his reputation with 11 albums released under his own name by the Blue Note label, among them “Night Dreamer,” “Juju,” “The All Seeing Eye,” “Speak No Evil” and “Adam’s Apple.”

He had concentrated primarily on the tenor saxophone throughout the period but began leaning more to the soprano on Davis’s 1969 album “In a Silent Way.” By the 1970s, Mr. Shorter had shifted almost entirely to the lighter-voiced instrument, which he also played on “Bitches Brew,” Davis’s hit 1970 follow-up.

Mr. Shorter left Davis’s band that year and in 1971 co-founded Weather Report with Zawinul. From the beginning, Weather Report specialized in electronically amplified blends of funk, soul, Latin and free jazz.

The high point for the group’s popularity and acclaim came with “Heavy Weather” (1977), which among other things contributed Zawinul’s rocking, swinging anthem “Birdland” to the global jazz repertory.

Mr. Shorter placed his soprano front-and-center on his 1974 album “Native Dancer,” a sequence of Brazilian tunes featuring composer and vocalist Milton Nascimento. He also began an association with Joni Mitchell with “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” (1977) that continued through nine more Mitchell albums. Weather Report, meanwhile, pressed ahead through personnel changes to become jazz-rock’s most resilient ensemble.

After Weather Report disbanded in 1986, Mr. Shorter’s soprano sax appeared on the albums of such diverse artists as Mitchell, Steely Dan, Don Henley, Carlos Santana, Helen Merrill and Hancock, his longtime friend.

In 1995, Mr. Shorter released “High Life,” a fusion album of string-and-brass arrangements and pulsing rhythms reminiscent of his Weather Report years. He soon began accumulating the highest honors of his profession, including designation as a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1998, a Grammy lifetime achievement award in 2015 and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2018.

Mr. Shorter in 2007. (Patrick Kovarik/AFP/Getty Images)

Mr. Shorter’s first marriage, to Teruko Nakagami, ended in divorce. His second wife, Ana Maria Patricio, and their niece Dalila were killed in 1996 along with 228 others in the crash of TWA Flight 800 soon after takeoff from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. They were flying to Rome to meet Mr. Shorter. (Eleven years earlier, their daughter Iska died at 14 of a grand mal seizure.)

In 1999, Mr. Shorter married Carolina Dos Santos. In addition to his wife, survivors include a daughter from his first marriage, Miyako; a stepdaughter he adopted, Mariana; and a grandson.

Although regarded throughout his career as a nurturer more than a leader, Mr. Shorter said he believed from his earliest days as a player that music was an act of personal assertion and investment in one’s inner being. “Jazz for me,” he said, “is, ‘Do you have the guts to do it?’ ”

GODEL'S PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY

Stick to your lane: Hidden order in chaotic crowds

Mathematical research from the University of Bath in the UK brings new understanding of crowd formation and behaviour

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BATH

 

IMAGE: TILTED LANES CAPTURED IN A HUMAN-CROWD EXPERIMENT. THE LANES ARE FORMED BY TWO GROUPS OF PEOPLE MOVING IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS. THE INCLINATION RESULTS FROM A `PASS ON THE RIGHT’ TRAFFIC RULE. view more 

CREDIT: K. BACIK. B. BACIK, T. ROGERS

Have you ever wondered how pedestrians ‘know’ to fall into lanes when they are moving through a crowd, without the matter being discussed or even given conscious thought?

A new theory developed by mathematicians at the University of Bath in the UK led by Professor Tim Rogers explains this phenomenon, and is able to predict when lanes will be curved as well as straight. The theory can even describe the tilt of a wonky lane when people are in the habit of passing on one side rather than the other (for instance, in a situation where they are often reminded to ‘pass on the right’).

This mathematical analysis unifies conflicting viewpoints on the origin of lane formation, and it reveals a new class of structures that in daily life may go unnoticed. The discovery, reported this week (Friday, March 3) in the prestigious journal Science, constitutes a major advance in the interdisciplinary science of ‘active matter’ – the study of group behaviours in interacting populations ranging in scale from bacteria to herds of animals.

Tested in arenas

To test their theory, the researchers asked a group of volunteers to walk across an experimental arena that mimicked different layouts, with changes to entrance and exit gates.

One arena was set up in the style of King’s Cross Station in London. When the researchers looked at the video footage from the experiment, they observed mathematical patterns taking shape in real life.

Professor Rogers said: “At a glance, a crowd of pedestrians attempting to pass through two gates might seem disorderly but when you look more closely, you see the hidden structure. Depending on the layout of the space, you may observe either the classic straight lanes or more complex curved patterns such as ellipses, parabolas, and hyperbolas”.

Lane formation

The single-file processions formed at busy zebra crossings are only one example of lane formation, and this study is likely to have implications for a range of scientific disciplines, particularly in the fields of physics and biology. Similar structures can also be formed by inanimate molecules, such as charged particles or organelles in a cell.

Until now, scientists have given several different explanations for why human crowds and other active systems naturally self-organise into lanes, but none of these theories have been verified. The Bath team used a new analytical approach, inspired by Albert Einstein’s theory of Brownian motion, which makes predictions that can be tested.

Encouraged by the way their theory agreed with the numerical simulations of colliding particles, they then teamed up with Professor Bogdan Bacik – an experimentalist from the Academy of Physical Education in Katowice, Poland – and ran a series of experiments (such as the one modelled on King’s Cross) using human crowds.

Lead author Dr Karol Bacik said: “Lane formation doesn’t require conscious thought – the participants of the experiment were not aware that they had arranged themselves into well-defined mathematical curves.

“The order emerges spontaneously when two groups with different objectives cross paths in a crowded space and try to avoid crashing into each other. The cumulative effect of lots of individual decisions inadvertently results in lanes forming.”

The researchers also tested the effects of externally imposed traffic rules – namely, they instructed the participants to pass others on the right. In agreement with the theoretical prediction, adding this rule changed the lane structure.

“When pedestrians have a preference for right turns, the lanes end up tilting and this introduces frustration that slows people down,” said Dr Bacik.

“What we’ve developed is a neat mathematical theory that forecasts the propensity for lane formation in any given system,” said Professor Rogers, adding: “We now know that much more structure exists than previously thought.”

 

Parabolic lane formation captured in a human crowd experiment. The red group crosses the experimental arena ‘south to north’, and the blue group targets a narrow gate on the side. In agreement with the theory, the crowd spontaneously self-organizes into lanes shaped as (confocal) parabolas.

CREDIT

Credit: K. Bacik. B. Bacik, T. Rogers

Pedestrians finding order in a [VIDEO] 

---

JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.add8091 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Lane nucleation in complex active flows

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

3-Mar-2023

SEE

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for GODEL 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY 

Lending a paw for defence veterans: ‘Clear evidence’ that assistance dogs help improve mental health

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

 

IMAGE: ASSISTANCE DOGS PROVIDED TO RETURNED MILITARY VETERANS HAVE PROVED TO BE CLINICALLY BENEFICIAL IN A 12-MONTH AUSTRALIAN STUDY. view more 

CREDIT: SEEING DIFFERENTLY WITH THE ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE BLIND

A new Australian study focused on defence veterans’ mental health has found strong evidence that assistance dogs used in conjunction with traditional therapies provide the most effective treatment outcomes.

Almost 90 per cent of veterans reported improvements in their post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety 12 months after being matched to an assistance dog, according to researchers from the University of South Australia (UniSA), University of Adelaide, and Military and Emergency Services Health Australia (MESHA).

Of the 16 returned veterans who took part in the study, 63 per cent reported “significant clinical improvements” to their mental health thanks to an assistance dog provided by the Operation K9 Program  run by See Differently with the Royal Society for the Blind.

The study, funded by The Hospital Research Foundation Group, is the first in Australia to use self-reported measures, clinical assessments, and face-to-face interviews with veterans to investigate the value of an assistance dog over time.

It is published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

UniSA Master of Clinical Psychology student Melissa Sherman, who analysed the data, says the findings are relevant to policymakers and demonstrate the power of human-animal relationships.

“Previous studies have shown that existing treatments for post-traumatic stress among returned veterans are not ideal, with high dropout rates and poor adherence,” Sherman says.

“This study provides clear evidence that assistance dogs can play a key role in a veteran’s recovery from post-traumatic stress and other mental health conditions, supporting existing treatments.”

Of the 5000 ADF members who transition from the forces to civilian life every year, 46 per cent experience mental health issues, including suicidal thoughts, anxiety, and depression. Almost a quarter of them are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress in their lifetime.

“This is an important issue that needs addressing,” according to MESHA Executive Director Miranda Van Hooff, an Adjunct Associate Professor at both UniSA and the University of Adelaide.

Three major themes emerged from the study: that assistance dogs were a “life changer”, a constant companion, and helped returned veterans to increase their social interactions.

“For many veterans, an assistance dog gave them a sense of purpose and a reason to live,” Assoc Prof Van Hooff says.

Veterans reported their dog helped them “reclaim their life”, giving them independence and a way to manage their mental health issues and fluctuating emotions, including hypervigilance.

Some participants described their dog as “a comfort or security blanket,” with one veteran saying he was a recluse for many years until being matched with an assistance dog: ‘Now, every day is an adventure, giving me something to look forward to’.

The study showed a slight drop in participants still reporting suicidal feelings after 12 months, but the reduction was not significant. The main benefits were a large reduction in depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress symptoms.

Researchers say the study was limited by the lack of a control group of veterans with post-traumatic stress not receiving an assistance dog, and the small number of study participants due to the cost of breeding, training, and matching dogs to veterans.

Further research is being conducted by the team to overcome these limitations.

 

Man's best mental health friend 

A trainer pictured with a K9 Operation assistance dog

CREDIT

Seeing Differently with the Royal Society for the Blind

JOURNAL

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

DOI

10.3390/ijerph20043607 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Effectiveness of Operation K9 Assistance Dogs on Suicidality in Australian Veterans with PTSD: A 12-Month Mixed-Methods Follow-Up Study