The debate over deplatforming and concerns about digital privacy
We hope you're doing well and staying safe. This week we have diverse views related to US President Donald Trump's access to social media platforms being blocked or banned. We also take a look at what fact-checkers have to say about WhatsApp's new privacy policy and concerns related to the concept of end-to-end encryption. We follow news related to the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro blocking an independent fact-checking group's Twitter account.
If you have questions or concerns related to the COVID-19 vaccine, you can share them with us and catch Dr. Seema Yasmin's weekly highlights on the vaccine in this issue.
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Your COVID-19 questions
Journalist and medical doctor, Dr. Seema Yasmin shares weekly highlights from Meedan's public health journalism tool, learnaboutcovid19.org.
Should someone still get the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, without assurance that a second dose will be available?
Dr. Seema says: "Yes. At this point, it is important to get as many people vaccinated as possible and some countries are releasing all reserves of vaccine doses to vaccinate as many people as possible with a first dose of the two-dose vaccines. This is done in the hopes that more vaccine will become available when second doses are due, which means it’s possible, but not guaranteed, that you will receive the second dose on time. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, World Health Organization, and many scientists around the world, agree that vaccines that were tested as two, carefully spaced doses in clinical trials, should be given according to that schedule. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses should be spaced 21 days apart, and the Moderna vaccine doses should be spaced 28 days apart. But the U.K. has diverged from this evidence-based schedule and is offering the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca vaccines three months after the first dose. There is some evidence that the AstraZeneca vaccine works well when the doses are spaced a few months apart, but the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were not tested in this way. These mRNA vaccines were between 52-89 percent efficacious at preventing COVID-19 after one dose, but how long people who receive only one dose remain protected is unknown because clinical trial participants received the second dose 21 or 28 days after the first dose."
What do we know about the Moderna vaccine so far?
Dr. Seema says: "The Moderna vaccine was recently approved for emergency use in the U.K., three weeks after it received emergency use authorization in the U.S. The vaccine gives a person a small piece of the viruses genetic code, mRNA, so that their own cells can use these instructions to make the spike protein of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The genetic code contains the instructions only for this small part of the virus, not the whole virus. Once the viral mRNA has been read, it is broken down and removed from the body, but the spike proteins remain and they “teach” the immune system what to prepare for, should the person be exposed to the real virus. This mRNA approach is the same technology used for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, but the Moderna vaccine can be stored at less cool temperatures making it slightly easier to transport. It’s about as efficacious as the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine offering 94.5% efficacy in clinical trials in people who received two doses 28 days apart."
The latest top stories
Why deplatforming Trump is no atonement for Silicon Valley's sins abroad (The New Arab)
Deplatforming Trump does not atone for platforms' dangerous applications abroad, which in some cases can be rightly construed as US-based companies meddling in the politics of foreign nations. While the United States does not intervene in matters of speech at home, it is all too happy to do so abroad, in the form of restrictions stemming from sanctions as well as laws around the support of foreign terrorist organisations. While the latter may seem like a reasonable restriction to many, the actual result can be much more insidious: As researchers from the group Syrian Archive have documented, Silicon Valley is effectively erasing history in Syria by removing key documentation of war crimes in the country.
"US social media companies operate in a diverse set of global communities, moderating content in around fifty languages, [but] the amount of investment in content moderation teams pales in comparison to that of engineering and development, or mergers and acquisitions." — Jillian C. York, writer and activist
WhatsApp's clarifications fail to allay user fears, fact checkers say misinformation on company's privacy policy on the rise (The Economic Times)
Despite issuing clarifications on its new privacy policy, WhatsApp is facing deep distrust among users. While it has triggered widespread criticism and panic, another challenge the company faces is misinformation. Fact-checkers from India have reported a rise in misinformation around how privacy, security and encryption works on the platform.
"Chat backups are still exposed if someone decides to pick them up from iCloud or from Google. That is where the user concerns are coming from. We did write a couple of explanatory articles. But, people are saying what does encryption mean? It doesn’t mean anything if the police pick you up for something, and they can restore the backups." — Jency Jacob, Managing Editor, BOOM
Bolsonaro bloqueia Aos Fatos no Twitter e revela intolerância ao contraditório (Aos Fatos)
President Jair Bolsonaro blocked the Twitter profile of Aos Fatos, an independent fact-checking group in Brazil. According to Aos Fatos, this attitude is arbitrary and demonstrates the President's growing intolerance of the group.
"É uma ação casuística, autoritária e também contraproducente, já que qualquer outro perfil, logado ou deslogado, pode ler o que Bolsonaro publica na rede social." — Tai Nalon, Executive Director, Aos Fatos
After the Deplatforming: Global Perspectives on Content Moderation
Last week, the world woke up to news that the @realdonaldtrump account, US President Donald Trump’s account on Twitter had been permanently suspended. One important thing to recognize is that the specific questions raised with this event are not new, but rather newly contextualized. At Meedan, we’ve been engaging in many of the issues raised here for years now, looking at the role of platform responsibility, content moderation, hate speech and data standards. In this article, some of Meedan’s team of thought leaders contribute their thinking on the issue.