Unfortunately, disinformation about and distrust in our medical system plays a significant role. Last monday i had the pleasure of speaking with dr. Lena wen, a visiting professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health. She previously served as the Health Commissioner for baltimore, where she led the nations oldest continuously operating Health Department to fight the weed epidemic, improve maternal fight the opioid epidemic, improve maternal and child health. She has been a leading voice for sciencebased policy during the pandemic. We spoke at length about the impacts of covid19 on communities of color in the u. S. [no audio] video to playave here. Thank you so much for joining us. I would like to start off by asking you about data we are seeing in terms of disparities in covid19 infection rates and outcomes for people of color in the United States. First of all, i am glad to join you and thank you for focusing on this critical topic. We know this disease is not affecting people equally, that communities of color are bearing the brunt of this pandemic, and that this pandemic has unmasked many Underlying Health disparities that we have known for a long time have existed but are being brought out in the wake of this pandemic. Africanamericans, latino americans, native americans, Pacific Islanders, those who already bear the brunt of other health disparities, are experiencing the worst outcomes. They have many times the rate of hospitalizations and deaths due to covid19. When we look at the reasons why, it is several fold. Distancingnow social is a privilege not everyone has access to. People of color tend to be essential workers who, from the beginning of the outbreak, have not had the opportunity to practice physical distancing. Inple of color tend to live crowded, multigenerational housing where practices like isolation and quarantine are difficult. Already look at who has Underlying Health conditions that will make people more susceptible to adverse outcomes from covid19. You look at a city like mine in baltimore where one in three africanamericans live in a food desert compared to one in 12 whites. Is it any surprise that africanamericans disproportionately have heart disease, obesity, conditions that predispose you to poor outcomes because of covid19 . This is a reminder it is not the virus doing the discriminating. It is our health system. It is the conditions where people live, social determinants that we know influence health in many ways, but certainly influence Health Outcomes when it comes to covid19 very tragically. The same trends we see in adults are mirrored in children. Three quarters of the deaths that have occurred among children due to covid19 are among these same populations in black and brown children. Rebecca do you get the sense, looking at the data and trends on the ground, that we are improving over the course of the pandemic . Trends of the impacts on communities of color changed over the last seven months, or are we watching these be recapitulated over time . Dr. Wen it is a good question and one that i dont have the answer to, because we have been missing data all along. From the beginning, we had a big problem with data. Maybe you could understand because we were just getting started. We are still missing key data points when it comes to who is impacted, who are the individuals who have increased rates of hospitalization and death. Different states report the data in differentdifficult compariso. Also, you have different groups that may be classified differently. Some may classify asian americans, some would classify Pacific Islanders as differently and so we have a different collection of data overall. One would hope the disparities are improving over time, but aced on the limited data we have, it does not look like we are getting any better. Do you have any particular concerns about how information, particularly misinformation or disinformation about the virus itself are being received within Community Communities of color and impacting these communities . Question. Nother good i would say disinformation in general around covid19 has been a big problem. It has manifests in different ways. December in different ways. We have all heard these covid19 isnt real, even the data around who is dying, there was a cdc port put out looking at the conditions that are written ported that are reported, and that has been interpreted in different ways. We know death certificates may not contain one diagnosis. Somebody may have respiratory failure as a cause of death or may have an underlying condition in addition to having covid19. But that does not mean this person did not die because of coronavirus. Its like saying somebody who died from a car accident but also had cancer, somehow they butnot die from the crash, even Something Like that has gotten misinterpreted in so many different ways and it speaks to what has gone wrong in this response, that there has been mixed messaging. That instead of having Public Health lead in the response, weve seen Public Health experts and scientists being pushed under the bus. Between Public Health officials and that has led to a lot of confusion. Then you have a different problem in this case as well, which is that at ace line, you have communities that have had distrust in things like vaccines. Skeptics whocine may be antiscience as a baseline. Then you add on top of that that because of various political interference and fears of political pressure that also has interfered with Peoples Trust in science and now you have a whole group of people distrusting the process of regulatory approval, not because they distrust science, but because they fear political pressure and manipulation. Then you have a third group that has had historical distrust in the scientific in scientific and medical community for good reasons. Were talking about black americans, native americans, and other groups that have had legacies of being experimented on, of unethical, illegal experimentation. Now we are asking the same groups to potentially be involved in vaccine trials because we do want to include everyone in vaccine trials but it is important to do Public Outreach and education in addition to make sure when the same therapeutics and vaccines come out that the distribution is such that these same communities that are the most impacted by covid19 also receive these vaccines and therapeutics first because otherwise we will perpetuate this concept that somehow we are experimenting on lack and brown bodies for the benefit of white and privileged individuals. A complicated, multifaceted issue, but we have to be attentive to it and recognize disinformation is rampant. That many communities have underlying distrust and we have to do our best to make sure science leads this process and we are overcoming the mixed messages that has been hampering our response all along. Would like to talk more about these potential solutions and you just described a very complex problem here. We have historical experiences, we have contemporary political actions and motives that are creating an environment of great distrust. If you were still a public Health Commissioner, whether at baltimore or anywhere around the United States, what are some concrete things you would want to put in place in this moment right now to try and help solve these problems, to deal with this complexity . I appreciate the question. So much we admire the problem and dont get to the solution and there are actually tangible toutions when it comes reducing the disproportionate impact of covid19 on communities of color. I had the opportunity to testify in front of comfort in front of congress twice about the utions urging Congress Talking about what we should be doing as Public Health officials which looking at my counterparts across the country, local health officials, state health directors, have been doing their best under extraordinary circumstances. They are already extremely Resource Limited and fighting disinformation every day and doing so much with extremely few resources while trying to do Everything Else because Health Departments are also the safety nets for their communities and also trying to work on food access and assisting with individuals experiencing homelessness, helping individuals with the opioid epidemic. I think they are doing as well as they can under these conditions but if i may reframe your question, what can we all do as in what is the role of congress and all of our elected officials who must answer this charge, there are specific, tangible solutions. First, we talked about the issue of data. Lets make the data known. When it comes to hospitalization, death from covid19, but also to testing, one really specific characteristic we should be measuring is around test positivity. We know test positivity should be below 5 . We should be making test positivity rates available throughemographics and specific zip codes and on the communitywide level. Positivitye a test in a state that is 5 or even 3 and it looks like its going the right direction, but if we have test positivity for latino americans and that test positivity in this group is at 20 , we know we need much more specific targeting to this particular group. If we know a particular zip code is testing at 20 or 30 and the rest of the state looks fine but this zip code need specific resources, that allows us to target testing, having mobile testing or partnering with groups that target those communities that need it the most and not just addressing the population as a whole. In addition, worker protection. We know essential workers tend to be people of color. Individuals working in Nursing Homes that dont have the right amount of ppe. Individuals who are home health plants,in meatpacking instituting strict Worker Protections on the federal level but also the state and local level is going to be really important for reducing the disproportionate impact of people of color as well. Housing is example something that very much influences health and Food Insecurity does as well. If we are telling our patients to isolate if they are ill or quarantine if they are exposed but summit who lives in a house and are literally unable to do that, what can we do as a society help provide them with the resources to do so. If people are afraid of losing their job, what kind of protections can we put into place to help with that . Finally, i want to touch on the issue of our educational divide and the disparities we are seeing at this time. It is such a complex issue to think about reopening schools and i know many schools have reopened in a way that may contribute to outbreaks among students, the staff, teachers, also communities around them. We also know keeping schools closed is going to further that educational divide and contribute to this covid slide we are seeing across the company across the country for most honorable children. The key is for us as society to reduce the level of Community Spread as much as we can, to invest resources into our schools, not just wealthy private schools but to schools that lack resources for their students so that we can as a as the have our schools most essential to help our children who are most in need. Rebekah could you tell me a bit more about some of your experiences talking to people on the ground, whether it is health care workers, patients, members of the communities themselves being affected, what have you been hearing from people on the ground . Need told you say they hear from us Going Forward . Dr. Wen i am hearing from patients and Community Members that they want to do the right thing. I think people are recognizing in the areas where i live and the communities i speak to that they absolutely understand covid19 is a pandemic. It is something affecting each of us, and i think there is a great deal of frustration. But i think there is a great deal of frustration that people can be doing all the right things and there is this mixed messaging coming from our elected leaders that is making the sacrifices people are making every day in vain and thats very difficult for people to hear and to conceptualize because people are giving up so much and people are not seeing their grandchildren, older adults are not able to safely gather in Senior Centers that have been their lifeline. Kids have not been able to go to school. Individuals have lost their livelihood because of this pandemic. And had theo much opportunity early on to contain this pandemic but we havent and we are continuing to sacrifice so much and lives continue to be loss and that is one thing. Another thing is quarantine fatigue, which is that we cannot be isolated for the foreseeable future and its important to figure out which risks we are willing to continue to take on and which are the risks we really need to cut down on, understanding we need to figure out how to live with this virus and one of the trends we are seeing is the many new infections are not so much do to congregate settings or formal settings but rather informal settings, that people are getting infected through gatherings with their loved ones, through extended families and friends. One message thats important for all of us to keep on distributing is the need for continuing to be on our guard. Foro 50 of the spread is people who dont have symptoms. Haveoved ones dont coronavirus. And we love our loved ones. Somehow strangers are carrying this. Its critical for us to keep in mind that if we are doing all these things to keep kids physically distanced at school, if they are coming together for play dates or celebrations afterwards and are not going to be abiding by these restrictions, we are still going to have out rakes and these out rakes are going to lead to schools being closed for longer. If we are doing everything we can at Grocery Stores and at work, but still getting together for dinner parties indoors, thats going to eliminate all of the good work we are doing. So use an abundance of caution. Think about all those things that are important to you. Out wearing, gathering doors rather than indoors, avoiding crowds, these are things we can do in order to protect ourselves at loved ones and allows us to get as much back to normal and not be isolated as we can. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. Thank you for all the work youre doing and please be safe and to be well. Dr. Wen thank you very much. Rebekah joining us now to continue our discussion, we have dr. Amanda castille, a tenured professor in the department of epidemiology at George Washington university. Cdcs a physician and trained epidemiologists Whose Research focuses on hiv and related Infectious Diseases. She has worked domestically and internationally on hiv aids surveillance, prevention, care and treatment. Since the start of the covid19 pandemic, she has been providing support to local Health Department and serving as part of the Public Health team, leading gw cost reopening efforts. In q so much for joining us. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Rebekah i would like to begin our conversation by asking you wens remarks. R. She started by noting that africanamerican, native american and other communities feel distrust toward Public Health institutions largely because the history of illegal and unethical experimentation. Could you tell us a bit more about this and how this history might be shaping coronavirus outcomes in the u. S. Now . Certainly. We have seen histories of these types of Unethical Research and experimentation among committees of color. If you think back to the native americans, it started with the colonization of the United States, bringing Infectious Diseases these populations had never seen before, systematically stripping native americans of their right, their land, their heritage, and even in the 1990s, we have seen research that has been done. There was a Diabetes Project done among a native american tribe where these individuals agreed to share information and to donate led for Research Study that was supposed to be focused on diabetes only to then find out the information and their blood was being used for other purposes. Examples such as these are unfortunately pervasive throughout our culture. In the African American community, the tuskegee experiment is still in the back of many peoples minds. This was a study that took place for decades among africanamerican men who were being followed for syphilis infections. Even though in the late 1940s, even though treatment was available, they were not able to access this treatment and the study went on until 1972. All of these are examples where because of the way these communities have been treated, there is understandably people are mistrust, scared in these communities, and unfortunately, covid didnt create the situation. Covid has reminded us of this unhealed wound and how yet another pandemic, another situation has impacted these communities. We have seen that because of these longstanding historical inequities that these communities of color are more at risk and have a higher prevalence of comorbid conditions. Ofy constitute the majority essential workers and we have seen from the data that those are risk factors for worse outcomes. Thats why we are seeing these high rates of mortality among communities of color. Notrtunately, this is something new to those of us living in these communities. It just continues to show how much inequity there is. Revealing, the longstanding historical but now very clear contemporary inequities, bringing them much more clearly to life, it seems. I would like to turn now to our and bring them into our conversation. Is the founder and executive rector of glitch, a charity dedicated to ending online abuse and championing digital citizenship. After she founded tremendous online abuse. She travels the globe now, developing Practical Solutions to protect our Online Public spaces from hate and abuse and transform people about how best to be digital citizens. Amnesty International Human rights defender and in 2019 was named the digital leader of the year. We are also very pleased to announced that she is joining idd p as this years night fellow. We are delighted to have you here and so happy to welcome you to the idd p family. Thanks. Now i can officially tell people. Rebekah we are really happy to have you join us. The first question i want to put to you is i want to focus on the theme of today. Premised once is the notion that covid19 has forced our lives, including our political lives online, really like never before. Wen noted at the beginning, this shift is itself a privilege and a privilege not afforded to people of color in the same ways as it is to white people. Time, as your own personal experience illustrates, engageople of color do in politics online, they face abuse and harassment to disproportionate levels. Can you tell us a bit more about this and your work in this area . Bei im really excited to part of this panel. Normally i have two tell people what digital citizenship is in on this panel we can cut straight to the solutions. Contextright to set that before covid19, there was already an issue about how online abuse disproportionately affects women. We knew before covid that black women in the u. K. And different parts of europe and the global beth were 80 more likely to mentioned and problematic and abusive tweets than white women. Lgbtq populations were facing Online Harassment and then you had locked down. And then around late march, you wer internet regulate had been spending and unprecedented amount of time and for thus for us, that rang alarm bells for these communities that are disproportionately affected because at the same time, we have a deficit in education around digital citizenship and what to do when someone is facing abuse online. You have that, you have covid19 coming have abuse online and what you saw was the explosion of online abuse where women who complete who report the Ripple Effect of the pandemic surveyed6 of women said they receive some sort of online abuse and then minorities and people of color, black women and nonbinary people, that went up to 60 . A small territory in the u. K. Trying to find compounded, aw it volcano erecting online that we are not listening to. Also dovetailed with black lives matter researching online and that is the main way communities can express their feelings online and they are facing trolling, the kind of dog piling, harassment, the wrecking of hash tags, the relentless trying to funde raise, there was intentional backlash happening and that is some way communities are engaging in politics that meant a lot to them as well. You had a lot of this happening over the summer and still we are coming in some ways in the u. K. And europe on the others, though there is that conversation about another lockdown. Are we going to learn from it . How are we going to have some kind of digital citizenship or digital framework and advocate for Digital Rights and responsibility . How is it going to be clear that not everyone can access online space in the same way. Even when you are accessing the online platforms, some people are set up to be more harmed. Display picture on twitter from having my straight hair to embracing my afro hair, that wasnt me tweeting anything, that was not me being provocative, it was just me being unapologetically lack, it sparked abuse and thats important when we are talking about digital how we should be able to thrive and flourish online and thats not happening at the moment. If we want to make progress on global goals or a quality or human rights in our politics, we wont make any progress until we tackle this glitch. That is a think powerful personal anecdote you have shared, helping us to illustrate what is a much larger problem for many people. I would like the three of us to talk together a little bit about the more kind of recent history. For us on ad longterm perspective within the u. S. And the feelings of colorst in communities of for the medical community. But i wonder if we might look to even more recent trends. Pandemic, this is your primary area of research. When you see major differences between the way communities of color are being impacted, particularly given that social thea is so prevalent now in experience of the covid19 pandemic compared to the 80s and 90s when the hiv pandemic was at its height, greatstel its a question and what im seeing as many similarities and many of us that work in hiv have reflected on this, this is a new virus. We did not necessarily know how it was being transmitted. We didnt know what the viral origins were, who is at risk, so all of these are things we grappled with with the hiv epidemic testing, huge issue, how do we get testing to people who were perhaps exposed to hiv. We are seeing the same thing with covid19. Its frustrating. We have seen with hiv, theres a longstanding history of misinformation and disinformation. We have people domestically there was a writer who was one of the first hiv denial us. She herself was infected with the virus and had some tests that were positive and some that were negative, reflective of our deep learning curve when it came to the hiv pandemic. She was very vocal and worked with a very wellknown Grassroots Community based organization that early on in the pandemic was part of this denial asked propagation of now one ofion and is the leading organizations in helping us understand hiv in certain communities. We saw leadership that doubted the role between hiv and aids. The former president of south africa was famous for sitting at the aids conference saying at the hiv conference that hiv did not cause aids. Thousands of researchers and scientists said we had to dispel this myth. It is not true. Propaganda, can. From can be received area the kgb, there is operation ander that try to say hiv aids were part of cia warfare. So we have seen this before. This is not new to those of us living in the hiv field. Was in different is that the 1980s and here we are in the 21st century. Weial media is pervasive and have never experienced a pandemic where there is such a high prevalence of social media and so much access, which is good in some ways, but can be a challenge in others. For those of us in the scientific field, even open access publishing is flooded with information and how you process what is right and what is not and how you make sense of something that is all new is very challenging for us. So when it gets put out there on social media, having to filter through what is true and what is not becomes even more complicated and with increased social distancing as well, with social distancing being a recommendation, people are not getting a recommendation by wordofmouth as much, they are relying on the media and social media to get their information and weve done research in the Africanamerican Community and 70 of africanamericans get their information through social media. We talk to young kids and ready percent of them tell us they rely on social media for their health information. So we need to make sure the information out there is accurate and understandable and not complicated by outside influences. N said, that the science is out there and gets shared with individuals. Rebekah you spend a lot of time on the ground talking to people, working directly with communities all around the world on these issues. Your work was focused more on hiv and aids. How do you compare what you are hearing with people working in that area on the ground to what you are hearing from people now, where they are getting their information and how it is potentially impacting their reactions to that . Dr. Castel during the covid i have done outbreak investigations before and when the pandemic started, i jumped in and volunteered my time and expertise to helping with the local Health Department response. Enough to help with dozens if not hundreds of case investigations and speaking to people getting infected with covid was very similar to People Living with hiv and talking to them as well. When you say you are calling from the Health Department, they want verification. Are you really calling from the government or is this a hoax . Given the political environment we are living in and the disproportion impact disproportional impact on people of color, there was questions about how this information is going to be used. People are reticent to speak with us if they are immigrants or undocumented and war eight about how this information might affect that status and we had to reassure them that it would not. Were open tolly speaking with us. We were learning from their experiences and they often have lots of questions for us. Very similar to the hiv epidemic. Got more into this pandemic, we are seven months in, im not doing those investigations myself as much, but i recall feeling like at the end of the summer months that people were tired, they were skeptical, they did not necessarily want to share as openly the information about covid, about their contacts. They were worried about their jobs. So these are real issues that we saw and i have personally observed speaking about covid. This is very challenging, where we need to make sure when we do have information to dispel and correct misunderstandings that we can do that but i think its a challenge to be able to say this is a new virus and we dont have all the answers. To helpfully help people understand that as soon as we have those answers, we would share them with the general public. It has definitely been a challenge dispelling all the hoaxes around this is a virus started to 5g, certain populations have immunity to the virus, we know this is not true. Also dispelling some of the racism and xenophobia has been really important. Rebekah speaking of racism and xenophobia related to around the virus, i wonder if you could fromus some perspective your own experiences about how the notion of disinformation has itsed over time and how been applied to different communities . With i remember speaking the director of the National Democratic institute a couple of years ago at a Human Rights Panel and the first time we heard the word fake news and she living in bread america and having those conversations around the term fake news, but in the conversation, we felt the reason or fake news reflected explained the situation of what in politics or online was its a term thats essentially created and used to everybody but white people. It was a new term to explain the issues that liberals were facing, such as the president of the United States at the time in also through politicians the u. K. But for so long, communities such as black communities in the u. K. And particularly african communities in the u. K. Were subjected to fake news, disinformation or misinformation. Then it was called stereotyping. Terminology this wasnt to try and capture the experience and behavior but trying to distance itself from what happened to you is true but what happened to us is more impactful. It only became a problem for democracy when it starts to impact white communities. Blacksinformation keeping people from engaging in politics, from answering the phones to opening the front door, disinformation stereotyping has shaped so many communities, particularly in east london and all of the sudden, because the likelihood of getting elected was in the interest of big power players and is nessus, then we start to care about it. Have two care about that for everybody because we are still seeing a hierarchy in this information. When it comes to the covid crisis and disinformation, we only see where it impacts certain communities. When this was mentioned by amanda, when disinformation was being spread by black leaders, no one called it out. There wasnt any kind of campaign and then we found a couple of months later that black immunities were four times more likely to die from covid. But prior to that, disinformation was being spread by online black leaders, social it wasnfluencers, saying a manmade disease, all of the things im sure amanda has heard about other pandemic outbreaks. Likely four times more to die and this is what we were seeing online and because everyone was online, more so now, people were believing it. If we take a more macro level, the likes of jack dorsey and to some extent Mark Zuckerberg only care about disinformation when it was about covid but when it was affecting women in politics, took the president of the United States to get covid to release a statement to clarify the rules around wishing people death. But when it has been happening to lack people, africanamerican people, lgbtq communities who were followed offline where attacks were carried out offline, there was no announcement made then. There is such a disparity in how we talk about disinformation. Who they are really centering and who we really care about. Yourah you mentioned experience as a counselor in east london. And of course, todays panel, todays conference is really framed around the 2020 u. S. Election. Your political experience in the u. K. And around the world, your work is truly international, i wonder if you can share with our audience some thoughts about how the u. S. Experience as an observer of the u. S. Compares to what you experience in the u. K. And elsewhere . Seyi parts of me is jealous, to be honest. Im used toons seeing in the academia world, what you do is amazing and im role doesnt your exist here and if it does it is well underfunded. There was a study that came out about how academia as a whole, black academia, there is only 10 of them. Americans are able to investigate and look at and apply social work and human to tech, to ai, yes, we have the Oxford Institute and [indiscernible] a part of me is jealous around how there is that openness to investigate. Landscape,rstand the that is missing in the u. K. And europe. The second thing is Community Organizing. I think its really clear when it comes to whether it is literally a matter of life or i really, really admire and appreciate the feminist movement, the antiracist movement, its something i think here in the u. K. That we need. Dont haveat we enough of is cross Party Support , so youve got she can run, really amazing for improvingup the reputation of women. We have that in the u. K. But in very small pockets and severely underfunded. There still a lag in understanding the importance of representation and the Community Organizing to get leaders ready to take up the office if thats where they want to go. Thinking about Community Organizing and the potential for actual change, i wonder what you would like to see moving forward in terms of broadbased solutions. Thinking about this from a Public Health perspective . Now seven we are months into this pandemic and we are seeing already the second wave. Certainly im sure you are seeing it in europe. There are new lockdowns occurring and we are preparing for vaccines and the rollout of vaccines and we know these communities of color are already skeptical about vaccines. Theres vaccine hesitancy, low rates of vaccination in the United States per much across the board. With the mistrust, the disinformation, politicalization of the pandemic, that is going to be a huge hurdle to overcome. I its really important we start thinking about the strategies we can use to keep people safe, keep thinking about the preventive measures we need to thinking about vaccine hesitancy. So a couple of things come to mind. First and foremost, we need to get to the root cause of this. This whole notion of institutionalized racism and structural inequities, that is obviously a large initiative and effort that has to take place and it is going to take years to do that. Dr. Wen said about the data, we need to be evidencebased so we can figure out where we can focus our resources and have an impact on the communities most in need. That includes making sure we get vaccines to those individuals who are most vulnerable and most at risk. Community engagement is the foundation of all of this. Whether its grassroots, knocking on doors, increasing literacy about covid or having individuals at the table with the Drug Companies and thinking about Vaccine Distribution and how to do it in an equitable manner, thats where we need to have that community engagement. Waysresearcher, there are to do communitybased research. Taking the time to understand the cultural context that youre going to be working within communities and what are the challenges and barriers and whats the baseline understanding or fears of the communities you are going to be working is really important. Making sure those individuals are at the table from the beginning to the end. Highlightnt i want to and this works really well in the hiv responses this idea of Key Opinion Leaders. If you can figure out whos a leader in that community, where people go for that information, now in social media, we call them influencers. Figure out who those influencers are who can get real data out to communities will also help to spread of the disinformation and misinformation. See anythingon i that doesnt sound right, i have to think about how do we stop that from propagating, stop that information in its tracks and correct it with factual information and evidence so you can write that wrong. Use social media for good and dont let it be a detriment to society and how this pandemic can play out. Thought do you have any s about the last point in particular, but the role of Community Leaders and especially in the online environment . Her recommendation is exactly what i would want to echo. This is about rights and responsibility, making sure the online communities are safe, clean, are not toxic and reproducing the same inequality and not being hijacked or westernized against the community it was meant to help increase the playing field. To do that is understanding we all have a role to play in being digital citizens and that looks like reporting abuse in the platform and it looks like pandering fake media, being quizzical before sharing information. Really what i would like to see more of is accountability. Really being able to equip every day users to realize they can hold the likes of jack dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, and all of these Tech Companies that they use, they can hold them to account. Foront have to wait something so significant to happen, whether it is another celebrity having to take their life because they cannot take how horrendous the platform is or a young person taking an awful diet pill or somebody spreading fake news about a particular np and them having to shut them off. Lets not wait for it to get to this dire state before we hold Tech Companies. Communities have been doing it. There have been communities for years talking about how the security sectors on the platform of zoom or not up to scratch and in april or may, all of a sudden they chose to lead. To stop seeing the online space as a community and yes, you have to shape it and mold it into the culture we want to see but we also have a right to call for longterm, say wetic change and call our mps and politicians come our lawmakers to act. They not just their shareholders. Rebekah you have touched on quite a bit that is very near and dear to our institutes heart and the themes for todays conference. Your charity, you do a great deal of training with individuals to teach them how to be better citizens. You focus on the communities themselves, you have created a number of steps and guides people can follow. Obviously today, we cannot teach all go through this specific training but im wondering if you might take a few minutes to give the members of our audience an abbreviated version of this to share some of the tips and tricks you recommend to people either when they are experiencing online abuse and harassment or when they are witnessing it, how they might support other people . Seyi thank you. Thats a great plug because we launched the new series of our workshop today. My top tip is if you are facing online abuse or harassment, my first tip is lets somebody no. Let somebody know. To whole dna of violence is isolate you and make you feel vulnerable and thats when a lot more things start to kick off. Let somebody know. Try and articulate what is the support you need from them. Let them know you need time off for let your friends know because you need them to support you online. Be really clear about what it is you need from them. The second thing is documenting it. Yes it is important to block and mute, but documenting is so important because you might help paint a picture. You might start finding some patterns. The abuse happened to me in the video went viral, i was hacked, but i did not put the two together they did try to get me before. So documenting is really important. Orther you are in politics working at an Institution Just released a report, you might trolling all the women or people of color in your department. Documentation, we have document abuse resources on our website. My third tip would be selfcare. Who haverly for women been conditioned and grown up to themselves last, not even second, but to put themselves last. Sett feel able to boundaries or have Agency Online and always feel guilty about walking or muting. It is so important, particularly if we are going to enter another lockdown. If that muting a particular account or keywords, you can even do it on weekends so if you dont want to see you dont onto see online abuse on the bekend, i just want to looking at idris elba, and not have to respond and be at work until after sunday. Can increaseys we our Agency Online. If you are seeing someone facing online abuse and are not sure what to do, number one, reach out and ask them. You are isolated, let them know that you are seeing it and affirming that you see it is really helpful because sometimes as women, we play it down and say we are exaggerating it and being sensitive. If someone says im seeing what is happening to you and its not ok gives you the confidence that it is not ok. Help report it. Thinking that everyone is going to get along and vote one way, that is not what it is about. Not seeking to always to be liked and adored online. You made an interesting point on twitter. Can model civil disagreement. Weve lost the art of online debate and if we are going to be having more conversations, particular here in the u. K. With brexit and with the election coming up in two weeks time and the aftermath of that, we are going to be having much bigger geopolitical conversations, we have to start understanding how we can respectfully disagree. So a lot of what was just described and the tips and even language she has used seems to me as an outside observer to fit fairly well with a kind of Public Health frame. I wonder if you have any thoughts about how we might think about our online self and Online Interactions from that Public Health perspective . A lot of that the publichealth face of this. Thinking about in the context of the pandemic, thinking what is everyones role . Whether you are a student and you are trying to help other students understand whats happening with the pandemic, whether you are a community leader, a politician, whether you are just an everyday citizen, my take on this response to the pandemic has been everyone has played a role. Even just staying at home and reinforcing that look, everyone, i posted on facebook, im learning how to cook a healthy meal, im doing selfcare by exercising. It may be, all of those things are really important, that you are reinforcing a message. You are saying im playing a part in this response by doing what is asked of me, which is to remain at home, to be socially distant, but still thinking about your own emotional wellbeing, your own physical wellbeing and again, it just shows everyone has to play a role here. And is really about health even the negative, the disinformation, the bullying that happens online, that is all isolated and its important we think about these as Public Health issues that need to be addressed more broadly than just focusing on that for individual, that one person was cyber bullied, for example. Ais something that has response that has to happen at a community level. Rebekah the very last question before we wrap up, i would like to put to both of you. You talked in general terms about the role of the platforms themselves. You referenced jack dorsey, the head of twitter, Mark Zuckerberg, the head of facebook, if you could turn to these two Corporate Leaders as well as others from social Media Companies sitting in front of you right now, socially distanced, of course, they are sitting in front of you right now, what would you say to them . What would you ask for them to do or focus on . You are asking a tough question there. Now, what i would ask for them to do is allocate some money come allocate some funding, give up some of the prophet. They are a multibillion dollar company. Alongp some money to work online genderbased violence. Groups that are basically working for free or not enough, help make their platform be safer so they can keep their Profit Margins healthy. Forthat money be used proper educational intervention. A lot of the time in our workshop goes to teach people how to use the platform safely. That should be something these companies should be paying for. Them to part with money for them to care about how their money is being spent and their return on investment because that seems to be the only Way Companies understand or care. I think what you have a good chunk of money and resources, then you can push for longterm systematic change. That i completely agree these they are very important, but these little, micro repercussions of the platform are being dealt with, we are dealing with it what wel, one, here and are not seeing a systematic, longterm change. We are not seeing policy changes, transparency and reform. That allocation of budget would be the thing we are pushing for a long time change. I would say cough up some coins. Rebekah after putting you on the hot seat first, im going to l for the finalte word. What would you like to see the platforms, these committees themselves doing to help people like yourself, the on the ground publichealth workers . I would like to take andit could be a Public Healthk force. And is made up of experts Community Members. Not just the scientists but the Community Members and of course, a broad range of and visuals in terms of age, range, ethnicity, native English Speakers, nonnative English Speakers because everyone is using these platforms. I would want them to create comprehensive Task Force Representative of the different opinions and perspectives to try to really be proactive instead of being reactive. Maybe that is working with individuals with local and state Health Departments. Maybe that is working with individuals from the cdc. Maybe that is working with academic institutions. Really thinking about how we can best message information so people get Accurate Information and that we can try to prevent issues we are facing now. So whether it is around the response to covid, maybe they have dr. Fauci as one of their leading people that they engage. A solideen obviously and reliable voice during this pandemic. Finding those individuals as i mentioned before, those Key Opinion Leaders that can really help us to get information out in the best way is going to be receptive or received well by a variety of communities would be most important. Rebekah i want to say thank you. Am so grateful and dr. Lena when for joining us earlier this week to engage in discussion on such an important, timely topic. I also want to thank those in the audience who have joined us. In a few minutes, we are going to turn to another incredibly timely discussion about the looming threat of postelection violence and how it is being organized online. The experts we have gathered are going to share their perspectives, their insights about a variety of groups and planes that are currently taking shape as we speak online. Please stay with us for that conversation. First, i would like to turn your attention to in ttps founding director for a few thoughts about todays event. Hello. I am stephen livingston, professor of media and Public Affairs and the director for the institute of data, democracy and politics. Welcome to this conference. In 2016 when i began working in what would become idp, i was modified i was motivated by two concerns. I knew that threats by democracy posed by malicious actors on social media platforms were too big and complex for any single academic discipline to tackle on its own. Computer and data scientists all needed to Work Together as a team. That with different vocabularies, different methods and professional expectations, cross disciplinary work would be hard. With time, i also knew we would discover common passions, that we would have so much to learn from one another. Secondly, i believe that scholars must share their work with the public. Our research must not remain siloed in academic papers. In short, i wanted to bring together bright people in common cause to benefit others. I am very proud to say that todays forum reflects these convictions. So far, we have learned about the challenges associated with Fact Checking online campaigns and events. We have also learned about the impact of pandemic related misinformation on marginalized communities. Our next two panelists will discover will discuss postelection violence and the pandemics influence on political discourse. Im so pleased you have decided to join us. The next you will find two panels interesting and informative. Thank you very much. We take you live now to arizona where President Trump is holding a Campaign Rally with voters and supporters in tucson
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