Workers say employers are guilty of 'quiet firing' them as the debate over 'quiet quitting' goes viral

bnguyen@insider.com (Britney Nguyen) - 

ciricvelibor/Getty Images© ciricvelibor/Getty Images
The term "quiet quitting" is going viral online, but social media is pushing back at what it means.
Some argue the term is making employees look bad for just doing the job they're paid to do.
"Quiet firing" is placing blame on bosses for treating workers badly instead of firing them.

"Quiet quitting" is the latest buzzword taking over the workplace. But people on social media are arguing the term is focusing on the wrong problem.

The term, which took off on TikTok among millennials and Gen Zers, is referring to employees doing what their job expects of them, and not offering to do more than what they get paid to do.

In a post on the r/antiwork Reddit page, one user wrote that quiet quitting is just "someone only doing what's in their job description and nothing more."

"Why is it apparently an expectation that someone should do more than what they have been hired to do?," the user wrote.

Enter "quiet firing" — the response to quiet quitting.

Quiet firing, as people on social media are describing it, is when employers treat workers badly to the point they will quit, instead of the employer just firing them.

Related video: Quiet Quitting Duration 1:32  View on Watch

In a reply to a tweet about quiet quitting, software developer Randy Miller said, "A lot of talk about 'quiet quitting' but very little talk about 'quiet firing' which is when you don't give someone a raise in 5 years even though they keep doing everything you ask them to."

But a raise isn't the only indicator of quiet firing. Others on social media pointed to lack of respect from employers, and bosses expecting workers to do extra work without being compensated for it, as red flags.

Another Twitter user pointed to minimal paid time off and minimal sick time as indicators of being quietly fired, too.

The debate between quiet quitting and quiet firing is reminiscent of a larger conversation about the relationship between employers and employees.

For example, employers were complaining about employees "ghosting coasting" — showing up to work as a new employee for a few days, then leaving without notice before they could be fired for being under-qualified.

But employees said it was employers who had been ghosting job applicants for years, by not returning calls and not showing up to job interviews.

While employers are placing blame on employees for not going above and beyond at their jobs by calling them "quitters," the quiet-firing crowd is pointing out that they shouldn't have to if their needs can't be met too.

Have you been 'quiet fired,' or 'quiet fired' someone? Contact the reporter from a non-work email at bnguyen@insider.com.

AN ISSUE FOR DEMS TO RUN ON

AP-NORC poll: Most in US say they want stricter gun laws

By SARA BURNETT

yesterday

Various guns are displayed at a store on July 18, 2022, in Auburn, Maine. Most U.S. adults think gun violence is increasing nationwide and want to see gun laws made stricter. That's according to a new poll that finds broad public support for a variety of gun restrictions. The poll comes from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)


CHICAGO (AP) — Most U.S. adults want to see gun laws made stricter and think gun violence is increasing nationwide, according to a new poll that finds broad public support for a variety of gun restrictions, including many that are supported by majorities of Republicans and gun owners.

The poll by the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows 71% of Americans say gun laws should be stricter, including about half of Republicans, the vast majority of Democrats and a majority of those in gun-owning households.

The poll was conducted between July 28 and Aug. 1, after a string of deadly mass shootings — from a New York grocery store to a school in Texas and a July 4 parade in Illinois — and a 2020 spike in gun killings that have increased attention on the issue of gun violence. Overall, 8 in 10 Americans perceive that gun violence is increasing around the country, and about two-thirds say it’s increasing in their state, though less than half believe it’s increasing in their community, the poll shows.

The question of how to prevent such violence has long divided politicians and many voters, making it difficult to change gun laws. In June, a conservative majority on the Supreme Court expanded gun rights, finding a constitutional right to carry firearms in public for self-defense.

Later that same month, President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan gun safety bill. The package, approved in the wake of shootings like the one that killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, was both a measured compromise and the most significant bill addressing gun violence to be approved in Congress in decades — an indication of how intractable the issue has become.

The poll finds that majorities of U.S. adults view both reducing gun violence and protecting gun ownership as important issues.

Nicole Whitelaw, 29, is a Democrat and gun owner who grew up hunting and target shooting in upstate New York with her strongly Republican family. Whitelaw, who now lives along Florida’s Gulf Coast, supports some gun restrictions, such as prohibiting people convicted of domestic violence from owning firearms and a federal law preventing mentally ill people from purchasing guns.

She said other restrictions — such as banning sales of AR-15 rifles — are “going too far” and may not solve the problem. Whitelaw pointed to the the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many people bought up all the toilet paper they could find.

“I think people would start trying to hoard guns,” she said, adding that a better approach is to make smaller changes and see what impact they have.

The poll shows bipartisan majorities of Americans support a nationwide background check policy for all gun sales, a law preventing mentally ill people from purchasing guns, allowing courts to temporarily prevent people who are considered a danger to themselves or others from purchasing a gun, making 21 the minimum age to buy a gun nationwide and banning those who have been convicted of domestic violence from purchasing a gun.

A smaller majority of Americans — 59% — favor a ban on the sale of AR-15 rifles and similar semiautomatic weapons, with Democrats more likely to support that policy than Republicans, 83% vs. 35%.

Chris Boylan, 47, from Indianapolis, opposes restrictions on guns. As a teacher for many years, Boylan said he has “buried more kids than I care to count” and believes gun violence is a major problem. But the Republican, who said he leans more toward Libertarian in his personal stances, believes the issue is more about mental health and a too-lenient criminal justice system.

“Blaming the gun is an oversimplification of what the issues really are,” Boylan said. “It’s not the gun. It’s a hearts-and-minds issue to me.”

The new poll finds 88% of Americans call preventing mass shootings extremely or very important, and nearly as many say that about reducing gun violence in general. But 60% also say it’s very important to ensure that people can own guns for personal protection.

Overall, 52% of Americans -- including 65% of Republicans and 39% of Democrats -- say both reducing mass shootings and protecting the right to own guns for personal protection highly important.

University of Chicago professor Jens Ludwig said the poll’s findings show that concerns raised by opponents of gun restrictions are “very off base.” Led by the National Rifle Association, the gun lobby argues that any new limitations on who may have a gun or what type of firearms may be sold will lead to nationwide bans on all weapons and ammunition.

The poll showed most Americans’ opinions are more nuanced and there is support for some changes even among Republicans, who as elected officials typically oppose gun control, said Ludwig, who also is director of the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab.

“It should shut the door to some of the ‘slippery slope’ arguments,” he said.

The poll also found that only about 3 in 10 Americans support a law allowing people to carry guns in public without a permit. Seventy-eight percent of Democrats are opposed. Among Republicans, 47% are in favor and 39% are opposed.

Ervin Leach, 66, lives in Troutman, North Carolina, north of Charlotte, believes gun violence is a major problem and says that laws should be much more strict. A Democrat, Leach said he supports measures like background checks — or what he said should be “in-depth studies” — and a minimum age of 21 to buy a gun.

The poll found 1 in 5 people have experienced gun violence themselves in the last five years, such as being threatened with a gun or a shooting victim, or had a close friend or family member who has. Black and Hispanic Americans are especially likely to say that they or someone close to them has experienced gun violence.

Leach, who is Black, said the gun violence he sees in the news has made him more cautious.

“I don’t like people approaching me,” he said. “It used to be if someone was on the side of the road, you’d stop to help. Now, you go to help somebody, you might lose your life.”

All the killings have caused Leach to contemplate buying a gun for his own protection. While he hasn’t had a chance yet to get his gun permit, he said, “That is my intention.”

___

AP Polling Reporter Hannah Fingerhut in Washington contributed to this report.

___

The poll of 1,373 adults was conducted July 28-Aug. 1 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of gun violence at https://apnews.com/hub/gun-violence.

Just over half of Americans say U.S. should back Ukraine until Russia withdraws - Reuters/Ipsos poll

By Simon Lewis

August 24, 2022,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After half a year of war in Ukraine, a slim majority of Americans agree that the United States should continue to support Kyiv until Russia withdraws all its forces, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Wednesday.

The polling suggests continued support for President Joe Biden's policy of backing Ukraine, despite economic worries and domestic political developments grabbing Americans' attention in recent months.

The Biden administration has provided weapons and ammunition for Ukraine's bid to repel Russian forces and is expected to announce a new security assistance package of about $3 billion, a U.S. official said, as Ukraine's marks its Independence Day on Wednesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has vowed to recapture territory seized after the Feb. 24 invasion and in earlier incursions beginning in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea.

Out of 1,005 people in the United States who took part in an online poll last week, 53% expressed support for backing Ukraine "until all Russian forces are withdrawn from territory claimed by Ukraine." Only 18% said they opposed.

That support came from both sides of the political divide, although Democratic voters were more likely to back the position, with 66% of Democrats in support compared to 51% of Republicans.

A slim majority, 51%, also supported providing arms such as guns and anti-tank weapons to Ukraine's military, compared with 22% who opposed.

In previous polls, higher numbers of Americans have backed providing arms to Ukraine but directly comparable polling was not available.

In line with past polling, there was little support among Americans from across the political spectrum for sending U.S. troops to Ukraine. Only 26% said they supported such an intervention, but 43% agreed with sending U.S. troops to NATO allies neighboring Ukraine who are not at war with Russia.

The poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

(Reporting by Simon Lewis; Editing by Mary Milliken and Cynthia Osterman)

REACTIONARIES

Anti-mandate protesters converge on New Zealand Parliament

By NICK PERRY

yesterday

1 of 8

Freedom and Rights Coalition protesters demonstrate outside Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. About 2,000 protesters upset with the government's pandemic response converged on New Zealand's Parliament — but it appeared there would be no repeat of the action six months ago in which protesters camped out on Parliament grounds for more than three weeks.

 (Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald via AP)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — About 2,000 protesters upset with the government’s pandemic response converged Tuesday on New Zealand’s Parliament — but there was no repeat of the occupation six months ago in which protesters camped on Parliament grounds for more than three weeks.

Many of the protesters said they had no intention of trying to stay. And police ensured a repeat was unlikely by closing streets, erecting barricades and banning protesters from bringing structures onto Parliament’s grounds.

The previous protest created significant disruptions in the capital and ended in chaos as retreating protesters set fire to tents and hurled rocks at police.

This time there was also a counter-protest, with several hundred people gathering in front of Parliament as the main march entered the grounds. The two sides shouted insults but a line of police officers kept them physically separated.

The earlier protest had been more sharply focused on opposition to COVID-19 vaccination mandates.

New Zealand’s government initially required that health workers, teachers, police, firefighters and soldiers get vaccinated. But it has since removed most of those mandates, with the exception of health workers and some others. It has also removed requirements that people be vaccinated to visit stores and bars

Tuesday’s protest was as much about lingering discontentment over the government’s handling of the crisis as it was about current rules, including a requirement that people wear masks in stores.

Protester Carmen Page said people who hadn’t been vaccinated face ongoing discrimination and people lost their jobs and homes as a result of the mandates, which she said amounted to government overreach.

“We’re not here to be controlled,” Page said. “We just want to live our lives freely. We want to work where we want to work, without discrimination.”

At the counter-protest, Lynne Maugham said she and her husband had extended a stay in the capital to attend.

“I’ve got nothing but respect for the mandates, for the vaccinations, for the way the health providers have handled the whole thing,” she said.

Maugham said the government hadn’t done everything perfectly but had done a good job overall. “There’s no blueprint for handling a pandemic,” she said.

Like many of the protesters opposing mandates and other government’s actions, Mania Hungahunga was part of a group called The Freedom & Rights Coalition and a member of the Christian fundamentalist Destiny Church.

Hungahunga said every New Zealander had been negatively impacted by the mandates. He said he’d traveled from Auckland to protest but wasn’t planning an occupation.

“We’re just here for the day, a peaceful day, just to get our message through to the public and the people of Wellington,” he said.

Many of the protesters said they were hoping that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern would get voted out in next year’s election. Protest leader Brian Tamaki told the crowd he was starting a new political party to contest the election.

Tamaki and his wife, Hannah Tamaki, founded the Destiny Church, which they say is the largest Māori and Pacific Island church movement in New Zealand.

Ardern was first elected prime minister in 2017 and her initial pandemic response proved enormously popular. Her liberal Labour Party won re-election in 2020 in a landslide of historic proportions.

But as the pandemic dragged on and the country faced new problems, including inflation, Ardern’s popularity has waned. Recent opinion polls have put the conservative opposition National Party ahead of Labour.

Authorities said there were no initial reports of violence or other problems at the protests.

Children of climate change come of age in ‘Katrina Babies’
BY DREW COSTLEY

yesterday

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Edward Buckles, Jr., a New Orleans native who was 13 when Hurricane Katrina hit and directed the documentary "Katrina Babies," poses underneath the Claiborne Avenue overpass for a photo in the city on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022. The film looks at how a generation of New Orleans residents coming of age after Hurricane Katrina, are reconciling with the catastrophic storm that transformed their lives. (AP Photo/Chansey Augustine)


Edward Buckles, Jr. was 13 when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and completely upended his life. Buckles and his family moved from New Orleans to Lafayette, Louisiana for several months while their hometown began to recover from the catastrophic storm.

He told The Associated Press he doesn’t remember much from those months living in Lafayette, grasping for a sense of normalcy in the aftermath of one of the most destructive hurricanes in American history.

His community was experiencing so much destruction. Now as an adult, he views that blank spot in his memory as a response to the trauma of what he witnessed.

Buckles’ parents asked him at the time if he was okay, but he wasn’t quite able to figure that out for himself in the moment. Later the trauma resurfaced. With kids, he said, “what’s responsible and what’s important is that you set them up to deal with that trauma once it surfaces.”

But the filmmaker said in his new documentary “Katrina Babies” that not all the children who were traumatized by living through the hurricane and its aftermath had adults checking in on them. So that’s what he set out to do, capturing several New Orleans residents as they reconcile with a childhood marred by Hurricane Katrina.

The documentary, which has garnered critical praise, will be available for streaming on HBO Max on August 24 and debuts on HBO the same day at 9 pm ET, 17 years and a day after the hurricane formed in the Atlantic Ocean.

It shows how New Orleans and its people were changed by the storm. It depicts the childhood trauma it caused for a generation coming of age after one of the United States’ first major climate-related disasters. New Orleanians featured in the documentary share stories of seeing dead people and pets, of leaving home and returning to communities destroyed, while they were still children.

The film looks at climate past and present and, the filmmakers hope, sounds alarm bells for the climate future.

“I hope this is a local and American story that will motivate people to want to do better and care about human beings, and about how intrinsically linked we are with nature and that the future is clear: There is going to be more of this,” said Audrey Rosenberg, lead producer of the film.

Buckles said that while Hurricane Katrina might has been a formative experience for him and the youth of New Orleans at the time, more waters have come through since. Though he isn’t a climate scientist, he knows firsthand the repeated damage wrought on his hometown by hurricanes and tropical storms made more intense by climate change.

“My grandmother lost her home due to flooding from Hurricane Katrina,” he said. “She has been flooded seven more times just from tropical storms.”

Cierra Chenier, 26, was featured in the documentary and also knows people who have had to rebuild multiple times since Hurricane Katrina due to subsequent hurricanes and storms.

She said the loss of culture and history in New Orleans due to repeated climate-related disasters like Hurricane Katrina shaped her decision to become a local historian and writer.

“I got into wanting to preserve our history because of how quickly I felt my childhood became history,” she said. Even though the storm was 17 years ago, she said, it continues to shape the present.

“In preserving our stories, writing about those stories and narrating those stories, it’s always connected to the present and we can form better solutions for the future,” she said.

Chenier, Buckles and the other youth affected by Hurricane Katrina have a lot to say about the future, having experienced years of government inaction to limit climate change or prepare and recover from climate disasters. Year after year, New Orleanians and the state and federal government know that hurricane season is going to come and be potentially catastrophic because of climate change, Buckles said.

And still, he said, Hurricane Ida, which hit New Orleans 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina, affected people in his community in eerily similar ways to the 2005 storm. The relief measures, he said, were nearly as slow.

As a result, people in his community have become more resilient. But he said he wonders whether government agencies are relying on those harmed by climate-related disasters to help themselves when what they really need is public planning and preparation.

“The youth are tired of dealing with this, myself included,” he said. “And we cannot forget to hold accountable those who need to be held accountable.”


Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Large section of smoldering Beirut port silos collapses

By KAREEM CHEHAYEB

yesterday

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This image from a video, shows smoke and dust rising from collapsing silos damaged during the August 2020 massive explosion in the port, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. The ruins of the Beirut Port silos' northern block that withstood a devastating port explosion two years ago has collapsed. The smoldering structure fell over on Tuesday morning into a cloud of dust, leaving the southern block standing next to a pile of charred ruins. (AP Photo/Lujain Jo)


BEIRUT (AP) — Another significant section of the devastated Beirut Port silos collapsed on Tuesday morning in a cloud of dust. No injuries were reported — the area had been long evacuated — but the collapse was another painful reminder of the horrific August 2020 explosion.

The collapse left the silos’ southern part standing next to a pile of charred ruins. The northern block had already been slowly tipping over since the initial explosion two years ago but rapidly deteriorated after it caught fire over a month ago due to fermenting grains.

The 50 year old, 48 meter (157 feet) tall silos had withstood the force of the explosion on Aug. 4, 2020, effectively shielding the western part of Beirut from the blast that killed over 200 people, injured more than 6,000 and badly damaged entire neighborhoods.

Emmanuel Durand, a French civil engineer who volunteered for the government-commissioned team of experts, told The Associated Press that the speed of the tilt rapidly accelerated overnight on Monday, just hours before the collapse.

“There was a very sharp acceleration, which was expected,” Durand explained. “When this happens, you know it’s going to go.”

The country’s caretaker environment minister, Nasser Yassin, told Lebanese TV that the government will now look into how to ensure the southern block remains standing. He urged residents near the port to wear masks, and said experts would conduct air quality tests.

In April, the Lebanese government decided to demolish the silos, but suspended the decision following protests from families of the blast’s victims and survivors. They contend that the silos may contain evidence useful for the judicial probe, and that it should stand as a memorial for the 2020 tragedy.

In July, a fire broke out in the northern block of the silos due to the fermenting grains. Firefighters and Lebanese Army soldiers were unable to put it out and it smoldered for over a month. Officials had warned that the silo could collapse, but feared risking the lives of firefighters and soldiers who struggled to get too close to put out the blaze or drop containers of water from helicopters.

Survivors of the blast and residents near the port have told the AP that watching the fire from their homes and offices was like reliving the trauma from the port blast, which started with a fire in a warehouse near the silos that contained hundreds of tons of explosive ammonium nitrate, improperly stored there for years.

The environment and health ministries in late July issued instructions to residents living near the port to stay indoors in well-ventilated spaces.

Durand last month told the AP that the fire from the grains had sped up the speed of the tilt of the shredded silo and caused irreversible damage to its weak concrete foundation.

The structure has rapidly deteriorated ever since. In late July, part of the northern block collapsed for the first time. Days later on the second anniversary of the Beirut Port blast, roughly a fourth of the structure collapsed. On Sunday, the fire expanded to large sections of the silo.

Whistleblower accuses Twitter of being 'grossly negligent' towards security


Mariella Moon
·Contributing Reporter
Tue, August 23, 2022 

Dado Ruvic / reuters


Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, Twitter's former head of security, says the company has misled regulators about its security measures in his whistleblower complaint that was obtained by The Washington Post. In his complaint filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, he accuses the company of violating the terms it had agreed to when it settled a privacy dispute with the FTC back in 2011. Twitter, he says, has "extreme, egregious deficiencies" when it comes to defending the website against attackers.

As part of that FTC settlement, Twitter had agreed to implement and monitor security safeguards to protect its users. However, Zatko says half of Twitter's servers are running out-of-date and vulnerable software and that thousands of employees still have wide-ranging internal access to core company software, which had previously led to huge breaches. If you'll recall, bad actors were able to commandeer the accounts of some of the most high-profile users on the website in 2020, including Barack Obama's and Elon Musk's, by targeting employees for their internal systems and tools using a social engineering attack.

It was after that incident that the company hired Zatko, who used to lead a program on detecting cyber espionage for DARPA, as head of security. He argues that security should be a bigger concern for the company, seeing as it has access to the email addresses and phone numbers of numerous public figures, including dissidents and activists whose lives may be in danger if they are doxxed.

The former security head wrote:

"Twitter is grossly negligent in several areas of information security. If these problems are not corrected, regulators, media and users of the platform will be shocked when they inevitably learn about Twitter’s severe lack of security basics.

In addition, Zatko has accused Twitter of prioritizing user growth over reducing spam by distributing bonuses tied to increasing the number of daily users. The company isn't giving out any bonuses directly tied to reducing spam on the website, the complaint said. Zatko also claims that he could not get a direct answer from Twitter regarding the true number of bots on the platform. Twitter has only been counting the bots that can view and click on ads since 2019, and in its SEC reports since then, its bot estimates has always been less than 5 percent.

Zatko wanted to know the actual number of bots across the platform, not just the monetizable ones. He cites a source who allegedly said that Twitter was wary of determining the real number of bots on the website, because it "would harm the image and valuation of the company." Indeed his revelation could factor into Twitter's legal battle against Elon Musk after the executive started taking steps to back out of his $44 billion takeover. Musk accused Twitter of fraud for hiding the real number of fake accounts on the website and revealed that his analysts found a much higher bot count than Twitter claimed. As The Post notes, though, Zatko provided limited hard documentary evidence regarding spam and bots, so it remains unclear if it would help Musk's case.

When asked why he filed a whistleblower complaint — he's being represented by the nonprofit law firm Whistleblower Aid — Zatko replied that he "felt ethically bound" to do so as someone who works in cybersecurity. Twitter spokesperson Rebecca Hahn, however, denied that the company doesn't make security a priority. "Security and privacy have long been top companywide priorities at Twitter," she said, adding that Zatko's allegations are "riddled with inaccuracies." She also said that Twitter fired Zatko after 15 months "for poor performance and leadership" and that he now "appears to be opportunistically seeking to inflict harm on Twitter, its customers, and its shareholders."

Shortly after the Post published its initial report, Senate and Congressional committee leaders announced they were already investigating Zatko's claims. The offices of Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin the committee's ranking member Chuck Grassley said they've already had discussions with Zatko. "The whistleblower’s allegations of widespread security failures at Twitter, willful misrepresentations by top executives to government agencies and penetration of the company by foreign intelligence raise serious concerns," Durbin wrote earlier today on Twitter.

Update: 8/23/22, 12:10PM ET: This story has been updated with the news that members of Congress have already begun investigating Zatko's claims about Twitter.

5 takeaways from Twitter whistleblower Peiter Zatko


The logo for Twitter appears above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Nov. 29, 2021. Startling new revelations from Twitter's former head of security, Peiter Zatko, have raised serious new questions about the security of the platform's service, its ability to identify and remove fake accounts, and the truthfulness of its statements to users, shareholders and federal regulators. 

(AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)


SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Startling new revelations from Twitter’s former head of security, Peiter Zatko, have raised serious new questions about the security of the platform’s service, its ability to identify and remove fake accounts, and the truthfulness of its statements to users, shareholders and federal regulators.

Zatko — better known by his hacker handle “Mudge” — is a respected cybersecurity expert who first gained prominence in the 1990s and later worked in senior positions at the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Agency and Google. Twitter fired him from the security job early this year for what the company called “ineffective leadership and poor performance.” Zatko’s attorneys say that claim is false.

In a whistleblower complaint made public Tuesday, Zatko documented his uphill 14-month effort to bolster Twitter security, boost the reliability of its service, repel intrusions by agents of foreign governments and both measure and take action against fake “bot” accounts that spammed the platform. In a statement, Twitter called Zatko’s description of events “a false narrative.”

Here are five takeaways from that whistleblower complaint.

TWITTER’S SECURITY AND PRIVACY SYSTEMS WERE GROSSLY INADEQUATE

TWITTER INC


In 2011, Twitter settled a Federal Trade Commission investigation into its privacy practices by agreeing to put stronger data security protections in place. Zatko’s complaint charges that Twitter’s problems grew worse over time instead.

For instance, the complaint states, Twitter’s internal systems allowed far too many employees access to personal user data they didn’t need for their jobs — a situation ripe for abuse. For years, Twitter also continued to mine user data such as phone numbers and email addresses — intended only for security purposes — for ad targeting and marketing campaigns, according to the complaint.

TWITTER’S ENTIRE SERVICE COULD HAVE COLLAPSED IRREPARABLY UNDER STRESS

One of the most striking revelations in Zatko’s complaint is the claim that Twitter’s internal data systems were so ramshackle — and the company’s contingency plans so insufficient — that any widespread crash or unplanned shutdown could have tanked the entire platform.

The concern was that a “cascading” data-center failure could quickly spread across Twitter’s fragile information systems. As the complaint put it: “That meant that if all the centers went offline simultaneously, even briefly, Twitter was unsure if they could bring the service back up. Downtime estimates ranged from weeks of round-the-clock work, to permanent irreparable failure.”

TWITTER MISLED REGULATORS, INVESTORS AND MUSK ABOUT FAKE “SPAM” BOTS

In essence, Zatko’s complaint states that Tesla CEO Elon Musk — whose $44 billion bid to acquire Twitter is headed for October trial in a Delaware court — is correct when he charges that Twitter executives have little incentive to accurately measure the prevalence of fake accounts on the system.

The complaint charges that the company’s executive leadership practiced “deliberate ignorance” on the subject of these so-called spam bots. “Senior management had no appetite to properly measure the prevalence of bot accounts,” the complaint states, adding that executives were concerned that accurate bot measurements would harm Twitter’s “image and valuation.”

ON JAN. 6, 2021, TWITTER COULD HAVE BEEN AT THE MERCY OF DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEES

Zatko’s complaint states that as a mob assembled in front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, eventually storming the building, he began to worry that employees sympathetic to the rioters might try to sabotage Twitter. That concern spiked when he learned it was “impossible” to protect the platform’s core systems from a hypothetical rogue or disgruntled engineer aiming to wreak havoc.

“There were no logs, nobody knew where data lived or whether it was critical, and all engineers had some form of critical access” to Twitter’s core functions, the complaint states.

A PLAYGROUND FOR FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS

The Zatko complaint also highlights Twitter’s difficulty in identifying — much less resisting — the presence of foreign agents on its service. In one instance, the complaint alleges, the Indian government required Twitter to hire specific individuals alleged to be spies, and who would have had significant access to sensitive data thanks to Twitter’s own lax security controls. The complaint also alleges a murkier situation involving taking money from unidentified “Chinese entities” that then could access data that might endanger Twitter users in China.

Panel: Trump staffers pushed unproven COVID treatment at FDA

By MATTHEW PERRONE and KEVIN FREKING2 hours ago

FILE - President Donald Trump listens as Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, speaks during a media briefing in the James Brady Briefing Room of the White House, Aug. 23, 2020, in Washington. Officials in the Trump White House tried to pressure U.S. health experts into reauthorizing a discredited COVID-19 treatment, according to a congressional investigation that provides new evidence of that administration’s efforts to override Food and Drug Administration decisions early in the pandemic. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Officials in the Trump White House tried to pressure U.S. health experts into reauthorizing a discredited COVID-19 treatment, according to a congressional investigation that provides new evidence of that administration’s efforts to override Food and Drug Administration decisions early in the pandemic.

The report Wednesday by the Democratic-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis also sheds new light on the role that television personalities played in bringing hydroxychloroquine to the attention of top White House officials. Investigators highlighted an email from Fox News’ Laura Ingraham and others from Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon who had a daytime TV show and is now the Republican Senate nominee in Pennsylvania. Ingraham attended an Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump, who himself took the anti-malaria drug.

The FDA originally authorized use of hydroxychloroquine in late March 2020 based on small studies suggesting it could have some effectiveness against the coronavirus. At that time, many researchers hoped that existing antiviral drugs could be used to fight the virus. But by June, FDA officials had concluded the drug was likely ineffective and could cause potentially dangerous heart complications, revoking its emergency use.

Efforts by the Trump administration to control the release of COVID-19 guidance and install political operatives at public health agencies have been well documented.

The report by the House subcommittee investigating the government’s COVID-19 response focused on pressure at the FDA, which serves as gatekeeper for the drugs, vaccines and other countermeasures against the virus.

Much of the information comes from an interview with the agency’s former commissioner, Dr. Stephen Hahn, who was picked for the job by Trump in late 2019. Frustrated by the pace of FDA’s medical reviews, Trump repeatedly accused Hahn -- without evidence -- of delaying decisions on COVID-19 drugs and vaccines “for political reasons.”

Although FDA commissioners are politically appointed, the agency’s scientists are expected to conduct their reviews free from outside influence. Indeed, the FDA’s credibility largely stems from its reputation for scientific independence.

But Hahn told investigators that he felt pressure due to the “persistence” of Trump aide Peter Navarro’s calls to reauthorize hydroxychloroquine after the FDA’s decision to pull its emergency use.

“We took a different stance at the FDA,” Hahn told investigators. “So that disagreement, which of course ultimately became somewhat public, was a source of pressure.”

The subcommittee chairman, Democrat Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, said efforts to bend the FDA’s scientific work on treatments and vaccines exemplified how the “prior administration prioritized politics over public health.” But Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, the panel’s top Republican, said the report was “further proof” that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., “only set up this sham panel to carry out a political vendetta” against Trump.

Much of the report focuses on actions taken by Navarro and Dr. Steven Hatfill, a virologist and outside adviser described by the subcommittee as a “full-time volunteer” on COVID-19 for the White House.

“Dr. Hatfill and Mr. Navarro devised multiple pressure schemes targeting FDA and federal officials who they contended were wrongly impeding widespread access to hydroxychloroquine,” according to the report.

In his response, Hatfill said: “We never wrongly pressured anyone. We simply followed the science and the overwhelming evidence as detailed in several studies available at the time.”

Navarro, in an emailed statement, said the subcommittee was “wrongly” perpetuating that hydroxychloroquine “was somehow dangerous.” He also said he has chronicled his battles with the FDA in his White House memoir.

Importantly, there’s no evidence that White House efforts ultimately changed the FDA’s decisions on hydroxychloroquine or any other therapies.

Investigators also cited a March 28, 2020, email from Oz to Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, stating that the drug “appears safe and results are better than expected.”

Birx forwarded the email to Hahn within the hour, saying “we should talk.”

A cancer specialist with no prior political experience, Hahn was widely criticized during the early COVID-19 response for decisions that appeared to cave to White House officials.

According to emails obtained by the committee, Hatfill described “constant fighting with (Dr. Anthony) Fauci and Dr. Hahn” over access to hydroxychloroquine during the summer. Fauci is the nation’s top infectious disease expert.

During this period Hatfill also urged Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., to request a federal investigation into the handling of hydroxychloroquine, according to a letter submitted for the Congressional Record.

There’s no indication such a request was made. But in mid-August, Johnson and fellow Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas wrote the FDA seeking an explanation for the denial to reinstate hydroxychloroquine’s authorization. Johnson also chaired a Senate committee hearing in November 2020 on treatment options and complained that doctors who prescribed hydroxychloroquine for COVID had been “scorned.”

In the fall of 2020, the focus of both FDA and White House officials turned to the upcoming authorization of the first COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.

As previously reported, the White House objected to an FDA requirement that vaccine makers gather two months of safety data before filing their applications, contending that condition would delay the launch of the shots. Trump had repeatedly stated the shots would be authorized before Election Day, despite government scientists signaling that timeline was unlikely.

The committee report suggested that the FDA’s guidance for vaccine manufacturers was delayed more than three weeks — from mid-September until early October — due to White House concerns.

Hahn told investigators the agency faced “pushback about the issue” from multiple officials, including Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who told the FDA commissioner on Sept. 23, 2020, that the White House would not sign off on the two-month requirement.

On Oct. 6, the FDA quietly published its vaccine guidelines as part of a larger set of documents for drugmakers. After the materials posted online, Hahn said Meadows called him to indicate that the FDA guidelines were approved.

The online publication drew fury from the president on Twitter.

“New FDA rules make it more difficult for them to speed up vaccines for approval before Election Day. Just another political hit job!” Trump tweeted at his FDA commissioner.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

Biden to unveil 3-part plan to wipe out $10,000 in student loan debt for millions


President Joe Bden walks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Wednesday after returning from Delaware, where he spent part of his two-week vacation. 

Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo

Aug. 24 (UPI) -- After thinking over the issue, President Joe Biden will announce a three-part plan on Wednesday to cancel some student loan debt for millions of borrowers and extend a pause on loan payments that's set to expire next week.

Biden had previously said he'd make a decision on the issue before the end of August.

The president's plan will include at least $10,000 in loan forgiveness for borrowers who earn less than $125,000 annually and is expected to apply only to undergraduate debt.

Biden is expected to announce the plan during a briefing in the Roosevelt Room of the White House at 2:15 p.m. EDT.

"For too many, the cost of borrowing for college is a lifelong burden," the White House said in a statement.

"Since 1980, the total cost of both four-year public and four-year private college has nearly tripled, even after accounting for inflation. Federal support has not kept up," it added. "Pell Grants once covered nearly 80% of the cost of a four-year public college degree for students from working families, but now only cover a third."

The three parts of Biden's plan include giving aid for COVID-19-related hardships, making the student loan system more manageable and reducing the cost of college and holding schools accountable when they hike tuition.

Biden said the plan will help as many as 43 million borrowers and entirely wipe away loan debts for 20 million people.

The president has been on vacation for the past two weeks in South Carolina and Delaware. He returned to the White House late Wednesday morning.

The $10,000 figure would fulfill a campaign promise from Biden and mark the largest forgiveness of federal student loans per individual to date. It's believed that canceling the debt will cost the government about $300 billion.

Canceling $10,000 in debt for many working-class Americans with federal student loans would settle the balances of about a third of borrowers and cut total debt by at least half for another 20%, according to Department of Education data.

Biden on Wednesday is also expected to extend the pause on loan payments that was ordered in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pause is set to expire on Aug. 31, but Biden's extension is expected to be about four months.

According to a recent survey, about 30% of respondents said there should be no loan forgiveness for anyone, while 32% favored loan forgiveness for all who have student debt. A plurality, 34%, said that only those in need should have their loans forgiven. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI

As the White House has worked to formulate a plan, both advocates and opponents of wide-scale student loan forgiveness have presented Biden with their pitches.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., both spoke with White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain recently to request that significant amounts of debt be forgiven, the Post reported.

While canceling $10,000 for many Americans satisfies a campaign promise for Biden, some progressive Democrats are likely to think that's not enough. Some have called for more debt to be canceled and the NAACP pressed the administration to cancel up to $50,000 per borrower, citing higher loan burdens on Black Americans

"$10,000 alone is meager, to say the least -- it won't address the magnitude of the problem," NAACP President Derrick Johnson said according to the Post.

However, wiping out too much student loan debt carries with it an economic risk. Lawrence Summers and Jason Furman -- prominent Democratic economists who served in prior administrations -- have argued that forgiving too much debt runs the risk of worsening inflation, by increasing spending -- an issue that Democrats are already facing ahead of the midterm elections in November.

Along with the inflation risk, Summers and Furman say Biden's plan could end up mostly helping high-income graduates who can afford to pay their loans back.

"This is redistribution, and there's nothing wrong with redistribution -- if it was from the middle to the bottom. Much of this is redistribution from the middle to the upper-middle," Furman said.

A CNBC poll released Monday found that almost 60% of Americans shared concern that student loan forgiveness could worsen inflation.

About 30% of respondents said there should be no student loan forgiveness for anyone, while 32% were in favor of loan forgiveness for all who have student debt. A plurality, 34%, said that only those in need should have their loans forgiven.

Student loan forgiveness could help more than 40 million

By COLLIN BINKLEY, SEUNG MIN KIM and CHRIS MEGERIAN

President Joe Biden speaks about student loan debt forgiveness in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022, in Washington. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona listens at right. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)


WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 40 million Americans could see their student loan debt reduced — and in many cases eliminated — under the long-awaited forgiveness plan President Joe Biden announced Wednesday, a historic but politically divisive move in the run-up to the midterm elections.

Fulfilling a campaign promise, Biden is erasing $10,000 in federal student loan debt for those with incomes below $125,000 a year, or households that earn less than $250,000. He’s canceling an additional $10,000 for those who received federal Pell Grants to attend college.

It’s seen as an unprecedented attempt to stem the tide of America’s rapidly rising student debt, but it doesn’t address the broader issue — the high cost of college.

Republicans quickly denounced the plan as an insult to Americans who have repaid their debt and to those who didn’t attend college. Critics across the political spectrum also questioned whether Biden has authority for the move, and legal challenges are virtually certain.

Biden also extended a pause on federal student loan payments for what he called the “final time.” The pause is now set to run through the end of the year, with repayments to restart in January.

“Both of these targeted actions are for families who need it the most: working and middle class people hit especially hard during the pandemic,” Biden said at the White House Wednesday afternoon.

The cancellation applies to federal student loans used to attend undergraduate and graduate school, along with Parent Plus loans. Current college students qualify if their loans were issued before July 1. For dependent students, their parents’ household income must be below $250,000.

Most people will need to apply for the relief. The Education Department has income data for a small share of borrowers, but the vast majority will need to prove their incomes through an application process. Officials said applications will be available before the end of the year.

Biden’s plan makes 43 million borrowers eligible for some debt forgiveness, with 20 million who could get their debt erased entirely, according to the administration. About 60% of borrowers are recipients of federal Pell Grants, which are reserved for undergraduates with the most significant financial need, meaning more than half can get $20,000 in relief.

Sabrina Cartan, a 29-year-old media strategist in New York City, is expecting her federal debt to get wiped out entirely. When she checked the balance Wednesday, it was $9,940.

Cartan used the loans to attend Tufts University, and with Biden’s plan she will be able to help her parents repay the additional thousands they borrowed for her education. As a first-generation college student, she called it a “leveling moment.”

“I know there are people who feel that this isn’t enough, and that is true for a lot of people,” said Cartan, who already has repaid about $10,000 of her loans. “I can say for me personally and for a lot of people, that is a lot of money.”

For Braxton Simpson, Biden’s plan is a great first step, but it’s not enough. The 23-year-old MBA student at North Carolina Central University has more than $40,000 in student loans. As an undergraduate student she took jobs to minimize her debt, but at $10,000 a semester, the costs piled up.

As a Black woman, she felt higher education was a requirement to obtain a more stable financial future, even if that meant taking on large amounts of debt, she said.

“In order for us to get out of a lot of the situations that have been systemically a part of our lives, we have to go to school,” Simpson said. “And so we end up in debt.”

The plan doesn’t apply to future college students, but Biden is proposing a separate rule that would reduce monthly payments on federal student debt.

The proposal would create a new payment plan requiring borrowers to pay no more than 5% of their earnings, down from 10% in similar existing plans. It would forgive any remaining balance after 10 years, down from 20 years now.

It would also raise the floor for repayments, meaning no one earning less than 225% of the federal poverty level would need to make monthly payments.

As a regulation, it would not require congressional approval. But it can take more than a year to finalize.

Biden’s plan comes after more than a year of deliberation, with the president facing strong lobbying from liberals who wanted sweeping debt forgiveness, and from moderates and conservatives who questioned its basic fairness.

Once a popular campaign promise during the presidential primary, the issue created an almost unwinnable situation. Some fellow Democrats criticized the plan Wednesday, saying it’s too costly and does little to solve the debt crisis.

“In my view, the administration should have further targeted the relief, and proposed a way to pay for this plan,” said Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo. “While immediate relief to families is important, one-time debt cancellation does not solve the underlying problem.”

Still, many Democrats rallied around it, including support from those who wanted Biden to go beyond $10,000.

“I will keep pushing for more because I think it’s the right thing to do,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who had urged Biden to forgive up to $50,000 a person. “But we need to take a deep breath here and recognize what it means for the president of the United States to touch so many hard-working middle class families so directly.”

Proponents see cancellation as a matter of racial justice. Black students are more likely to take out federal student loans and at higher amounts than their white peers.

The NAACP, which pressed Biden to cancel at least $50,000 per person, said the plan is “one step closer” to lifting the burden of student debt.

Derrick Johnson, the group’s president, urged Biden to cancel the debt quickly and without bureaucratic hurdles for borrowers.

Biden’s decision to impose an income cap goes against objections from some who say adding the detailed application process to verify incomes could deter some borrowers who need help the most.

The Biden administration defended the cap as a gate against wealthier borrowers. Politically, it’s designed to counter arguments from critics who call debt cancellation a handout for the wealthy. Republicans hit hard with that argument on Wednesday despite the cap.

“President Biden’s inflation is crushing working families, and his answer is to give away even more government money to elites with higher salaries,” Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell said. “Democrats are literally using working Americans’ money to try to buy themselves some enthusiasm from their political base.”

One of the chief political sticking points has been the cost: Biden’s new plan, including debt cancellation, a new repayment plan and the payment freeze, will cost between $400 billion to $600 billion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonprofit that advocates for lower deficits.

Asked about the cost Wednesday, Susan Rice, Biden’s domestic policy adviser, said, “I can’t give you that off the top of my head.”

There are also lingering questions about the administration’s authority to cancel student loan debt. The Justice Department released a legal opinion concluding that the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act gives the Education secretary the “authority to reduce or eliminate the obligation to repay the principal balance of federal student loan debt.”

The legal opinion also concluded that the forgiveness could be applied on a “class-wide” basis in response to the coronavirus pandemic, a national emergency..

Lawsuits are likely nonetheless. The Job Creators Network, which promotes conservative economic policies, said it was considering legal options, with president and CEO Alfredo Ortiz calling the president’s effort “fundamentally unfair” to those who never took out loans for college.

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AP writers Zeke Miller Annie Ma and Sharon Lurye contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Follow AP’s coverage of student loan debt at https://apnews.com/hub/student-loans

Google Doodle celebrates Anna Mani's 104th birthday



A new Google Doodle is celebrating the birthday of renowned Indian meteorologist Anna Mani. Photo courtesy of Google

Aug. 23 (UPI) -- A new Google Doodle released Tuesday celebrated the birthday of renowned Indian physicist and meteorologist Anna Mani, who would've turned 104 years old.

The Doodle depicts Mani in front of a number of different climates, including a rainstorm and a beating sun. The physicist is also shown working on some calculations alongside a weather balloon, all of which work to make up the Google logo.

Mani would rise through the ranks of her nation's upper-class to become one of the most consequential scientists in Indian history.

Born on Aug. 23, 1918 in the village of Peermade in British India, Mani had read almost every book in her local library at the age of just 12, according to Google.

Following high school, Mani completed her undergraduate studies, obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and chemistry from Pachaiyappa's College in Madras. She would then go onto post-graduate studies, learning spectroscopy under Nobel Laureate Sir C. V. Raman.

Mani eventually earned her Ph.D. and began a graduate program at London's prestigious Imperial College.

In 1948, Mani returned to her native India to begin working for the country's Meteorological Department, helping a team of scientists design and manufacture weather-gauging instruments.

Despite meteorology being a male-dominated field at the time, Mani would end up leading the department by 1953, where over 100 different weather instrument designs were standardized under her watch.

Later in life, Mani would become the Deputy Director General of the India Meteorological Department and also hold multiple positions within the United Nations.

Beyond her contributions to meteorology, Mani was also an advocate for alternative energy. In the 1950s, she "established a network of solar radiation monitoring stations and published several papers on sustainable energy measurement."

Mani died in 2001 at the age of 83, but her influence on Indian science remains strong, with Google saying, " [Her] work inspired brighter days for this world."

Mani is not the only physicist to be honored with a Google Doodle in recent weeks.

A July 18 Doodle celebrated the life of German physicist and composer Oskar Sala, who would've been 112.

Sala studied physics at school and helped to develop a new system for composing electronic music.