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Democrats unlikely to cross Biden social spending plan

Democrats unlikely to pass Biden social spending plan

US Vice President Kamala Harris (R) listens as President Joe Biden remarks on his proposed “Build Back Better” social spending bill in the East Room of the White House on October 28, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

President Joe Biden’s Social Spending and Climate Change Act has stalled in the Senate and nearly dashed Democratic hopes of passing it this year.

Senator Joe Manchin, a Conservative Democrat who alone can block his party’s plan, has not signed the $ 1.75 trillion proposal while his party waits to see if it complies with Senate rules. That means any vote on the bill is likely to slide into 2022, when the upcoming mid-term elections only add to the strong political pressure surrounding the plan.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday his party would “keep working to put the Senate in a position where we can vote on the President’s Build Back Better legislation”. He didn’t mention his goal of getting the plan approved by Christmas – a goal he’s been repeating for weeks.

When asked on Wednesday whether he thinks the law can be passed this year, Biden said, “I hope so. It’s going to be tight. “

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If the plan is not adopted in 2021, this will have immediate effects. The expanded child tax credit of up to $ 300 per month per child expires at the end of the year unless Congress extends it. The last payments to families went out on Wednesday, and the Build Back Better Act would extend them for a year.

Manchin on Wednesday rejected a report alleging opposition to expanding the larger child tax deduction is holding the bill. He said he was “always in favor of child tax credits” before he was irritated by reporters asking him about the legislation, according to NBC News.

“I don’t negotiate with any of you all, okay?” he said. “So you can ask any questions you want – folks, let me go. This is cops —. You are cops —. OK. I’m done, I’m done! “

A source familiar with the discussions told NBC News that the conversations between Biden and Machin went “very badly” and that they were “far apart” from the proposal.

The Democrats are considering options to continue child tax deduction through a separate bill. It is unclear how they would pass the renewal as they likely won’t garner the 10 Republican votes it takes to break a filibuster.

If the bill hits a wall, the Senate will move on to other priorities. Senate Democrats have discussed possible instruments to bypass the filibuster and pass a voting law in the coming weeks without Republican support.

Biden supported a possible push to pass electoral laws in the final days of the year.

“There is nothing more important at home than the right to vote. It is the greatest,” he said on Wednesday.

The idea of ​​using a temporary filibuster carveout gained momentum after Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., Voted for a similar tactic to get the debt ceiling hike this week. Democrats tried to pass federal voting rights this year after several states passed restrictive electoral laws, but Republicans stalled their efforts and insisted that states control the elections.

US Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) takes a break from remarks to reporters in the US Capitol in Washington, DC, USA, November 1, 2021.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Delays in the passage of the Build Back Better Act would have wider implications than the Senate’s plans. Democrats see the legislation as a transformative package that would make child and health care more affordable, provide families with additional financial support, and make the largest investment in climate change mitigation in the country’s history. The longer it hangs in the balance, the Democrats continue to grapple with the appearance of not getting through for their constituents.

Republicans call it an excessive spending plan that would fuel inflation. Failure of the bill would provide energy to Democrats as ineffective as they continue to criticize their platform.

The fate of the legislation could affect halfway through. The Democrats have been looking for advances to sell to the electorate, as it appears that Republicans are favored to regain control of the House of Representatives – and possibly the Senate.

Biden’s approval ratings have fallen despite economic aid from the Democrats this year and the passage of a bipartisan infrastructure bill. Voters may not see the benefits of the infrastructure package for months or years.

Manchin did not rule out voting in favor of the pending law on social spending and climate. But even after urging his party to cut the price of the plan from $ 3.5 trillion to $ 1.75 trillion, he raised concerns about its cost and the potential to increase inflation.

When asked Wednesday about Schumer’s Christmas goal to pass the bill, Manchin noted that the Senate MP has not decided what the Democrats can include in the final package.

“We have nothing to vote on!” he said.

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Social Safety is projected to be bancrupt a yr sooner than beforehand forecast.

Social Security is projected to be insolvent a year earlier than previously forecast.

The financial outlook for social security is eroding faster than previously expected as the coronavirus pandemic has squeezed government revenues and puts additional strain on one of the country’s top social safety nets programs. However, overall Medicare finances are expected to remain stable, although the health program is expected to remain under financial pressure in the coming years.

Annual government reports on the solvency of the programs, released Tuesday, highlighted questions about their long-term viability at a time when a wave of baby boomers is retiring and the economy faces persistent uncertainty as variants of the coronavirus increase. The US economy is already facing rising national debt in the coming decades, but both Democrats and Republicans have been cautious about making significant structural reforms to popular programs.

“A strong Social Security and Medicare program is essential to ensure a safe retirement for all Americans, especially our most vulnerable populations,” Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in a statement. “The Biden-Harris government is committed to protecting these programs and ensuring that they continue to provide economic security and health care to older Americans.”

Senior administration officials said the long-term impact of the pandemic on programs was unclear. Actuaries were forced to make assumptions about how long Covid would continue to lead to unusual patterns of hospital admissions and deaths and whether it would contribute to long-term disability in survivors.

The Social Security Old Age and Survivors Trust Fund will now be depleted in 2033, a year earlier than previously forecast, according to the report. By that time, the trust fund’s reserves will be depleted and the program will be insolvent as the new tax revenue cannot cover the planned payments. The report estimates that 76 percent of scheduled benefits can be paid out unless Congress changes the rules to allow full payouts.

Understand the Infrastructure Act

    • A trillion dollar package passed. The Senate passed a comprehensive bipartisan infrastructure package on Aug. 10 that concludes weeks of intense negotiations and debates on the largest federal investment in the nation’s aging public construction system in more than a decade.
    • The final vote. The final balance in the Senate was 69 to 30 votes against. Legislation yet to be passed by the House of Representatives would touch almost every facet of the American economy and strengthen the nation’s response to planet warming.
    • Main Spending Areas. Overall, the bipartisan plan focuses on spending on transportation, utilities, and removing pollution.
    • transport. About $ 110 billion would be used on roads, bridges, and other transportation projects; $ 25 billion for airports; and $ 66 billion for the railroad, making Amtrak most of the funding it has received since it was founded in 1971.
    • Utilities. The Senators have also raised $ 65 billion to connect hard-to-reach rural communities to high-speed internet and attract low-income urban dwellers who can’t afford it, and $ 8 billion for western water infrastructure.
    • Cleaning up pollution: Approximately $ 21 billion would be used to rehabilitate abandoned wells and mines, as well as Superfund sites.

The Disability Insurance Trust Fund is now expected to be depleted by 2057, which is eight years earlier than previously assumed, at which point 91 percent of benefits will be paid.

Medicare finances are effectively staying stable. While tax revenue for the Medicare program declined due to the Covid-related recession, Medicare also spent less than usual last year as people avoided electoral care.

Medicare’s Hospital Trust Fund is expected to be unable to pay all of its bills by 2026. This estimate is similar to that of Medicare Trustees in recent years. That loophole could now be closed by increasing the Medicare wage tax rate from 2.9 percent to 3.67 percent or by reducing Medicare spending by 16 percent each year, the report said.

However, the report highlighted that the official estimate may be unrealistically optimistic. If certain policies that expire in the next 10 years are renewed or other expected policy changes occur, the projections would look much more worrying.

In the long run, the actuaries said they did not believe that Covid-19 itself would have a significant impact on Medicare’s hospital care spending. On the one hand, the death of many vulnerable, elderly Americans from the virus can reduce future expenses that they would otherwise have received. On the flip side, the actuaries expect that some people might have additional health needs due to the syndrome known as Long Covid.

Biden’s budget 2022

Fiscal year 2022 for the federal government begins October 1, and President Biden has announced what he plans to spend from that point on. But any issue requires the approval of both houses of Congress. The plan includes:

    • Ambitious total expenditure: President Biden wants the federal government to spend $ 6 trillion in fiscal year 2022 and total spending to rise to $ 8.2 trillion by 2031. This would bring the United States to its highest sustained federal spending level since World War II, while running deficits of over $ 1.3 trillion over the next decade.
    • Infrastructure plan: The budget outlines the President’s desired first year of investment in his American Jobs Plan, which aims to fund improvements to roads, bridges, public transportation, and more for a total of $ 2.3 trillion over eight years.
    • Family plan: The budget also addresses the other major spending proposal that Biden has already launched, his American Families Plan, which aims to strengthen the United States’ social safety net by expanding access to education, lowering childcare costs, and bringing women in the world of work are supported.
    • Compulsory programs: As usual, mandatory spending on programs like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare is a significant part of the proposed budget. They grow as America’s population ages.
    • Discretionary issues: Funds for the individual budgets of the agencies and executive programs would reach around $ 1.5 trillion in 2022, a 16 percent increase over the previous budget.
    • How Biden would pay for it: The president would fund his agenda largely through tax hikes for businesses and high earners, which would begin to reduce budget deficits in the 2030s. Administrative officials said tax increases would fully offset employment and family plans over the course of 15 years, which the budget request supports. In the meantime, the budget deficit would stay above $ 1.3 trillion each year.

The actuaries declined to estimate the effects of Aduhelm, a very expensive Alzheimer’s treatment recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The report said officials waited for Medicare to issue guidelines on drug coverage before doing any calculations. The drug could cost tens of billions of dollars in spending each year.

Democrats in Congress are considering a number of changes to the Medicare program, such as the addition of new benefits, including coverage for dental, hearing and visual aids. While these changes are expected to affect Medicare’s overall finances, none of them are likely to have a major impact on the trust fund, which only covers hospital care.

“Medicare Trust Solvency is an incredibly important, long-standing issue and we are determined to work with Congress to continue building a dynamic, equitable, and sustainable Medicare program,” said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

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Senate Democrats Start $3.5 Trillion Push for ‘Large, Daring’ Social Change

Senate Democrats Begin $3.5 Trillion Push for ‘Big, Bold’ Social Change

In a memo, senior lawmakers also indicated that they plan to adjust the cap on how much taxpayers can deduct in state and local taxes, a provision that Mr. Biden did not originally include in his proposals, but one that remains a key priority for a number of lawmakers in high-tax states, particularly New York, New Jersey and California. (It will likely be a partial repeal, according to an aide familiar with the ongoing discussions.)

With an ongoing effort to get countries, including the United States, to adopt a global minimum tax of at least 15 percent, Democrats also hope to make significant changes to the international tax system to reduce incentives for companies to move their profits and operations abroad to tax havens. Lawmakers and aides have been discussing doubling the U.S. tax on foreign income to 21 percent.

After Republicans rejected beefing up the I.R.S.’s tax enforcement abilities as part of the bipartisan infrastructure package, Democrats are also likely to substantially bolster the tax collection agency’s staff and enforcement resources to help narrow the gap between what the federal government is owed in taxes and what it actually collects, which has reached an estimated $1 trillion per year.

Notably, Democrats declined to address the approaching statutory limit on the federal government’s ability to finance the country’s debt in the budget blueprint. It is a risky decision, given that Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has said Republicans will not vote to raise the borrowing limit. A failure to raise the limit could prompt a default on the nation’s debt and a global economic crisis.

Democrats would like to use separate, bipartisan legislation to raise or suspend the debt limit, a strategic decision made in part because of the budget rules. Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary, endorsed that approach in a statement on Monday, after employing “extraordinary measures” earlier this month to delay the official deadline to extend the Treasury’s borrowing authority.

But Republicans have warned that on the brink of being cut out of both the $1.9 trillion pandemic bill and the $3.5 trillion package, they have little will to address the debt ceiling, which allows the government to pay debts already incurred. Their debt ceiling threat is potent in a chamber that normally requires at least 10 votes from their side to advance legislation.

“Democrats want Republicans to help them raise the debt limit so they can keep spending historic sums of money with zero Republican input and zero Republican votes,” Mr. McConnell said. He added, “If they want 50 lock-step Democratic votes to spend trillions and trillions more, they can find 50 Democratic votes to finance it.”

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Health

Social Isolation in U.S. Rose as Covid Disaster Started to Subside, Analysis Exhibits

Social Isolation in U.S. Rose as Covid Crisis Began to Subside, Research Shows

Many Americans felt socially isolated during the pandemic, cut off from friends and family while crouching and keeping their distance to protect themselves from infection.

However, new research released Thursday suggests that even as the United States’ public health crisis subsided, communities opened up, and the economy improved, many people’s feelings of isolation have increased.

While the level of social isolation decreased in the spring of the pandemic after the initial shock of the crisis subsided, according to researchers from Harvard, Northeastern, Northwestern and Rutgers universities, it increased sharply in the summer months of last year before turning during the year autumn leveled off again.

People began to feel less disconnected from December to April this year, but the levels of social isolation measured by the researchers increased again this June.

The results suggest that recovery from the pandemic could take a long time and could affect people’s view of their relationships over time. “There were cumulative effects of social isolation,” said David Lazer, professor of political science and computer science at Northeastern and one of the study authors.

To determine social isolation, the researchers asked each person how many people they could count on to care for them when they were sick, to lend them money, to talk to them about a problem when they were depressed, or to help them with the Searching for a job. Someone who said they had only one person or no one to turn to in a certain category was considered socially isolated.

The researchers interviewed a total of 185,223 people in 12 different surveys from April 2020 to June 2021.

Even now, with many more people vaccinated against the coronavirus and becoming much more active in their communities, people may think differently about those they previously relied on. “This break in life can lead to a lot of overwork in our relationships,” said Dr. Lazer, who pointed out the unusual number of people who decided to leave their jobs when the pandemic ends. “It takes a while for the social fabric to heal.”

The increase in the feeling of isolation even when the most severe restrictions were lifted was “noticeable,” said Mario L. Small, a professor of sociology at Harvard University who was not involved in the study. People may have felt they had fewer people to lean on because they physically distanced themselves from a wide network of acquaintances and friends, he said, even as the locks eased.

The researchers found that last summer, despite seeing more people, people’s isolation increased. “Our results show that it is difficult to recover from social isolation and is not just due to increased social contact,” the researchers concluded.

The researchers also point to a strong association between social isolation, particularly among people who said they lacked people to turn to for emotional support, and moderate or severe depression.

Many of the lower-income and less-educated people hardest hit by the pandemic appear to be improving more slowly, said Dr. Lazer. “We are definitely seeing a segregation of fates in terms of socioeconomic status,” he said, with some groups experiencing longer and more uneven recovery.

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Politics

Biden fires Social Safety boss Andrew Saul, a Trump appointee

Biden fires Social Security boss Andrew Saul, a Trump appointee

New York businessman Andrew Saul testifies before the Senate Finance Committee during his hearing as Commissioner for Social Security Administration in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill October 02, 2018 in Washington, DC.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

President Joe Biden fired the social security chief on Friday after the official appointed by former President Donald Trump refused to resign.

The White House said Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul “undermined and politicized” the agency’s benefits, including which justified his dismissal. Saul’s deputy, David Black, who was also appointed by Trump, resigned on Friday at the request of the White House.

“Since taking office, Commissioner Saul has undermined and politicized social security disability benefits, terminated the agency’s teleworking policy used by up to 25 percent of the agency’s workforce, failed to terminate the SSA’s relationships with relevant federal employee unions, including in the context of COVID- repaired. 19 Occupational safety planning, reduced protection from due process in appeal hearings and other actions taken that run counter to the agency’s mandate and the president’s political agenda, “the White House said.

However, Saul told the Washington Post that he would like to get back to work on Monday.

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“This was the first time I or my deputy knew about it,” Saul told the newspaper, referring to the email he received Friday morning from the White House Human Resources office. “It was a bolt of lightning that nobody expected. And at the moment it has left the agency in a state of turmoil.”

Saul, 74, is a longtime Republican donor, a former vice chairman of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority and a wealthy businessman who turned over women’s clothing company Cache.

The president named Kilolo Kijakazi, currently deputy commissioner for pensions and disability policies, as acting commissioner, a White House official told NBC News.

Kijakazi previously worked as a fellow at the Urban Institute, as a program officer for the Ford Foundation, and as a senior policy analyst for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. A search for the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner will be carried out.

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Business

Related Press Begins Overview of Social Media Coverage After Emily Wilder Firing

A.P. Begins Review of Social Media Policy After Journalist’s Firing

The Associated Press has launched a review of its social media guidelines after more than 150 employees publicly condemned the firing of a young journalist for violating these guidelines.

In a memo to global newsrooms Monday, the AP’s top editors said they heard the concerns of many journalists over the weekend and were “determined to broaden the conversation on the AP’s approach to social media.”

The news agency faced a backlash after Emily Wilder, a 22-year-old news worker who joined the company in Arizona, was fired on May 19, three weeks after she was hired.

Ms. Wilder, who graduated from Stanford University in 2020 and worked in the Republic of Arizona, said in a statement Friday that she was the subject of a campaign by Stanford College Republicans whose social media posts were based on their pro Palestine had drawn attention to activism at the university. She added that her editors had assured her that she would not be fired for her previous legal work.

“Less than 48 hours later, the AP fired me,” she said. “The reason given was that I allegedly violated The AP’s social media guidelines between my first day and Wednesday. In the meantime, powerful conservatives like Senator Tom Cotton, Ben Shapiro, and Robert Spencer have cursed me repeatedly online. When I asked my managers what exact tweets were violating the guidelines or how, they refused to tell me. “

Ms. Wilder, who is Jewish, tweeted about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians while at The AP. In a tweet, she said that “using” Israel “but never” Palestine “or” war “but not” siege and occupation “are political choices – yet the media makes these exact decisions all the time without being biased to be marked. “

Dozens of AP journalists signed an open letter after Ms. Wilder’s dismissal, criticizing the news agency and asking for clarification on how it had violated the company’s social media guidelines.

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May 25, 2021 at 5:16 p.m. ET

“The lack of clarity about the violations of social media policy has made AP journalists afraid of getting involved in any form on social media – often critical for our work,” the letter said.

Ten editorial directors responded in a memo on Monday to staff announcing a plan to review their policies. They said formal groups would discuss ideas and make recommendations, and a committee of staff would review the recommendations by September 1st. Any policy changes would then be brought up in the next round of contract negotiations with the union representing AP workers, the News Media Guild.

“One of the issues raised in the past few days is the belief that social media restrictions prevent you from being your real self, and that it disproportionately does this to color journalists, LGBTQ journalists and others who are often attacked online harms, “says the memo.

The editors said in the note that “much of the coverage” of Ms. Wilder’s dismissal does not accurately reflect “a difficult decision that we did not make lightly”.

Lauren Easton, a spokeswoman for The AP, said the company had generally not commented on staff, but confirmed that Ms. Wilder has been fired for violating social media policy.

“We understand that other news organizations may not have made the same decision,” she said. “While many news organizations offer viewpoints, opinion columnists, and editorials, AP does not. We do not express an opinion. Our foundation is fact-based, unbiased reporting. “

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A.P. Begins Evaluation of Social Media Coverage After Journalist’s Firing

A.P. Begins Review of Social Media Policy After Journalist’s Firing

The Associated Press has launched a review of its social media guidelines after more than 150 employees publicly condemned the firing of a young journalist for violating these guidelines.

In a memo to global newsrooms Monday, the AP’s top editors said they heard the concerns of many journalists over the weekend and were “determined to broaden the conversation on the AP’s approach to social media.”

The news agency faced a backlash after Emily Wilder, a 22-year-old news worker who joined the company in Arizona, was fired on May 19, three weeks after she was hired.

Ms. Wilder, who graduated from Stanford University in 2020 and worked in the Republic of Arizona, said in a statement Friday that she was the subject of a campaign by Stanford College Republicans whose social media posts were based on their pro Palestine had drawn attention to activism at the university. She added that her editors had assured her that she would not be fired for her previous legal work.

“Less than 48 hours later, the AP fired me,” she said. “The reason given was that I allegedly violated The AP’s social media guidelines between my first day and Wednesday. In the meantime, powerful conservatives like Senator Tom Cotton, Ben Shapiro, and Robert Spencer have cursed me repeatedly online. When I asked my managers what exact tweets were violating the guidelines or how, they refused to tell me. “

Ms. Wilder, who is Jewish, tweeted about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians while at The AP. In a tweet, she said that “using” Israel “but never” Palestine “or” war “but not” siege and occupation “are political choices – yet the media makes these exact decisions all the time without being biased to be marked. “

Dozens of AP journalists signed an open letter after Ms. Wilder’s dismissal, criticizing the news agency and asking for clarification on how it had violated the company’s social media guidelines.

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May 25, 2021 at 5:16 p.m. ET

“The lack of clarity about the violations of social media policy has made AP journalists afraid of getting involved in any form on social media – often critical for our work,” the letter said.

Ten editorial directors responded in a memo on Monday to staff announcing a plan to review their policies. They said formal groups would discuss ideas and make recommendations, and a committee of staff would review the recommendations by September 1st. Any policy changes would then be brought up in the next round of contract negotiations with the union representing AP workers, the News Media Guild.

“One of the issues raised in the past few days is the belief that social media restrictions prevent you from being your real self, and that it disproportionately does this to color journalists, LGBTQ journalists and others who are often attacked online harms, “says the memo.

The editors said in the note that “much of the coverage” of Ms. Wilder’s dismissal does not accurately reflect “a difficult decision that we did not make lightly”.

Lauren Easton, a spokeswoman for The AP, said the company had generally not commented on staff, but confirmed that Ms. Wilder has been fired for violating social media policy.

“We understand that other news organizations may not have made the same decision,” she said. “While many news organizations offer viewpoints, opinion columnists, and editorials, AP does not. We do not express an opinion. Our foundation is fact-based, unbiased reporting. “

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individuals use social media to seek out hospitals, drugs

Pandemic far from over despite vaccinations

A healthcare worker wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) looks after a Covid-19 patient at a Covid-19 care center set up in the Shehnai Banquet Hall and at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP ), one of the largest COVID-19 institutions.

Naveen Sharma | SOPA pictures | LightRocket | Getty Images

As India’s devastating second wave of the coronavirus outbreak overwhelmed the healthcare system, desperate users turned to social media to seek help from the public as hospital beds and oxygen supplies became scarce.

People who need help for themselves or their relatives have made inquiries on websites like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Others gathered information about hospital bed availability, as well as contact details for oxygen cylinder providers and other scarce resources. In many cases, the efforts have helped save lives.

“Quite often we just hear one very dystopian social media narrative in which political polarization is increasing and causing deep levels of social harm,” said Apar Gupta, executive director of Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital freedom organization in India, told CNBC.

“But social media also has the potential to bring people together,” he said, explaining why it is important to fight for the right kind of incentive-based system design and algorithmic accountability when it comes to social media.

“I think this Covid disaster, which continues in India, shows the promise that social media can be used as a tool for organizing relief supplies and calling for greater political accountability at all levels – from our health officials to decision-makers who Set budgets, “said Gupta.

Social media cannot replace the core responsibility of the state to help citizens in times of crisis.

Ankur bisen

Technopak consultant

#CovidSOS

Twitter hashtags like #CovidSOS and #CovidEmergency became popular with users searching for hospital beds, ventilators, and oxygen bottles. The retweet feature helped expand their inquiries.

Strangers banded together to help each other through the unprecedented crisis.

Volunteers have gathered up-to-date information in Google Sheets, which is widely shared on social platforms.

Some have set up websites to track vaccine availability while others have created apps that generate Twitter search links that users can use to find Covid-19 resources in their cities. Many people also volunteered to prepare homemade meals for patients who were quarantined at home while others offered help with tasks such as grocery shopping.

For its part, Twitter has added a Covid-19 resource page to improve the visibility of information.

Social media influencers, celebrities, and politicians also participated in the crowdsourcing effort. Some of them helped organize beds and oxygen bottles as India’s daily caseload rose in April and early May.

Although Twitter has become the most visible social media platform in India’s crowdsourcing efforts due to its ability to amplify inquiries and tag influencers and politicians, Gupta said other platforms have been used extensively as well.

He said volunteers also came together in WhatsApp groups to focus on more detailed communities like housing associations and alumni groups. Gen-Z – or those born between 1996 and early 2010 – and younger millennials turned to Instagram, he said.

Daily cases in India have peaked at more than 414,000 new infections per day, which was reached on May 7th. However, experts say the virus is spreading in rural India, where health infrastructure is not prepared for unexpected surges.

On Twitter, which has a greater impact in the urban centers of India compared to rural areas, users have already started gathering resources and initiatives to respond to the outbreak in India’s countryside.

Deficiencies in the Indian health system

Users who turned to social media for help also reflected how ill-prepared the Indian health system was to respond to a sudden response Increase in cases. Growing case numbers and rising death tolls exposed the deep-seated problems that persist in the Indian health system after decades of neglect and underinvestment.

“Social media cannot replace the core responsibility of the state to help citizens in times of crisis,” Ankur Bisen, senior vice president of Indian management consultancy Technopak Advisors, told CNBC. It can only act as a complementary channel and not replace the core functions of the state such as disaster management and health care, he said.

Bisen added that in this case, social media is the only option for many as the other media are lacking – this only poorly reflects how central and state governments are struggling to cope with the Covid-19 crisis, he said .

“The state often has to deal with disasters and ensure that it communicates and comforts the citizens, that the state is watching their backs, which it has not done here,” Bisen said. He added that social media “is always a complementary medium and can never be the main driver in managing disasters”.

Gupta of the Internet Freedom Foundation said some of the volunteers had been threatened by the authorities for their informal and legal efforts.

Local media reported last month that some Covid-19 aid groups that provided hospital beds and oxygen information through messaging apps like WhatsApp, Discord and Telegram had been disbanded, while some online resource trackers were deleted.

Volunteers complained about police threats demanding their closure – but police have denied making such demands. In Uttar Pradesh, the BBC reported that police had charged a man who tried to use Twitter to find oxygen for his dying grandfather.

The Supreme Court of India reportedly said there should be no crackdown when people voice their complaints on issues such as lack of oxygen and others on social platforms. This came after the federal government, under new regulations, ordered social platforms to cut jobs that were critical to dealing with the pandemic, according to the New York Times.

Social media fraud

Another unfortunate outcome, according to Gupta, was the proliferation of a black market in resources where malicious actors on social media cheated on vulnerable people.

“While social media – Twitter in particular – has broadly mitigated the harmful effects of the current wave, I would say that it has actually saved lives, it has also shown that there is very little tolerance for opinion and expression Freedom of expression exists, “he said.

Additionally, “there are law and order issues that always arise due to social interaction … and certain participants may use them maliciously,” he added.

Gupta added that the efforts of the volunteer groups continue to this day, but state services have also caught up to some extent.

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Florida, in a First, Will Effective Social Media Corporations That Bar Candidates

Florida, in a First, Will Fine Social Media Companies That Bar Candidates

WASHINGTON — Florida on Monday became the first state to regulate how companies like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter moderate speech online, by imposing fines on social media companies that permanently bar political candidates in the state.

The law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is a direct response to Facebook’s and Twitter’s bans of former President Donald J. Trump in January. In addition to the fines for barring candidates, it makes it illegal to prevent some news outlets from posting to their platforms in response to the contents of their stories.

Mr. DeSantis said signing the bill meant that Floridians would be “guaranteed protection against the Silicon Valley elites.”

“If Big Tech censors enforce rules inconsistently, to discriminate in favor of the dominant Silicon Valley ideology, they will now be held accountable,” he said in a statement.

The bill is part of a broader push among conservative state legislatures to crack down on the ability of tech companies to manage posts on their platforms. The political efforts took off after Mr. Trump was barred after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Lawmakers around the country have echoed Mr. Trump’s accusations that the companies are biased against conservative personalities and publications, even though those accounts often thrive online.

More than a hundred bills targeting the companies’ moderation practices have been filed nationwide this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Many of the bills have died, but a proposal is still being debated in Texas.

Twitter declined to comment. Google and Facebook did not immediately offer comments on the signing of the bill.

The Florida law makes it illegal to bar a candidate for state office for more than 14 days, in a move that would seem to outlaw the kind of permanent ban the social media platforms applied to Mr. Trump’s accounts. Companies would be fined $250,000 per day for cases where they barred a candidate for statewide office. The fine is lower for candidates seeking other offices.

The law says the platforms cannot take down or otherwise prioritize content from a “journalistic enterprise” that reaches a certain size. Conservatives were outraged last year when Facebook and Twitter limited the reach of a New York Post article about the contents of a laptop it said belonged to Hunter Biden, the younger son of President Biden.

Under the law, platforms are also required to be clear about how they decide to take down content or leave it up. Users could sue the platform if they felt those terms were inconsistently applied.

A late amendment to the bill exempts companies from the law if they own a theme park or an entertainment venue larger than 25 acres. That means the law is unlikely to apply to websites owned by Disney, which operates the Walt Disney World Resort, and Comcast, which owns Universal Studios Florida.

In Florida, as in dozens of other states, the Republican lawmakers’ push to punish social media companies follows the party’s other efforts to feed the demands of a conservative base that remains loyal to Mr. Trump.

Florida, along with Republican-run legislatures in Oklahoma and Iowa, have in recent weeks passed legislation limiting the right to protest and providing immunity to drivers who strike protesters in public streets.

And the Republican push to make voting harder continues unabated after Mr. Trump’s relentless lying about the results of the 2020 election. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia signed into law new restrictions on voting, as did Mr. DeSantis in Florida, and Texas Republicans are poised to soon pass the nation’s biggest rollback of voting rights.

The partywide, nationwide push stems from Mr. Trump’s repeated grievances. During his failed re-election campaign, Mr. Trump repeatedly pushed to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides immunity to certain tech firms from liability for user-generated content, even as he used their platforms to spread misinformation. Twitter and Facebook eventually barred Mr. Trump after he inspired his supporters, using their platforms, to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Republican lawmakers in Florida have echoed Mr. Trump’s statements.

“I have had numerous constituents come to me saying that they were banned or de-platformed on social media sites,” Representative Blaise Ingoglia said during the debate over the bill.

But Democrats, libertarian groups and tech companies all say the law violates the tech companies’ First Amendment rights to decide how to handle content on their own platforms. It also may prove impossible to bring complaints under the law because of Section 230, the legal protections for web platforms that Mr. Trump has attacked.

“It is the government telling private entities how to speak,” said Carl Szabo, the vice president at NetChoice, a trade association that includes Facebook, Google and Twitter as members. “In general, it’s a gross misreading of the First Amendment.” He said the First Amendment was designed to protect sites like Reddit from government intervention, not protect “politicians from Reddit.”

The Florida measure is likely to be challenged in court, said Jeff Kosseff, a professor of cybersecurity law at the Naval Academy.

“I think this is the beginning of testing judges’ limits on these sorts of restrictions for social media,” he said.

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How Lies on Social Media Are Inflaming the Israeli-Palestinian Battle

Lies on Social Media Inflame Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

In a 28-second video posted on Twitter this week by a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian militants appeared to be launching rocket attacks on Israelis from densely populated civilian areas in the Gaza Strip.

At least, Ofir Gendelman, Mr. Netanyahu’s spokesman, said the video. But his tweet with the footage, which was shared hundreds of times as the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis escalated, wasn’t from Gaza. It wasn’t even that week.

Instead, the video he shared, which can be found on many YouTube channels and other video hosting sites, was from 2018. According to captions in older versions of the video, militants were shown, the rockets not from Gaza but from Syria or Libya fired from Syria.

The video was just misinformation circulated on Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media this week about the increasing violence between Israelis and Palestinians when Israeli military forces attacked Gaza early Friday. The false information included videos, photos, and text clips that allegedly came from government officials in the area. Earlier this week, unfounded claims were made that Israeli soldiers had invaded Gaza or that Palestinian mobs were raging through sleepy Israeli suburbs.

According to an analysis by the New York Times, the lies were amplified as they were shared thousands of times on Twitter and Facebook, and spread on WhatsApp and Telegram groups with thousands of members. The effects of the misinformation are potentially fatal, disinformation experts said, creating tension between Israelis and Palestinians when suspicions and suspicions were already high.

“Much of this is a rumor and a broken phone, but it’s being shared right now because people are desperate to share information about the developing situation,” said Arieh Kovler, a Jerusalem political analyst and independent researcher who studies misinformation . “What makes it more confusing is that it’s a mix of false claims and real stuff that is being attributed to the wrong place or time.”

Twitter and Facebook, which own Instagram and WhatsApp, did not respond to requests for comment. Christina LoNigro, a spokeswoman for WhatsApp, said the company has put limits on how many times people can forward a message in an attempt to contain misinformation.

TikTok said in a statement, “Our teams have worked quickly to encourage, and continue to work, to encourage and remove misinformation, attempts, violence, and other content that violates our community guidelines.”

The Times found several misinformation this week spreading through Israeli and Palestinian neighborhoods and activist WhatsApp groups. One, which appeared as a block of Hebrew text or an audio file, contained a warning that Palestinian mobs were preparing to descend on Israeli citizens.

“Palestinians are coming, parents protect their children,” said the message, which specifically pointed to several suburbs north of Tel Aviv. Thousands of people belonged to one of the Telegram groups where the post was shared. The post then appeared in several WhatsApp groups that had tens to hundreds of members.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Updated

May 16, 2021, 7:21 p.m. ET

The Israeli police did not respond to a request for comment. There were no reports of violence in any of the areas named in the message.

Another post earlier this week, written in Arabic and sent to a WhatsApp group of over 200 members, warned that Israeli soldiers would be invading Gaza.

“The invasion is coming,” read the text that asked people to pray for their families.

Arabic and Hebrew language news sources also appeared to reinforce some of the misinformation. Several Israeli news outlets recently discussed a video showing a family with a wrapped body going to a funeral to drop the body when a police siren sounded. The video was cited by news organizations as evidence that Palestinian families held false funerals and exaggerated the number of people killed in the conflict.

In fact, the video appeared on YouTube over a year ago and may have featured a Jordanian family holding a fake funeral, according to the title of the original video.

Clips from another video showing religious Jews ripping their clothes as a sign of devotion were also broadcast on Arabic-language news sites this week. The clips were cited as evidence that Jews faked their own injuries during clashes in Jerusalem.

That was wrong, according to Times analysis, the video was uploaded several times to WhatsApp and Facebook earlier this year.

There is a long history of misinformation between Israeli and Palestinian groups, with false allegations and conspiracies increasing in moments of heightened violence in the region.

In recent years, Facebook has removed several Iranian disinformation campaigns in an attempt to fuel tension between Israelis and Palestinians. Twitter also shut down a network of fake accounts in 2019 that was smeared on opponents of Mr. Netanyahu.

The grainy video Mr Gendelman shared on Twitter Wednesday, allegedly showing Palestinian militants launching rocket attacks on Israelis, was removed Thursday after Twitter labeled it “misleading content”. Mr. Gendelman’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr Gendelman also appears to have misrepresented the content of other videos. On Tuesday, he posted a video on Twitter instructing three adult men to lie down on the floor with their bodies being arranged by a nearby crowd. Mr Gendelman said the video showed Palestinians staging bodies for a photo opportunity.

Mr Kovler, who traced the video back to its source, said the video was posted on TikTok in March. The accompanying text states that the footage shows people practicing for a bomb drill.