Maria Ressa, Afghanistan airstrike OSINT and preserving memory in Brazil
At a time when people need news and information they can trust, governments are censoring the press, curbing the free flow of information and scrutinising voices that seek accountability. We stand in solidarity with Maria Ressa, veteran journalist and co-founder of Rappler in the Philippines. Maria has been leading the fight for freedom of press in the Philippines. On June 15, a Manila Regional Trial Court convicted Maria and former Rappler researcher-writer Reynaldo Santos on cyber libel charges in a high-profile verdict. Ressa and Santos are appealing their conviction to higher courts. This is an attempt to silence Maria and Rappler for its critical coverage of President Rodrigo Duterte and his administration.
Maria and Rappler have been targeted for years for speaking truth to power. Independent media newsrooms and journalists in other regions have also been targeted similarly. This is the time for journalists and civil society to be vigilant and vocal. We continue to #HoldTheLine & #DefendPressFreedom during this time.
Top COVID-19 questions
Journalist and medical doctor, Dr. Seema Yasmin shares weekly highlights from Meedan's COVID-19 Expert Database
How are migrant laborers in India being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic?
From the COVID-19 Expert Database: Migratory and seasonal agricultural workers (MSAWs) have been documented to disproportionately contract infectious diseases, like COVID-19, along with a host of other serious health problems. These health issues are exacerbated by the transitory culture of this population group, which makes it difficult to develop a relationship with a healthcare provider, maintain treatment regimens, and track health records.
Seema says:"The virus is not the 'great equalizer,' as some news outlets reported early in the pandemic. People living on the margins of society, communities displaced because of conflict or employment, those who serve the privileged groups that are able to work from home, and workers who kept economies running under the most challenging circumstances, are more vulnerable to disease and death. This could have been predicted before the crisis. Systems could have been put in place to protect the most vulnerable. The pandemic might well be defined by how it highlighted existing inequities, and how the public health response - from the availability of testing to the supply of personal protective equipment - so often served the privileged. Any chance at achieving health equity and lessening disparities in future public health crises will involve careful analysis of this crisis. By focusing on the pandemic's devastating impacts on migrant laborers and other disenfranchised groups, we might learn how to protect those most susceptible to disease and discrimination."
How come COVID-19 can make people sick for months?
From the COVID-19 Expert Database: Because the COVID-19 virus is new, we still don't know why some people might become sick longer than others. But we do know that people infected with COVID-19 who have severe symptoms tend to have symptoms for longer than those with mild cases.
Seema says: "It's not yet understood why some people develop more severe or longer lasting illness. New clinical reports show some patients suffer symptoms for as long as two months, and immunologists wonder if Covid-19 will lead to lifelong sequelae, including chronic fatigue and myalgic encephalomyelitis. Some of these hypotheses are based on what is understood about other viral illnesses. Fact-checking requires the diligent communication of certainty and uncertainty. Six months into the pandemic, many questions remain about Covid-19 symptoms, prognosis and immunity. Conflicting news reports based on non-peer reviewed pre-prints of highly variable quality cause further anxiety for the public about what's known and what is pure speculation."
Can we trust antibody tests to tell who has been infected and who hasn't?
From the COVID-19 Expert Database: Diagnostic tests like antibody tests are never 100% accurate. Sometimes, a test will produce false positives (when you test positive for the virus, but don't really have it) and false negatives (when you test negative for the virus, but you really have been infected). The antibody tests for COVID-19 are similar.
Seema says: "As states and countries lift shelter-in-place orders, and schools and businesses begin to reopen, people are forced to make risk assessments. Should my child go back to school? Can I visit my grandparents? Antibody tests have the potential to guide those risk assessments, but only if the tests are reliable. Of more than a hundred antibody tests available in the U.S. only a small proportion have been independently verified. Others range in specificity and sensitivity meaning each result has to be weighed against what is known and unknown about a particular assay. Even if a test is reliable, key questions about Covid-19 immunity remain unanswered, such as if antibodies confer protection against reinfection, and how long antibodies persist. In this context, a positive antibody result - which may not be a true positive result, and even then, may not mean a person is protected from reinfection - could shift behaviors and lead a person to higher exposures. Offering frequent updates on the state of antibody testing and immunity studies can help the public make safer, better informed decisions about their lives."
Top stories
Investigating One Case of Civilian Harm In Afghanistan (Bellingcat)
We're so proud to share the work of our partner, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), who have been investigating strikes in Afghanistan for the past five years. TBIJ teamed up with Bellingcat's community of volunteers to work on a cache of 21 strikes in their database that demanded further investigation. More than 150 volunteers worked on this using Check, Meedan's open source platform that makes collaborative work possible. The results for this challenging work have been impressive. In all the cases investigated, they made some progress.
“We must note that we used more than just open source tools for this investigation — and had to reach out to sources on the ground for confirmation of the events that occurred.
We did not come to a conclusion as to who carried out the strike. Weapon fragments that seemed to be from an American weapon were shown in one of the videos, but it appeared to be tacked on the end of a modified version of a Taliban video. It was also difficult to verify if the footage was taken at the same site, as none of the surrounding area was included in the video.
Regardless, the evidence gathered brings true accountability in the Afghan air war closer. Far too often its victims are faceless, and casualties figures are just that – numbers." — Jessica Purkis, TBIJ & Bashar Deep, Lighthouse Reports
Vietnam’s Coronavirus Death Toll Is Zero. The Cost? Total Surveillance (OneZero)
Vietnam's response to the Covid-19 pandemic reveals a resourceful — and often troubling — use of technology. The communist country has logged 326 cases of Covid-19 and zero deaths. Other countries in the region have deployed high-tech interventions. Taiwan provides real-time, location-specific data to the public on face mask availability through a government API. The Chinese government uses facial recognition, geotagging, and thermal scanners to track infected individuals. Meanwhile, a close look at Vietnam’s response reveals a resourceful — and often troubling — mix of high-tech and low-tech measures. They illustrate how mass data collection can be deployed to contain a disease — and how it can go wrong.
"Global crises are known to spark technological innovation, but they also create a disturbing acceptance of more invasive control measures. The ruling party has capitalized on the battle against the coronavirus to boost its legitimacy both home and abroad as the country prepares for a reshuffling of national leadership at a congress early next year. Vietnam’s censorship apparatus has cracked down on attempts to undermine the narrative that only the state’s authoritarian system saved the country from the health crisis. As governments’ surveillance capabilities continue to develop, their place in our lives raises continual debates: Can they be justified on public health grounds?" — Georgina Phung, OneZero
Coronavirus: fake news less of a problem than confusing government messages (The Conversation)
When representative surveys reveal that many people have seen disinformation about COVID-19, it is not always clear what the false or misleading information they have seen was – or where it came from. What’s more, even when people are exposed to disinformation, we often assume rather than question whether it will affect their understanding of the pandemic. But when researchers at Cardiff University asked respondents about some of the most prominent false claims associated with COVID-19 disinformation they were easily detected. For example, the vast majority of participants rightly said 5G was not responsible for spreading the pandemic, that drinking more water does not kill the coronavirus and that gargling with saltwater is not a cure for COVID-19.
What counted as misinformation for some respondents was discredited medical claims, such as Donald Trump believing that injecting disinfectant protects against the coronavirus. But for many more it was either government claims or the media that was responsible for spreading false or misleading information.
"Misinformation to me would be reading an article saying schools to go back on June 1 without many details and then finding out it’s just a phased reintroduction for certain age groups. It’s panicking many parents when that didn’t need to happen, headlines should still be brief but not misleading."
"I think fact checking is more relevant than ever before because unfortunately people in power make false claims that, sadly, are believed by many people."
— Respondents in the study
What’s new at Meedan
Highlights from our team
The Brazilian government has been accused of totalitarianism and censorship after it stopped releasing its total numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths and wiped an official site clean of swaths of data. Responding to this information crises, our Latin America Program Manager Isabella Barroso writes about memory as a form of resistance. She also writes about the significance of the work of civil organizations, activists, technologists, historians, researchers and journalists in the process of archiving and preserving information.
"Let’s learn from our past historical erasures and organize ourselves to use current technology to safeguard our memory but also to understand the limitations of certain tools and products. Perhaps this time around, we can say that in spite of our collective shock and loss we honored our loved ones by mourning, remembering and saving space for future reparation. And hopefully as we walk on the coronavirus-free streets again we will do it in spaces that, different from today, are liberated of rotting statues and avenues named after the generals that were responsible for digging mass graves in times past," she writes.
As we send out this newsletter, here's an update from Brazil: Newsrooms are coming together to address the limitations imposed by the Ministry of Health. Journalists from G1, O Globo, Extra, Estadão, Folha and UOL will collect data from the states health secretariats and jointly release numbers of deaths and people testing positive for Covid-19.