vox--2020-08-05--The US needs real-time data to fight the pandemic. We’re still not even close.

The US needs real-time data to fight the pandemic .
We ’ re still not even close .
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We ’ re still not even close .
Six months into America ’ s battle with Covid-19 , we still can ’ t really see the enemy .
There isn ’ t good real-time data on where the virus is and who it is infecting .
Our diagnostic testing is at an all-time high , but it ’ s still missing the vast majority of infections @ @ @ @ @ @ @ surveillance programs like we do for the flu to fill in the gaps , and we don ’ t have good metrics that tell us how well the virus is being contained .
We ’ re particularly in the dark about what ’ s happening in many minority communities , which have lower testing rates than white communities .
We don ’ t have good foresight into the future either : As the response to the pandemic grows more fractured , and the policies less consistent and more politicized , it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s like we ’ re flying blind , ” says Sarah Cobey , an infectious disease modeler at the University of Chicago .
To extend the metaphor : When airplane pilots can ’ t see out their windows , they can rely on their instruments to guide them through a storm .
But with the pandemic “ we don ’ t even have that , ” Cobey says .
“ We don ’ t even have good numbers to be staring at to guide our flying.
” This blindness is particularly excruciating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — have to make hugely consequential decisions about reopening without clear data on what ’ s happening on the ground .
The best data we have on community spread of Covid-19 is weeks out of date when it arrives .
And schools won ’ t necessarily be able to monitor the consequences of their decisions in real-time .
With a virus capable of exponential growth , these lags in data can result in catastrophe .
What we do know is that we ’ re entering a newly dangerous period .
As temperatures fall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the coming months , it ’ s possible that transmission rates of Covid-19 will increase even more .
If we ’ re going to fly this country out of the pandemic , we ’ re going to need more visibility on what ’ s going on .
Here ’ s what ’ s missing , and what we so desperately need .
1 ) We don ’ t have good real-time data .
And data are particularly insufficient for minority communities .
Time is everything in the pandemic .
The quicker a Covid-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can be isolated , the quicker contacts can be quarantined , fewer people get infected , and so on .
On a big picture level : The faster a state or local government can identify a growing outbreak , the faster it can act to stem the outbreak .
What we need is a real-time view of Covid-19 transmission .
And it simply doesn ’ t exist .
Ideally , we could get real-time transmission data from rapid Covid-19 diagnostic testing .
But testing is currently backlogged in many places , with people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So it can ’ t provide real-time data .
Testing also does not provide a complete picture of who is getting infected .
“ Four out of five infections are not ... counted as cases , ” Cobey says .
They ’ re not being tested ( these include milder or asymptomatic cases ) .
“ Right now , cases are so underreported , and they ’ re not just under reported in a consistent way .
They ’ re underreported in a biased way.
” Minority communities , for instance , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rate as white communities ( despite bearing a disproportionate brunt of the pandemic ’ s toll . )
According to an investigation by FiveThirtyEight , Black and Hispanic communities face longer wait times for tests , and there are “ fewer testing sites in areas primarily inhabited by racial minorities.
” So testing data gives us a skewed picture of what ’ s going on .
Since we can ’ t use testing data for a view of overall community transmission , we have to extrapolate from hospitalizations and deaths .
Researchers know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and deaths to the amount of community spread .
So they can work backward .
Yet , hospitalizations and deaths are lagging indicators .
They ’ re indicative of transmission that occurred three weeks ago or more .
“ Under exponential growth , three weeks can really mean a huge increase in cases or in infections , ” Jaline Gerardin , a Northwestern University computational epidemiologist says .
If it takes a week for cases to double , she explains , then a three-week lag of data means cases can increase eightfold .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ reliable than before , thanks to the Trump administration .
A recent change in policy to reroute Covid-19 hospitalization data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) to the Department of Health and Human Services has created “ temporary information blackouts , ” ProPublica reports .
The Covid Tracking Project — a watchdog journalism group collecting Covid-19 data — writes , “ these problems mean that our hospitalization data—a crucial metric of the COVID-19 pandemic—is , for now , unreliable , and likely an undercount.
” But even pristine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whole story of the pandemic .
Older people are more likely to be hospitalized , which makes it harder to deduce outbreaks among younger people from this data source .
Gerardin says in Illinois “ the Hispanic/Latino population tends to skew younger than white or Black populations.
” So relying on hospitalization data makes it harder to observe trends in this community .
In the absence of current , comprehensive data , scientists are developing new tools to make the best use of the data available to help guide difficult reopening decisions .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lauren Ancel Meyers , director of the University of Texas COVID-19 modeling consortium , and her colleagues have created a calculator to estimate how many students and faculty may come to campus infected based on levels of community transmission .
If Covid-19 prevalence in the community is 1 in 100 , for example , then a school with 1,000 students and teachers could expect 10 people to arrive infected during a reopening , Meyers and her colleagues report .
( Just one infected person is enough to start a large outbreak . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ calculation is that it ’ s dependent on knowing the prevalence of Covid-19 in a community .
Using hospitalization data “ we are able to kind of estimate how fast the virus was spreading about 10 days prior , ” Meyers says .
Ten days , while helpful , isn ’ t ideal : An outbreak can start to spark up in that time .
That ’ s the best they can do .
But they can ’ t even do it for everywhere in the country : “ Unfortunately , hospitalization data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all communities in the country , ” she says .
So not only are some areas blind to their current conditions , they don ’ t even have a clear view of the recent past .
What we need : Surveillance testing One of the most commonly reported metrics during the pandemic is the percentage of tests that come back positive .
In May , the World Health Organization advised governments that before reopening , the rate of Covid-19 positive tests should remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rises above 5 percent consistently , it ’ s a sign there ’ s an outbreak growing in the area ( and not just a sign that more mild cases are being discovered due to increased testing . )
The problem is that this metric — while helpful — is still crude .
And at times , it can deliver ambiguous conclusions .
“ You could imagine a situation where the the epidemic is growing , but the test positivity rate is actually decreasing , ” Gerardin says .
For example , if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its incoming students , or if a company decides to test all of its employees before coming back to work , it can inflate the denominator of the equation .
“ Changes in the denominator of who ’ s being tested is really important , ” Cobey says .
“ And we don ’ t [ currently ] understand them.
” Instead of relying on this flawed metric , we need systematic surveillance .
A good surveillance system doesn ’ t need to include everyone tested , but just a predefined segment of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with good data .
Recently , Cobey and Gerardin consulted with the state of Illinois about setting up a surveillance system .
Their idea is really simple : systematically record all of the patients who arrive at outpatient clinics with symptoms .
“ You can estimate the effective reproductive number from that , ” Cobey says .
“ You can get more up-to-date estimates and more precise estimates of what transmission rates are at different times.
” Ideally , “ this would have been up and running before we started coming out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ currently , they say there ’ s only one outpatient site in Illinois participating as a pilot , and it ’ s not enough to provide useful data .
They ’ re not sure when the full program will be up and running .
“ I don ’ t know of any US state that is doing good surveillance , ” Cobey says , though admitting it ’ s hard to know what ’ s going on everywhere across the country .
And that ’ s part of the problem , too : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what Covid-19 surveillance ought to look like , or one place to go look up programs that exist .
“ It really confuses me why we ’ re not investing in this , ” Cobey says , about surveillance programs overall .
If testing programs across states were more careful and systematic in their current data collection and reporting — labeling why people recieved the tests , and if they have symptoms , noting when they started — it would help produce better real-time estimates of transmission .
“ Even where there ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ almost never seeing the numbers broken down in a reasonable way , ” Cobey says .
“ For instance , we don ’ t know which tests are from asymptomatics or symptomatics , or if tests come from outpatient sites or people showing up quite ill in the hospital.
” Just ensuring every recorded case included a “ date of symptom onset ” would be helpful for better surveillance she says .
“ And that ’ s not collected the vast majority of the time.
” Other scientists are trying to find ways @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Santillana , a computational epidemiologist at Harvard has been building a machine-learning program to use as a form of disease surveillance .
“ What we seek to identify is , ‘ Can we help these traditional data sources , identify outbreaks with more confidence ?
’ , ” Santillana says .
Santillana and his colleagues combine data from UpToDate ( a search engine for clinicians to look up disease symptoms ) , Google searches for fevers or Covid-19 symptoms , data from digital thermometers that pair with smartphones , and other information streams @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up in case-count data .
“ We ’ re hoping to provide with these kinds of tools , confirmatory information to say , yes , cases are under control , or no , ” Santillana says .
This approach can ’ t replace traditional surveillance outright ( and it has some drawbacks : If people ’ s behavior starts changing in terms of Google searches or UpToDate searches , it could potentially alter the predictive ability of the program . )
And while they have piloted the program with some success in China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also facing a frustrating roadblock in the US .
“ Agencies such as the CDC see our work to some extent as novel and experimental , even though we have worked with the CDC for more than five years , using this data for influenza , “ Santillana says .
“ So that means that they ’ re not paying as much attention , they ’ re not funding our work.
” The state of surveillance testing is frustrating for scientists .
Disease surveillance is no novel concept : It is regularly in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had thought good surveillance would be the most obvious thing for politicians to want to invest in and improve , so they can adjust policy faster and with more data-driven authority , but it turns out it ’ s not , ” Cobey says .
2 ) We don ’ t have good metrics on containment There ’ s another view we don ’ t have : how well we have this virus contained .
“ If you equate infectious disease transmission to fires , I could tell you where the major [ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — Florida , Texas , Arizona — I know where the fires are , especially if they are big , ” says Cyrus Shahpar , the former lead of the Global Rapid Response Team at the CDC .
With wildfires , authorities will report what percentage of the fire is contained , which is often a reflection of how well fire-fighting authorities are responding .
With Covid-19 , we have few comparable metrics .
“ I have no idea what percent contained these [ Covid-19 ] fires are , ” Shahpar says .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that isn ’ t contained and that ’ s the problem .
Or you could have a medium fire that is contained and that ’ s better contained .
That matters , and that ’ s where we have the biggest information gap.
” What would you want to know to assess Covid containment ?
Shahpar , along with Tom Frieden , the former CDC director under President Obama , and their group Resolve to Save Lives , have 15 essential indicators for all states to report to better understand how good ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are doing in responding to the pandemic .
They include metrics like : What proportion of cases are isolated within 48 hours ( to get a sense if new sparks in the fire are being quickly contained ) ?
What percentage of cases are linked to previously known cases ?
( The less we know about chains of transmission , the less we probably know about the scope of the entire outbreak ) .
How long , on average , does it take to isolate a case ?
“ I have no idea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Texas in other any state , really because they don ’ t report it , ” Shahpar says .
States are all reporting their own hodgepodge of metrics , which makes it hard to get a clear picture of pandemic containment at a national level .
Federal guidance from the CDC and White House to states has been slow , and so states had to come up with their own plans .
But that makes the scope of our pandemic hard to track .
“ Even if the metrics aren ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that some places they aren ’ t , you need to know what they are .
So that when we improve , we know that we ’ ve improved , ” he says .
Resolve to Save Lives is keeping track of which states report this type of containment data , and so far , the vast majority don ’ t .
The states that do track it aren ’ t doing so in a standardized way , so it ’ s hard to make cross-state comparisons .
Shahpar blames a lack of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the 50 reopening plans of each of the states , they ’ re all different , ” he says .
“ They all look different , what they look at is different .
And so we ’ ve kind of already proceeded into a place where everything ’ s different .
So it ’ s much harder to get it all aligned.
” 3 ) The future of the pandemic is difficult to model right now Everyone wants to know what ’ s going to happen next .
But here ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hard to know , exactly , what shape the pandemic will take this coming fall .
There ’ s an element of chaos in all of this .
And it ’ s getting harder to model outcomes .
“ We have understood from the very beginning , that this the way this virus spreads fundamentally depends on behavior and politics , ” Meyers says .
“ And , and our behavior changed in unprecedented dramatic ways.
” ( Who could have predicted people protesting mask-wearing , for instance ? )
“ We really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be doing , you know , next week , ” she says .
For that reason — and others — her team ’ s models never try to project more than three weeks into the future , she says .
Cobey agrees : “ I expect that , you know , our predictive abilities are going to improve with time , ” she says .
“ But at the moment , I think this is a particularly dark spot.
” There are still so many uncertainties that will determine our course : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in transmission is still a mystery that ’ s being sorted out ( though it ’ s increasingly clear kids can get infected and transmit the virus with frequency ) , and how people will continue to adhere to mask-wearing guidance .
While we might not be able to intuit the future , and while we might not have great vision on what ’ s currently happening , it doesn ’ t mean we ’ re powerless .
We know the conditions under which the pandemic grows worse .
We can continue to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , continue to try to test , trace , and isolate .
“ What we see over and over again in our modeling , ” Jeffrey Shaman , an infectious disease modeler at Columbia University explains , is that the ability to open up places like schools safely , depends on “ how much virus there is out there right now , how many cases you ’ re seeing in the last four days , and how much it ’ s growing at that time.
” Right now , we have to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this data arrives already out of date .
Without clear vision in this storm “ we ’ re going to be living with coronavirus much longer , with much more preventable death and disability than any other part of the world , ” Shahpar says .
In the coming months , the storm might grow worse .
And as temperatures begin to drop , we should prepare for Covid-19 transmission to increase .
“ It ’ s what we see in every other acute respiratory viral infection , ” Cobey says .
Every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
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Six months into America’s battle with Covid-19, we still can’t really see the enemy.
There isn’t good real-time data on where the virus is and who it is infecting. Our diagnostic testing is at an all-time high, but it’s still missing the vast majority of infections.
We don’t have systematic surveillance programs like we do for the flu to fill in the gaps, and we don’t have good metrics that tell us how well the virus is being contained. We’re particularly in the dark about what’s happening in many minority communities, which have lower testing rates than white communities.
We don’t have good foresight into the future either: As the response to the pandemic grows more fractured, and the policies less consistent and more politicized, it’s getting harder to model.
“It’s like we’re flying blind,” says Sarah Cobey, an infectious disease modeler at the University of Chicago. To extend the metaphor: When airplane pilots can’t see out their windows, they can rely on their instruments to guide them through a storm. But with the pandemic “we don’t even have that,” Cobey says. “We don’t even have good numbers to be staring at to guide our flying.”
This blindness is particularly excruciating because institutions — like schools and universities — have to make hugely consequential decisions about reopening without clear data on what’s happening on the ground. The best data we have on community spread of Covid-19 is weeks out of date when it arrives. And schools won’t necessarily be able to monitor the consequences of their decisions in real time. With a virus capable of exponential growth, these lags in data can result in catastrophe.
What we do know is that we’re entering a newly dangerous period. As temperatures fall and people are forced back indoors in the coming months, it’s possible transmission rates of Covid-19 will increase even more.
If we’re going to fly this country out of the pandemic, we’re going to need more visibility on what’s going on.
Here’s what’s missing, and what we so desperately need.
1) We don’t have good real-time data. And data is particularly insufficient for minority communities.
Time is everything in the pandemic.
The quicker a Covid-19 case is identified, the quicker it can be isolated, the quicker contacts can be quarantined, the fewer people get infected, and so on. On a big-picture level: The faster a state or local government can identify a growing outbreak, the faster it can act to stem the outbreak.
What we need is a real-time view of Covid-19 transmission. And it simply doesn’t exist.
Ideally, we could get real-time transmission data from rapid Covid-19 diagnostic testing. But testing is currently backlogged in many places, with people waiting a week or more for results. So it can’t provide real-time data. Testing also does not provide a complete picture of who is getting infected.
“Four out of five infections are not ... counted as cases,” Cobey says. They’re not being tested (these include milder or asymptomatic cases). “Right now, cases are so underreported, and they’re not just underreported in a consistent way — they’re underreported in a biased way.”
Minority communities, for instance, are not being tested at the same rate as white communities (despite bearing a disproportionate brunt of the pandemic’s toll). According to an investigation by FiveThirtyEight, Black and Hispanic communities face longer wait times for tests, and there are “fewer testing sites in areas primarily inhabited by racial minorities.” So testing data gives us a skewed picture of what’s going on.
Since we can’t use testing data for a view of overall community transmission, we have to extrapolate from hospitalizations and deaths. Researchers know, roughly, the ratio of hospitalizations and deaths to the amount of community spread. So they can work backward.
Yet hospitalizations and deaths are lagging indicators. They’re indicative of transmission that occurred three weeks ago or more.
“Under exponential growth, three weeks can really mean a huge increase in cases or in infections,” Jaline Gerardin, a Northwestern University computational epidemiologist, says. If it takes a week for cases to double, she explains, then a three-week lag of data means cases can increase eightfold.
Hospitalization data may also now be less reliable than before, due to the Trump administration. A recent change in policy to reroute Covid-19 hospitalization data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to the Department of Health and Human Services has created “temporary information blackouts,” ProPublica reports. The Covid Tracking Project, a watchdog journalism group collecting Covid-19 data, writes that “these problems mean that our hospitalization data — a crucial metric of the COVID-19 pandemic — is, for now, unreliable, and likely an undercount.”
But even pristine hospital data wouldn’t tell the whole story of the pandemic. Older people are more likely to be hospitalized, which makes it harder to deduce outbreaks among younger people from this data source. Gerardin says in Illinois, “the Hispanic/Latino population tends to skew younger than white or Black populations.” So relying on hospitalization data makes it harder to observe trends in this community.
In the absence of current, comprehensive data, scientists are developing new tools to make the best use of the data available to help guide difficult reopening decisions.
In advising Texas schools on reopenings, Lauren Ancel Meyers, director of the University of Texas Covid-19 Modeling Consortium, and her colleagues have created a calculator to estimate how many students and faculty may come to campus infected based on levels of community transmission. If Covid-19 prevalence in the community is 1 in 100, for example, then a school with 1,000 students and teachers could expect 10 people to arrive infected during a reopening, Meyers and her colleagues report. (Just one infected person is enough to start a large outbreak.)
But the key thing about this risk calculation is that it’s dependent on knowing the prevalence of Covid-19 in a community. Using hospitalization data, “we are able to kind of estimate how fast the virus was spreading about 10 days prior,” Meyers says. Ten days, while helpful, isn’t ideal: An outbreak can start to spark up in that time.
That’s the best they can do. But they can’t even do it for everywhere in the country: “Unfortunately, hospitalization data are not kind of widely available for all communities in the country,” she says.
So not only are some areas blind to their current conditions, they don’t even have a clear view of the recent past.
What we need: Surveillance testing
One of the most commonly reported metrics during the pandemic is the percentage of tests that come back positive. In May, the World Health Organization advised governments that before reopening, the rate of Covid-19 positive tests should remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days. If the proportion of positive tests rises above 5 percent consistently, it’s a sign there’s an outbreak growing in the area (and not just a sign that more mild cases are being discovered due to increased testing).
The problem is that this metric — while helpful — is still crude. And at times, it can deliver ambiguous conclusions. “You could imagine a situation where the the epidemic is growing but the test positivity rate is actually decreasing,” Gerardin says. For example, if a university decides to test all its incoming students, or if a company decides to test all its employees before coming back to work, it can inflate the denominator of the equation.
“Changes in the denominator of who’s being tested is really important,” Cobey says. “And we don’t [currently] understand them.”
Instead of relying on this flawed metric, we need systematic surveillance.
A good surveillance system doesn’t need to include everyone tested, but just a predefined segment of the population, tracked carefully, and with good data.
Recently, Cobey and Gerardin consulted with the state of Illinois about setting up a surveillance system. Their idea is really simple: systematically record all the patients who arrive at outpatient clinics with symptoms. “You can estimate the effective reproductive number from that,” Cobey says. “You can get more up-to-date estimates and more precise estimates of what transmission rates are at different times.”
Ideally, “this would have been up and running before we started coming out of lockdown,” Gerardin says.
But currently, they say, there’s only one outpatient site in Illinois participating as a pilot, and it’s not enough to provide useful data. They’re not sure when the full program will be up and running.
“I don’t know of any US state that is doing good surveillance,” Cobey says, though she admits it’s hard to know what’s going on everywhere across the country. And that’s part of the problem, too: There’s no national standard for what Covid-19 surveillance ought to look like, or one place to go look up programs that exist. “It really confuses me why we’re not investing in this,” Cobey says of surveillance programs overall.
If testing programs across states were more careful and systematic in their current data collection and reporting — labeling why people received the tests, and if they have symptoms, noting when they started — it would help produce better real-time estimates of transmission.
“Even where there’s more testing, we’re almost never seeing the numbers broken down in a reasonable way,” Cobey says. “For instance, we don’t know which tests are from asymptomatics or symptomatics, or if tests come from outpatient sites or people showing up quite ill in the hospital.” Just ensuring every recorded case included a “date of symptom onset” would be helpful for better surveillance she says. “And that’s not collected the vast majority of the time.”
Other scientists are trying to find ways to fill in the gaps. Mauricio Santillana, a computational epidemiologist at Harvard, has been building a machine-learning program to use as a form of disease surveillance.
“What we seek to identify is, ‘Can we help these traditional data sources, identify outbreaks with more confidence?’” Santillana says.
Santillana and his colleagues combine data from UpToDate (a search engine for clinicians to look up disease symptoms), Google searches for fevers or Covid-19 symptoms, data from digital thermometers that pair with smartphones, and other information streams to predict outbreaks weeks before they show up in case-count data.
“We’re hoping to provide with these kinds of tools, confirmatory information to say, yes, cases are under control, or no,” Santillana says. This approach can’t replace traditional surveillance outright. (It also has some drawbacks: If people’s behavior starts changing in terms of Google searches or UpToDate searches, it could potentially alter the predictive ability of the program.) And while they have piloted the program with some success in China, he says, they’re also facing a frustrating roadblock in the US.
“Agencies such as the CDC see our work to some extent as novel and experimental, even though we have worked with the CDC for more than five years, using this data for influenza,“ Santillana says. “So that means that they’re not paying as much attention, they’re not funding our work.”
The state of surveillance testing is frustrating for scientists. Disease surveillance is no novel concept: It is regularly in use for the flu. “I had thought good surveillance would be the most obvious thing for politicians to want to invest in and improve, so they can adjust policy faster and with more data-driven authority, but it turns out it’s not,” Cobey says.
2) We don’t have good metrics on containment
There’s another view we don’t have: how well we have this virus contained.
“If you equate infectious disease transmission to fires, I could tell you where the major [Covid-19] fires are in the US — Florida, Texas, Arizona — I know where the fires are, especially if they are big,” says Cyrus Shahpar, the former lead of the Global Rapid Response Team at the CDC. With wildfires, authorities will report what percentage of the fire is contained, which is often a reflection of how well firefighting authorities are responding.
With Covid-19, we have few comparable metrics. “I have no idea what percent contained these [Covid-19] fires are,” Shahpar says. “You could have a small fire that isn’t contained and that’s the problem. Or you could have a medium fire that is contained and that’s better contained. That matters, and that’s where we have the biggest information gap.”
What would you want to know to assess Covid containment? Shahpar, along with Tom Frieden, who served as CDC director under President Obama, and their group Resolve to Save Lives, have 15 essential indicators for all states to report to better understand how good (or bad) of a job they are doing in responding to the pandemic.
They include metrics like: What proportion of cases are isolated within 48 hours (to get a sense if new sparks in the fire are being quickly contained)? What percentage of cases are linked to previously known cases? (The less we know about chains of transmission, the less we probably know about the scope of the entire outbreak.) How long, on average, does it take to isolate a case?
“I have no idea how these things are going in Florida and Texas in other any state, really, because they don’t report it,” Shahpar says. States are all reporting their own hodgepodge of metrics, which makes it hard to get a clear picture of pandemic containment at a national level. Federal guidance from the CDC and White House to states has been slow, and so states had to come up with their own plans. But that makes the scope of the pandemic hard to track.
“Even if the metrics aren’t great right now, and I think that some places they aren’t, you need to know what they are. So that when we improve, we know that we’ve improved,” Shahpar says.
Resolve to Save Lives is keeping track of which states report this type of containment data, and so far, the vast majority don’t. The states that do track it aren’t doing so in a standardized way, so it’s hard to make cross-state comparisons. Shahpar blames a lack of federal guidance.
“If you look at the 50 reopening plans of each of the states, they’re all different,” he says. “They all look different; what they look at is different. And so we’ve kind of already proceeded into a place where everything’s different. So it’s much harder to get it all aligned.”
3) The future of the pandemic is difficult to model right now
Everyone wants to know what’s going to happen next. But here’s the truth: It’s really hard to know what shape the pandemic will take this coming fall. There’s an element of chaos in all of this. And it’s getting harder to model outcomes.
“We have understood from the very beginning that this the way this virus spreads fundamentally depends on behavior and politics,” Meyers says. “And our behavior changed in unprecedented, dramatic ways.” (Who could have predicted people protesting mask-wearing, for instance?) “We really cannot predict what people are going to be doing, you know, next week,” she says. For that reason — and others — her team’s models never try to project more than three weeks into the future, she says.
Cobey agrees: “I expect that, you know, our predictive abilities are going to improve with time,” she says. “But at the moment, I think this is a particularly dark spot.”
There are still so many uncertainties that will determine our course: How much of a role kids play in transmission is still a mystery that’s being sorted out (though it’s increasingly clear kids can get infected and transmit the virus with frequency), and how people will continue to adhere to mask-wearing guidance.
While we might not be able to intuit the future, and we might not have great vision on what’s currently happening, it doesn’t mean we’re powerless. We know the conditions under which the pandemic grows worse. We can continue to social distance, continue to wear masks, continue to try to test, trace, and isolate.
“What we see over and over again in our modeling,” Jeffrey Shaman, an infectious disease modeler at Columbia University, explains, is that the ability to open up places like schools safely depends on “how much virus there is out there right now, how many cases you’re seeing in the last four days, and how much it’s growing at that time.” Right now we have to be really cautious, and act knowing that this data arrives already out of date.
Without clear vision in this storm, “we’re going to be living with coronavirus much longer, with much more preventable death and disability than any other part of the world,” Shahpar says.
In the coming months, the storm might grow worse. And as temperatures begin to drop, we should prepare for Covid-19 transmission to increase. “It’s what we see in every other acute respiratory viral infection,” Cobey says.


vox--2020-08-05--A nun on the radical possibilities of Christianity

“ One who lives in God lives in others because it is in the other that God is found.
” That ’ s how Ilia Delio , a Franciscan nun and Catholic theologian , sums up her vision of Christianity .
For Delio , much of what passes for Christianity today has become unmoored from the example of Christ .
The result , she says , is an “ abstract Christianity ” that can ’ t really speak to the pain and loss we ’ re experiencing in this moment .
I recently spoke with Delio as part of Future @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Way Through , which is all about exploring the world ’ s great philosophical and spiritual traditions for guidance during these difficult times .
At the core of our conversation is the question of suffering and how we should respond to it .
There ’ s a version of Christianity that is mostly about dogma and institutional power — that ’ s the Christianity I felt alienated from as a child .
But there ’ s another version , a “ Christianity of deed ” in Delio ’ s words , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — and that ’ s a Christianity I wanted to explore .
We dig into what this kind of living faith might look like in the world , and what it would take to get us there .
Subscribe to Future Perfect : The Way Through on Apple Podcasts , Google Podcasts , Spotify , Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

“One who lives in God lives in others because it is in the other that God is found.”
That’s how Ilia Delio, a Franciscan nun and Catholic theologian, sums up her vision of Christianity. For Delio, much of what passes for Christianity today has become unmoored from the example of Christ. The result, she says, is an “abstract Christianity” that can’t really speak to the pain and loss we’re experiencing in this moment.
I recently spoke with Delio as part of Future Perfect’s new limited-series podcast, The Way Through, which is all about exploring the world’s great philosophical and spiritual traditions for guidance during these difficult times.
At the core of our conversation is the question of suffering and how we should respond to it. There’s a version of Christianity that is mostly about dogma and institutional power — that’s the Christianity I felt alienated from as a child. But there’s another version, a “Christianity of deed” in Delio’s words, that’s all about sacrifice and love — and that’s a Christianity I wanted to explore.
We dig into what this kind of living faith might look like in the world, and what it would take to get us there.
Subscribe to Future Perfect: The Way Through on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts.


vox--2020-08-05--Instagram’s answer to TikTok is here

Instagram’s answer to TikTok is here

Today , Instagram is releasing its most significant update since Stories in 2016 : Reels , an editing tool that allows users to craft 15-second clips set to music with options to add timed effects , has officially launched in the US .
Users can access Reels from the camera in the upper left-hand corner , where you would normally go to film an Instagram Story , and then flipping through to the Reels tab .
There , you can search an audio database , upload video clips and splice them together , add text , and play around with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ greenscreen .
If this sounds suspiciously similar to a different very popular social media app , well , yes .
Reels is essentially Facebook ’ s answer to TikTok , just as Instagram Stories were a pretty blatant copy of Snapchat ’ s own disappearing Story feature .
Reels and TikTok are , for the most part , functionally identical , and Instagram is positioning it as such : as a place to hop onto trending memes and dances , to create goofy content , and perhaps , ultimately , to find fame @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , though , what Instagram likely really wants to replicate is the endless scroll of TikTok ’ s addictive For You page , which is personalized to each user and has been a huge key to TikTok ’ s success .
While the Explore tab on Instagram theoretically exists for the same purpose — to show users content they might like but aren ’ t following yet — the launch of Reels coincides with a major revamp of Explore , which will now include a For You page-type endless scroll of vertical Reels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ TikTok faces mounting pressure from US leadership to sever ties with its Chinese owner , ByteDance , culminating in rumors that President Donald Trump will force a selloff .
Facebook , which owns Instagram , has long considered TikTok a threat ( Mark Zuckerberg tried to buy it in 2016 ) .
If Reels takes off , or if it replaces TikTok as the de facto platform for short-form time-wasting due to a political mandate outside TikTok ’ s control , that ’ s a huge win for Facebook .
There are a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Reels has a feature called Align that makes it easier to line up clips for more seamless editing .
On the new Explore page , Reels will also label certain particularly entertaining or trending videos as “ featured , ” meaning they ’ ve been hand-selected by a person to appear in your feed .
A user ’ s Reels videos will also live in a tab separate from their Instagram grid , located next to the tab for tagged photos .
Other than that , it ’ s basically … TikTok , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for worse , judging by Instagram ’ s history , that may as well make it a hit .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Today, Instagram is releasing its most significant update since Stories in 2016: Reels, an editing tool that allows users to craft 15-second clips set to music with options to add timed effects, has officially launched in the US.
Users can access Reels from the camera in the upper left-hand corner, where you would normally go to film an Instagram Story, and then flipping through to the Reels tab. There, you can search an audio database, upload video clips and splice them together, add text, and play around with the speed or other effects, like greenscreen.
If this sounds suspiciously similar to a different very popular social media app, well, yes. Reels is essentially Facebook’s answer to TikTok, just as Instagram Stories were a pretty blatant copy of Snapchat’s own disappearing Story feature. Reels and TikTok are, for the most part, functionally identical, and Instagram is positioning it as such: as a place to hop onto trending memes and dances, to create goofy content, and perhaps, ultimately, to find fame.
Beyond the fun new editing features, though, what Instagram likely really wants to replicate is the endless scroll of TikTok’s addictive For You page, which is personalized to each user and has been a huge key to TikTok’s success. While the Explore tab on Instagram theoretically exists for the same purpose — to show users content they might like but aren’t following yet — the launch of Reels coincides with a major revamp of Explore, which will now include a For You page-type endless scroll of vertical Reels videos.
The launch comes just as TikTok faces mounting pressure from US leadership to sever ties with its Chinese owner, ByteDance, culminating in rumors that President Donald Trump will force a selloff. Facebook, which owns Instagram, has long considered TikTok a threat (Mark Zuckerberg tried to buy it in 2016). If Reels takes off, or if it replaces TikTok as the de facto platform for short-form time-wasting due to a political mandate outside TikTok’s control, that’s a huge win for Facebook.
There are a few minor differences between the two: Reels has a feature called Align that makes it easier to line up clips for more seamless editing. On the new Explore page, Reels will also label certain particularly entertaining or trending videos as “featured,” meaning they’ve been hand-selected by a person to appear in your feed. A user’s Reels videos will also live in a tab separate from their Instagram grid, located next to the tab for tagged photos.
Other than that, it’s basically … TikTok, but on Instagram. For better or for worse, judging by Instagram’s history, that may as well make it a hit.


vox--2020-08-05--Sen. Ron Wyden helped create the Big Tech industry. Now he wants to hold it accountable.

Sen. Ron Wyden is ready to send the CEO of Facebook to prison , and he has the bill to do it .
“ When Mark Zuckerberg tells a whopper to the federal government about his privacy policy , not only would he face a fine , but he can face prison time !
” Wyden said .
In October 2019 , he introduced the Mind Your Own Business Act , which he hopes will create a set of privacy and security standards that Big Tech companies and data brokers must follow and hold people like Zuckerberg accountable if they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lie to the government about it .
“ Nobody else has said , ‘ Hey , if you rip people off that way , you ’ re gon na face the prospect of time in prison.
’ ” I get the distinct impression that the Oregon Democrat doesn ’ t like being lied to .
Wyden is not alone ; several of his colleagues were similarly outraged when a 2018 New York Times report about Facebook ’ s data-sharing agreements cast doubt on the veracity of the CEO ’ s earlier testimony that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But Wyden ’ s the only one who wrote the law that made it possible for the social media giant to exist .
Wyden recently explained his outrage to me via Zoom from his tastefully appointed kitchen in Portland and me from my ( considerably less refined ) living room in New York City .
The 71-year-old career politician has a folksy manner that almost makes you forget that he ’ s one of the most powerful Democrats in the Senate .
He ’ s also the co-creator of Section 230 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ become the go-to target of Republican attacks on Big Tech companies .
In the past couple of months alone , the Trump administration and its allies have pushed an executive order , Department of Justice recommendations , and bills in Congress , all threatening to take Section 230 protections away from companies that they believe treat conservative and liberal speech differently .
Wyden ’ s party has also gotten in on the act , proposing bipartisan bills that would weaken Section 230 .
So , in a year that once looked like it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s future , Wyden is forced to look backward .
One of the Senate ’ s biggest privacy hawks , Wyden has always been at the forefront of legislation designed to better protect Americans ’ data from companies like Facebook and Google that have profited massively off of it .
But since the pandemic began , there ’ s been little movement on any of those bills .
Instead , Republicans have mostly focused on a perceived ( and unproven ) anti-conservative bias in Big Tech , even hijacking the highly anticipated House @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to yell at the CEOs about free speech online .
This leaves Wyden to defend his seminal law from the right ’ s attacks while pushing forward new legislation to regulate the billion-dollar industry it helped create .
Can the architect of the law that created the internet find a way to preserve it that placates its growing list of opponents ?
From wood products to the World Wide Web The first thing I wanted to know was why Wyden was interested enough in the future of the internet to write Section 230 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ House representative .
Back in the mid- ’ 90s , the federal government wanted to update the Telecommunications Act to include this new thing called the World Wide Web .
That attempt included trying to protect children from porn with a law called the Communications Decency Act ( CDA ) .
Wyden and Rep. Chris Cox , a California Republican , wrote an amendment that added Section 230 to the CDA .
The provision basically said that , with a few exceptions , internet service providers and platforms couldn ’ t be held @ @ @ @ @ @ @ users .
Without this part of the law , sites like Facebook , Twitter , and YouTube — anything that relies on third-party content — could not exist .
So , what piqued Wyden ’ s interest in internet providers ’ free speech at a time when most of the rest of the federal government was most concerned with making sure kids didn ’ t see porn online ?
Was he an early adopter ?
Passionate about preserving free speech in all mediums ?
Eager to get on the legislative ground floor of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ always been about wood products , ” Wyden told me .
No , really .
While he was and is dedicated to working hard for Oregon ’ s forestry industry , he also wanted to bring some new industries into the state .
The internet , he reasoned , could be one of them .
But there was confusion over how , legally , to view and treat websites and service providers that he feared would stunt its growth .
“ I had been talking to Chris Cox , ” Wyden said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that said if you owned a website or a blog , you can get held personally liable for something that was posted on your site .
And I said , I don ’ t know everything about this internet business , but I don ’ t know why anybody would ever put a nickel into that if they thought they were going to be held personally liable , because it sounds like there are going to be lots of postings.
” Wyden was referring to a few court decisions that said an internet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ content posted by its users if it made any effort to review or control that content .
This meant that any website or service provider that had user-generated content — think tweets , Facebook posts , Yelp reviews , even comments under news articles — would either have to strictly monitor every single post for actionable material to avoid being sued , or they would have to let everyone post whatever they wanted .
Neither option seemed like great conditions to grow an industry under , so Cox and Wyden came up with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 230 allowed websites to moderate user-generated content on their platforms as they wished without being civilly liable for that content .
Wyden became a senator in February 1996 , and the updated version of the Telecommunications Act was signed into law three days later .
Most of the CDA was struck down by the Supreme Court before it ever went into effect , but Section 230 survived .
Now , 25 years later , some of the biggest companies in the world exist because of it .
“ I always thought it would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Maybe not 1 trillion dollars of helpful , as a Washington Post op-ed once estimated the value of Section 230 .
( Wyden ’ s wife , a co-owner of the Strand bookstore in Manhattan , was apparently less impressed : “ She said , ‘ Even a blind squirrel can find an acorn occasionally.
’ ” ) From here , Wyden ’ s career has partially been defined by his vision of what the internet could and should be — which , he said , was by design .
“ When I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Pat Leahy of Vermont seemed to be the only one who knew what a computer was , ” Wyden said .
“ I said this is a chance for a young newcomer to the Senate to get into some new stuff.
” That stuff has included the Internet Tax Freedom Act and the Electronic Signatures bill .
Wyden has also worked to increase broadband internet access in rural communities and fought against proposed laws that could shut down websites , change how the internet works , or threaten free speech , like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forced internet service providers to block access to websites that violated copyright laws .
Recently , he teamed up with Sen. Steve Daines ( R-MT ) to propose an amendment to the renewal of the Patriot Act that would have forbidden warrantless collection of internet browsing and history data .
How Section 230 still helps the little guy During our chat , Wyden frequently framed his work as fighting for the “ little guy.
” And , sure , the internet was made up of a lot of little guys in 1996 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few very , very big guys who have been allowed to “ self-regulate ” ( poorly , some would say ) in lieu of more robust laws governing their industry .
Many of Section 230 ’ s opponents say it ’ s a relic of a bygone internet era , and should be updated to check Big Tech ’ s considerable power and influence .
Wyden said that the law is not so much about preserving Big Tech ’ s control over speech , but about making sure companies of any size aren @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a platform for free speech — something that anti-Section 230 legislation could take away .
“ Think about Me Too and Black Lives Matter and all of the groups that , as a result of social media , are able to get messages out , ” Wyden said .
“ Do you really think those groups would have the opportunities to have their views spread as far as they are without the kind of pro-innovation spirit that 230 is all about ?
First thing that would happen is people wouldn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ d be afraid of getting sued.
” The argument usually offered up by Republicans these days is that the biggest tech companies censor conservative voices and apply their rules unequally , and Section 230 says they aren ’ t supposed to .
In April 2018 , Sen. Ted Cruz used Mark Zuckerberg ’ s testimony before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees about data privacy to ask if Facebook was a “ neutral public forum , ” which , he said , was a “ predicate for Section 230 immunity.
” This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Senate ’ s leading Republican voices against Big Tech .
Sen. Josh Hawley alone has offered up multiple bills that would require Big Tech companies to be politically “ neutral ” in their third-party content moderation if they want to keep their Section 230 protections .
His latest attack came a few weeks after Trump ’ s executive order requesting the same , and on the same day as Attorney General Bill Barr ’ s Department of Justice issued recommendations along the same lines .
Suffice to say , Wyden does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I suspect he ’ s a little sick of being told what the law he co-wrote says .
“ That ’ s just a bunch of baloney !
” he said .
“ There is not a single word — not a word , not a comma , not a parenthesis , nothing — that suggests that 230 was about neutrality .
In fact , what we designed it to be is if you had a conservative website , good for you !
Do what you want with it !
If you had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So far , the political neutrality requirement hasn ’ t come to much , and Wyden doesn ’ t expect it ever will .
“ What Barr and Trump are doing is what , in basketball , is called ‘ working the refs , ’ ” Wyden ( a star player on Palo Alto High School ’ s basketball team ) said .
“ They just want to bully everybody into putting their stuff up .
They know it ’ s not gon na happen.
” Bipartisan attempts to change Section 230 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more successful .
SESTA-FOSTA , which was signed into law in 2018 , removed Section 230 ’ s protections if a website hosted third-party content that was found to facilitate sex trafficking .
Wyden was one of just two senators to vote against its passage ( Rand Paul , a libertarian-leaning Republican , was the other ) , and he thinks the law has been a disaster so far .
“ SESTA-FOSTA , which was billed as the solution to sex trafficking , has ended up doing nothing to protect victims or bring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
“ Instead , it ’ s driven sex work to the dark web and dark alleys , and statistics show that violence against sex workers has skyrocketed .
The most vulnerable members of society are the ones who have paid the price , while members of Congress declare victory.
” And now there are two bipartisan bills in the Senate that target Section 230 .
The EARN IT Act , which was introduced in March , does for child sexual abuse images what SESTA-FOSTA did for sex trafficking .
It also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tech companies according to their own laws .
The PACT Act , introduced in June , would require Big Tech companies to be transparent to users about how they moderate content and force them to remove illegal content within 24 hours or else they ’ ll lose their Section 230 protections .
It ’ s still early days for this bill , which was recently the subject of a Commerce Committee hearing .
EARN IT , on the other hand , is now waiting for a floor vote .
Together , these two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in changing Section 230 is certainly there , and it ’ s not going away any time soon .
Even Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has said he wants to get rid of Section 230 “ immediately ” because platforms like Facebook were “ propagating falsehoods they know to be false , ” citing anti-Biden ads and Russian bots .
How to make Big Tech mind its own business This is not to say that Wyden is completely against regulating Big Tech , or ignorant of the tremendous power it now wields over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American people very little control over or knowledge of who gets our online data , what they get , where it goes , or how it ’ s used , and companies like Facebook and Google have profited massively off of it .
That ’ s the problem Wyden wants to solve .
Wyden ’ s Mind Your Own Business Act would create privacy and cybersecurity standards , give consumers the ability to opt out of having their data sold or shared through a national Do Not Track system , and give the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ authority and manpower to go after companies that violate the law .
“ We ’ ve got tough privacy and cybersecurity standards for the companies that collect private data , we give the Federal Trade Commission some teeth so that they can go after companies that break the rules , ” Wyden said .
It would also introduce sizable civil and criminal penalties for companies and executives who lie to the FTC , including 10 to 20 years in prison for executives who do so .
Last year , Facebook recently agreed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ violations .
It was a record-breaking fine by a large measure , but it ’ s not good enough for Wyden , who is frustrated by what he sees as the “ lather , rinse , repeat ” of big tech companies getting caught in “ another privacy disaster , ” apologizing and saying they won ’ t do it again , and then it happening again .
“ When the FTC investigated Facebook ’ s initial and flagrant privacy abuses , they let them off with a fine that was the dollar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wyden said .
“ So what we ’ re trying to do — and I feel very strongly — is hold the CEOs personally accountable .
... That CEO lies to the government about their privacy policy ?
Yep , jail time , you can have serious jail time and direct personal consequences .
I think that ’ ll produce changes.
” And the bill still tries to protect the little guy by only applying to companies with considerable revenue and customer base , as well as data brokers of any size .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ This is not for an itty bitty firm in Coos Bay , Oregon.
” But Wyden ’ s bill is stuck in committee , along with similar data privacy bills from Sen. Maria Cantwell , Reps. Anna Eshoo and Zoe Lofgren , Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand , and Sens .
Mark Warner and Hawley .
With the pandemic taking up a lot of Congress ’ s time , it ’ s exceedingly unlikely that much progress will be made on the data privacy legislation front in 2020 .
Maybe next year , then .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a “ productive 2021 ” consumer privacy laws , assuming Democrats do well in the upcoming election .
In the meantime , Wyden still has a few data privacy issues on his plate .
He ’ s preparing a bill that would prevent law enforcement from buying data from private companies they ’ d otherwise need a warrant for , and recently asked the FTC to investigate the ad tech industry ’ s “ widespread privacy violations ” through bidstream data .
Before we finished our conversation , I asked the Senate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he takes in his own internet life .
“ My favorite is just to change your password all the time , ” he said .
Sound advice , indeed .
Open Sourced is made possible by Omidyar Network .
All Open Sourced content is editorially independent and produced by our journalists .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Sen. Ron Wyden is ready to send the CEO of Facebook to prison, and he has the bill to do it.
“When Mark Zuckerberg tells a whopper to the federal government about his privacy policy, not only would he face a fine, but he can face prison time!” Wyden said. In October 2019, he introduced the Mind Your Own Business Act, which he hopes will create a set of privacy and security standards that Big Tech companies and data brokers must follow and hold people like Zuckerberg accountable if they don’t — especially if they lie to the government about it. “Nobody else has said, ‘Hey, if you rip people off that way, you’re gonna face the prospect of time in prison.’”
I get the distinct impression that the Oregon Democrat doesn’t like being lied to. Wyden is not alone; several of his colleagues were similarly outraged when a 2018 New York Times report about Facebook’s data-sharing agreements cast doubt on the veracity of the CEO’s earlier testimony that the company doesn’t sell data. But Wyden’s the only one who wrote the law that made it possible for the social media giant to exist.
Wyden recently explained his outrage to me via Zoom from his tastefully appointed kitchen in Portland and me from my (considerably less refined) living room in New York City. The 71-year-old career politician has a folksy manner that almost makes you forget that he’s one of the most powerful Democrats in the Senate.
He’s also the co-creator of Section 230, the internet-defining 1996 law that has recently become the go-to target of Republican attacks on Big Tech companies. In the past couple of months alone, the Trump administration and its allies have pushed an executive order, Department of Justice recommendations, and bills in Congress, all threatening to take Section 230 protections away from companies that they believe treat conservative and liberal speech differently. Wyden’s party has also gotten in on the act, proposing bipartisan bills that would weaken Section 230.
So, in a year that once looked like it would be spent defining the internet’s future, Wyden is forced to look backward. One of the Senate’s biggest privacy hawks, Wyden has always been at the forefront of legislation designed to better protect Americans’ data from companies like Facebook and Google that have profited massively off of it. But since the pandemic began, there’s been little movement on any of those bills. Instead, Republicans have mostly focused on a perceived (and unproven) anti-conservative bias in Big Tech, even hijacking the highly anticipated House Judiciary Committee’s recent antitrust hearings to yell at the CEOs about free speech online.
This leaves Wyden to defend his seminal law from the right’s attacks while pushing forward new legislation to regulate the billion-dollar industry it helped create. Can the architect of the law that created the internet find a way to preserve it that placates its growing list of opponents?
From wood products to the World Wide Web
The first thing I wanted to know was why Wyden was interested enough in the future of the internet to write Section 230 in the first place, as a House representative. Back in the mid-90s, the federal government wanted to update the Telecommunications Act to include this new thing called the World Wide Web. That attempt included trying to protect children from porn with a law called the Communications Decency Act (CDA).
Wyden and Rep. Chris Cox, a California Republican, wrote an amendment that added Section 230 to the CDA. The provision basically said that, with a few exceptions, internet service providers and platforms couldn’t be held civilly liable for content posted by their users. Without this part of the law, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube — anything that relies on third-party content — could not exist.
So, what piqued Wyden’s interest in internet providers’ free speech at a time when most of the rest of the federal government was most concerned with making sure kids didn’t see porn online? Was he an early adopter? Passionate about preserving free speech in all mediums? Eager to get on the legislative ground floor of a burgeoning industry?
“Oregon has always been about wood products,” Wyden told me.
No, really. While he was and is dedicated to working hard for Oregon’s forestry industry, he also wanted to bring some new industries into the state. The internet, he reasoned, could be one of them. But there was confusion over how, legally, to view and treat websites and service providers that he feared would stunt its growth.
“I had been talking to Chris Cox,” Wyden said. “And I was seeing these clippings that said if you owned a website or a blog, you can get held personally liable for something that was posted on your site. And I said, I don’t know everything about this internet business, but I don’t know why anybody would ever put a nickel into that if they thought they were going to be held personally liable, because it sounds like there are going to be lots of postings.”
Wyden was referring to a few court decisions that said an internet service provider could be held responsible for content posted by its users if it made any effort to review or control that content. This meant that any website or service provider that had user-generated content — think tweets, Facebook posts, Yelp reviews, even comments under news articles — would either have to strictly monitor every single post for actionable material to avoid being sued, or they would have to let everyone post whatever they wanted.
Neither option seemed like great conditions to grow an industry under, so Cox and Wyden came up with a law that incorporated both: Section 230 allowed websites to moderate user-generated content on their platforms as they wished without being civilly liable for that content.
Wyden became a senator in February 1996, and the updated version of the Telecommunications Act was signed into law three days later. Most of the CDA was struck down by the Supreme Court before it ever went into effect, but Section 230 survived. Now, 25 years later, some of the biggest companies in the world exist because of it.
“I always thought it would be helpful,” he said. Maybe not $1 trillion of helpful, as a Washington Post op-ed once estimated the value of Section 230. (Wyden’s wife, a co-owner of the Strand bookstore in Manhattan, was apparently less impressed: “She said, ‘Even a blind squirrel can find an acorn occasionally.’”)
From here, Wyden’s career has partially been defined by his vision of what the internet could and should be — which, he said, was by design.
“When I showed up in the Senate in 1996, Pat Leahy of Vermont seemed to be the only one who knew what a computer was,” Wyden said. “I said this is a chance for a young newcomer to the Senate to get into some new stuff.”
That stuff has included the Internet Tax Freedom Act and the Electronic Signatures bill. Wyden has also worked to increase broadband internet access in rural communities and fought against proposed laws that could shut down websites, change how the internet works, or threaten free speech, like SOPA and PIPA, which would have forced internet service providers to block access to websites that violated copyright laws. Recently, he teamed up with Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) to propose an amendment to the renewal of the Patriot Act that would have forbidden warrantless collection of internet browsing and history data.
How Section 230 still helps the little guy
During our chat, Wyden frequently framed his work as fighting for the “little guy.” And, sure, the internet was made up of a lot of little guys in 1996, but in 2020, there are a few very, very big guys that have been allowed to “self-regulate” (poorly, some would say) in lieu of more robust laws governing their industry. Many of Section 230’s opponents say it’s a relic of a bygone internet era and should be updated to check Big Tech’s considerable power and influence.
Wyden said that the law is not so much about preserving Big Tech’s control over speech, but about making sure companies of any size aren’t afraid to give everyone access to a platform for free speech — something that anti-Section 230 legislation could take away.
“Think about Me Too and Black Lives Matter and all of the groups that, as a result of social media, are able to get messages out,” Wyden said. “Do you really think those groups would have the opportunities to have their views spread as far as they are without the kind of pro-innovation spirit that 230 is all about? First thing that would happen is people wouldn’t want to put them up because they’d be afraid of getting sued.”
The argument usually offered up by Republicans these days is that the biggest tech companies censor conservative voices and apply their rules unequally, and Section 230 says they aren’t supposed to. In April 2018, Sen. Ted Cruz used Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees about data privacy to ask if Facebook was a “neutral public forum,” which, he said, was a “predicate for Section 230 immunity.”
This supposition has been picked up by some of the Senate’s leading Republican voices against Big Tech. Sen. Josh Hawley has offered up multiple bills that would require Big Tech companies to be politically “neutral” in their third-party content moderation if they want to keep their Section 230 protections. His latest attack came a few weeks after Trump’s executive order requesting the same, and on the same day as Attorney General Bill Barr’s Department of Justice issued recommendations along the same lines.
Suffice to say, Wyden does not agree with these interpretations. And I suspect he’s a little sick of being told what the law he co-wrote says.
“That’s just a bunch of baloney!” he said. “There is not a single word — not a word, not a comma, not a parenthesis, nothing — that suggests that 230 was about neutrality. In fact, what we designed it to be is if you had a conservative website, good for you! Do what you want with it! If you had a progressive website, same thing.”
So far, the political neutrality requirement hasn’t come to much, and Wyden doesn’t expect it ever will.
“What Barr and Trump are doing is what, in basketball, is called ‘working the refs,’” Wyden (a star player on Palo Alto High School’s basketball team) said. “They just want to bully everybody into putting their stuff up. They know it’s not gonna happen.”
Bipartisan attempts to change Section 230, on the other hand, have been more successful. SESTA-FOSTA, which was signed into law in 2018, removed Section 230’s protections if a website hosted third-party content that was found to facilitate sex trafficking. Wyden was one of just two senators to vote against its passage (Rand Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican, was the other), and he thinks the law has been a disaster so far.
“SESTA-FOSTA, which was billed as the solution to sex trafficking, has ended up doing nothing to protect victims or bring sex traffickers to justice,” he said. “Instead, it’s driven sex work to the dark web and dark alleys, and statistics show that violence against sex workers has skyrocketed. The most vulnerable members of society are the ones who have paid the price, while members of Congress declare victory.”
(Not all lawmakers are so congratulatory: Democrats in both houses — some of whom even voted for SESTA-FOSTA’s passage — have proposed legislation to reexamine the law and its impact on sex workers.)
And now there are two bipartisan bills in the Senate that target Section 230. The EARN IT Act, which was introduced in March, does for child sexual abuse images what SESTA-FOSTA did for sex trafficking. It also gives individual states more power to sue tech companies according to their own laws. The PACT Act, introduced in June, would require Big Tech companies to be transparent to users about how they moderate content and force them to remove illegal content within 24 hours or else they’ll lose their Section 230 protections. It’s still early days for this bill, which was recently the subject of a Commerce Committee hearing. EARN IT, on the other hand, is now waiting for a floor vote.
Together, these two new bills show that the bipartisan interest in changing Section 230 is certainly there, and it’s not going away any time soon. Even Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has said he wants to get rid of Section 230 “immediately” because platforms like Facebook were “propagating falsehoods they know to be false,” citing anti-Biden ads and Russian bots.
How to make Big Tech mind its own business
This is not to say that Wyden is completely against regulating Big Tech or ignorant of the tremendous power it now wields over society. Existing federal legislation gives the American people very little control over or knowledge of who gets our online data, what they get, where it goes, or how it’s used, and companies like Facebook and Google have profited massively off of it. That’s the problem Wyden wants to solve.
Wyden’s Mind Your Own Business Act would create privacy and cybersecurity standards, give consumers the ability to opt out of having their data sold or shared through a national Do Not Track system, and give the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) more authority and power to go after companies that violate the law.
“We’ve got tough privacy and cybersecurity standards for the companies that collect private data, we give the Federal Trade Commission some teeth so that they can go after companies that break the rules,” Wyden said.
It would also introduce sizable civil and criminal penalties for companies and executives who lie to the FTC, including 10 to 20 years in prison for executives who do so. Last year, Facebook agreed to a $5 billion settlement over privacy violations. It was a record-breaking fine by a large measure, but it’s not good enough for Wyden, who is frustrated by what he sees as the “lather, rinse, repeat” of big tech companies getting caught in “another privacy disaster,” apologizing and saying they won’t do it again, and then it happening again.
“When the FTC investigated Facebook’s initial and flagrant privacy abuses, they let them off with a fine that was the dollar equivalent of a mosquito bite,” Wyden said. “So what we’re trying to do — and I feel very strongly — is hold the CEOs personally accountable. ... That CEO lies to the government about their privacy policy? Yep, jail time, you can have serious jail time and direct personal consequences. I think that’ll produce changes.”
And the bill still tries to protect the little guy by only applying to companies with considerable revenue and customer base, as well as data brokers of any size. In Wyden’s words, “This is not for an itty bitty firm in Coos Bay, Oregon.”
But Wyden’s bill is stuck in committee, along with similar data privacy bills from Sen. Maria Cantwell, Reps. Anna Eshoo and Zoe Lofgren, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and Sens. Mark Warner and Hawley. With the pandemic taking up a lot of Congress’s time, it’s exceedingly unlikely that much progress will be made on the data privacy legislation front in 2020.
Maybe next year, then. Wyden said he’s looking forward to a “productive 2021” for consumer privacy laws, assuming Democrats do well in the upcoming election. In the meantime, Wyden still has a few data privacy issues on his plate. He’s preparing a bill that would prevent law enforcement from buying data from private companies they’d otherwise need a warrant for, and recently asked the FTC to investigate the ad tech industry’s “widespread privacy violations” through bidstream data.
Before we finished our conversation, I asked the Senate’s biggest privacy hawk what measures he takes in his own internet life.
“My favorite is just to change your password all the time,” he said. Sound advice, indeed.
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