Navy says ‘liking’ or sharing extremists’ posts on social media can get you in trouble; Navy Times, February 22, 2021

Diana Stancy Correll, Navy Times; Navy says ‘liking’ or sharing extremists’ posts on social media can get you in trouble

"Sailors engaging with an offensive post regarding white supremacism on social media could themselves be viewed as contributing to extremism in the service, according to Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. John Nowell Jr.

“Just by posting, retweeting, or liking an offensive post on social media — you could be participating in extremism,” Nowell said in a new video shared on Facebook.

“You may not personally know any shipmates with extremist beliefs,” Nowell said. “But I assure you that those forces of darkness are among us.”"

4 questions to help sort through the ethics of getting a COVID vaccine before you’re eligible; MPR News, March 19, 2021

 

Catharine Richert, MPR News; 4 questions to help sort through the ethics of getting a COVID vaccine before you’re eligible

"‘Participation in the common good’

In general, University of Minnesota bioethicist Joel Wu says, the answer straightforward: If you aren’t eligible to get a vaccine according to those state rules, you should wait your turn. 

That’s especially true as vaccine demand continues to outpace supply. The state’s phased eligibility approach was designed to prioritize vaccination for people at the highest risk of getting severe cases of COVID-19. 

Because of that, Wu said, a person’s decision to jump the line to get a vaccine for which they’re not yet eligible comes down to pitting individual desires against our obligations to society at large. 

“There really needs to be a reawakening in the idea of participation in the common good, where each of us have to play our part to be healthy and safe together,” he said.""

NSF Bill Emphasizes Ethics, Includes Ethics Grants; Daily Nous, March 29, 2021

 

Justin Weinberg, Daily Nous; NSF Bill Emphasizes Ethics, Includes Ethics Grants

"The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology has introduced a bill for the funding of the National Science Foundation (NSF) that includes a noticeable emphasis on ethics in science...

Section 7 (“Fundamental Research”), subsection (d), includes a recommendation to incorporate ethical considerations into the research design and review process for Federal funding of basic scientific research, a requirement that funding proposals include ethics statements, and the creation of grants for projects on the ethics of NSF-funded research and its upshots."

Is it ever okay to jump to the front of the vaccine line? An ethics expert weighs in; Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), March 23, 2021

Stacy Weiner, Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC); Is it ever okay to jump to the front of the vaccine line? An ethics expert weighs in

When a good is scarce, people sometimes behave badly to get it. Renowned bioethicist Arthur Caplan, PhD, offers advice on how to make the COVID-19 vaccine rollout more equitable, ethical, and trustworthy.

"What went wrong with applying ethical principles to vaccine distribution?

First, it became hard to roll out the vaccines to the priority groups, particularly the elderly. It turns out it’s not a great idea to ask them to make appointments on the internet [since they often lack access]. Also, some of them were homebound, so they couldn't get to vaccination sites.

As for health care workers, that term was never clearly defined. I think people had in mind front-line workers, but some hospitals and health systems were vaccinating everybody, including people who did psychotherapy remotely, even bioethicists and the board of trustees. So it looked to the public as though the rich were getting advantages. It looked like minority people weren't getting anything much — and they often weren’t.

If people think you're prejudiced, the sense of fairness falls apart, and then fewer people are willing to follow the rules. 

In addition, once you opened Moderna and Pfizer [vials of] vaccines, you had to finish them. [Moderna has 10 doses per vial, and Pfizer has five or six.] But nobody issued any guidance about how to redistribute vaccines that are about to go bad. That destroyed trust because people said, “Well, you're just giving it to anybody who's nearby or somebody who waits in line for six hours.” All of that made better sense than throwing it away — but none of that was following any agreed-upon rules.

The rollout has been unfair, inefficient, and frustrating. It’s made the public angry, and it’s made them not trust in government.""

The CBLDF Creates Its Own Ethics Committee; Bleeding Cool, March 24, 2021

 

Rich Johnston , Bleeding Cool; The CBLDF Creates Its Own Ethics Committee

"Tomorrow, the free speech activist charity, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), will be hosting a Zoom workshop, titled Ethics for All: Building Policy Together. Schedules for the 25th of March at 5-6 pm PT, 8-9 pm ET and from midnight to 1 am GMT.

The CBDLF states "The meeting will be a Zoom workshop in which we'll discuss the principles shaping the development of CBLDF's updated ethics policies and invite you to share your ideas on how these policies can best serve the comics community as a whole. We are examining all the pillars of our ethics policy, including governance, anti-harassment, inclusiveness and diversity, convention conduct, program evaluation, operational transparency, whistleblower protections, and community oversight, including the creation of an ethics committee.

The guest speakers for the meeting will be Tea Fouger, Jenn Haines and Kristina Rogers as well as CBLDF Interim Director Jeff Trexler who will moderate the discussion, including time for live Q&A and discussion."

Slick Tom Cruise Deepfakes Signal That Near Flawless Forgeries May Be Here; NPR, March 11, 2021

Emma Bowman, NPR; Slick Tom Cruise Deepfakes Signal That Near Flawless Forgeries May Be Here

"In a crop of viral videos featuring Tom Cruise, it's not the actor's magic trick nor his joke-telling that's deceptive — but the fact that it's not actually Tom Cruise at all.

The videos, uploaded to TikTok in recent weeks by the account @deeptomcruise, have raised new fears over the proliferation of believable deepfakes — the nickname for media generated by artificial intelligence technology showing phony events that often seem realistic enough to dupe an audience.

Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told NPR's All Things Considered that the Cruise videos demonstrate a step up in the technology's evolving sophistication."

Facebook and Twitter must do more to fight anti-vaccine misinformation, a dozen state attorneys general demand; The Washington Post, March 24, 2021

 

Cat Zakrzewski and Rachel Lerman, The Washington Post; Facebook and Twitter must do more to fight anti-vaccine misinformation, a dozen state attorneys general demand

"A coalition of 12 state attorneys general on Wednesday sent a letter to Facebook and Twitter, pressing them to do more to ensure online falsehoods aren’t undermining efforts to vaccinate the public against covid-19.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong (D) and 11 other Democratic state attorneys general called on Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to “take immediate steps” to fully enforce their policies against vaccine misinformation.

The attorneys general say the companies have not cracked down hard enough on prominent anti-vaccine accounts that repeatedly violate the companies’ terms of service. They also say that falsehoods about the safety of coronavirus vaccines from a small pool of individuals has reached over 59 million followers on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter, citing data from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which studies online misinformation and disinformation."

A Yale Psychiatrist’s Tweet About Dershowitz, Her Dismissal, and a Lawsuit; The New York Times, March 26, 2021

 Mihir Zaveri, The New York Times; A Yale Psychiatrist’s Tweet About Dershowitz, Her Dismissal, and a Lawsuit

The psychiatrist, Bandy X. Lee, said she was let go after the lawyer Alan M. Dershowitz complained to the university. Yale said she violated ethics rules against diagnosing public figures, her lawsuit claims.

"Others have questioned the relevance of the Goldwater rule. Jonathan Moreno, a bioethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said he had not heard of anyone being disciplined by the American Psychiatric Association for violating the rule, even though people repeatedly broke it.

He also said professionals in other medical fields routinely comment in the press about the health of public figures."

Some people are lying to get vaccinated, and it’s testing their friendships; The Washington Post, March 25, 2021

Ashley Fetters, The Washington Post; Some people are lying to get vaccinated, and it’s testing their friendships

"The rules seem simple enough: For hundreds of millions of people to receive a lifesaving vaccination efficiently, you have to wait your turn. But as many Americans wait, they’re watching others exploit the system in plain view. And while some of the moral murkiness of the moment is rooted in the uneven, somewhat haphazard vaccination rollout in much of the country, the truth is that some friends may never see their line-jumping loved ones the same way again."

‘Watergate Girl’ give an inside look at special prosecution team that brought down Nixon; ABA Journal, Modern Law Library, March 24, 2021

Lee Rawles, ABA Journal, Modern Law Library; ‘Watergate Girl’ give an inside look at special prosecution team that brought down Nixon

"Jill Wine-Banks was barely 30 when she became an assistant Watergate special prosecutor investigating President Richard M. Nixon. In Watergate Girl: My Fight for Truth and Justice Against a Criminal President, Wine-Banks (who was then known as Jill Wine Volner) shares her experience battling political obstruction, courtroom legal wrangling and the era’s sexism. Though she’d originally attended law school with the thought it would help her become a hard-news journalist, she found herself instead under the microscope of a ravenous press that dubbed her “the mini-skirted lawyer.”

Her memoir, which has been optioned by actress Katie Holmes’ production company to be made into a feature film, concentrates on her time in the Watergate special prosecution. She candidly shares not only the work the team was doing behind the scenes but also the difficult time she was having with her marriage and personal life.

In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Wine-Banks and the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles discuss her winding career path, which also led her to becoming the first female general counsel of the U.S. Army and the first woman to be hired as the executive director and COO of the American Bar Association."

Zoom classes felt like teaching into a void — until I told my students why; The Washington Post; March 11, 2021

C. Thi Nguyen, The Washington Post; Zoom classes felt like teaching into a void — until I told my students why

"In the end, I see this as a question of informed choice. Given who I am, it’s very predicable that my teaching will get worse as more cameras go off. Students deserve to know that, and take that into account, in their own choices. I suspect that honesty is the best we can do right now.

This experience has also changed how I behave when I’m on the other side of the exchange — in the audience of an online lecture. In that situation, I would almost always prefer to turn my camera off. But now I go camera-on most of the time, because of my understanding of the impact of my decision on the speaker.

Right now, our knowledge of one another’s lives is slim, gathered as it is through impoverished channels like Zoom. When our connections are so tenuous, a little trust can go a long way."

What is research misconduct? European countries can’t agree; Science, March 10, 2021

Cathleen O’Grady, Science; What is research misconduct? European countries can’t agree

"In Sweden, a national code takes 44,000 words to define research misconduct and discuss scientific values. Next door, Norway’s equivalent is a brisk 900 words, little more than in this news article. And it’s not just the size of the codes that differs across Europe: A new analysis of scientific integrity policies in 32 nations has found widely varying standards and definitions for research misconduct itself, despite a 2017 Europe-wide code of conduct intended to align them.

Research ethicists say the differences threaten to create confusion and disputes for international scientific collaborations. Teams often include members working in different countries; if a team member is accused of research misconduct, which country’s rules should apply? The decision affects who can be held responsible, and which behaviors are considered unethical. “It really is a difficult issue,” says Nicole Föger, managing director of the Austrian Agency for Research Integrity."

Libraries oppose censorship. So they're getting creative when it comes to offensive kids' books; CNN, March 3, 2021

Scottie Andrew, CNN; Libraries oppose censorship. So they're getting creative when it comes to offensive kids' books

"Books with offensive content remain available to check out, she said, but they better serve readers as a "springboard for conversations and healing." The library's attention remains on widening its selections that center members of historically marginalized groups.

If a classic is still popular, librarian Kaitlin Frick wrote in a blog post for the Association for Library Service to Children, library staff should attach to it a guide for discussing racism for parents and young readers. She also suggests librarians encourage parents to check out anti-racist books or more inclusive titles along with a classic book. 

Spotlighting books that feature diverse characters while sidelining, but still offering, books that reduce diverse characters to stereotypes is an option that sticks to librarians' anti-censorship stance and, hopefully, carves out a place for more books to join the wider canon of notable children's literature, Caldwell Stone said.

"It's always been the role of libraries to foster cultural understanding," she said. And with a larger emphasis on books that don't rely on stereotypes and prejudice to entertain, librarians hope, libraries can be havens for readers from all backgrounds."

How Dr. Seuss Responded to Critics Who Called Out His Racism; Slate, March 3, 2021

Rebecca Onion, Slate; How Dr. Seuss Responded to Critics Who Called Out His Racism

 "I liked the reframing done by scholar Ebony Elizabeth Thomas yesterday on Twitter, and so I’ll borrow that: “Curation isn’t cancellation.”"

Emerging technologies pose ethical quandaries. Where does IT leadership fit in?; CIO Dive, February 22, 2021

Katie Malone, CIO Dive; Emerging technologies pose ethical quandaries. Where does IT leadership fit in?

""More organizations are seeing that trust is a measurement of profitability, of organizational health, of success," said Catherine Bannister, Tech Savvy and ethical tech leader at Deloitte. "This notion of ethics is becoming much more visible to stakeholders across the board and they are using that as a measure of trust, both internally and externally."

But there's no common definition for what ethical technology looks like and the conversation is ongoing. Instead, CIOs and other members of IT leadership are responsible for figuring out what tech ethics mean for their organizations in the near- and long-term. 

If an organization doesn't do its ethical due diligence, customers will catch on and trust will be diminished, according to Bannister."

Balancing Privacy With Data Sharing for the Public Good; The New York Times, February 19, 2021

 David Deming, The New York Times; Balancing Privacy With Data Sharing for the Public Good

"Governments and technology companies are increasingly collecting vast amounts of personal data, prompting new laws, myriad investigations and calls for stricter regulation to protect individual privacy.

Yet despite these issues, economics tells us that society needs more data sharing rather than less, because the benefits of publicly available data often outweigh the costs. Public access to sensitive health records sped up the development of lifesaving medical treatments like the messenger-RNA coronavirus vaccinesproduced by Moderna and Pfizer. Better economic data could vastly improve policy responses to the next crisis."

Virginia governor signs nation’s second state consumer privacy bill; The Washington Post, March 2, 2021

Cat Zakrzewski The Washington Post ; Virginia governor signs nation’s second state consumer privacy bill

"Gov. Ralph Northam signed data privacy legislation into law on Tuesday, making Virginia the second state in the nation to adopt its own data protection rules.

The law, known as the Consumer Data Protection Act, had broad support from the tech industry, including Amazon, which is building an Arlington, Va., headquarters. The legislation will allow residents of the commonwealth to opt out of having their data collected and sold, similar to a California law that went into effect last year. Under the new law, Virginia residents can also see what data companies have collected about them, and correct or delete it. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

The Virginia law is widely viewed as more industry friendly than the California provision, however, and privacy advocates have called for Virginia to adopt some of California’s provisions that make it easier for people to opt out of data collection from multiple companies. The Virginia law also does not allow individuals to bring lawsuits against tech companies for violations and will be enforced by the state’s attorney general, not a separate enforcement agency."

How a San Francisco bookstore owner made America freer, braver and more interesting; The Washington Post, February 25, 2021

 Bill Savage, The Washington Post; How a San Francisco bookstore owner made America freer, braver and more interesting

"Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s life was full of lessons about what makes American culture great: the courage to stand against censorship, a profound love of language and the creation of art that expresses unspoken desires and dissatisfaction — and creates the possibility of something new."

BYU professors create ethics field guide to help US special forces; KSL.com, February 23, 2021

 Dan Rascon, KSL.com; BYU professors create ethics field guide to help US special forces

"The U.S. special forces are getting help from two Brigham Young University professors to deal with critical ethical dilemmas.

The professors teach business ethics, and they never dreamed they would be called upon to help with top military operations...

Several years ago the two professors wrote a book called "The Business Ethics Field Guide" — a guide that breaks down common ethical dilemmas into 13 categories. Never did they think a top military official would come across this book and want to adapt it for U.S. special forces."