The deeper ramifications of Trump’s sympathy for Maxwell

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Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Virginia Heffernan, Tribune News Service

At President Trump’s news conference, which was supposed to be about COVID-19, he was asked an easy question. Not about the pandemic. Not about reopening schools. About Ghislaine Maxwell, alleged accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison by suicide one year ago, or so official reports say, before he could be tried on sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell was arrested this month and now sits in jail in Brooklyn, accused of helping Epstein recruit, groom and sexually abuse underage girls.

A reporter asked Trump whether Maxwell might implicate any of the famous men in Epstein’s circle. Prince Andrew, say. Or Bill Clinton. All Trump had to do was go boilerplate: “These allegations against Maxwell are very serious,” he could have said, “and I hope justice is done.” If that was too difficult, why not take a shot at Clinton, who travelled with Epstein and hosted Maxwell at his daughter Chelsea’s wedding.

But the president couldn’t muster anything that suggested he disapproves of sexually abusing children. Instead, he sent his regards to Maxwell. Best wishes to Ghislaine, who has pleaded not guilty, as she stews in jail.

Trump, as he helpfully reminded the briefing room, was Epstein’s and Maxwell’s neighbour in Palm Beach. After Epstein was first convicted, of soliciting a child for prostitution, the president claimed that their friendship had been over for years. But Trump once called Epstein a “terrific guy,” and as for Maxwell, “I just wish her well, frankly,” Trump said Tuesday.

“I wish her well,” he repeated. Prosecutor Twitter started to pop off. “I can think of four times when Trump has publicly extended his best wishes to people charged with federal crimes by DOJ: Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort — and now Ghislaine Maxwell,” tweeted former federal and state prosecutor Elie Honig.

What do Stone (convicted felon), Flynn (pleaded guilty to a felony) and Manafort (convicted felon) have in common? They’re all people Trump has had a powerful interest in silencing.

Trump’s mob-style verbal thuggery with witnesses and rivals is well known. Remember what he said about Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine? “She’s going to go through some things.”

But he uses carrots, too. Blowing Maxwell figurative kisses, the Twitterverse suggested, could be a way to signal that he has her back. As early as the 1980s, Trump and Epstein “swam in the same social pool,” as the Washington Post put it. Epstein long bragged that he introduced Trump to his current wife, Melania.

In 1992, the Epstein and Trump were the sole male guests at a Mar-a-Lago party with 28 young women who had been flown in “for entertainment.” Video from another 1992 Mar-a-Lago party surfaced last year showing the two men appraising NFL cheerleaders and Trump pawing at one. Epstein, Trump told New York magazine in 2002, “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Trump has never been implicated in Epstein’s terrible history, detailed in Julie K. Brown’s omnibus expose last year in the Miami Herald. On Thursday, White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, was at pains to point out that the president was “ahead of this, banning this man from his property long before this case was even being played out in a court of law.” And yet Trump’s sympathy for Maxwell not only put the two men together again in people’s minds; it also hit the “refresh” button on the president’s five decades of leering, exploitative history with women.

For four years, Trump has hoped that with payoffs, aggressive attorneys and Twitter intimidation he can avoid real consequences for his history of adultery, ritual humiliation of women, harassment and sexual abuse. But it’s all in plain sight.

Experiments Show Bacteria Grow More 

Lethal And Antibiotic-Resistant in Space

VIKRANT MINHAS, THE CONVERSATION
26 JULY 2020

China has launched its Tianwen-1 mission to Mars. A rocket holding an orbiter, lander and rover took flight from the country's Hainan province earlier this week, with hopes to deploy the rover on Mars's surface by early next year.


Similarly, the launch of the Emirates Mars Mission last Sunday marked the Arab world's foray into interplanetary space travel. And on July 30, we expect to see NASA's Mars Perseverance rover finally take off from Florida.

For many nations and their people, space is becoming the ultimate frontier. But although we're gaining the ability to travel smarter and faster into space, much remains unknown about its effects on biological substances, including us.

While the possibilities of space exploration seem endless, so are its dangers. And one particular danger comes from the smallest life forms on Earth: bacteria.

Bacteria live within us and all around us. So whether we like it or not, these microscopic organisms tag along wherever we go – including into space. Just as space's unique environment has an impact on us, so too does it impact bacteria.
We don't yet know the gravity of the problem

All life on Earth evolved with gravity as an ever-present force. Thus, Earth's life has not adapted to spend time in space. When gravity is removed or greatly reduced, processes influenced by gravity behave differently as well.

In space, where there is minimal gravity, sedimentation (when solids in a liquid settle to the bottom), convection (the transfer of heat energy) and buoyancy (the force that makes certain objects float) are minimised.


Similarly, forces such as liquid surface tension and capillary forces (when a liquid flows to fill a narrow space) become more intense.

It's not yet fully understood how such changes impact lifeforms.
How bacteria become more deadly in space

Worryingly, research from space flight missions has shown bacteria become more deadly and resilient when exposed to microgravity (when only tiny gravitational forces are present).

In space, bacteria seem to become more resistant to antibiotics and more lethal. They also stay this way for a short time after returning to Earth, compared with bacteria that never left Earth.

Adding to that, bacteria also seem to mutate quicker in space. However, these mutations are predominately for the bacteria to adapt to the new environment – not to become super deadly.

More research is needed to examine whether such adaptations do, in fact, allow the bacteria to cause more disease.
Bacterial team work is bad news for space stations

Research has shown space's microgravity promotes biofilm formation of bacteria.

Biofilms are densely-packed cell colonies that produce a matrix of polymeric substances allowing bacteria to stick to each other, and to stationary surfaces.


Biofilms increase bacteria's resistance to antibiotics, promote their survival, and improve their ability to cause infection. We have seen biofilms grow and attach to equipment on space stations, causing it to biodegrade.

For example, biofilms have affected the Mir space station's navigation window, air conditioning, oxygen electrolysis block, water recycling unit and thermal control system. The prolonged exposure of such equipment to biofilms can lead to malfunction, which can have devastating effects.

Another affect of microgravity on bacteria involves their structural distortion. Certain bacteria have shown reductions in cell size and increases in cell numbers when grown in microgravity.

In the case of the former, bacterial cells with smaller surface area have fewer molecule-cell interactions, and this reduces the effectiveness of antibiotics against them.

Moreover, the absence of effects produced by gravity, such as sedimentation and buoyancy, could alter the way bacteria take in nutrients or drugs intended to attack them. This could result in the increased drug resistance and infectiousness of bacteria in space.

All of this has serious implications, especially when it comes to long-haul space flights where gravity would not be present. Experiencing a bacterial infection that cannot be treated in these circumstances would be catastrophic.

The benefits of performing research in space

On the other hand, the effects of space also result in a unique environment that can be positive for life on Earth.

For example, molecular crystals in space's microgravity grow much larger and more symmetrically than on Earth. Having more uniform crystals allows the formulation of more effective drugs and treatments to combat various diseases including cancers and Parkinson's disease.

Also, the crystallisation of molecules helps determine their precise structures. Many molecules that cannot be crystallised on Earth can be in space.

So, the structure of such molecules could be determined with the help of space research. This, too, would aid the development of higher quality drugs.

Optical fibre cables can also be made to a much better standard in space, due to the optimal formation of crystals. This greatly increases data transmission capacity, making networking and telecommunications faster.

As humans spend more time in space, an environment riddled with known and unknown dangers, further research will help us thoroughly examine the risks – and the potential benefits – of space's unique environment.

Vikrant Minhas, PhD candidate, University of Adelaide.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

BUSINESS IS SLOW 

Ukraine's snail farmers fear collapse over EU lockdowns

Most snail farmers in Ukraine rely heavily on sales to restaurants in Europe

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Published:  July 26, 2020 15:14AFP

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Voynivka, Ukraine: When the first snail farm in Ukraine opened five years ago, local villagers couldn't hide their curiosity. Residents of Voynivka south of the capital Kiev would peek over the fence of the old dairy farm where manager Yulia Koretska kept the snails to ask if people really ate them.Image Credit: AFP

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Ex-Soviet Ukraine's budding snail industry now boasts some 400 farms which have found eager buyers in European countries like Italy and Spain.Image Credit: AFP

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But sweeping coronavirus restrictions that plunged the global food service industry into an unprecedented crisis have threatened to wipe out the fledgling farms in one of Europe's poorest countries.Image Credit: AFP

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Most snail farmers in Ukraine - where the delicacy has yet to catch on - rely heavily on sales to restaurants in Europe where economies are still struggling to recover to pre-pandemic levels after months-long lockdowns.Image Credit: AFP

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Yuliya Nastasivna, director of Ravlykova Khata farm in the Zhytomyr region west of Kiev, has also struggled to shift stock. She concedes that domestic sales will probably not make up for losses from Europe, since snails are too expensive for most Ukrainians and are still a culinary curiosity.Image Credit: AFP

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Before the pandemic, Ukraine's snail industry was booming. Producers last year delivered nearly 250 tonnes to Europe - up from just 93 in 2018 - according to data from Ukraine's consumer watchdog.Image Credit: AFP

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Ukraine's snails are in such high demand because they are cheap and of good quality, says Nastasivna. The exports include garden sails - which Nastasivna prefers and wild snails that she says "smell of soil".Image Credit: AFP

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The country's main competitor, Poland, has the added advantage of being part of the EU, she said, and Ukrainian farmers are working to woo European clients by undercutting prices by around 10 percent.Image Credit: AFP

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The strategy saw her secure sales in France for the first time this year and before the pandemic she was in talks with buyers in Italy. Danileyko and his business partner meanwhile was negotiating with Asian markets and developing snail-based products, like spreads and frozen products.Image Credit: AFP

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Despite their popularity abroad, Ukrainian snails have yet to find favour at home where they are prohibitively expensive and too peculiar for most restaurant goers.Image Credit: AFP

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But Anna Miller, manager the of Tres Francais restaurant in central Kiev, says her clients are venturing from their gastronomic comfort zones and snails are becoming more popular. "If you compare to eight years ago, then, of course, snails have become more familiar to our guests," she says.Image Credit: AFP

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Clients taste snails at a restaurant in Kiev.Image Credit: AFP

Another virus plagues India: Modi’s economic advisers are cheerleaders not managers

Brain drain: Two ex-RBI bosses red flag issues, but Modi prefers 'hard work' to Harvard

Published: July 26, 2020 Swati Chaturvedi, Special to Gulf News

Migrant worker cries on the side of a road in IndiaImage Credit: Twitter

HIGHLIGHTS
So two RBI governors in a row had serious issues with the easy ride corporates seemed to be getting under the Modi government. Both Patel and Rajan red flag serious issues, which have not been addressed by the government.

The common factor in case of both appears to be the overarching powers that Modi’s PMO has aggrandised.

Eventually the coronavirus will provide a huge alibi for the Modi government for its utterly underwhelming performance of steering the Indian economy.
Narendra Modi’s instinct to centralise all authority in the hands of his all-powerful Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has seen full fruition in his second term. Arguably, this is the most critical reason for the economy to tank post the Modi-made disaster that was demonetisation, which made 86.4 per cent of India’s currency vanish overnight.

The second hit was the awfulness of the babu excess that is the badly implemented Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Even more cause for alarm from a prime minister, who was famous for being corporate friendly as Gujarat chief minister is what Urjit Patel, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, who famously and in an unprecedented move quit his post, has now revealed.

Patel, in his just released book - Overdraft: Saving the Indian Saver says the move to dilute the new bankruptcy laws caused disagreements between the Modi government and the Central Bank.


Patel, who headed the RBI between September 2016 and his sudden resignation in December 2018, says the government seemed to lose enthusiasm for the legislation in the middle of the year when he left the Central Bank.


The rift centered around an RBI circular issued in February 2018, which forced banks to immediately classify borrowers are defaulters when they delayed repayment; barred defaulting company founders from trying to buy back their firms during insolvency auctions; and push them into bankruptcy if a resolution timeline wasn’t met.


Patel, in a chapter, called the Empire Strikes back says: “Instead of buttressing and future proofing the gains an atmosphere to go easy on the pedal ensued.”


While Patel has refrained from naming names, the period he flags is when Piyush Goyal was temporarily handling finance. Goyal was clearly carrying out instructions from the powerful PMO as he is a lightweight politician utterly dependent on Modi’s political capital.



Patel was the second RBI governor who felt that he was unable to work with the Modi government. The first and more famous was Raghuram Rajan whose term as governor was not renewed by the Modi government.


Rajan hit a similar wall with the Modi PMO when he sent the Rajan list to the PMO to take action against “a list of high profile fraud cases of Non-Performing Assets for coordinated investigation” eight months into Modi’s first term.

Not only did the Modi government not act, it refused to make the list public. Some of the names allegedly flagged by Rajan managed to flee the country despite being on the Rajan list.


So two RBI governors in a row had serious issues with the easy ride corporates seemed to be getting under the Modi government. Both Patel and Rajan red flag serious issues, which have not been addressed by the government.


All-powerful PMO


The common factor in case of both appears to be the overarching powers that Modi’s PMO has aggrandised. It refused to order investigations in to the Rajan list and someone in the highest echelons of the Modi government did not want time bound action of threat insolvency against corporate debtors.


Modi, has famously after losing two RBI governors, said he preferred “hard work” to Harvard. What this attitude has seen is a talent bleed of huge proportions. Chief economic advisor Arvind Subramnium quit has chief economic advisor before the completion of his term in 2018. Viral Acharya, the RBI deputy governor, quit in June 2019 after he had angered the Modi government by questioning the transfer of RBI reserves to the government.


It all began with vocal Modi supporter Arvind Panagariya quitting the Niti Ayog in August 2017. The Ayog was the planning commission renamed by Modi.


Capital like stable rule of law and the “spectaculars” like demonetisation that Modi keeps coming up with periodically has made investors nervous. It does not help that Modi’s entire economic team look more like cheerleaders and less like economic managers.


The proliferation of Gujarat cadre IAS officials in the PMO who work the phones to all stake holders and seem to have a final say in policy making is also causing its own problems. Nobody seemed to believe Nirmala Sitharaman, another lightweight politician appointed as finance minister, and her stimulus packages before coronavirus broke out and it did nothing to stimulate demand and get confidence back. The much hailed Gujarat model is clearly having trouble going national.



The Morning and Evening Brief
A daily brief with the biggest stories of the day

Is cancel culture a positive movement?

A series of controversies have arisen around the phrase. We decode the meaning of the term

https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/is-cancel-culture-a-positive-movement-1.72713731

Published: July 22, 2020 

Anupa Kurian-Murshed, Senior Digital Content Planning Editor , Sadiq Shaban, Opinion Editor , Sanjib Kumar Das, Assistant Editor , Bindu Rai, Entertainment Editor , Tabitha Barda, Baby & Child Editor and Yousra Zaki, Assistant Editor Features

There is a huge debate about the role cancel culture has been playing in our society

Image Credit: Seyyed Llata/Gulf News


Earlier this month nearly 150 high-profile authors, commentators and scholars signed an open letter in Harper’s magazine claiming that “open debate and toleration of differences” are under attack. Signatories included celebrated names like JK Rowling, Margaret Atwood, Gloria Steinem, Salman Rushdie and Noam Chomsky.


The writers were loosely pointing to the new internet trend called cancel culture. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, cancelling and cancel culture have to do with the removing of support for public figures in response to their objectionable behaviour or opinions. This can include boycotts or refusal to promote their work.


"There has been a weakening of the norms of open debate in favour of dogma, coercion and ideological conformity", the Harper’s letter alleges. Without alluding directly to cancel culture, it was obvious what troubled the signatories was the new zeitgeist of the internet culture: the idea that a person can be “cancelled”.



A statement signed by 150 people incl. Bill T. Jones, Wynton Marsalis, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Noam Chomsky, J.K. Rowling, Margaret Atwood, and Salman Rushdie expresses concern over the illiberal trend intensified by our national reckoning.https://t.co/4zPjuPNXBu— Harper's Magazine (@Harpers) July 7, 2020


Is it true that people are consistently feeling outraged by opposing viewpoints? Have the pressures of social media and the constant, non-stop back-and-forth led to confirmation bias and groupthink?



Many believe that cancel culture harms individuals who fall in the mob’s crosshairs. Others think that it is incredibly effective at combating sexism, racism, or any other type of abuse. If we had a justice culture, the argument goes, would we even need to worry about cancel culture?


So, is cancel culture a force for good or quite simply a digital witch hunt? The conversation around it is both polarising and complicated.


Gulf News editors weigh in on one of the most important cultural debates of our times.

When that fine line of reason is crossed over into misplaced 

vigilantism, then it is no longer 'woke' Image Credit: Gulf News

Time to ‘cancel’ online vigilantism?


Anupa Kurian-Murshed — Senior Digital Content Planning Editor



Cancel Culture.


Online vigilantism?


Digital mob mentality?


Or a natural progression of the American Civil Rights movement?


To be honest, I truly got properly acquainted with it when the J.K. Rowling controversy erupted over her ‘transphobic’ tweet late last year. For a woman worshipped by generations of Harry Potter fans, she was suddenly not their beloved author anymore.



I’m going to get into serious trouble for what I will write next, but it is necessary to understand what started my journey of exploring this idea, which I had only vaguely known about till then.


From what I have read and seen online, most times it doesn’t seem to impact the celebrity targeted
-


Yes, parts of her tweet did seem transphobic, but she wrote it to support Maya Forstater, a researcher on business and international development at The Center for Global Development (CGD) in London.


Forstater best explains it: “Last summer [2019], the UK government launched a public consultation on reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004 towards ‘self ID’. Like most people I agree that transgender people should not face discrimination and harassment as they live their lives.


But I am concerned about the impact of ‘self ID’ on women and girls, and in particular on single sex spaces and services such as women’s refuges, hostels, prisons, changing rooms and hospital wards, as well as women’s sports.



“I am concerned that governments around the world are rushing through laws and policies which say that people with male bodies can become women simply by identifying as women. This is happening without adequate consultation or consideration for the impact on women’s privacy, safety and inclusion.


“I started to tweet about the issue and had polite discussions with people about the definition of ‘woman’. I wrote an article aimed at people working in international development, and shared drafts with my colleagues.


“I never thought I would lose my job over this. But I did.”


Do I agree with her? Yes, especially as there will be people with malicious intent wanting to prey on women, and this would give them access. And, I guess, that is where Rowling came from. But, she got hunted for it. She got ‘cancelled’.


Which brings me back to ‘Cancel Culture’.



From what I have read and seen online, most times it truly doesn’t seem to impact the celebrity targeted. Apparently R. Kelly’s music sales have not been affected. The man currently faces 22 federal criminal charges for sexual abuse of women over two decades, across the US.


I find it offensive that he’s not been really cancelled!


So, then what is the point?


Well, my guess is that it is a sense of empowerment in a situation that we are powerless in — I cannot hold you accountable, but I have the power to ignore you, thereby ‘cancelling’ you.


The original usage was apparently traced back to a Wesley Snipes movie and filtered down into Black Culture online, as per Vox.com. So, in a way, it is perhaps a version of the Civil Rights Movement or India’s ‘satyagraha’.



I get that, I support that, but, as in all things to do with social consciousness — when that fine line of reason is crossed over into misplaced vigilantism, then it is no longer ‘woke’, it’s just a witch hunt.

Cancel culture has been much more than identity politics

Image Credit: Gulf News

An empowering movement


Sadiq Shaban — Opinion Editor


We live in a world of more engagement than ever before. Social media has made this tremendous connectivity possible. While earlier there was no way an average person could put his thoughts across, the advent of platforms like Facebook has vastly amplified the voice of the ordinary person.


And each time a celebrity goes on Twitter, they are speaking directly to hundreds of thousands of their fans and the world at large.



This convergence of ideas and thoughts, while great in theory, has its practical limits. In popular culture, it soon became very easy to say things otherwise deemed racist, Islamophobic, misogynist, homophobic or anti-minority.


Previously newspaper editors, the guardians of public morality, would act as gatekeepers and keep the transgressors out. However, in the era of social media, who blue-pencils such stuff?


#CancelCulture started as a hashtag on Black Twitter. The online ecosystem was quick to realise that it was the post-modern culture’s long overdue way of speaking truth to power. A ‘go-to’ tool for the marginalised communities to publicly assert their value systems through pop culture.


Cancel culture has been much more than identity politics
-


Therefore, when JK Rowling, the celebrated author, recently put out a condescending and borderline trans-phobic tweet, the backlash was swift. She was almost immediately called out. Those who spoke against her included Daniel Radcliffe.


In the last one year the list of people who have faced being cancelled included alleged sexual predators like R. Kelly, entertainers like Kanye West, Scarlett Johansson, and Gina Rodriguez, comedians like Kevin Hart and Shane Gillis and many more.


A common thread running through the actions, comments and tweets made by most of these public figures: dogmatic, sexist, racist or bigoted acts or quips.


True that cancel culture is open to some form of abuse by a few but it remains an effective tool in the way it has helped hold to account those in authority.


People derive satisfaction from coming together online against sustained social transgressions. In that sense, cancel culture is a clansperson of #MeToo.


With its egalitarian structure, where each individual has an easy say, social media perhaps needed a gear where even the marginalised could speak up to the privileged, and where the historical minorities could turn back and tell the elite that the monologue of the entitled must give way to dialogue for all.


In that, cancel culture has been much more than identity politics. It is an empowering movement.

It is undeniable that #MeToo used this tool effectively to bring down the empires of the Harvey Weinsetins and Kevin Spaceys of this worldImage Credit: Gulf News

Cancel the criminals, not the culture


Bindu Rai — Entertainment Editor


Urban dictionary and social media may have defined cancel culture as a millennial crusade, but the OK Boomers and generations that came long before had their own monikers to label their revolutions.


Criticism towards calling out or cancelling wrongdoers as the woke thing to do these days has found many takers in the recent past. Former US President Barack Obama was one of the most notable critics who argued that social media judgements don’t amount to true activism.


JK Rowling, author of the critically-acclaimed ‘Harry Potter’ series, also threw her weight behind Obama’s cause, while stepping up as one of 150 celebrity signatories to denounce the cancel culture in an open letter this month, which called out the “disproportionate punishments” given to its targets.


Rowling’s voice appears almost hypocritical and self-serving in light of the fact that she herself bore the brunt of online hate for her views on transgender issues in recent weeks.


Culture must also remain equally resilient to bring about real change
-


While the jury may be divided over the author’s stance, the question has never been about whether Rowling was right or wrong in her views, but rather, can the world keep quiet any longer in the face of wrongdoing?


It is undeniable that #MeToo used this tool effectively to bring down the empires of the Harvey Weinsetins and Kevin Spaceys of this world after years of abuse and suppression.


Calling out George Floyd’s wrongful death at the hands of a police officer, and the corresponding protests that gave a renewed voice to the Black Lives Matters movement, are not just matters of historical record or your flash-in-the-pan couch side activism.


These were revolutions given voice by the movements that the cancel culture spearheaded. Online bullying, brandishing rape and death threats can never find endorsement in true believers, but damning a powerful collective voice over the crimes of a few is also not an effective solution.


Cancel the perpetrators with zeal, but the culture must also remain equally resilient to bring about real change.

Premise that cancel culture is based on is perhaps as old as civilisation itself

 Image Credit: Gulf News

Two sides to a coin


Sanjib Kumar Das — Assistant Editor


“My right to pull a punch ends where your nose begins”. A casual acquaintance, a co-passenger rather, had once said this to me during a banter on a moving train somewhere in India, as we were engaged in a point-counter point on the merits and demerits of a democracy, vis-a-vis a dictatorship.


In the wake of the current furore over ‘cancel culture’, I was once again reminded about that statement that I had heard many years ago, the basic import of which being: All rights and privileges, in whatever form or shape they come in a liberalised world, are only relative.


Cancel Culture, more than anything else, has really brought this debate front and centre — that while opinion should be nuanced and not over-the-top, reaction to opinion should also be within the limits of civility and based on a very rational and malleable approach to perspectives — even when they are not necessarily to one’s liking.


Any communication or dialogue cannot take place in a vacuum
-


Cancel culture is a relatively new term, but the premise it is based on is perhaps as old as civilisation itself. And there are always two sides to this debate: A Donald Trump who holds “far-Left fascists” responsible for all things evil in the liberal world is as guilty as many of the signatories to that open letter in Harper’s magazine who feel that the “lifeblood of a liberal society is daily becoming more constricted”, for they are as much guilty with their lack of accountability and misjudgements.


Any communication or dialogue cannot take place in a vacuum. Context is what makes any interaction worth being a part of. And this question of context cannot be seen or understood in isolation from the subject on hand. When author Salman Rushdie made certain contentious comments in his celebrated work ‘Midnight’s Children’, the temptation, for some, to take it out of context and give it a sinister twist was too high.


That was far from being a constructive critique. Issuing a religious edict to stifle a creative voice is the worst form of fundamentalism. Likewise, when painter late M.F. Hussain depicted images of a certain deity that seemed to be derogatory to some, the reaction it generated from a section of self-proclaimed gatekeepers of religious and cultural ethos was shocking to the core.


Both, in case of Rushdie and Hussain, cancel culture was at play in its ugliest form perhaps. The debate was taken out of context to give it a hue that the creators of the original works had probably never intended. That was unfortunate.


But on the flip side, didn’t Rushdie and Hussain also make an error of judgement in not realising what could be the fallout of a sweeping cultural generalisation?


If they didn’t, then that was their hubris. Creators of content, in any field or occupation, ought to remember that it is all right to project reality or a perception of reality or a myth or an analogy from a certain sense of artistic entitlement, so long as that sense of entitlement is not based on a perceived sense of intellectual superiority that tends to co-opt broad cultural ethos and sensitivities.

There are many instances of supposed cancel culture that have really been trolling disguised in a cloak of woke Image Credit: Gulf News

Cancel culture does not threaten free speech


Tabitha Barda — Baby and Child Editor


Everyone seems to have a slightly different perception of what cancel culture means and because of that it’s not a terribly helpful term.


However, the movement at its roots has a positive role to play.


At its core it is a way for people to rally together and call for a boycott or ‘cancellation’ of high-profile, influential people who have been offensive or harmful in some way to a marginalised group.


The ‘ganging up’ aspect of this may feel uncomfortable, but the point is that these people would not be heard on their own — the group is what gives them a voice.


It overlaps with call-out culture but goes one step further: holding privileged public figures to account for their words or actions, and calling for retribution through a “cancellation” of their status and influence.


It can quickly become needlessly sadistic and slide into online bullying
-


Cancel culture does not threaten free speech — It is using the strength of many voices to balance out an already amplified voice


However, like a lot of things on social media, it’s easily abused, and can turn cruel and destructive in a flash.


The power structures at play are important. If the person being ‘cancelled’ has considerable public cachet and has said or done something to marginalise a minority group then that’s cancel culture (as I understand it). If any of these dynamics is slightly off then it can quickly become needlessly sadistic and slide into online bullying.


Without a doubt there are many instances of supposed cancel culture that have really been trolling disguised in a cloak of woke.


But where it comes into its own — and the reason why it is so profoundly unsettling for many people (especially for the sort of writers and thinkers who signed the Harper’s open letter) — is where it calls out and punishes those public figures who are doing something or expressing an opinion that up until now has been widely accepted.


This is where it truly challenges the status quo and can be a powerful force for societal change.


Put it this way: Were you aware that defining “people who menstruate” as “women” was controversial before JK Rowling was ‘cancelled’ for doing so? If not then cancel culture has done its job.

The entire idea of cancelling people is poisonous Image Credit: Gulf News

We need to stop trying to tear people down


Yousra Zaki — Senior Features Editor


The first time I came across cancel culture, was when I read about a “feud” between two beauty influencers over YouTube. The two make-up moguls, James Charles and Tati Westbrook, had a falling out.


The YouTube and social media battle of immense proportions played out right before our eyes. The YouTube star and make-up artist Westbrook, had at the time completely severed ties with 19-year-old YouTube megastar Charles.


Tati posted a 43-minute YouTube video titled: “BYE SISTER” in which, she explained the ongoing feud between both of them and her decision to cut her ties with James. Basically, all he did was promote a vitamin brand that is a competitor to her own vitamin brand.


A person’s actions do not define who they are
-


The beauty community “cancelled” James. He lost over 1 million YouTube subscribers in less than 24 hours. People sent him hate messages on social media and unfollowed him on his platforms.


This is an example of how cancel culture is a dumb way for society to invest their time in blowing people’s mistakes or negative comments out of proportion. The entire idea of cancelling people is poisonous because humans make mistakes, they say dumb things and they sometimes act stupid. However a person’s actions do not define who they are.


JK Rowling for example, has donated the proceeds of the two of her books to Comic Relief — a total estimated at over £17 million. She regularly contributes to over 20 different charities including supporting AIDS, cancer, homelessness and more. However, she was cancelled due to her comments.


Rowling has drawn criticism for posting tweets taking issue with the phrase “people who menstruate”. “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out,” she had tweeted earlier, resulting in many calling her out for being transphobic.


We need to stop trying to tear people down.

Photos: Animal baby boom at Palestinian zoo after people disappear

15 animals were born at the tiny Qalqilya Zoo in West Bank during the two months lockdown

Published: June 13, 2020 

Reuters and compiled by Balaram Menon, Digital Content Editor

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Peacocks, ostriches and baboons joined in an animal baby boom at a Palestinian zoo during the coronavirus closure as they let nature take its course free from human distractions. Above: Veterinarian Sami Khader puts a diaper on a baby baboon, which was born at the Qalqilya Zoo, West BankImage Credit: REUTERS
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Visitors hold a baby baboon at the zoo. Fifteen animals were born at the tiny Qalqilya Zoo in the Israeli-occupied West Bank during the two months that it shut its doors to visitors - three times more than usual, zoo officials said.Image Credit: REUTERS
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"The coronavirus spread at the same time that trips were expected at the zoo. They were cancelled and therefore the animals started to give birth," said zoo veterinarian Sami Khader.Image Credit: REUTERS
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An ostrich that laid eggs in normal years rarely had the chance to incubate them properly. But this year she produced 11 eggs and "because there weren't people around her, she was able to build a nest", he said.Image Credit: REUTERS
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In the monkey enclosure, usually bedevilled by miscarriages, one baboon gave birth, although she had little inclination to take care of the baby.Image Credit: REUTERS
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"My father had to bring him to our house," said the vet's daughter, Hind Khader. "I took care of him and gave him milk."Image Credit: REUTERS
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A bear eats a watermelon. The zoo reopened in late May as Palestinian officials eased COVID-19 restrictions.Image Credit: REUTERS
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Now zoo managers hope the newborn attractions will be enough of a draw to compensate for 200,000 lost visitors.Image Credit: REUTERS
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A worker feeds a hippo at the zoo.Image Credit: REUTERS
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A baby baboon is fed by the daughter of veterinarian Sami Khader.Image Credit: REUTERS
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A lion is seen in an enclosure at the Qalqilya Zoo.Image Credit: REUTERS
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Veterinarian Sami Khader looks after a baby baboon.Image Credit: REUTERS
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A baby baboon looks from a box at the zoo.Image Credit: REUTERS

West Bank: UAE, Jordan voice Arab rejection of Israeli annexation plans

Arabs should rally the world to ensure a fair deal that will lead to a Palestinian state

Published: July 25, 2020 Gulf News

Palestinians protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, in Beta village near Nablus on June 12, 2020. Image Credit: Reuters

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For the past 50 years, all international resolutions have stipulated that a future Palestinian state should be established within the borders existed on June 4, 1967. That includes all the West Bank, occupied Jerusalem, and Gaza. Thus, any plan or a proposal which overlooks this undeniable right is unacceptable.


According to the Israeli media, the United States has apparently told Benjamin Netanyahu’s government that Washington was ready to support Israel’s planned illegal annexation of at least 30 per cent of the West Bank on the condition that land should be ‘earmarked’ by Israel for the future Palestinian state. This not just absurd, it is farcical.

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The international community has condemned the annexation plans, except for the US, which seems to be, according to the Israeli media, negotiating the terms of giving the go-ahead for Netanyahu’s plans. Israel says the US approval is part of President Donald Trump’s so-called ‘Deal of the Century’. That is one more reason to reject the American plan. By annexing a third of the occupied land and usurping the entire Jerusalem, Israel is effectively knocking down any possibility for a viable Palestinian state.


The Middle East has been suffering, for more than 70 years, the results of the 1911 Belfour Declaration in which Britain promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine. Today, the Americans are doing the same, by promising Israel something that doesn’t belong to them. The Palestinians are the only people who will decide on their future.



The Arabs have made it clear that such plans are unacceptable. The latest unequivocal declaration to that effect was made on Wednesday in Abu Dhabi.


It is essential to build on these initiatives internationally to exert pressure on Netanyahu to give up his atrocious plan that would undoubtedly kill whatever a glimmer of hope left in the peace process.
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At the meeting, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and King Abdullah of Jordan said that Israel’s annexation plan would undermine the prospects of peace in the Middle East, especially the two-state solution. They called for pan-Arab coordination with other world powers to reject the plan and ensure a just, lasting and comprehensive peaceful settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which will lead to the establishment of an independent, sovereign and viable Palestinian state along the borders of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.


The position of the two leaders is important in rallying international support for the rights of the Palestinians to restore their right to self-determination. It is essential to build on these initiatives internationally to exert pressure on Netanyahu to give up his atrocious plan that would undoubtedly kill whatever a glimmer of hope left in the peace process.

It’s too late to stop #QAnon with fact checks and account bans

Twitter and Facebook won't be able to deal with the 'omniconspiracy' without ‘rethinking the entire information ecosystem’
by Abby Ohlheiser archive page
July 26, 2020

UNSPLASH/@DOLE777


Twitter is perfect as a megaphone for the far right: its trending topics are easy to game, journalists spend way too much time on the site, and—if you’re lucky—the President of the United States might retweet you.

QAnon, the continuously evolving pro-Trump conspiracy theory, is good at Twitter in the same way as other successful internet-native ideologies—using the platform to manipulate information, attention and distribution all at the same time. On Tuesday, Twitter took a step aimed at limiting how successful QAnon can be there, including taking down about 7,000 accounts that promote the conspiracy, designating QAnon as “coordinated harmful activity,” and preventing related terms from showing up in trending and search results.

“We will permanently suspend accounts Tweeting about these topics that we know are engaged in violations of our multi-account policy, coordinating abuse around individual victims, or are attempting to evade a previous suspension,” Twitter announced. The company added that they’d seen an increase in those activities in recent weeks.

The New York Times reported that Facebook was planning to "take similar steps to limit the reach of QAnon content on its platform" next month, citing two employees of the company who spoke anonymously. On Friday, TikTok blocked several hashtags related to QAnon from search results.

This most recent push to limit QAnon's reach follows two high-profile campaigns driven by QAnon. First American model and celebrity Chrissy Teigen, who has more than 13 million followers on Twitter, was the target of an intense harassment campaign, then more recently, QAnon accounts were instrumental in spreading a bogus human trafficking conspiracy theory about the furniture marketplace Wayfair. The claims spread from Twitter's trending bar to Instagram and TikTok accounts promoting the conspiracy theory to their followers.
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“That activity has raised the profile of the very long-standing problem of coordinated brigading. That kind of mass harassment has a significant impact on people's lives,” said Renee DiResta, research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory and an expert in online disinformation.

But Twitter proficiency is only one small part of why QAnon wields influence, and just one example of how platforms amplify fringe beliefs and harmful activity. To actually stop QAnon, experts say, would take a lot more work and coordination. That is, if it’s even possible. 

An omniconspiracy

QAnon was born in late 2017 after a quip President Donald Trump made in a press conference about a “calm before the storm” spawned a series of mysterious posts on 4chan attributed to “Q,” predicting the coming arrest of Hillary Clinton. Although that didn’t happen, “Q” continued to post, claiming to know all about a secret plan led by Trump to arrest his enemies.

“QAnon has its origin in a multiplatform conversation that started off on social media, in a pseudonymous environment, where there's no consequence for speech,” says Brian Friedberg, a senior researcher at the Harvard Shorenstein Center’s Technology and Social Change Project. The posts have moved from one site to another following bans, and now appear on a messageboard called 8kun.

The posts have attracted followers who spend their time interpreting these messages, drawing conclusions, and leading campaigns to make the messages more visible. Some QAnon adherents have led coordinated harassment campaigns against journalists, rival online communities, celebrities, and liberal politicians. Others have shown up at Trump rallies wearing “Q” themed merchandise. The president has retweeted Q or conspiracy theory-related Twitter accounts dozens of times, although it’s an open question how aware he is of what Q is, beyond a movement that supports his presidency on the internet. And there have been multiple incidents of real-life violence linked to QAnon supporters.
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The traditional understanding of QAnon was that its ideas are spread by a relatively small number of adherents who are extremely good at manipulating social media for maximum visibility. But the pandemic made that more complicated, as QAnon began merging more profoundly with health misinformation spaces, and rapidly growing its presence on Facebook.

At this point, QAnon has become an omniconspiracy theory, says DiResta—it’s no longer just about some message board posts, but instead a broad movement promoting many different, linked ideas. Researchers know that belief in one conspiracy theory can lead to acceptance of others, and powerful social media recommendation algorithms have essentially turbocharged that process. For instance, DiResta says, research has shown that members of anti-vaccine Facebook groups were seeing recommendations for groups that promoted the Pizzagate conspiracy theory back in 2016.

“The recommendation algorithm appears to have recognized a correlation between users who shared a conviction that the government was concealing a secret truth. The specifics of the secret truth varied,” she says.

Researchers have known for years that different platforms play different roles in coordinated campaigns. People will coordinate in a chat app, message board, or private Facebook group, target their messages (including harassment and abuse) on Twitter, and host videos about the entire thing on YouTube.

In this information ecosystem Twitter functions more like a marketing campaign for QAnon, where content is created to be seen and interacted with by outsiders, while Facebook is a powerhouse for coordination, especially in closed groups.

"Q" has made many incorrect predictions, and continues to advance the belief that there is a 'deep state' plot against Donald Trump.

Reddit used to be a mainstream hub of QAnon activity, until the site started clamping down on it in 2018 for inciting violence and repeated violations of its terms of service. But instead of diminishing its power, QAnon simply shifted to other mainstream social media platforms where they were less likely to be banned.

This all means that when a platform acts on its own to block or reduce the impact of QAnon, it only attacks one part of the problem.

Friedberg said that, to him, it feels as if social media platforms were “waiting for an act of mass violence in order to coordinate” a more aggressive deplatforming effort. But the potential harm of QAnon is already obvious if you stop viewing it as a pro-Trump curiosity and instead see it for what it is: “a distribution mechanism for disinformation of every variety,” Friedberg said, one that adherents are willing to openly promote and identify with, no matter the consequences.
“People can be deprogrammed”

Steven Hassan, a mental health counselor and an expert on cults who escaped from Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, known as the “Moonies”, says that discussing groups like QAnon as solely a misinformation or algorithmic problem is not enough.

“I look at QAnon as a cult,” Hassan says. “When you get recruited into a mind control cult, and get indoctrinated into a new belief system...a lot of it is motivated by fear.”


"They've had three years of almost unfettered access to develop and expand."

“People can be deprogrammed from this,” Hassan says. “But the people who are going to be most successful doing this are family members and friends.” People who are already close to a QAnon supporter could be trained to have “multiple interactions over time” with them, to pull them out.

If platforms wanted to seriously address ideologies like QAnon, they’d do much more than they are, he says.

First, Facebook would have to educate users not just on how to spot misinformation, but also how to understand when they are being manipulated by coordinated campaigns. Coordinated pushes on social media are a major factor in QAnon’s growing reach on mainstream platforms, as recently documented by the Guardian, over the past several months. The group has explicitly embraced “information warfare” as a tactic for gaining influence. In May, Facebook removed a small collection of QAnon-affiliated accounts for inauthentic behavior.

And second, Hassan recommends that platforms stop people from descending into algorithmic or recommendation tunnels related to QAnon, and instead feed them with content from people like him, who have survived and escaped from cults—especially from those who got sucked into and climbed out of QAnon.

Friedberg, who has deeply studied the movement, says he believes it is “absolutely” too late for mainstream social media platforms to stop QAnon, although there are some things they could do to, say, limit its adherents' ability to evangelize on Twitter.

“They've had three years of almost unfettered access outside of certain platforms to develop and expand,” Friedberg says. Plus, QAnon supporters have an active relationship with the source of the conspiracy theory, who constantly posts new content to decipher and mentions the social media messages of Q supporters in his posts. Breaking QAnon’s influence would require breaking trust between “Q,” an anonymous figure with no defining characteristics, and their supporters. Considering “Q’s long track record of inaccurate predictions, that’s difficult, and, critical media coverage or deplatforming have yet to really do much on that front. If anything, they only fuel QAnon believers to assume they’re on to something.

The best ideas to limit QAnon would require drastic change and soul searching from the people who run the companies on whose platforms QAnon has thrived. But even this week’s announcements aren’t quite as dramatic as they might seem at first: Twitter clarified that it wouldn’t automatically apply its new policies against politicians who promote QAnon content, including several promoters who are running for office in the US.

And, Friedberg said, QAnon supporters were “poised to test these limitations, and already testing these limitations.” For instance, Twitter banned certain conspiracy-affiliated URLs from being shared, but people already have alternative ones to use.

In the end, actually doing something about that would require “rethinking the entire information ecosystem,” says Diresta. “And I mean that in a far broader sense than just reacting to one conspiracy faction.”
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AuthorAbby Ohlheiser

Humans and technology July 26

NAKED PROTEST BRIT STYLE

LONDON (Reuters) - A man strolled down central London’s most popular shopping street on Friday with only a mask to cover his nudity, leaving passerbys astounded, amused and shocked.

As the man walked nonchalantly along Oxford Street, naked except for the light blue face mask over his groin, some took pictures on their phones while others simply stared.

It was unclear what prompted the stunt but masks became compulsory on Friday in English shops.

A Reuters photographer caught a picture of the man from an office above the street.

Reporting by Simon Dawson, writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky

NAKED TRUTH SPEAKS TO POWER