Here are some of the topics that have caught my attention as I’ve been browsing the internet:
Dubious Leaks and Investigations
The Supreme Court Marshal’s report examining the May 2022 leak of the draft opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case that overturned Roe v. Wade leaves us with more questions than answers.
At the time of the leak, there were two main theories about who could be behind it. The Fox News side of the world tried to pin the blame on clerks associated with the liberal justices. But it always seemed to me more likely that the leak came from someone who wanted to ensure that the Justices would not water down Justice Samuel Alito’s draft, as Chief Justice John Roberts was reportedly trying to do.
So there was a bunch of interest in what this investigation would find. But the results are conveniently unclear, as the New York Times’ Jodi Kantor explains: “On Thursday, the court issued a 20-page report disclosing that the marshal’s months long search for the leaker had been fruitless, and detailing embarrassing gaps in internal policies and security. While noting that 97 workers had been formally interviewed, the report did not say whether the justices or their spouses had been.
Public reaction was scathing: “Not even a sentence explaining why they were or weren’t questioned,” tweeted Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, a conservative magazine.
A day later, the court was forced to issue a second statement saying that the marshal had in fact conferred with the justices, but on very different terms from others at the institution. Lower-level employees had been formally interrogated, recorded, pressed to sign affidavits denying any involvement and warned that they could lose their jobs if they failed to answer questions fully, according to interviews and the report.
In contrast, conversations with the justices had been a two-way “iterative process” in which they asked as well as answered questions, the marshal, Gail A. Curley, wrote. She had seen no need for them to sign affidavits, she said.”
Oh really? Even though an allegation came to light while this investigation was happening that claimed Justice Samuel Alito leaked the 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby opinion giving private employers the right not to include contraception in their health care plans because of religious liberty reasons?
I agree with what Esquire’s Charlie Pierce thinks about all of this: “This result calls into question how serious the court’s investigation actually was. The justices have made loud and angry noises about the leak, and they have done precisely nothing as a consequence. There is a reason why the justices kept this in-house. An outside investigation might’ve actually found out who leaked the draft opinion, and then everybody would’ve been embarrassed and, perhaps, there would be some talk of resignation, which in turn might’ve endangered the carefully engineered six-vote conservative majority on the court. And we can’t have that, now can we?”
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Correct the Internet
A new initiative to Correct the Internet aims to fight back against the bias in interest search results that erases the accomplishments of women athletes.
A group of organizations, including New Zealand soccer’s governing body, launched the effort with this commercial during halftime of New Zealand’s women’s match against the United States women’s national team on Friday. New Zealand will be co-hosting the 2023 Women’s World Cup with Australia.
MUST WATCH. “Correct the Internet” aims to highlight the inaccuracies of internet searches that disregard the achievements of sportswomen. The new initiative from @NZ_Football Et al. – launches at HT of tonight’s friendly between New Zealand & the USWNT.
— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) 8:54 PM ∙ Jan 20, 2023
The Correct the Internet website provides the background about why the effort is necessary:
“This project began with a little girl searching the internet for her own school project. She was looking for the greatest sportswomen in the world, the kind of inspiring women she could look up to. Her searches revealed many of the greatest male athletes in the world and all of their achievements, but very few women. She was then shocked to discover that when she did search for the achievements of the greatest sportswomen, many of them were superior to the men she was being served in her search results. It turns out, Christine Sinclair has scored more goals in international football than Cristiano Ronaldo. Steffi Graf spent more time ranked number 1 in tennis than Novak Djokovic. And the USA Women’s Basketball team has won more than double the world cup titles of any men’s team. This was just the beginning.
The deeper we looked, the more inaccuracies we discovered in our search results. The facts say that many of the world’s greatest athletes are women, but the internet keeps saying they are men. The reason for this is simple – the algorithms our search engines use are trained on our human behaviour. And now, the internet has learnt our human bias towards men. It’s a problem we created, but one we have the power to fix.
So we’ve made it our mission to Correct The Internet. We’re collecting the incorrect search results, and have built a simple tool so you can help us correct them.”
I know I’ll be spending some of my free time trying to correct the internet. I hope you will too.
Texas Universities Block TikTok
The University of Texas at Austin became the latest red state public university to block access to TikTok from its campus wi-fi system because of recent laws passed to limit the app from government-issued devices.
The Texas Tribune’s Kate McGee reports: “More than half of states in the U.S. have banned the use of the social media app on government devices in some capacity in recent months, according to a CNN analysis. Across the country, a growing number of universities have banned the app on devices connected to campus networks, including Auburn University in Alabama, the University of Oklahoma and the schools within the University System of Georgia.
The ban could have broad impacts particularly at universities serving college-age students, a key demographic that uses the app. University admissions departments have used it to connect with prospective students, and many athletics departments have used TikTok to promote sporting events and teams. It’s also unclear how the ban will impact faculty who research the app or professors who teach in areas such as communications or public relations, in which TikTok is a heavily used medium.”
I’m surprised there is such confusion, given how Governor Greg Abbott (R) prioritizes nuanced policy analysis over culture war own-the-libs moments. </sarcasm>
There are legitimate concerns about TikTok and how the Chinese government could control the data it generates. But this kind of policy directive—including the ban on its use on federal devices to which President Biden agreed in the recent omnibus spending bill—isn’t getting us closer to a solution to this challenge.
Abortion, Every Day
Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day recaps the news from across the country regarding reproductive freedom and sexual and reproductive health care. The most important story today comes from Arkansas, where Republican legislators are pushing a new bill to allow women to be prosecuted for the death of an unborn child.
Valenti has been warning about this kind of move for some time now, and she explains the stakes: “This is important: They are not just trying to criminalize abortion, but any ‘death’ that is “caused by a wrongful act, neglect or default.”
That means that under this legislation, a woman who has a miscarriage could be arrested if the state determines she did something to cause her pregnancy to end.
There’s language in the bill that says it “does not authorize prosecution for an accidental miscarriage”—something I’m sure Republicans will point to as proof that they won’t target women for pregnancy loss. But specifying an “accidental miscarriage” means that Arkansas lawmakers are suggesting that there are miscarriages that aren’t accidental, and their legislation would enshrine the idea that it is murder to ‘cause’ a miscarriage or stillbirth.
We already know that prosecutors across multiple states have used fetal personhood laws to arrest women for stillbirths and miscarriages—for reasons ranging from alleged drug use, refusing medical interventions like a c-section, even a suicide attempt. So this kind of criminalization is not without precedence.
And under this bill, almost anything a woman does while pregnant could be used against her. Having wine could be a ‘wrongful act’; not taking prenatal vitamins or lifting a heavy object could be ‘neglect’; ‘default’ could be failing to seek prenatal care. There is no limit to what a zealous prosecutor could arrest a woman for. This is always where these laws were leading, but it’s shocking to see it written out so explicitly.”
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Artists Sue Over A.I. Models Using their Work Without Permission
This week’s Hard Fork podcast gives co-host Kevin Roose an opportunity to do something I often wish I could: interview the author of a newly published long-read reported article.
It also helps that the article’s author is his podcast co-host, Platformer’s Casey Newton. They discuss the New York cover story that he co-authored with his Platformer colleague Zoë Schiffer and the Verge’s Alex Heath about Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter.
Then Roose and Newton talk to Sarah Andersen, a cartoonist and illustrator, about the class-action lawsuit she joined after finding her art in the databases of several text-to-image A.I. platforms. Should artists have the ability to opt in before A.I. companies use their work to train their algorithms? How should they be compensated for how A.I. uses their work?
I think Andersen raises excellent points about how personal art can be to its creators. I suspect this is going to be a significant issue from now on.
Skyglow Means We See Less
Popular Science’s Laura Baisas reports on how the rapid growth of light pollution over the past decade impacts our ability to see the stars.
As Baisas explains, “Gazing up at the night sky in awe and wonder can be a calming and almost primal joy, but stargazers are seeing fewer and fewer stars. A study published January 19 in the journal Science finds that every year, the night sky is getting seven to 10 times brighter, a quicker pace than measurements of artificial light emissions from Earth first suggested.”
I was surprised to learn that it is horizontally emitted light accounting for most of this increased skyglow and not just light directed upward. We lose something when we can’t connect with the night sky.
Luxury Tax Time
On Friday, six Major League Baseball teams had to pay the luxury tax penalty for their player payrolls in 2022. They included:
- Dodgers: $32.4 million
- Mets: $30.8 million
- Yankees: $9.7 million
- Phillies: $2.9 million
- Padres: $1.5 million
- Red Sox: $1.2 million
Five of those teams made the postseason. No one is sure about what the Red Sox are doing, and they should also face a penalty for finishing in last place in the American League East.
Also, all of these teams made money last year. More teams should be willing to pay the luxury tax and try to win.
It was great to see them together again.
April Ludgate and Leslie Knope from Pawnee, Indiana!
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) 6:04 AM ∙ Jan 22, 2023
Oh yeah, so true.
I Shazammed this at a diner today, couldn’t believe they were playing it. Looked up streaming data. Superman is @taylorswift13’s 190th most streamed song. Imagine having a catalogue so deep that a diner proactively plays your song and you have 189 songs people like even *better*.
— Nathan Hubbard (@NathanCHubbard) 11:13 PM ∙ Jan 19, 2023
After a break, I do hope we get some more here in California.
Remarkably clear view from space today of California.
The snowpack is DEEP, rivers are gushing and vegetation is amazingly green.
— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) 9:35 PM ∙ Jan 20, 2023
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