Friday, 29 April 2022

How hateful rhetoric connects to real-world violence

How Elon Musk might shift Twitter content moderation

How hateful rhetoric connects to real-world violence

How Elon Musk might shift Twitter content moderation

Posted: 29 Apr 2022 07:03 AM PDT

By Mark MacCarthy

Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter raises the issue of social media content moderation in an especially urgent form. Despite the regulations looming in the United Kingdom and the European Union, to which Musk's Twitter must conform, no legal requirement will prevent Musk from running Twitter according to whatever editorial policy he chooses to adopt. It's his candy store.

How is this possible? Can it really be true that the content moderation policies of such a powerful forum for public discourse should depend on the whims of its new billionaire owner? Evan Greer, a political activist with Fight for the Future, speaks for a lot of us when she says, "If we want to protect free speech online, then we can't live in a world where the richest person on Earth can just purchase a platform that millions of people depend on and then change the rules to his liking."

But this is the way television, newspapers, and radio function in liberal democracies. The owners of media outlets determine the political line of the news stories and commentary they distribute. When NBC, CNN, ABC, or the New York Post change owners, as they have frequently in the past, their new owners dictate operational rules and editorial policy. Social media is media, and the same ownership prerogatives apply. Content moderation is their editorial policy, and it is determined by their owners. No liberal democracy will mandate what owners can do or what their editorial policy should be.

Of course, certain speech is unlawful, and increasingly social media companies will be expected to keep their systems free of illegal material. The UK and the EU create new liability regimes for illegal speech in their pending legislation, and Musk has promised to comply with these legal requirements.

But most of the hate speech, misinformation, and racist invective on social media are legal both here in the U.S. and in Europe. Musk will have to abide by the new EU and UK laws that relate to harmful but legal speech; that will mean more risk assessments, transparency reports, audits, access to data for researchers, publication of content moderation standards, and due process requirements.

These new laws will impose the vital public protection of transparency. It would be desirable to adopt significant elements of them here in the U.S. But they will not dictate Elon Musk's approach to content moderation on Twitter. They still allow him to let his system fill up with noxious material if he wants.

So, what is Musk likely to do with Twitter? He presents himself as a philanthropic custodian of a public resource. In an onstage interview at the TED2022 conference, Musk said, “this isn’t a way to make money. My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization. I don’t care about the economics at all.”

He appears to want to allow all legal speech on the platform and this has prompted concerns that he will weaken content moderation in the name of free speech. But Wall Street Journal opinion columnist Holman W. Jenkins Jr. sums up the current situation that "Twitter has crossed the river of no return in "moderating" the content that appears on its service—it can't allow untrammeled free expression."

The fact that someone has to moderate content on Twitter, however, does not mean that Twitter has to do it. Musk could turn the job over to Twitter users or third parties.

Influential neo-right blogger Curtis Yandex has urged Musk to adopt a user curation approach to content moderation. The new Twitter under Musk, he says, must censor "all content prohibited by law in all jurisdictions that prohibit it." For content moderation and algorithmic recommendation of legal speech, Yandex urges Musk to seek to identify hate speech and other speech users might not want to see and then give users the tools to block it if they want. The goal should be to arrange content moderation and algorithmic recommendation to give users what they want, to make their experiences "as rich and pleasant as possible."

This idea still leaves Twitter in charge of identifying the harmful material that users might not want to see. But there might be a way to outsource that too.

Musk says he wants to make the Twitter algorithms "open source to increase trust."

The Twitter recommendation algorithm "should be on GitHub,” he remarked. This might mean more than allowing users to examine the algorithm to see how it works. Users could modify Twitter's open-source algorithm in any way they choose.

This raises an interesting possibility for the future of Twitter. Musk might be thinking of adopting the approach to content moderation recommended by political scientist Francis Fukuyama. This "middleware" approach would install an "editorial layer" between a social media company and its users. It would outsource "content curation" to other organizations that would receive the platform's entire feed and filter it according to their own criteria and then make that curated feed available to their own users.

Musk's talk of providing all legal speech would then apply to the basic Twitter feed. Content moderation beyond that would be outsourced to users and third-party providers of content curation services.

There is no way to know at this point whether Musk intends to move toward this user-focused approach to content curation. This issue is so fraught that outsourcing content moderation might be worth the experiment. My own sense is that it seems far-fetched. It is not at all clear that it is technically feasible and there is no discernible way to generate revenue to pay for the moderation costs involved. Each middleware provider of content curation services would have to duplicate an enormous infrastructure of software and human moderators, which seems economically implausible.

Moreover, as Stanford University legal scholar Daphne Keller has noted, privacy issues need to be addressed. Does the middleware provider have access to all the material posted by a user's friends and followers? If yes, then that intrudes on the privacy of these other users who might want nothing to do with that middleware provider. If no, then how can the middleware provider effectively filter the newsfeed?

More importantly, this idea is not a way to foster genuine interchange among citizens about issues of public importance. It is more a recipe for us to retreat to our corners, creating filter bubbles of like-minded people and excluding the rest of society.

Segregating ourselves so we do not have to listen to people who differ from us is not a remedy for the information externalities that make hate speech and misinformation so dangerous even to people who are not exposed to it. People cannot remain indifferent to what other people in society believe because what other people believe affects them. If enough people reject vaccines and other public health measures, we are all at risk from the next pandemic. If enough people become racists or intolerant of the LGBTQ community, significant parts of our community are not safe in their own society. And how are we going to agree on what to teach our children if there is no uniform public platform where we can exchange ideas?

The great advantage of Musk's Twitter takeover is that it will focus attention on new ways to improve content moderation. The disappointment, to many, is that other than offering advice and requiring transparency, there is not much the public or policymakers can do to influence Musk's decision about what to do with his new candy store. He owns the platform and as is the case in the business world generally, he is free to make whatever decisions he wishes.

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Multiple battlefields in time and space

Posted: 29 Apr 2022 03:57 AM PDT

By Aaron Klein

With today's update of the Brookings Sanctions Tracker, it is more clear than ever that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has triggered a global response. Many of the world's major democratic nations are engaging in economic warfare against Russia by implementing "the most comprehensive set of multilateral economic sanctions ever applied to a major global economy."

America is helping lead the charge, exercising its unique power of controlling access to the dollar, effectively the world's reserve currency. Understanding how the war is progressing is complicated enough given the asymmetric battlefields between physical and economic war.[1] It is further complicated as the conflict unfolds across three time horizons: the present, future, and the current expectations of the future. Understanding how these different time horizons affect dimensions of the conflict is critical to deciphering how the war is going and what lies ahead.

Let us begin with the present. The direct-armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine is happening in real-time with on the ground reporting providing a fluid but timely picture of developments. Generally speaking, Ukraine's military has outperformed expectations, successfully slowing Russia's invasion and inflicting greater damage on Russia's military than anticipated. The result has been slower progress by Russian forces in securing territory and an expectation of a longer period of armed conflict.

The economic response that America and other major democracies have taken in response to Russia's invasion is unfolding along two time periods: the present and future. Economic sanctions, the major tool used to weaken Russia's economy, typically take time before their main impact is felt. Actual economic production is a lengthy process, as is the decoupling of global supply chains, access to financing, and international trade for final sale. While the speed, scope, and scale of the sanctions imposed on Russia are unprecedented, sanctions take some time to implement and have carve outs built in for pending contracts and deliveries to finish. Sanctions have more bite in sectors of the economy relying at some level on international trade and less impact on domestic activity. Russian airlines that use Boeing planes will find parts hard to find, eventually grounding even domestic travel, while barbershops will probably still be able to cut hair. However, banning future imports of goods does not mean they are no longer available as inventories are worked through.

Russia's economy will surely suffer substantially, but not immediately. Ukraine's surprisingly impressive ability to defend itself is lengthening the armed conflict, providing more time for the economic attack to have greater impact.

Sanctions are particularly effective in financial transactions given both the role of the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency and the time horizon markets use, which include expectations of the future. Unlike actual economic impact, markets move instantly on both actions and expectations of future actions. Market expectations of Russia's impending economic recession due to countermeasures have already sent Russian markets into a tailspin. Russia's stock market was closed for nearly a month, and its reopening was correctly identified as a 'potemkin' show, not a real expression of the value of Russian assets. While Russia managed to avoid an actual default on its government debt with an interest payment in mid-March, it defaulted on its next payment in April as a result of U.S. sanctions. While the "ruble is no longer rubble," from its sharp fall immediately after sanctions were announced, the rebound is the result of a set of capital controls, sky high interest rates, and carve outs in existing sanctions that can be tightened. Market confidence in the value of the ruble is so low that Russia itself is talking about conducting global trade using gold bars and Bitcoin rather than its own currency.

Financial markets are incorporating and translating future expectations of Russian economic weakness and the impact of continued decoupling from the global economic world order. Do not mistake financial markets indicating Russia's economy is collapsing with actual collapse. Recall America's financial markets went into free-fall in the third quarter of 2008 when the US economy was contracting by only 2.1%, after having grown at the same rate in the second quarter. What markets understood was that the actual collapse was coming, as fourth quarter GDP fell by a whopping 8.4%. Treasury Secretary Yellen is correct that Russia's economy will be devastated as a result of the sanctions already put in place, but the emphasis is on 'will be' not 'already is'.

Markets provide incredibly important information on economic conditions but can be moved substantially by expectations of future impacts. As a result, markets do not always reflect reality on the ground and should not be used as gauges for the immediate impact of the success of the economic war. Those who are hoping that the Russian people will begin to turn on Putin as a result of economic hardship have to appreciate the time frame involved in economic warfare.

Tracking the status of this war is highly complex due to the multiple battlefields and time horizons through which it is being waged. Russia's physical invasion is proceeding slower than expected. This is particularly beneficial given the time required for America and its allies' economic response. The financial bombs launched through kicking Russia out of the global payments system and decoupling it from broad swaths of international trade have already moved markets. Expect these actions to take far more time than markets to impact Russia's means of economic production and the economic experiences of ordinary Russians. When assessing the progress of economic warfare, patience is important.

Footnote:

1. While this piece examines the military and economic dimensions of the conflict, there of course are many other "battlefields" involved, including digital attacks and other elements of cyber and information warfare. (Back to top)

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How can better climate data empower people to act?

Posted: 28 Apr 2022 01:25 PM PDT

By Wolfgang Fengler, Lukas Vashold

Addressing climate change is quintessentially a collective action problem. My individual actions will not make a difference if everyone else maintains their current lifestyles and behaviors; but if each of us waits for others to change, nobody ever will, and we will not make any progress. Climate change is such an overwhelming problem—arguably the greatest of our time affecting all areas of life—that it's easy to get discouraged given the magnitude of the challenge.  

This is why we need to personalize climate change in a way that makes it clear that we all have a part to play and quantify our actions, so that we are empowered to act. In this blog, we attempt to outline the quantitative parameters to break down the problem.  

The starting question: How much are we emitting?

The question appears simple, but the answer is not straightforward. Where and how we live makes a huge difference in the size of our climate footprint.  

In 2022, the global population is projected to release an estimated 58 gigatons (GT) of greenhouse gas emissions (including all forms of emissions—CO2 as well as non-CO2 gases such as methane). One GT is 1 billion tons. If we divide 58 GT by 7.85 billion people, we get 7.4 tons per person per year, which is the climate footprint of the average world citizen.

 

In a Western economy, it is currently hardly possible to be climate neutral, i.e., to have zero net emissions. Even with someone who drives an electric car (or no car at all), doesn't travel by plane, and eats no meat, there will still be significant emissions. If that person lives and works in a building, showers several times a week, and uses public transportation, emissions occur in ways we typically don't think about: the cement industry (for the material used to construct a building), the chemical industry (that produces soap and shampoo), or the steel industry (that supplied the material for the public buses and trains). 

Broadly speaking there are five main drivers of our emissions. Here is how they add up to the average 7.4 tons a typical world citizen emits: 

  • Electricity (2.7 tons). More than a third of overall emissions are caused by the production of energy, mostly in the form of electricity. Coal is responsible for more than half of all electricity-related emissions.
  • Industry (1.8 tons). This includes the fabrication of everyday products such as toiletries and newspapers, durables made of cement, or the metals used in buildings. 
  • Transport (1.1 tons). Road transportation—cars, buses, and trucks—causes the largest share of emissions in this sector, around 0.8 tons per person. The remainder comes from ships, planes, and railways.
  • Agriculture (1.5 tons). The production of food causes around 10 percent of global emissions, with meat production contributing the highest share, at 0.46 tons per person. Land conversion currently adds 0.7 tons per person, but it could be an important driver of emissions reductions in the future through afforestation and reforestation, for example.
  • Buildings (0.4 tons). Outside of construction alone, buildings also need to be heated and cooled, causing additional and continuous emissions. 

People in rich countries emit more than residents of poor countries. However, there are also significant differences between countries of similar incomes. For instance, an average French person emits four times less than an average Australian (see Figure 1 below). Among the G-20 economies, the largest emitters on a per capita basis are Australia (26 tons), Saudi Arabia (25 tons), Canada (24 tons), the U.S. (19 tons), and Russia (16 tons). China, Germany, and South Africa are emitting substantially more than the world average, while a number of European economies, as well as Mexico and India, are emitting slightly less than the global average.

Figure 1. The average Australian emits around 8 times more than her Indian counterpart

Per capita emissions of G-20 economies graph

Source: World Data Lab projections based on data from Minx et al 2021.

The next question is:

Can we create a world with net zero emissions while maintaining strong economic growth so that everyone can thrive and prosper?

As highlighted by numerous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and leading climate researchers, it will be extremely challenging to bring the world to a net-zero emissions path because it would require deep changes in our economic system and our individual behavior. Even under conservative projections, the global population is likely to reach about 9 billion people by 2050. On average, living standards will be higher in the future than today. This is good news for the fight against poverty, but potentially bad news for the climate—unless we make fundamental changes in how economies are organized.  

So, coming back to our initial conundrum: How do we begin to make change?

An important starting point is to generate better and more actionable data that allows each and every one of us to link individual and collective actions and choices to tangible results. You may be wondering how data alone can help, so let us illustrate. 

First, to prioritize action, we need to get on top of the main drivers of global emissions to understand the significance of key sectors and specific countries. We also need a better understanding of where emissions are still going up and where they are going down (some 40 countries have already started to reduce their climate footprint, albeit mostly from a too high level).  

Second, new technologies and better data can be leveraged to tackle specific emission sources. For example, the World Resource Institute's Global Forest Watch developed a sophisticated data model to monitor and react to forest fires in Indonesia in real time, showcasing the ability for actionable mitigation scenarios and response. 

Third, better data can help us manage logistics better. Today, many resources are wasted because we produce, transport, and store products very inefficiently (to places where they won't be needed or way in advance). Imagine the resources that could be saved if we could produce, transport, cool, or heat consumer products exactly where and when they are needed. This "just-in time" production—spearheaded initially by Toyota—makes sense for business and protects our climate. 

Providing better climate data that can be leveraged concretely to change our vision and our action is the fundamental ambition driving the development of the World Emissions Clock. We look forward to presenting it in a subsequent installment of our blog.

Acknowledgements: Many thanks to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) for the financial support to develop the World Emissions Clock, alongside IIASA and other scientific partners. Thanks also to Cécile Schneider (GIZ) for valuable inputs. Any questions on the data model should be directed to lukas.vashold@worlddata.io.

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Hutchins Roundup: Minimum wage, credit ratings, and more

Posted: 28 Apr 2022 08:00 AM PDT

By Sophia Campbell, Lorena Hernandez Barcena, Nasiha Salwati, David Wessel

What's the latest thinking in fiscal and monetary policy? The Hutchins Roundup keeps you informed of the latest research, charts, and speeches. Want to receive the Hutchins Roundup as an email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Thursday. 

Minimum wage hikes cut job openings for low-wage workers  

Marianna Kudlyak of the San Francisco Fed, Murat Tasci of the Cleveland Fed, and Didem Tüzemen of the Kansas City Fed find that minimum wage increases reduce the number of vacancies in occupations that pay at or around the prevailing minimum rate. Using data on county-level job openings and state-level minimum wage changes over the 2005-2018 period, the authors estimate that a 10% increase in the state minimum wage causes a 2.4% decline in vacancies across minimum wage occupations in the same quarter and a 4.5% decline a year later. The decline in job postings is concentrated in counties with higher poverty rates and in occupations that employ less educated workers. When employers have fewer openings, they may hire more selectively, the authors suggest, and that may lead to less turnover; for that reason, a higher minimum wage can decrease vacancies without producing any significant change in the level of employment. "This interpretation of the labor market can reconcile the negative effects of minimum wage hikes on vacancies that we find and the relatively small or non-existent effects on employment found in the literature," the authors conclude.  

Firms with poor environmental standards see lower credit ratings and higher yield spreads 

Poor environmental ratings and higher carbon footprints are associated with lower corporate bond credit ratings and higher yield spreads, particularly for firms located in states with stricter environmental regulations, find Lee Seltzer of the New York Fed, Laura Starks of the University of Texas at Austin, and Qifei Zhu of Nanyang Technological University. Using the 2015 Paris Agreement as a shock to investors' expectations of future environmental regulations, the authors find that firms with poor environmental profiles (constructed using ESG ratings and carbon emissions data) saw their credit ratings fall and yield spreads rise relative to greener companies after the agreement, especially in environmentally stringent states—suggesting that both credit rating analysts and bond investors reacted to potential tightening of environmental regulations in the future. The composition of bondholders also changed following the agreement. Insurance companies, which tend to have longer investment horizons, decreased their holdings of the less green companies while shorter-term mutual funds did not. These findings reinforce the idea that regulatory risk is "a major channel through which climate and other types of environmental risks get embedded in security prices," the authors say. 

Australia's experiment with yield curve control had its flaws  

In March 2020, the Reserve Bank of Australia announced a yield curve control policy, promising to buy as many three-year Australian government bonds as needed to achieve their target rate of 0.25% and renewing this promise in October 2020. David Lucca of the New York Fed and Jonathan H. Wright of Johns Hopkins University find that this yield curve control policy had little to no effect on expectations about the policy rate, yields on longer maturity bonds, or yields on similar assets (such as state-issued bonds). In addition, as the economy rebounded and the market began expecting short-term interest rates to rise, the targeted bond became dislocated from other financial market instruments. In other words, the policy was unable to hold down yields on any other security. The authors argue that yield curve control is structurally similar to quantity-based quantitative easing (QE) policies (which pledge to buy a specific quantity of a given asset), and this episode provides evidence that QE as a whole may be limited in its effectiveness once targeted rates are no longer roughly consistent with market expectations for the path of short rates. 

Chart of the Week: Value of US dollar is rising 

Wall Street Journal Dollar Index is Rising

Quote of the Week: 

"Crypto-assets pose financial stability risks through three main channels. First, stress in crypto-asset markets could spill over to players in the wider financial system through direct asset holdings or ownership of service providers. One measure of such linkages is the correlation between changes in the prices of crypto-assets and of equities, which has been positive since 2020. Second, a fall in the value of crypto-assets might have an impact on the wealth of investors, with knock-on effects on the financial system. Third, a loss of faith in the value of crypto-assets – for instance because of operational failures, fraud, price manipulation or cybercrime – could lead to a sharp deterioration in investor confidence, which could spill over to broader financial markets," says European Central Bank Board Member Fabio Panetta. 

"In a stress situation, a sudden surge in redemptions by stable coin holders could lead to instability in various market segments. For example, Tether, one of the most popular stable coins, promises ‘stability’ by investing in low-risk assets, such as commercial paper, and holds a large proportion of the stock of these instruments in circulation. Large-scale sales of these assets in response to a sudden increase in redemptions could generate instability throughout the commercial paper market. This phenomenon could spread to other stable coins and related sectors, eventually finding its way to the banks that hold the stable coins' liquidity." 

 

 

The Brookings Institution is financed through the support of a diverse array of foundations, corporations, governments, individuals, as well as an endowment. A list of donors can be found in our annual reports published online here. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions in this report are solely those of its author(s) and are not influenced by any donation. 

 

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How Russia benefits from ill-informed social media policies

Posted: 28 Apr 2022 07:03 AM PDT

By Dr. Emma L. Briant

During this bloody war, the Kremlin's strategy in the West seeks to benefit by exploiting our fears of censorship. Of course, this obscures the dark irony that Russia tolerates no dissent within its borders, blocking independent media and platforms like Facebook. Just as stark is the hypocrisy of its effort to energize concerns about Western imperialism while waging an aggressive imperialist war against its neighbor.

War is always ugly. Yet since February, over every shallow grave left by Putin's soldiers, an unofficial battalion of journalists and influencers has cast a shadow of Western denial.

Some assert that Ukraine has not been subjected to equal treatment by the social media platforms who are trying to enforce policies to mitigate circulating falsehood. One such argument came from the journalist Glenn Greenwald, who on April 13th echoed comments he made on Fox News, claiming “there is little to no censorship—either by Western states or by Silicon Valley monopolies—of pro-Ukrainian disinformation, propaganda and lies" and that "the censorship goes only in one direction." Elon Musk, whose purchase of Twitter generated much push-back from technology experts, has made similar claims advocating free speech for Russia.

Social media companies in reality have removed multiple influence operations and reduced visibility of Russian government accounts spreading falsehood to support Russia's war against Ukraine. Human Rights Watch offers an excellent overview of the different measures taken by the platforms during the war in Ukraine.

Earlier this month Twitter stated it had, since the start of the war received "a substantial increase in the volume of media shared with deceptive, misleading, or inaccurate context." Twitter's actions include labelling or removal of "more than 50,000 pieces" of misleading, inaccurate or deceptive content.

On April 13th, the pro-Kremlin account 'Russians With Attitude' was taken down, then restored quickly, apparently due to an error. Greenwald, in a post that was shared to his 1.8M Twitter followers, then widely by accounts on both the left and right, claimed this brief take-down shows it is not "disinformation” but rather "viewpoint-error that is targeted for silencing."

Similar claims were made of Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector, whose account was suspended by Twitter after alleging the Ukrainian police were responsible for the massacre in Bucha. Human Rights Watch have found evidence linking the apparent war crimes to Russia.

 

Picture of Scott Ritter Suspension From Twitter Email

Source: Anya Parampil

His account was restored almost immediately. For pro-Kremlin accounts, suspension then reinstatement enables a wide-reaching reinforcing story about how they have been ‘silenced’ for speaking the ‘wrong narrative’. Supporters share screenshots of the banned tweet, which gives further credentials within the community as well as enabling large numbers of people to read the message Twitter sought to ‘suppress.’ A rapid resurrection helps reinforce the perception the take-down was arbitrary and undeserved.

Removed Scott Ritter Tweet Claiming Reinstation

Of course, social media enforcement actions and reporting are not going only in 'one direction.' This week one of the most widely followed accounts sharing information about the Ukrainian armed forces was suspended, and Twitter have not explained why. Twitter has also had to apologize for accidentally suspending researcher accounts documenting Russian attacks with open-source intelligence, who were also subjected to mass reporting. Ukrainian activists, journalists, military accounts and charities are being reported en masse as part of the Russian information war.

One example, the EuromaidanPR campaign engages in advocacy, playing a significant enough role in raising Ukrainian perspectives to be mentioned in the Washington Post recently. Within days their account was having problems, Meta first told the campaign that a “report from a third party" alleged "infringes or otherwise violates their rights" promoting threatened removal. Later they were told they needed to register for political ads. Transparent and clear explanations are essential for and building trust in social media companies' enforcement and many struggle to contact platforms. Getting reinstated can take weeks.

When accounts are reported, this impacts those running them—and their community—acutely. Ukrainian accounts like this one struggle to get their message out.

Social media companies should understand by now though how their actions can be used to build narrative. My research shows it is part of Russia's longstanding strategy to portray media coverage as threatening Western populations with uncertainty and deception.

Those building a career on aiding Russia in the West leverage outrage framing, exploiting these take-downs for effect. As Greenwald says, "there is a clear, demonstrable hunger in the West for news and information that is banished by Western news sources." However, creating a 'banished' brand for an outsider reputation is not the same as being genuinely 'banished.' 'Russians With Attitude' remains, stronger than ever.

Ritter's removal was immediately accompanied by support from a reporter from The Grayzone, who claimed his voice had been censored in a widely shared tweet. Far from being "small pockets of dissenting voices," the reach of networks of left- and right-wing accounts and outlets that adopt this position on Kremlin defenders is large. This one post still displaying the apparently 'silenced' Scott Ritter's false tweet about Bucha gained 5,801 Retweets and 545 Quote Tweets. Max Blumenthal also shared it with his three hundred and five thousand followers, with currently 1,086 Retweets and 76 Quote Tweets.

The Kremlin benefits twice from attempts at even handed process, first as Ukrainian accounts are mass-reported, then by those pushing the 'censorship' narrative when pro-Russian accounts are reported. Of course, it cannot be expected that social media companies should take down equal numbers of accounts if one country is violating rules more frequently. Even Noam Chomsky, though he extends an indefensible realist argument that Ukraine should concede a victory to Putin, admits “Russia is committing systemic war crimes in Ukraine.”

The Russian state's view can be read in the widely reported RIA Novosti article by Timofey Sergeytsev, a "political technologist" who previously worked for Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Kremlin president of Ukraine ousted during protests in 2014. He develops an argument to demonize and promote the extermination of Ukrainians. Presumably even 'Brand Banished' journalists saw it.

It is true of much of the Western media that the voices of the global south, the refugees, the powerless—are often absent. To use this argument of banished voices and bias to defend lies about Russian war crimes circulating on social media is abhorrent. Voices supporting Putin are not a subjugated minority.

It's instructive to see the documents from January 6 invasion of the Capitol, some of which were published this week, do show a failure to urgently take down content, but this is another problem rooted in failure to understand powerful actors using the platform.

Twitter could not provide current data on the extent of reporting of accounts on both sides during the Ukraine war. A spokesperson told me there are "updates to come", meanwhile Greenwald is able to argue 'censorship' is one-way. Despite two months of war, Twitter apparently have only 2021 transparency data available.

Taking down posts is as inadequate a solution for influence operations as it is for unintended misinformation—harm in influence operations isn't only caused by falsehoods, and removal can backfire or even be cynically weaponized. Certainly, content moderation is needed on platforms; indeed, in some cases permanent take-downs would be appropriate rather than a series of temporary suspensions. Ritter has finally been permanently suspended under their abuse policies, Twitter confirmed to me. All his audience will see is 'account suspended' and a link to a generic statement. Particularly during a war, social media companies must communicate specific reasons and actual harms—trust-building is built on transparency.

New data from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue supports the argument I've been making: that the information war is not won, it's changing. France has seen a parallel surge in freedom of expression tied to conspiracy networks. The information war is becoming more complex and dispersed, making a deficit I've highlighted of solid research into actors and industries involved in influence operations increasingly urgent. There needs to be readiness as banning state media increases the Kremlin's dependence on proxies. Any solution should start with understanding influential actors behind campaigns, their motivations, strategies and how best to respond and communicate in a nuanced way.

In today's world of geolocation and digital forensics, it becomes harder to hide a war crime from the world. This is why building uncertainty is vital—to undermine trust in this evidence.

Focus on tracking and content moderation as a first order response created the conditions for an online environment where Brand Banished is flourishing.

This is exactly what the Kremlin needed to advance an information war, creating doubt about the imperialist nature of its invasion of Ukraine.

Facebook is a general, unrestricted donor to the Brookings Institution. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions posted in this piece are solely those of the author and not influenced by any donation.

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The long-run impacts of Mexican-American school desegregation

Posted: 28 Apr 2022 04:00 AM PDT

By Francisca M. Antman, Kalena E. Cortes

A large body of research has examined the seminal Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 and its implications for Black students in the United States. Less well-known is the 1947 Mendez v. Westminster decision, which ended de jure segregation of Mexican-Americans in California—a group that had long been segregated into separate schools and classrooms throughout the Southwest.

Understanding the impacts of the Mendez decision is critical to understanding the experience and present circumstances of the Latino/Hispanic community, which now makes up about one-fifth of the U.S. population and an even larger share of the U.S. public school population. A quantitative examination of the impacts of Mendez can also illuminate the potentially enormous benefits of integrating schools today, when Hispanic students remain among the most likely to be segregated.

MEXICAN-AMERICAN SEGREGATION IN CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS

The justification for segregating Mexicans and Mexican-Americans (regardless of citizenship) was largely rooted in racial discrimination. For example, proponents of segregation argued on the basis of cleanliness, intellectual ability, and English-language ability—despite the fact that Mexican-American children who did not speak Spanish were also segregated. While not always explicit, the underlying discriminatory motivation was clear in the larger effort to separate Mexicans and whites in public areas throughout the American Southwest.

In this context, Gonzalo Mendez and four other Mexican-American parents sued four Orange County, California, school districts on behalf of their children and 5,000 other children of "Mexican and Latin descent," arguing that segregation violated their constitutional rights. Ultimately, an injunction was issued in federal district court against Mexican segregation on the grounds that it violated state law. The ruling was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1947. Since the school districts declined to appeal, the case never reached the U.S. Supreme Court. However, Mendez set an important precedent in the argument that the doctrine of "separate but equal" violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment—an issue that would resurface a few years later in the Brown case.

ESTIMATING THE LONG-RUN IMPACTS OF DESEGREGATING SCHOOLS

We have been interested in uncovering impacts of this landmark decision. In a recently released study, we present the first quantitative analysis of the effects of the Mendez ruling on long-run educational attainment for Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites in California. Our focus on long-run impacts is important, since prior research indicates that the full effects of the Brown decision did not materialize until many years later. Similarly, we seek to understand whether the end of de jure Mexican segregation brought about by Mendez ultimately led to improvements in the opportunities available to Mexican-Americans.

One critical distinction between Mendez and Brown is the geographical setting. Studies looking at the desegregation of Black students frequently rely on data from the American South, where official data document enrollment for Black and white children in separate schools. In contrast, segregation policy in California was primarily decided at the local level, and official documentation of school segregation does not exist during the period of our study.

To get around this data limitation, we rely on the fact that historical sources suggest that segregation practices were closely linked with the share of Hispanics in the local population. Thus, our analytical strategy compares what happened in areas where Hispanics comprised a relatively large share of the local population (where segregation was more likely to occur) to what happened in areas with a smaller share of Hispanic residents. More specifically, within each of these types of areas, we compare outcomes for birth cohorts that started school before the Mendez ruling to birth cohorts that started school after the Mendez ruling. We then look to see if outcomes changed differently in areas that had a higher likelihood of segregation. If so, it seems likely that desegregation efforts after the Mendez decision affected student outcomes.

Our results indicate that the impact of school desegregation in 1947 was quite significant. We estimate an increase of almost 0.9 years of schooling for Hispanics in the cohorts that started school after Mendez relative to cohorts born 10 years prior. We find even larger effects, on the order of 1.9 years of schooling, if we compare treated cohorts with older birth cohorts that likely would have completed schooling prior to the Mendez ruling. This is quite a substantial increase given that the latter group only attained about 9.2 years of education on average.

This striking change over a relatively short period of time suggests that major milestones, such as junior high school and high school completion, may have also been affected. Thus, we assess the impacts of Mendez on those outcomes as well. An example appears in the figure below, which shows the impact of desegregation on junior high school attainment (at least eight years of completed schooling). On average, compared to birth cohorts that started school before Mendez, birth cohorts that started school after Mendez were 18.4% more likely to graduate from junior high school and 19.4% more likely to graduate from high school.

We do not have information on the pace of integration efforts, but to the extent that local desegregation policies evolved more slowly than the timing of the court ruling suggests, we would expect the magnitude of these estimates to be, if anything, understated. Overall, our findings indicate a substantial long-run educational benefit to Hispanic students stemming from desegregation.

As an extension, we also examine impacts on non-Hispanic whites and find evidence of a slight decline in educational attainment of non-Hispanic whites in birth cohorts that began school after Mendez in counties that were more likely to be segregated. Perhaps this could be explained by a shift toward a more equitable resource distribution following the end of de jure segregation.

Overall, these results indicate an important causal link between desegregation and greater equity across students of different backgrounds. This finding has historical importance, since it has been difficult—partly due to data limitations—to know the impact of the Mendez decision. Beyond that, however, we believe that these findings have implications for contemporary education policy. While the context differs today in many ways, Hispanic students remain among the most segregated student groups in the U.S., and many of the schools that they attend are badly under-resourced. A focus on desegregating schools and classrooms may be especially beneficial to closing the opportunity gaps experienced by many Hispanic students today.

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Redesigning the housing market to build an architecture of equality

Posted: 27 Apr 2022 11:38 AM PDT

By Andre M. Perry, Stuart Yasgur

In 2018, Brookings Metro published The devaluation of assets in Black neighborhoods, a report exposing significant inequities that are inherent in housing markets across the U.S. Our goal was to quantify the proverbial "Black tax" and potentially restore the value racism has extracted from Black Americans. We carefully designed our study to isolate the impact of race and racism on home values, and found that homes in Black-majority neighborhoods are undervalued by 23% on average (about $48,000) compared to similar homes in neighborhoods with few Black residents. Cumulatively, this undervaluation deprives homeowners in Black neighborhoods of approximately $156 billion in equity. 

For some context, that $156 billion could have started 4.4 million Black-owned businesses, based on the average amount Black people use to start their firms. It could have paid for 8.1 million four-year college degrees, based on the average price of public universities in 2016. It is the cost of replacing all the water pipes in Flint, Mich. 3,000 times over, and would have nearly covered the cost of Hurricane Katrina's damage. 

Three years after the report's publication, in 2021, Ashoka and the Brookings Institution partnered to launch an initiative to foster structural innovations that can address systemic racism in the housing market and enable homeowners in Black-majority neighborhoods to realize the value and appreciation of their assets. The effort pairs Brookings's commitment to independent, data-driven analysis with Ashoka's dedication to identifying and rallying support for systems-changing innovations with the potential to address society's most pressing problems. 

The Brookings-Ashoka Valuing Homes in Black Communities challenge does just that. We invited innovators from across the country to submit inspiring ideas for redesigning a more equitable housing market. A selection committee and panel of judges looked for changemakers who provided strong answers to a range of questions about what their initiative did, what connected them to the topic, and how their idea can bring about structural change. Participants included nonprofit and for-profit firm leaders, housing advocates, and entrepreneurs, who networked and provided peer feedback to one another. The innovations they submitted included new mortgage and appraisal products, novel ownership models, policy improvements, community organizing tools, and much more. 

Since we released our housing report, there have been numerous news stories about Black homeowners "whitewashing" their homes—replacing Black art, books, clothing, and hair products with those that would signal that a white person lived in the house. In 2020, The New York Times reported on a Jacksonville, Fla. couple whose home yielded a 40% higher appraisal value after whitewashing it. That same year, an Indianapolis woman whitewashed her home and got a white stand-in. Her new appraisal came in $134,000 higher than an earlier one. Such biased appraisals show an intrinsic value in whiteness that is denied to Black homeowners. 

Just as appraisers, bankers, mortgage brokers, real estate agents, and politicians constructed housing markets based on a belief of exclusivity, people can deconstruct this architecture of inequality and replace it with structures that are inclusive in nature. Past and present exclusionary policies and practices such as redlining, racial housing covenants, single-family zoning ordinances, and neighborhood-level price comparison approaches to valuation all impact today's home values. Correcting housing markets will require initiatives that encourage inclusion rather than exclusion and seek restoration of the value racism has extracted.  

The Biden administration has acknowledged Brookings's devaluation research in various memoranda, and in June 2021, the president announced PAVE, an interagency task force to end bias in home valuations. This year, PAVE released its Action Plan to Advance Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity, which outlines actions to strengthen guardrails against discrimination, enhance fair housing and lending enforcement, build a diverse appraiser workforce, empower consumers, and give researchers and enforcement agencies more data. 

The federal government's regulation and enforcement functions in housing are critical in closing the valuation gap, but they are not sufficient by themselves. We need an agenda for future research and innovations that scale-up alternatives to traditional appraisals, create new unbiased valuation methods, and diversify the appraisal workforce—96.5% of whom are white. 

The innovators in the Valuing Homes in Black Communities challenge are working on projects in these areas now—projects we can scale up to lawmakers in Washington. Just as we once built a market on exclusivity, today, we can construct an inclusive one. We selected innovators who are focused on inclusion, because their work could help change fundamental structures in the appraisal market. And today, we are happy to announce the Spotlight Innovators who will receive cash prizes to advance their ideas: 

  • Ashley Allen, Houston Community Land Trust (Houston) 
  • Roshun Austin, The Works, Inc. (Memphis, Tenn.) 
  • Bree Jones, Parity Baltimore Incorporated (Baltimore) 
  • Ericka Kelly, Greater Milwaukee Committee (Milwaukee) 
  • Santhosh Ramdoss, Gary Community Ventures (Denver) 
  • Scott Rose, Class Valuation (Troy, Mich.) 
  • Ellen Sahli, Family Housing Fund (Minneapolis) 
  • Charu Singh, Humane Works LLC (New York) 
  • Rosalind Williams, WITH ACTION (St. Louis) 
  • Evelyn Zwiebach, Enterprise Community Partners (Detroit) 

We find ourselves in a rare moment in which researchers, government, corporations, and private citizens can dismantle the drags of racism from housing markets and build an architecture of equality. If we are thoughtful about how we redesign the market, we have the opportunity to engage appraisers, appraisal companies, financial institutions, and industry groups to address the structural causes of the valuation gap on each of these frontiers. 

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The mask mandate decision defies common sense

Posted: 27 Apr 2022 10:42 AM PDT

By Elaine Kamarck

The U.S. District Court in Tampa, Florida, made big news when it struck down the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) mandate that people on public transportation had to wear masks. The news was celebrated by some who triumphantly tore off their masks in mid-air and lamented by others who warned of a new spike in infections. It came a few weeks before the mask mandate was set to expire and in the midst of a nationwide relaxation of masking and social distancing rules. In response, the Biden Administration opted not to ask for an emergency stay of the order—which would have immediately, but temporarily reinstated the mask mandate. But they did do something that is potentially important to the future of public health and CDC power. They appealed the decision by the U.S. District Court in Tampa. If the Tampa decision stands the results could be disastrous.

By basing a ruling on an especially narrow definition of the word "sanitation" the court restricted future public health interventions during pandemics or other public health crises. The CDC's statutory authority is defined in Section 264 of the Public Health Services Act of 1944. It gives the agency the right to promulgate regulations aimed at "identifying, isolating and destroying" diseases. Under this broad authority, Section 264 (a) has two sentences. The first gives the agency the power to issue regulations necessary "to prevent the spread of communicable diseases." The second sentence goes on to illustrate the kinds of policies that would or could be necessary. They include "inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination and destruction of contaminated animals and articles." The CDC argued that masking was a form of sanitation. But the court, in its decision, argued that the second sentence limited the CDC's power and that masks did not constitute sanitation—"wearing a mask cleans nothing." Going further, the Court concluded that:

"A requirement that individual travelers wear a mask is not inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of contaminated animals and articles… and other measures." (p. 11)

This extremely narrow definition of sanitation—which would leave out many ways of transmitting airborne illnesses no matter how deadly—is not even uniformly agreed upon in the legal profession. In fact, in the court's decision they quote and reject, "The Simplified Medical Dictionary for Lawyers", defines sanitation to include "air filters, or barriers, masks, gowns or other personal protective equipment." And yet, Judge Mizelle's decision spends an inordinate amount of time parsing the word "sanitation" in order to prove that CDC authority involves cleaning not masking.

The decision defies common sense. Some deadly and highly infectious diseases travel by touch. The deadly Ebola virus turned out to be spread by direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids from someone who is infected. Polio was spread through contact with water or food contaminated by fecal matter. Typhus is spread through contact with infected fleas who carry it after they've bitten infected animals.

But other deadly diseases, like Covid and other SARS viruses, spread through the air. Measles lives in the nose and throat mucus of an infected person and can spread through coughing or sneezing. Smallpox spreads through direct, close contact with an infected person. Influenza viruses are spread through respiratory droplets, as is the deadly H1N1.

In other words, the very narrow reading of the word "sanitation" by the court means, in practice, that the CDC could order everyone to carry around bottles of sanitizer and wipe down the subway poles they hang onto—but they could not order everyone to wear a mask. As many will recall, in the early days of Covid, people wore rubber gloves and wiped down their groceries before putting them in the house. Under the reasoning in its decision, the U.S. District Court would have approved of that. But as we learned more about Covid it became clear that the disease was airborne, not surface based, and high-quality masks became the most important means of avoiding infection.

The data on masks have been confusing and uneven, as has the CDC guidance. But constraining Covid will almost certainly not be the end of pandemics. With the world ever more interconnected and with climate change causing disruptions in natural eco-systems, we will almost certainly see more pandemics. Some will spread by touch; others will be airborne. And, as has happened with Covid, scientists can start out thinking a disease is spread by touch but improve their understanding as the disease progresses and more data are available and analyzed.

The CDC has a lot to do to prepare for the next pandemic; its performance has not been without flaws. But the CDC will be much less capable, and the next pandemic will be much worse if the silly and narrow definition asserted by the court is not reversed.

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Economic disparities in the Washington, D.C. metro region provide opportunities for policy action

Posted: 27 Apr 2022 08:59 AM PDT

By Camille Busette, Samantha Elizondo

It is well-known that throughout cities in the United States, there is a significant set of economic disparities between white people and people of color. In this blog, we explored the current contours of economic opportunity in the five counties (Prince George’s, Montgomery, Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax) and Washington, D.C. that make up the D.C. metropolitan area better known as the DMV.

In an effort to identify trends relevant to economic mobility in the DMV, we reviewed extant 2019 data on life expectancy, income, unemployment, poverty, education, and homeownership by race in the DMV. Each of these factors is commonly understood to have an impact on an individual's ability to experience economic well-being and generate wealth.

An opportunity to support thriving Black life in Washington, D.C.

What we found is that within these five counties and Washington, D.C., Washington D.C. exhibited the largest negative racial disparities in life expectancy, income, unemployment, and poverty. Black residents in D.C., in particular, experience the greatest negative disparities in these categories.

For example, Black life expectancy in Washington, D.C. was the lowest among all races at an average of 72.7 years. This compared unfavorably with an average of 88 years for white people, 88.3 years for Latinos, and 88.9 years for Asians in Washington, D.C.. Black people also had the lowest per capita annual median income and the greatest disparities in income at $29,927 when compared to that of white people at $92,758 and Latinos at $41,151. In addition, in 2019, Black people in Washington, D.C. experienced the highest unemployment rate, 4.8%, of any of the jurisdictions we reviewed. The largest percentage of Black residents living below the poverty line, 21.6%, lived in Washington, D.C..

The areas in Washington D.C. with the greatest disparities are east of the Anacostia River and are legacy redlined communities. It is clear that policymakers have opportunities to do more to support the economic and general well-being of residents who live in these communities.

Some important distinctions

But there were some important differences among the jurisdictions which could inform further policy inquiry.  For example, in Montgomery County, Maryland, Black and white 2019 unemployment rates were relatively low and almost identical, suggesting that Montgomery County may be pursuing a number of policies and approaches to ensure equitable employment.

We also found that Prince George's County has the highest Black homeownership rate among the jurisdictions reviewed. Homeownership depends on a complex set of factors, but it is clear that Prince George's County offers some important lessons on Black homeownership that could inform other efforts to increase wealth among communities of color across the DMV.

While we found that Latinos experienced the highest negative disparities in education across all the jurisdictions reviewed, Washington, D.C. has the highest high school graduation rate among Latinos. This is promising, so it would be valuable to understand what is driving this trend in the Washington, D.C. We also found that in Arlington County, Asians experienced disproportionately high rates of poverty at 20.5%.

These nuances are important to note and for policymakers to address and provide opportunities for cross-fertilization of policy approaches across the DMV.

Racial wealth gap

Because wealth in the United States is heavily determined by homeownership and income, we provide some additional geographical analyses. Within the five counties and Washington, D.C. we reviewed, there are large negative racial disparities in income and homeownership. Black and Hispanic/Latino residents experience the greatest negative disparities in the two wealth measures we analyzed.

We used income and homeownership data from the American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Census to identify groups of census tracts where people of color had the lowest income in the region. We did an additional overlay to name places in the D.C. region where homeownership rates among Blacks and Latinos remain the lowest. Through a visual analysis of these trends in location, we found "hotspot"[

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