Big ideas.
Once a week.
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Fake News Is an Unpleasant Symptom of a Bigger Problem
Don't believe everything Google tells you. Facebook and Google are taking measures against fake news, but it's becoming clear that it's a symptom of a bigger problem.
Watch out, fake news sites: Google and Facebook are cutting your purse strings.
In the wake of fake 2016 election results being the #1 Google search result, the company has finally decided to take action against fake news sites. According to a statement in Reuters, Google “will restrict ad serving on pages that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher's content, or the primary purpose of the web property," moving forward. Furthermore, “Facebook updated its advertising policies to spell out that its ban on deceptive and misleading content applies to fake news,” Reuters reports.
Facebook has a big problem with fake news sites, as The Guardian highlights. Fake news sites thrive on views, and Facebook is the main source of those views. As the owner of one site told them, “If your goal is straight page views [sic] then Facebook is the best investment of your time. It does drive more ‘clicks’ than posting on other platforms with an equal amount of followers.” And drive clicks it does: sites like these eschew normal journalistic standards for virality. “The ability to write a clickbaity headline, toss in some user-generated video found on YouTube, and dash off a 400-word post in 15 to 30 minutes is a skill they don’t teach in journalism school,” one site owner told The Guardian. That format, while lacking in journalistic integrity, is ideal for viral sharing. Sites investigated by The Guardian averaged about 700,000 visitors a day just through Facebook. By leveraging the platform and sharing their stories with other like-minded Facebook pages, they earn easily 7 or 8 million visitors per day -- every single one of whom generates ad income when they click on the site. Another site owner told The Guardian that those views “generate income of between $10,000 and $40,000 a month from banks of ads” alone.
So Facebook’s inability to differentiate between informative and misleading content allows misinformation to spread. But Facebook’s approach to misleading content is particularly problematic. After backlash earlier this year over how employees covering Trending Topics filtered out conservative news sites, Facebook has been loathe to use any kind of content filtering tools for fear of appearing biased, according to The Verge: “Facebook had developed a tool to identify fake news on its platform, but chose not to deploy it for fear it would disproportionately affect conservative websites and cause more right-wing backlash.”
By waiting in fear rather than searching for a better solution, Facebook allowed major amounts of misleading information about the 2016 presidential election and its candidates to spread unchecked. For a platform where 63% of its users consider it their primary news source, according to Nieman Lab, that’s irresponsible. “Given the viral aspects of fake news, social networks and search engines were gamed by partisan bad actors intending to influence the outcome of the race,” as The Verge puts it.
Why does this matter? Because Facebook made this the first Google search result for the 2016 Presidential election results:
Credit: Twitter
These numbers are wrong. Clinton won 47.68% of the popular vote with 62,414,338 votes; Trump won 46.79% with 61,252,488 votes, according to CNN, The New York Times, Fox News, Politico, the BBC, and every other news site that reported on this election. No news organization in the country reported these numbers -- yet, they are the first Google search result. I found them on Twitter, and despite the fact that there were hundreds of responses pointing out how they were wrong, people are still sharing and believing them.
The Washington Post made a concerted effort to track these numbers down. They report that the false statistics came from a site called 70news.com, which got them from a tweet, which got them from a site called USA Supreme. The Post did more digging and found:
The source behind the "USA Supreme" website isn't clear. It looks an awful lot like Prntly, a made-up news website we looked at earlier this year. Founded by a former convict named Alex Portelli, Prntly is part of the broad diaspora of websites that takes news about American politics, frames it in a pro-Trump way (often at the expense of accuracy) and then peppers the page with ads.
The Post continues, reporting that Portelli “denied involvement in USA Supreme, suggesting that it was the work of a group of young people in Macedonia.” There may be some truth to that, as The Guardian reports. Yet, 70news.com now has a header at the top of its post-election numbers. That header attributes the false statistics come from “twitter posts” and insisting that “the popular vote number still need [sic] to be updated in Wikipedia or MSM [mainstream] media – which may take another few days because the liberals are still reeling and recovering from Trump-shock victory.”
That’s wrong: the mainstream media has been regularly updating election results as they came in, as The Post points out. “”Alex" is wrong; he's hesitating to change the numbers,” they conclude.
He is: here’s the Wikipedia page. Credit: Wikipedia
While Google and Facebook are taking steps to diminish the spread of this kind of misinformation, they are far from stemming it. As Reuters points out, “Google's move does not address the issue of fake news or hoaxes appearing in Google search results… Rather, the change is aimed at assuring that publishers on the network are legitimate and eliminating financial incentives that appear to have driven the production of much fake news.”
Facebook’s hesitancy to own its role as a major news platform is a problem, too. This issue has caused great internal debate about the future of the platform. Right now, according to The Guardian, they are using a combination of algorithm and live screening to weed out content -- much like Google. But until both platforms embrace their roles as news distributors, they have a long way to go before enacting meaningful change. Until then, we’ll all just have to double-check our Google results.
Columbia professor Tim Wu recently came to the Big Think studio to talk about the ways media companies harvest our attention and re-sell it to advertisers. There's a gaping disparity between the way social media sites and media companies define "audience engagement" and the way good journalists do; to the former it means clicks that can be monetized, to the latter it means stoking deep thought that will gestate and be reborn as comments, emails, and conversation. As this recent study shows, 59% of links shared on Twitter are never even clicked. Reading headlines is a national pastime; reading articles is a rarity. And the worse of the two is incentivized.
Fake news is just an unpleasant symptom of a larger problem that we really don't know how to fix.
‘Designer baby’ book trilogy explores the moral dilemmas humans may soon create
How would the ability to genetically customize children change society? Sci-fi author Eugene Clark explores the future on our horizon in Volume I of the "Genetic Pressure" series.
18 January, 2021
Surprising Science
- A new sci-fi book series called "Genetic Pressure" explores the scientific and moral implications of a world with a burgeoning designer baby industry.
- It's currently illegal to implant genetically edited human embryos in most nations, but designer babies may someday become widespread.
- While gene-editing technology could help humans eliminate genetic diseases, some in the scientific community fear it may also usher in a new era of eugenics.
<ul class="ee-ul"></ul>
<p class="media-headline"><br></p><div class="rm-shortcode amazon-assets-widget" data-rm-shortcode-id="c757ef0c79111359597857b09540fee8" contenteditable="false">
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086RFXC2M?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/516FA23AmfL.jpg" class="amazon-assets-widget__image widget__image">
<div class="amazon-assets-widget__description">
<div class="amazon-assets-widget__title" style="display: block;">Genetic Pressure Volume I: Baby Steps</div>
<div class="amazon-assets-widget__by-amazon"><!-- <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086RFXC2M?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">by now at amazone</a> --></div>
<div class="amazon-assets-widget__list-price"><span class="grey">List Price: </span><span class="list-price">$3.00</span></div>
<div class="amazon-assets-widget__new-price"><span class="grey">New From: </span><span class="new-price">$3.00</span> <span class="grey">in Stock</span></div>
</div>
</a>
</div>
<p>Imagine it's 2045. You start hearing rumors from your well-heeled friends about a mysterious corporation based on an undisclosed island that's offering an unprecedented service: the ability to genetically design your baby.</p><p>The baby will have some of your genetics, and some genetics from a sperm or egg donor, selected by you. But the rest of your child's genetic profile will be engineered by science. These changes will make it impossible for your child to develop genetic diseases. They'll also allow you to customize your child for dozens of traits, including intelligence level, emotional disposition, sexual orientation, height, skin tone, hair color, and eye color, to name a few. </p><p>This raises unsettling philosophical questions for some customers. "When does my child stop being my child?" they ask the corporate representatives. These wary customers are reminded of how risky it is to reproduce the old-fashioned way. The Better Genetics Corporation's motto sums it up: "Only God plays dice—humans don't have to."</p><p>This is the world described in a new science-fiction series by Eugene Clark titled <a href="http://bigth.ink/38VhJn3" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">"Genetic Pressure"</a>, which explores the moral and scientific implications of a future in which designer babies are becoming a major industry. The first book begins with the story of Rachel, a renowned horse breeder who befriends a billionaire client, and soon gets the funding to visit the tropical island on which the Better Genetics Corporation is headquartered. </p><p>There, corporate executives walk her through the process of designing a baby—an experience that feels like an uncanny mix between visiting a doctor and designing a luxury car. The series is told from multiple perspectives, serving as a deep dive into a complex moral web that today's scientists may already be weaving.</p>
<blockquote>[T]he introduction of designer babies would create a labyrinth of philosophical dilemmas that society is only beginning to explore. </blockquote>
<p>Case in point: In 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced that he had helped create the world's first genetically engineered babies. Using the gene-editing tool CRISPR on embryos, He Jiankui modified a gene called <a href="https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/gene/CCR5" target="_blank">CCR5</a>, which enables HIV to enter and infect immune system cells. His goal was to engineer children that were immune to the virus.</p><p>It's unclear whether he succeeded. But what's certain is that the experiment shocked the international scientific community, which generally agreed that it's unethical to conduct gene-editing procedures on humans, given that scientists don't yet fully understand the consequences.</p><p>"This experiment is monstrous," Julian Savulescu, a professor of practical ethics at the University of Oxford, told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/26/worlds-first-gene-edited-babies-created-in-china-claims-scientist" target="_blank"><em>The Guardian</em></a>. "The embryos were healthy. No known diseases. Gene editing itself is experimental and is still associated with off-target mutations, capable of causing genetic problems early and later in life, including the development of cancer."</p><p>Importantly, He Jiankui wasn't treating a disease, but rather genetically engineering babies to prevent the future contraction of a virus. These kinds of changes are heritable, meaning the experiment could have major downstream effects on future generations. So, too, would a designer-baby industry, even if scientists can do it safely.</p><p>With major implications on inequality, discrimination, sexuality, and our conceptions of life, the introduction of designer babies would create a labyrinth of philosophical dilemmas that society is only beginning to explore. </p>
<a href="http://bigth.ink/38VhJn3" ><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTI2MTEzNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NDcxMzY4M30.5fwCPH_6sQ0RF19aAH4FQFue9HFJykzdEc0Xka1TY04/img.jpg?width=980" id="affdd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="76374e8775bd9441a338cf513bb1fa55" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="924" data-height="520" /></a>
Tribalism and discrimination
<p>One question the "Genetic Pressure" series explores: What would tribalism and discrimination look like in a world with designer babies? As designer babies grow up, they could be noticeably different from other people, potentially being smarter, more attractive and healthier. This could breed resentment between the groups—as it does in the series.</p><p>"[Designer babies] slowly find that 'everyone else,' and even their own parents, becomes less and less tolerable," author Eugene Clark told Big Think. "Meanwhile, everyone else slowly feels threatened by the designer babies."</p><p>For example, one character in the series who was born a designer baby faces discrimination and harassment from "normal people"—they call her "soulless" and say she was "made in a factory," a "consumer product." </p><p>Would such divisions emerge in the real world? The answer may depend on who's able to afford designer baby services. If it's only the ultra-wealthy, then it's easy to imagine how being a designer baby could be seen by society as a kind of hyper-privilege, which designer babies would have to reckon with. </p><p>Even if people from all socioeconomic backgrounds can someday afford designer babies, people born designer babies may struggle with tough existential questions: Can they ever take full credit for things they achieve, or were they born with an unfair advantage? To what extent should they spend their lives helping the less fortunate? </p>Sexuality dilemmas
<p>Sexuality presents another set of thorny questions. If a designer baby industry someday allows people to optimize humans for attractiveness, designer babies could grow up to find themselves surrounded by ultra-attractive people. That may not sound like a big problem.</p><p>But consider that, if designer babies someday become the standard way to have children, there'd necessarily be a years-long gap in which only some people are having designer babies. Meanwhile, the rest of society would be having children the old-fashioned way. So, in terms of attractiveness, society could see increasingly apparent disparities in physical appearances between the two groups. "Normal people" could begin to seem increasingly ugly.</p><p>But ultra-attractive people who were born designer babies could face problems, too. One could be the loss of body image. </p><p>When designer babies grow up in the "Genetic Pressure" series, men look like all the other men, and women look like all the other women. This homogeneity of physical appearance occurs because parents of designer babies start following trends, all choosing similar traits for their children: tall, athletic build, olive skin, etc. </p><p>Sure, facial traits remain relatively unique, but everyone's more or less equally attractive. And this causes strange changes to sexual preferences.</p><p>"In a society of sexual equals, they start looking for other differentiators," he said, noting that violet-colored eyes become a rare trait that genetically engineered humans find especially attractive in the series.</p><p>But what about sexual relationships between genetically engineered humans and "normal" people? In the "Genetic Pressure" series, many "normal" people want to have kids with (or at least have sex with) genetically engineered humans. But a minority of engineered humans oppose breeding with "normal" people, and this leads to an ideology that considers engineered humans to be racially supreme. </p>Regulating designer babies
<p>On a policy level, there are many open questions about how governments might legislate a world with designer babies. But it's not totally new territory, considering the West's dark history of eugenics experiments.</p><p>In the 20th century, the U.S. conducted multiple eugenics programs, including immigration restrictions based on genetic inferiority and forced sterilizations. In 1927, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that forcibly sterilizing the mentally handicapped didn't violate the Constitution. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes wrote, "… three generations of imbeciles are enough." </p><p>After the Holocaust, eugenics programs became increasingly taboo and regulated in the U.S. (though some states continued forced sterilizations <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/" target="_blank">into the 1970s</a>). In recent years, some policymakers and scientists have expressed concerns about how gene-editing technologies could reanimate the eugenics nightmares of the 20th century. </p><p>Currently, the U.S. doesn't explicitly ban human germline genetic editing on the federal level, but a combination of laws effectively render it <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jlb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jlb/lsaa006/5841599#204481018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">illegal to implant a genetically modified embryo</a>. Part of the reason is that scientists still aren't sure of the unintended consequences of new gene-editing technologies. </p><p>But there are also concerns that these technologies could usher in a new era of eugenics. After all, the function of a designer baby industry, like the one in the "Genetic Pressure" series, wouldn't necessarily be limited to eliminating genetic diseases; it could also work to increase the occurrence of "desirable" traits. </p><p>If the industry did that, it'd effectively signal that the <em>opposites of those traits are undesirable. </em>As the International Bioethics Committee <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jlb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jlb/lsaa006/5841599#204481018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wrote</a>, this would "jeopardize the inherent and therefore equal dignity of all human beings and renew eugenics, disguised as the fulfillment of the wish for a better, improved life."</p><p><em>"Genetic Pressure Volume I: Baby Steps"</em><em> by Eugene Clark is <a href="http://bigth.ink/38VhJn3" target="_blank">available now.</a></em></p>
Keep reading
Show less
Popular
Octopus-like creatures inhabit Jupiter’s moon, claims space scientist
A leading British space scientist thinks there is life under the ice sheets of Europa.
03 May, 2020
Jupiter's moon Europa has a huge ocean beneath its sheets of ice.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute
Surprising Science
- A British scientist named Professor Monica Grady recently came out in support of extraterrestrial life on Europa.
- Europa, the sixth largest moon in the solar system, may have favorable conditions for life under its miles of ice.
- The moon is one of Jupiter's 79.
<p>Alien hunting is a hopeful activity and one reason behind our space programs that the public generally supports. Looking for other life is a strong incentive to be venturing out into space, despite having found none so far. A top British space scientist,<strong> Professor Monica Grady,</strong> gave all cosmic explorers a big dose of such hope in a recent speech. She is certain there's some form of life on Jupiter's moon, <strong>Europa</strong>.</p><p>This life would not look human, but more like an "octopus," and is likely residing in the cold waters under the moon's sheets of ice. </p><p>Grady, a Professor of Planetary and Space Science and Chancellor at Liverpool Hope University, thinks there's a great likelihood of undiscovered life somewhere in our galaxy.</p><p>She also supposes that the deeper caves and cavernous spaces of Mars could be harboring some subterranean creatures, likely bacteria, there to escape the solar radiation. They could be getting water from the ice buried deep down. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"When it comes to the prospects of life beyond Earth, it's <strong>almost a racing certainty </strong>that there's life beneath the ice on Europa," <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-02-certainty-life-europa-mars-uk.html" target="_blank">she said</a> in a February address.</p>
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">She thinks these life forms on Europa, </span><span style="background-color: initial;">390 million miles from Earth, could be higher in sophistication than the Martian bacteria, possibly having "the intelligence of an octopus."</span><br></p><p>Where would the creatures live on this moon of Jupiter? Somewhere below the very thick layer of ice, which goes 15 miles deep in some places. It's possible there is liquid water beneath all that ice, keeping whatever lives inside protected against radiation and the impact of asteroids and similar smashing bodies.</p><p><span></span><span style="background-color: initial;">The likelihood of life on Europa is bolstered by </span><span style="background-color: initial;">the possible <a href="https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFM.P23D1743G/abstract" target="_blank">hydrothermal vents</a> on its ocean floor. Such vents are cradles of life on Earth.</span></p><p>Grady thinks that our solar system doesn't have to be particularly special and that statistically speaking, as we explore other stars and galaxies, we should be able to find conditions for life. "I think it's highly likely there will be life elsewhere—and I think it's highly likely they'll be made of the same elements," <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-02-certainty-life-europa-mars-uk.html" target="_blank">stated</a> the professor.</p>
Neil deGrasse Tyson wants to go ice fishing on Europa
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-media_id="GLGsRX7e" data-player_id="FvQKszTI" data-rm-shortcode-id="f4790eb8f0515e036b24c4195299df28"> <div id="botr_GLGsRX7e_FvQKszTI_div" class="jwplayer-media" data-jwplayer-video-src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/GLGsRX7e-FvQKszTI.js"> <img src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/thumbs/GLGsRX7e-1920.jpg" class="jwplayer-media-preview" /> </div> <script src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/GLGsRX7e-FvQKszTI.js"></script> </div><p>Grady did not want to guess whether we would contact extraterrestrials any time soon, citing the fact that distances between us and likely aliens might be gigantic. </p><p>On the other hand, she added, if you look at a grain of sand, you "can see that most of it is made up of silicates, but it's also got little patches of carbon in it—and that carbon is extra-terrestrial, because it also contains nitrogen and hydrogen, which is not a terrestrial signature."</p><p>This tiny sample, says Grady, shows it was hit by meteorites, asteroids, and interstellar dust, pointing out "It's giving us an idea of how complex the record of extra-terrestrial material really is."</p>
<p>As for Europa, it has certainly figured in conversations about alien life previously. As <a href="https://europa.nasa.gov/mission/why-europa/" target="_blank">NASA explains</a>, scientists call Europa an "ocean world" due to decades of observations that predict an ocean under its sheets of ice. </p><p><span style="background-color: initial;">In 2019, water vapor was confirmed there by NASA for the first time. While it might just have the right conditions for life, </span><span style="background-color: initial;">does this moon have little octopus E.T.s swimming about? Future studies will tell. </span></p>
Water Vapor Above Europa’s Surface Deteced for First Time
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9c4abc8473e1b89170cc8941beeb1f2d"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WQ-E1lnSOzc?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
Keep reading
Show less
Lair of giant predator worms from 20 million years ago found
Scientists discover burrows of giant predator worms that lived on the seafloor 20 million years ago.
22 January, 2021
Bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois).
Credit: Jenny – Flickr
Surprising Science
- Scientists in Taiwan find the lair of giant predator worms that inhabited the seafloor 20 million years ago.
- The worm is possibly related to the modern bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois).
- The creatures can reach several meters in length and famously ambush their pray.
<p>If you happened to be traversing the seafloor of Eurasia about 20 million years ago, you'd likely come across giant predator worms as long as several meters, claims new research. Scientists discovered that super-long worms may have taken over the ancient seafloor, based on their reconstructions of large burrows found at the bottom of the sea in northeast Taiwan.</p><p>The samples studied came from as far back as the Miocene epoch of 23 million to 5.3 million years ago. The research team used 319 specimens found in the sandstone of Yehliu Geopark, an area outside New Taipei City in Taiwan, to reconstruct a trace fossil dubbed <em>Pennichnus formosae.</em> Trace fossils are geological features such as burrows that can be used to make educated inferences about how ancient creatures behaved. The fossil uncovered by the researchers is comprised of an L-shaped burrow about 2 meters in length but only 2-3 centimeters in diameter. The scientists concluded that this fossil was probably left by gigantic sea worms, possibly the ancestors of the <em>bobbit worm</em> (Eunice aphroditois), which is still around today.</p>
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">The way a bobbit worm catches its food is by first hiding in a long burrow in the seafloor, then lunging up to catch its "</span><span style="background-color: initial;">unsuspecting prey with a snap of their powerful jaws," as the study authors <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-79311-0" target="_blank">write</a>. The researchers believe the structure they found was created when the ancient worm retreated into the seafloor with its prey, still alive and struggling.</span></p><p>Ludvig Löwemark, a National Taiwan University paleontologist and the study's co-author, explained in an <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/is-this-a-fossilized-lair-of-the-dreaded-bobbit-worm/" target="_blank">interview</a> with <em>Wired</em> that the fossil they found shows invertebrates like the ancient worms were eating vertebrates. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Typically, what we find in the sedimentary record is animals that are moving through the sediment," said <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/is-this-a-fossilized-lair-of-the-dreaded-bobbit-worm/" target="_blank">Löwemark</a>. "But this is a record of a much more active behavior. The worms were actually hiding in the sediment, jumping out, catching their prey, and then dragging this prey down into the sediment."</p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTUxNTY0Ny9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MjQ2MTk1Mn0.tkPuCz4gGHRaBY20bVTzWkDN0GQwNCMM7lzlfw_7Tog/img.png?width=980" id="265f8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="82fcd65b35990d68e015ed2dcf3deae6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="685" data-height="636" />
A three-dimensional model of the feeding behavior of Bobbit worms and the proposed formation of Pennichnus formosae.
Credit: Scientific Reports
<p>What's also remarkable about the study is that studying ancient worms is generally an extremely difficult task. One big problem – they would have had bodies composed mainly of soft tissue, which is hard to preserve. The trace fossil discovered by the scientists is likely the first known fossil made by an ambushing predator of this kind.</p><p>If you're wondering, the bobbit worm's unusual name comes from a sordid episode of American culture, referencing the story of<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/30/arts/television/lorena-bobbitt-documentary-jordan-peele.html" target="_blank"> John and Lorena Bobbitt</a>, who cut off her husband's penis after years of abuse.</p><p>Check out the study published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-79311-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Scientific Reports.</a></p>
Beware the Bobbit Worm!
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1f9918e77851242c91382369581d3aac"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_As1pHhyDHY?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
Keep reading
Show less
FOSTA-SESTA: Have controversial sex trafficking acts done more harm than good?
The idea behind the law was simple: make it more difficult for online sex traffickers to find victims.
22 January, 2021
Has FOSTA-SESTA really lived up to it's promise of protecting sex trafficking victims - or has it made them easier to target?
Credit: troyanphoto on Adobe Stock
Politics & Current Affairs
- SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act) and FOSTA (Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act) started as two separate bills that were both created with a singular goal: curb online sex trafficking. They were signed into law by former President Trump in 2018.
- The implementation of this law in America has left an international impact, as websites attempt to protect themselves from liability by closing down the sections of their sites that sex workers use to arrange safe meetings with clientele.
- While supporters of this bill have framed FOSTA-SESTA as a vital tool that could prevent sex trafficking and allow sex trafficking survivors to sue those websites for facilitating their victimization, many other people are strictly against the bill and hope it will be reversed.
<ul class="ee-ul"></ul>
What is FOSTA-SESTA?
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="723125b44601d565a7c671c7523b6452"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WBaqDjPCH8k?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act) and FOSTA (Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act) were signed into law by former President Trump in 2018. There was some argument that this law may be unconstitutional as it could potentially violate the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/" target="_blank">first amendment</a>. A criminal defense lawyer explains this law in-depth in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoWx2hYg5uo&t=38s" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">this video</a>. </p><p><strong>What did FOSTA-SESTA aim to accomplish?</strong></p><p>The idea behind the law was simple: make it more difficult for online sex traffickers to find victims. FOSTA-SESTA started as two separate bills that were both created with a singular goal: curb online sex trafficking. Targeting websites like Backpage and Craigslist, where sex workers would often arrange meetings with their clientele, FOSTA-SESTA aimed to stop the illegal sex-trafficking activity being conducted online. While the aim of FOSTA-SESTA was to keep people safer, these laws have garnered international speculation and have become quite controversial. </p><p><a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180321006214/en/National-Anti-Trafficking-Coalition-Celebrates-Survivors-Senate-Passes" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">According to BusinessWire</a>, many people are in support of this bill, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and World Without Exploitation (WorldWE). </p><p>"With the growth of the Internet, human trafficking that once happened mainly on street corners has largely shifted online. According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, 73 percent of the 10,000 child sex trafficking reports it receives from the public each year involve ads on the website Backpage.com."</p><p>As soon as this bill was <a href="https://www.pivotlegal.org/sesta_fosta_censoring_sex_workers_from_websites_sets_a_dangerous_precedent" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">signed into law</a>, websites where sex workers often vetted and arranged meetings with their clients could now be held liable for the actions of the millions of people that used their sites. This meant websites could be prosecuted if they engaged in "the promotion or facilitation of prostitution" or "facilitate traffickers in advertising the sale of unlawful sex acts with sex trafficking victims." </p><p><strong>The bill's effects were felt around the world — from Canadians being unhappy with the impact of this American bill to U.K. politicians considering the implementation of similar laws in the future.</strong> </p><p>Heather Jarvis, the program coordinator of the Safe Harbour Outreach Project (SHOP), which supports sex workers in the St. John's area, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/heather-jarvis-website-shutdown-1.4667018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">explained to CBC in an interview</a> that the American bill is impacting everyone, everywhere: "When laws impact the internet — the internet is often borderless — it often expands across different countries. So although these are laws in the United States, what we've seen is they've been shutting down websites in Canada and other countries as well."</p><p>Jarvis suggests in her interview that instead of doing what they aimed to do with the bill and improving the safety of victims of sex trafficking or sexual exploitation, the website shutdowns are actually making sex workers less safe. </p><p>While <a href="https://gizmodo.com/the-uk-wants-its-own-version-of-fosta-sesta-that-could-1827420794" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">one U.K. publication</a> refers to FOSTA-SESTA as "well-intentioned but ultimately deeply-flawed laws," it also mentions that politicians in the United Kingdom are hoping to pursue similar laws in the near future. </p>Has FOSTA-SESTA done more harm than good?
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTUxMzY5Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2ODUyNDc4OX0.dSEEzcflJJUTnUCFmuwmPAIA0f754eW7rN8x6L7fcCc/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=-68%2C595%2C-68%2C595&height=700" id="69d99" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="734759fa254b5a33777536e0b4d7b511" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="sex worker looking online for a job" data-width="1245" data-height="700" />Is this really going to help, or is this bill simply pushing sex work and sex-related content further into the dark?
Credit: Евгений Вершинин on Adobe Stock
<p>While <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180321006214/en/National-Anti-Trafficking-Coalition-Celebrates-Survivors-Senate-Passes" target="_blank">supporters of this bill</a> have framed FOSTA-SESTA as a vital tool that could prevent sex trafficking and allow sex trafficking survivors to sue those websites for facilitating their victimization, many other people are strictly against the bill and hope it will be reversed.</p><p><strong>One of the biggest problems many people have with this bill is that it forces sex workers into an even more dangerous situation, which is quite the opposite of what the bill had intended to do.</strong> </p><p>According to <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-anti-trafficking-activists-cheer-but-sex-workers-bemoan-shutdown-of/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Globe and Mail</a>, there has been an upswing in pimps sending sex workers messages that promise work - which puts sex workers on the losing end of a skewed power-dynamic, when before they could attempt to safely arrange their own meetings online. </p><p><strong>How dangerous was online sex work before FOSTA-SESTA? </strong></p><p><a href="https://www.beyond-the-gaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/BtGbriefingsummaryoverview.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The University of Leicester Department of Criminology</a> conducted an online survey that focused on the relative safety of internet-based sex work compared with outdoor sex work. According to the results, 91.6 percent of participants had not experienced a burglary in the past 5 years, 84.4 percent had not experienced physical assault in the same period, and only 5 percent had experienced physical assault in the last 12 months. </p><p><a href="https://www.pivotlegal.org/sesta_fosta_censoring_sex_workers_from_websites_sets_a_dangerous_precedent" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">PivotLegal</a> expresses concerns about this: "It is resoundingly clear, both from personal testimony and data, that attacking online sex work is an assault on the health and safety of people in the real world. In a darkly ironic twist, SESTA/FOSTA, legislation aimed at protecting victims of and preventing human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation, will do the exact opposite."</p><p><strong>Websites are also being hypervigilant (and censoring more content than needed) because they can't possibly police every single user's activity on their platform.</strong> </p><p>Passing this bill meant any website (not just the ones that are commonly used by sex traffickers) could be held liable for their user's posts. Naturally, this saw a general "tightening of the belt" when it came to what was allowed on various platforms. In late 2018, shortly after the FOSTA-SESTA bill was passed, companies like Facebook slowly began to alter their terms and conditions to protect themselves. </p><p>Facebook notably added sections that express prohibited certain sexual content and messages:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><em>"Content that includes an implicit invitation for sexual intercourse, which can be described as naming a sexual act and other suggestive elements including (but not limited to):</em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><em>– vague suggestive statements such as: 'looking forward to an enjoyable evening'</em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><em>– sexual use of language […]</em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><em>– content (self-made, digital or existing) that possibly portrays explicit sexual acts or a suggestively positioned person/suggestively positioned persons."<br><br> </em></p><p>Additionally, sections like this were also added, prohibiting things that could allude to sexual activity: </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><em>"Content in which other acts committed by adults are requested or offered, such as:</em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><em>– commercial pornography</em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><em>– partners that share fetishes or sexual interests"</em></p><p>Facebook wasn't the only website to crack down on their policies — the Craigslist classifieds section being removed and Reddit banned quite a large number of sex-worker related subreddits. </p><p><strong>Is FOSTA-SESTA really helpful?</strong> </p><p>This is the question many people are facing with the FOSTA-SESTA acts being passed just a few years ago. Is this really going to help, or is this bill simply pushing sex work and sex-related content further into the dark? Opinions seem to be split down the middle on this — what do you think?</p>
Keep reading
Show less
Videos
What is the ‘self’? The 3 layers of your identity.
Answering the question of who you are is not an easy task. Let's unpack what culture, philosophy, and neuroscience have to say.
Scroll down to load more…
