vox--2020-07-16--The entire world’s carbon emissions will finally be trackable in real time

There ’ s an old truism in the business world : what gets measured gets managed .
One of the challenges in managing the greenhouse gas emissions warming the atmosphere is that they aren ’ t measured very well .
“ Currently , most countries do not know where most of their emissions come from , ” says Kelly Sims Gallagher , a professor of energy and environmental policy at Tufts University ’ s Fletcher School .
“ Even in advanced economies like the United States , emissions are estimated for many sectors.
” Without this information “ you can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mitigate emissions , ” she says , and “ you can not track them to see if you are making progress against your goals.
” The lack of good data also complicates international climate negotiations .
“ It ’ s frustrating that nearly three decades after countries committed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ( UNFCCC ) to publish national GHG emissions inventories , we still don ’ t have recent , comprehensive , and consistent inventories for all countries , ” says Taryn Fransen of the World Resources Institute @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to endless time spent haggling over monitoring , reporting , and verification , and a persistent background level of mutual suspicion .
In late 2015 , just before the 2016 international climate negotiations in Morocco , China revealed that it had underestimated the amount of coal it burned by 17 percent — one billion tons of additional greenhouse gas emissions , equal to the emissions of Germany ’ s entire energy sector .
That kind of thing does not build confidence .
The ultimate solution to this problem — the killer app , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tracking of all global greenhouse gases , verified by objective third parties , and available for free to the public .
When countries began meeting under the UNFCCC in the mid-1990s , that vision was speculative science fiction .
It was basically regarded as science fiction when the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015 .
But science moves quickly — in particular , artificial intelligence , the ability to rapidly integrate multiple data sources , has advanced rapidly in recent years .
Now , a new alliance of climate research groups called the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Emissions ) Coalition has launched an effort to make the vision a reality , and they ’ re aiming to have it ready for COP26 , the climate meetings in Glasgow , Scotland , in November 2021 ( postponed from November 2020 ) .
If they pull it off , it could completely change the tenor and direction of international climate talks .
It could also make it easier for the hundreds of companies , cities , counties , and states that have made ambitious climate commitments to reliably track their process .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ infrastructure the old , bottom-up way won ’ t get us where we need to be in time , ” says Fransen , “ so I ’ m thrilled that a big , smart , and well-resourced coalition is taking this on with an ambitious vision and a novel approach.
” Let ’ s have a closer look at that approach and then consider its implications for climate politics .
How tracking power plant emissions became tracking all emissions The story begins last year , when a group of nonprofits , including US-based @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for and won a $ 1.7 million grant from Google.org ( Google ’ s philanthropic arm ) to track global power plant emissions in real time using satellite data and AI algorithms .
Google.org likes it so much they sent a team to help with the project .
In May 2019 , I wrote a story on the effort and its implications .
“ The next day our phone started ringing , ” says WattTime founder and executive director Gavin McCormick .
( WattTime is now a part of the clean energy nonprofit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ organizations told him , “ this is really cool that you can do this in the power sector , but climate change is a lot bigger than the power sector , ” McCormick says .
They began offering up data helpful to tracking other sources of greenhouse gas emissions , with an eye toward eventually covering all of them .
“ One of my favorite examples is OceanMind , ” he says .
“ They had been in the business of using entirely different types of sensors [ the Automatic Identification System , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to detect illegal fishing .
They were able to track every ship in the world in real time.
” Based on ships ’ movement and engine specifications , their GHGs can now be monitored in real time .
One of the early phone calls came from Al Gore , who had been looking for more reliable ways to track emissions and also saw the Vox article .
He and McCormick began collaborating and reaching out to other groups .
The reception was better than they had hoped .
“ Every organization that I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Gore says .
“ So far , the response has been incredible.
” “ I ’ m trained as an economist , so I ’ m used to being real cynical , ” says McCormick , “ but over the last year , we found companies saying , ‘ we just think this is important — we can ’ t keep [ our data ] siloed any longer.
’ ” These various data sources and trackers have come together as Climate TRACE .
The coalition is adding other partners and covering more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will be comprehensive , reliable , publicly accessible global emissions data , accompanied by periodic reports .
In addition to Gore and WattTime , the coalition now contains : • Carbon Tracker uses machine learning and satellite data to predict the utilization of every power plant in the world ; • Earthrise Alliance aggregates and organizes publicly available environmental data into a format meaningful to journalists and researchers ; • CarbonPlan uses satellite data to track changes in aboveground biomass ( especially forests ) and the associated carbon emissions , down to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hudson Carbon uses satellite data to track changes in agricultural cover , cropping , and tilling , down to the level of the individual field , and compares that data against ground-level sensors ; • OceanMind uses onboard sensors to track the global movement of ships in real time and combines that with engine specs to extrapolate carbon emissions ; • Rocky Mountain Institute combines multiple sources of data to quantify methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure ; • Hypervine uses spectroscopic imagery to track vehicle usage and blasting at quarries , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shortwave infrared imagery from satellites to track fires .
The coalition will also be gathering data from a variety of other sources , from power grid data to fuel sales , sensor networks , and drones .
“ The trick has been combining different data sources , ” says McCormick .
All the data will be fed into the AI , which for now is a basic prototype .
It will improve over time as the algorithms become more sophisticated and more sources come online .
Fransen cautions that the satellite data available @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for all the holes in our GHG data.
” She points to “ limitations in terms of the resolution and frequency of emissions-monitoring satellites that are currently operating , ” though that will improve as governments continue to invest in the technology .
She also notes that “ some of the low-hanging fruit that these novel approaches can help with are the same sources for which we already have relatively robust estimates from conventional sources , ” like energy-related emissions .
She is encouraged that TRACE is also looking to “ activity data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ activities that generate emissions , like driving , farming , etc.
” Gore acknowledges that “ this is a work in progress , ” but says the coalition is aiming big : “ everything that can be known about where greenhouse gas emissions are coming from will be known , in near-real time.
” If the TRACE coalition is successfully able to gather comprehensive data , build the AI to make sense of it , and make its results accessible to the public ( which for now remains an open question ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ light switch in a room that has been dimly lit with candles .
More or less overnight , the world ’ s real-time flow of greenhouse gas emissions , previously estimated , will become visible .
Gallagher ’ s first reaction to TRACE ’ s mission was , “ Wow !
” “ Such an initiative is long past due , ” she says , “ and it is absolutely essential to improving our management of greenhouse gas emissions around the world.
” Among other things , she says , “ having real-time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ better understand where and why they are falling short , and conversely , where they are doing better than expected and might be able to increase ambition in their next round of [ nationally determined contributions ] .
” Most international disputes over monitoring , reporting , and verification would effectively be mooted .
“ A system where everyone can see the same numbers , those numbers are grounded in real physics , and everyone can know that everyone else is telling the truth , ” McCormick says , “ may have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a little of the negativity out of some of those negotiations.
” It ’ s not just that the system would help identify errors and scofflaws .
“ It will empower the people who really are interested in reducing their emissions , ” Gore says .
Voters can hold politicians accountable for their climate promises .
Workers , investors , and regulators can hold companies accountable .
Countries can hold one another accountable .
Transparency will bring accountability , as long as the coalition can maintain the trust of all the parties involved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this effort to be independent and reliable , ” Gore says , “ and for it to constantly improve.
” What gets measured gets managed .
If the Climate TRACE coalition accomplishes what it has set out to do , global greenhouse gases will finally be measured — and there will be no excuses left not to manage them .
Support more journalism like this As our reporters work to cover the pandemic , protests , and a brewing presidential election , we remain committed to explaining climate change .
But our newsroom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recent economic downturn .
Support policy reporting you won ’ t find anywhere else , in this pivotal moment for humanity and the planet , with a financial contribution from as little as $ 7 .

There’s an old truism in the business world: what gets measured gets managed. One of the challenges in managing the greenhouse gas emissions warming the atmosphere is that they aren’t measured very well.
“Currently, most countries do not know where most of their emissions come from,” says Kelly Sims Gallagher, a professor of energy and environmental policy at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. “Even in advanced economies like the United States, emissions are estimated for many sectors.” Without this information “you cannot devise smart and effective policies to mitigate emissions,” she says, and “you cannot track them to see if you are making progress against your goals.”
The lack of good data also complicates international climate negotiations. “It’s frustrating that nearly three decades after countries committed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to publish national GHG emissions inventories, we still don’t have recent, comprehensive, and consistent inventories for all countries,” says Taryn Fransen of the World Resources Institute.
The lack of reliable data leads to endless time spent haggling over monitoring, reporting, and verification, and a persistent background level of mutual suspicion. In late 2015, just before the 2016 international climate negotiations in Morocco, China revealed that it had underestimated the amount of coal it burned by 17 percent — one billion tons of additional greenhouse gas emissions, equal to the emissions of Germany’s entire energy sector. That kind of thing does not build confidence.
The ultimate solution to this problem — the killer app, as it were — would be real-time tracking of all global greenhouse gases, verified by objective third parties, and available for free to the public.
When countries began meeting under the UNFCCC in the mid-1990s, that vision was speculative science fiction. It was basically regarded as science fiction when the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015. But science moves quickly — in particular, artificial intelligence, the ability to rapidly integrate multiple data sources, has advanced rapidly in recent years.
Now, a new alliance of climate research groups called the Climate TRACE (Tracking Real-Time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions) Coalition has launched an effort to make the vision a reality, and they’re aiming to have it ready for COP26, the climate meetings in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2021 (postponed from November 2020). If they pull it off, it could completely change the tenor and direction of international climate talks.
It could also make it easier for the hundreds of companies, cities, counties, and states that have made ambitious climate commitments to reliably track their process. “Trying to build up such an infrastructure the old, bottom-up way won’t get us where we need to be in time,” says Fransen, “so I’m thrilled that a big, smart, and well-resourced coalition is taking this on with an ambitious vision and a novel approach.”
Let’s have a closer look at that approach and then consider its implications for climate politics.
How tracking power plant emissions became tracking all emissions
The story begins last year, when a group of nonprofits, including US-based WattTime and UK-based Carbon Tracker, applied for and won a $1.7 million grant from Google.org (Google’s philanthropic arm) to track global power plant emissions in real time using satellite data and AI algorithms. Google.org likes it so much they sent a team to help with the project.
In May 2019, I wrote a story on the effort and its implications. “The next day our phone started ringing,” says WattTime founder and executive director Gavin McCormick. (WattTime is now a part of the clean energy nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute.) Other research organizations told him, “this is really cool that you can do this in the power sector, but climate change is a lot bigger than the power sector,” McCormick says. They began offering up data helpful to tracking other sources of greenhouse gas emissions, with an eye toward eventually covering all of them.
“One of my favorite examples is OceanMind,” he says. “They had been in the business of using entirely different types of sensors [the Automatic Identification System, a global network of onboard transponders] to detect illegal fishing. They were able to track every ship in the world in real time.” Based on ships’ movement and engine specifications, their GHGs can now be monitored in real time.
One of the early phone calls came from Al Gore, who had been looking for more reliable ways to track emissions and also saw the Vox article. He and McCormick began collaborating and reaching out to other groups.
The reception was better than they had hoped. “Every organization that I’ve approached has been enthusiastic,” Gore says. “So far, the response has been incredible.”
“I’m trained as an economist, so I’m used to being real cynical,” says McCormick, “but over the last year, we found companies saying, ‘we just think this is important — we can’t keep [our data] siloed any longer.’”
These various data sources and trackers have come together as Climate TRACE. The coalition is adding other partners and covering more and more emissions. The eventual result will be comprehensive, reliable, publicly accessible global emissions data, accompanied by periodic reports.
Proud to introduce @ClimateTRACE! A new coalition using AI, satellites, machine learning, & other tech to build the world’s first tool to trace all human-caused pollution to the source in real time. Here’s my @Medium post w/ Gavin McCormick from @WattTime.https://t.co/RTmSsJ8kg1 — Al Gore (@algore) July 15, 2020
The magic sauce: satellite data + other data sources + artificial intelligence
In addition to Gore and WattTime, the coalition now contains:
Carbon Tracker uses machine learning and satellite data to predict the utilization of every power plant in the world;
Earthrise Alliance aggregates and organizes publicly available environmental data into a format meaningful to journalists and researchers;
CarbonPlan uses satellite data to track changes in aboveground biomass (especially forests) and the associated carbon emissions, down to a spatial resolution of 300 meters;
Hudson Carbon uses satellite data to track changes in agricultural cover, cropping, and tilling, down to the level of the individual field, and compares that data against ground-level sensors;
OceanMind uses onboard sensors to track the global movement of ships in real time and combines that with engine specs to extrapolate carbon emissions;
Rocky Mountain Institute combines multiple sources of data to quantify methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure;
Hypervine uses spectroscopic imagery to track vehicle usage and blasting at quarries,
Blue Sky Analytics uses near-infrared and shortwave infrared imagery from satellites to track fires.
The coalition will also be gathering data from a variety of other sources, from power grid data to fuel sales, sensor networks, and drones.
“The trick has been combining different data sources,” says McCormick. All the data will be fed into the AI, which for now is a basic prototype. It will improve over time as the algorithms become more sophisticated and more sources come online.
Fransen cautions that the satellite data available today is not a “silver bullet for all the holes in our GHG data.” She points to “limitations in terms of the resolution and frequency of emissions-monitoring satellites that are currently operating,” though that will improve as governments continue to invest in the technology.
She also notes that “some of the low-hanging fruit that these novel approaches can help with are the same sources for which we already have relatively robust estimates from conventional sources,” like energy-related emissions. She is encouraged that TRACE is also looking to “activity data,” i.e., “data on activities that generate emissions, like driving, farming, etc.”
Gore acknowledges that “this is a work in progress,” but says the coalition is aiming big: “everything that can be known about where greenhouse gas emissions are coming from will be known, in near-real time.”
The politics of radical emissions transparency
If the TRACE coalition is successfully able to gather comprehensive data, build the AI to make sense of it, and make its results accessible to the public (which for now remains an open question), it will be like flipping on a light switch in a room that has been dimly lit with candles. More or less overnight, the world’s real-time flow of greenhouse gas emissions, previously estimated, will become visible.
Gallagher’s first reaction to TRACE’s mission was, “Wow!”
“Such an initiative is long past due,” she says, “and it is absolutely essential to improving our management of greenhouse gas emissions around the world.”
Among other things, she says, “having real-time data will help parties to the UNFCCC better understand where and why they are falling short, and conversely, where they are doing better than expected and might be able to increase ambition in their next round of [nationally determined contributions].”
Most international disputes over monitoring, reporting, and verification would effectively be mooted. “A system where everyone can see the same numbers, those numbers are grounded in real physics, and everyone can know that everyone else is telling the truth,” McCormick says, “may have a significant effect on the tone, taking a little of the negativity out of some of those negotiations.”
What began as an initiative to measure emissions from the world's power plants has grown into something bigger than we could have imagined. We're thrilled to unveil @climatetrace. Soon GHG emissions tracking for every sector and country will be a reality. https://t.co/vuhMjvn7Rh — WattTime (@wattTime) July 15, 2020
It’s not just that the system would help identify errors and scofflaws. “It will empower the people who really are interested in reducing their emissions,” Gore says. Voters can hold politicians accountable for their climate promises. Workers, investors, and regulators can hold companies accountable. Countries can hold one another accountable.
Transparency will bring accountability, as long as the coalition can maintain the trust of all the parties involved. “It is extremely important for this effort to be independent and reliable,” Gore says, “and for it to constantly improve.”
What gets measured gets managed. If the Climate TRACE coalition accomplishes what it has set out to do, global greenhouse gases will finally be measured — and there will be no excuses left not to manage them.
Support more journalism like this
As our reporters work to cover the pandemic, protests, and a brewing presidential election, we remain committed to explaining climate change. But our newsroom hasn’t been immune to the recent economic downturn. Support policy reporting you won’t find anywhere else, in this pivotal moment for humanity and the planet, with a financial contribution from as little as $7.


vox--2020-07-16--In the deliciously creepy new novel Mexican Gothic, the true evil is colonialism

There is something monstrously fecund , something growing and decaying and rotting , in High Place , the center of Silvia Moreno-Garcia ’ s new novel Mexican Gothic .
High Place is an English-style manor house perched above the old Mexican mining town of El Triunfo .
As the novel opens in the 1950s , the silver mine is closed and the town is miserably impoverished .
But the Doyles , the English family who operated the mine , still reign in crumbling and isolated splendor over everything .
In High Place , mold crawls across the walls .
Electricity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ around with gas lamps or candelabras .
The garden is planted in soil shipped over from Europe .
Spanish is forbidden , and English is the only language spoken .
Everything smells of rot .
Into this creepy , insular atmosphere comes the high-spirited young socialite Noémi .
Noémi does not particularly care to leave her fashionable life in Mexico City behind , but she ’ s on a rescue mission : Her cousin Catalina married into the Doyle family and was whisked away to High Place before her own family had a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Now Catalina ’ s letters are laced with horror .
Catalina thinks her husband is poisoning her .
She sees ghosts walking through the walls .
“ I am bound , threads like iron through my mind and my skin and it ’ s there .
In the walls , ” she writes .
Noémi is in High Place with a job to do : Find out whether Catalina is insane or merely frightened , and in either case , figure out how best to help her .
But at High Place , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The cousins are allowed to meet only under close supervision , with the Doyles claiming that Catalina needs rest and some kind of mysterious treatment .
They tell Noémi that Catalina is recovering from tuberculosis .
In between visits with her cousin , Noémi busies herself exploring the house .
She finds more mold , and volume after volume of books on eugenics .
At dinner , the Doyle patriarch Howard remarks to Noémi that she is “ much darker ” than her cousin .
“ What are your thoughts on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he asks her .
At night , Noémi begins to dream strange dreams : of sex with Catalina ’ s husband that is both unwanted and deeply pleasurable ; of a woman made of gold who tells her to open her eyes ; of murder and constrain and rot , rot everywhere .
The gothic in this book goes well beyond surface-level tropes Moreno-Garcia is playing with great dexterity here with the conventions of the gothic house novel : all these women roaming a decaying mansion in their nightgowns , clutching candelabras @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , dark , terrible secrets .
And just to drive it all home , the mold on Noémi ’ s bedroom wall is yellow and it moves , like the yellow wallpaper come to monstrous life .
But the true source of the gothic in Mexican Gothic — the awful force that creates restraint against which the gothic heroine must fight ; the source of the rot — is colonialism .
The Doyles came to El Triunfo to take the silver from its earth and have never cared that they exploited its people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so still .
Their only concern is personal enrichment .
Howard refers to his former mine workers as “ mulch.
” To save herself and Catalina , Noémi must push back against the forces of an old imperial power — and against the creeping , insidious pleasure she knows it would bring her if she were to submit to it .
It ’ s the elegance with which Moreno-Garcia handles this metaphor that elevates Mexican Gothic above the level of didactic pastiche .
This book is deliciously true to the gothic form , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , always , in the way it thinks about power and its characters ’ reactions to power .
Read it with your lights on — and know that strange dreams might begin to haunt you , as they haunted Noémi .
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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 .

There is something monstrously fecund, something growing and decaying and rotting, in High Place, the center of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s new novel Mexican Gothic.
High Place is an English-style manor house perched above the old Mexican mining town of El Triunfo. As the novel opens in the 1950s, the silver mine is closed and the town is miserably impoverished. But the Doyles, the English family who operated the mine, still reign in crumbling and isolated splendor over everything.
In High Place, mold crawls across the walls. Electricity is rationed, so everyone must walk around with gas lamps or candelabras. The garden is planted in soil shipped over from Europe. Spanish is forbidden, and English is the only language spoken. Everything smells of rot. Into this creepy, insular atmosphere comes the high-spirited young socialite Noémi.
Noémi does not particularly care to leave her fashionable life in Mexico City behind, but she’s on a rescue mission: Her cousin Catalina married into the Doyle family and was whisked away to High Place before her own family had a chance to properly meet the Doyles. Now Catalina’s letters are laced with horror.
Catalina thinks her husband is poisoning her. She sees ghosts walking through the walls. “I am bound, threads like iron through my mind and my skin and it’s there. In the walls,” she writes. Noémi is in High Place with a job to do: Find out whether Catalina is insane or merely frightened, and in either case, figure out how best to help her.
But at High Place, the Doyles keep Noémi away from Catalina. The cousins are allowed to meet only under close supervision, with the Doyles claiming that Catalina needs rest and some kind of mysterious treatment. They tell Noémi that Catalina is recovering from tuberculosis.
Rating: 4 out of 5 vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark
In between visits with her cousin, Noémi busies herself exploring the house. She finds more mold, and volume after volume of books on eugenics. At dinner, the Doyle patriarch Howard remarks to Noémi that she is “much darker” than her cousin. “What are your thoughts on the intermingling of superior and inferior types?” he asks her.
At night, Noémi begins to dream strange dreams: of sex with Catalina’s husband that is both unwanted and deeply pleasurable; of a woman made of gold who tells her to open her eyes; of murder and constrain and rot, rot everywhere.
Slowly and inexorably, the dread builds.
The gothic in this book goes well beyond surface-level tropes
Moreno-Garcia is playing with great dexterity here with the conventions of the gothic house novel: all these women roaming a decaying mansion in their nightgowns, clutching candelabras; all these sinister men with deep, dark, terrible secrets. And just to drive it all home, the mold on Noémi’s bedroom wall is yellow and it moves, like the yellow wallpaper come to monstrous life.
But the true source of the gothic in Mexican Gothic — the awful force that creates restraint against which the gothic heroine must fight; the source of the rot — is colonialism. The Doyles came to El Triunfo to take the silver from its earth and have never cared that they exploited its people, or that they continue to do so still. Their only concern is personal enrichment. Howard refers to his former mine workers as “mulch.” To save herself and Catalina, Noémi must push back against the forces of an old imperial power — and against the creeping, insidious pleasure she knows it would bring her if she were to submit to it.
It’s the elegance with which Moreno-Garcia handles this metaphor that elevates Mexican Gothic above the level of didactic pastiche. This book is deliciously true to the gothic form, grotesque without becoming gross, and considered, always, in the way it thinks about power and its characters’ reactions to power. Read it with your lights on — and know that strange dreams might begin to haunt you, as they haunted Noémi.


vox--2020-07-16--Protests for Black lives are still happening

In the weeks following the police killing of George Floyd , millions of Americans marched in the streets .
Many had never attended a protest before , and some lived in historically conservative towns .
At the peak of the protests — around June 6 , according to publicly collected data from the Crowd Counting Consortium — people across all 50 states and dozens of cities around the world had participated in demonstrations that called for racial justice and an end to police violence .
But with the protests came a nonstop news cycle that seemed to fixate on burning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police officers and protesters .
As long as there were riots and looting , television news helicopters descended upon their respective cities , with organizers lamenting online that the media wasn ’ t interested in stories beyond those of broken windows , pepper spray , and vandalized storefronts .
And now , almost two months after the first protests erupted , national news cameras have fled , which makes it hard for the general public to recognize that protests are still going strong in cities and towns across America .
In Louisville , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to bring to justice the police officers involved in Breonna Taylor ’ s death .
Protesters have engaged in a number of large-scale public actions , from converging on the steps of the state ’ s capitol building to disrupting a mayoral press conference and hosting “ blackout ” marches .
On Tuesday , which marked day 48 of protests in the city , activists traveled to the home of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron , where they sat on his lawn and demanded he bring criminal charges against the officers .
More @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the demonstration for trespassing , according to organizer Tamika D. Mallory , co-founder of the social justice organization Until Freedom .
Even Wanda Cooper-Jones , the mother of Ahmaud Arbery , traveled to Louisville to advocate on Taylor ’ s behalf .
( She also spoke to local reporter Senait Gebregiorgis while she was there . )
The momentum is similar in other cities across the country , such as Minneapolis and New York , where multiple demonstrations happen every day .
However , mainstream news stories about the protests seem to only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ violence ( including multiple instances of suspected or avowed white nationalists running their vehicles into protesters ) or protester clashes ( like the recent spat between “ Blue Lives Matter ” protesters and counterprotesters in Bay Ridge , Brooklyn ) .
Local activists say the waning media attention is expected , but the work must continue .
“ We are in the biggest social movement this country has ever seen , ” said activist Oluchi Omeoga , co-founder of the Black liberation nonprofit Black Visions Collective based in Minnesota .
“ When we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the history books , it ’ s not an exaggeration .
The folks calling for change in this moment are the folks who are going to be on the right side of history.
” The early news cycle ’ s focus on violence and destruction Early news reports of the protests focused heavily on images of fires , overturned vehicles , and elevated scenes that distorted what was really taking place on the ground , with some pointing out that coverage seemed to exploit Black pain and violence .
On June 1 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ York Times read , “ Twin crises and surging anger convulse U.S. ” above a photo of protesters with their hands in the air and another showing police dressed in riot gear in a cloud of smoke .
The same day , the Washington Post published an image of Minneapolis protesters crying and hugging one another after a truck ran through the crowd , with its own front-page headline reading , “ U.S .
at a precipice as demonstrations intensify.
” ( The bottom two images depict demonstrators at protests in Kansas City @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
And a San Francisco Chronicle headline on May 31 read “ Riots , shooting rock Oakland ” above an image of a protester standing with a fist raised in front of a dumpster fire .
The early coverage seemed “ breathless , ” Kanisha Bond , assistant professor of political science at Binghamton University , told Vox .
“ But that is not an unfamiliar tone when it comes to media coverage , specifically of urban uprisings involving both violent and nonviolent protest activity , and particularly when people who have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of American power are engaged in any sort of unrest.
” This was seen in the media coverage of the 2014 protests in Ferguson , Missouri , following the police shooting of Michael Brown .
A Race Forward analysis found that news reports at the time largely lacked context explaining the “ patterns of racially skewed police violence ” that sparked the protests , with some not even mentioning the word “ race ” at all , Vox reported in 2015 .
Race Forward research director Dominique Apollon , who authored the study @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advice to journalists was to “ not take police accounts at face value.
” As Morgan State University politics and journalism professor Jason Johnson wrote for Vox in May , news coverage of uprisings often fails to show the full scale of protest activity — just because a few trash cans are on fire in one location doesn ’ t mean the entire city is on fire .
Moreover , news reports of the Floyd protests didn ’ t always cover the cause of much of the violence : the police themselves .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ police used inordinate force against protesters who were silently marching or otherwise engaged in a peaceful group demonstration .
“ Much of the damage attributed to protesters is often the result of police action or inaction in the face of lawful public behavior , ” Johnson wrote .
“ Sometimes buried at the end of post-protest reports by local authorities is the fact that police munitions often start fires at protests , but this is seldom reported by the press , and there have been surprisingly few protesters arrested for arson relative to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Johnson also noted that news reports didn ’ t do much to highlight the presence of “ run-of-the-mill opportunistic criminals ” who seized on the moment to raid local businesses .
For example , the media didn ’ t distinguish these actors from the protesters who , in a targeted effort , burned down the Third Police Precinct in Minneapolis , which was “ a specific act of revolt.
” The focus on damaged property over lost lives illustrated the media ’ s “ misplaced priorities , ” Johnson wrote .
Now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protests , a quick scan of the front pages of newspapers and digital media outlets would likely have one believe that the protests have altogether stopped .
While they have surely shrunk in number and size , the social media accounts of activists and organizers continue to show compelling images of daily demonstrations .
In the past two weeks , there have been demonstrations in Sartell , Minnesota , and Keystone , South Dakota .
Protests also carry on in Philadelphia , Houston , and Washington , DC .
Meanwhile , in New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a collection of daily rallies , marches , protests , and vigils for Black people who have lost their lives to police brutality .
On Wednesday , July 15 , there are nearly a dozen events planned across Brooklyn , Queens , and Manhattan — from 8 in the morning to just before sunset .
News coverage can both help and hinder ongoing demonstrations According to activists , the lack of coverage both hurts and helps protest movements as they continue through the summer .
On one hand , the absence of widespread @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the demonstrations have largely come to an end .
“ Some people do get their political cues from what makes its way into the general public discourse , which is largely shaped by what ’ s in the news , so media blackouts or withdrawals can give them the impression that either the ‘ newsworthy part ’ of the protests has expired or that there are simply no more events to be covered , ” Bond told Vox .
The importance of protests as a tool for shifting public opinion is already evident @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the end of May that 76 percent of Americans believe that racism is a big problem now , up from 51 percent in 2015 .
Other polls show that more people support the defunding of police than ever before .
A June poll from the research firm PerryUndem found that 72 percent of respondents supported reallocating funds away from police and to other services like health care .
As political scientist Megan Ming Francis told Vox last month , systemic change begins with a shift in public opinion that ’ s brought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of protest in this country is that when there ’ s more people , politicians pay attention , ” she said .
“ If you want legal change , if you want political change , then it means you need to , at the same time or before , shift public opinion .
That is crucial.
” On the other hand , some activists believe the constant presence of news cameras could hamper progress .
If activists are constantly under the gaze and watch of the state , this could invite more violence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for derailment .
“ When the mainstream media steps away , we see even more clearly the vital function that independent media — including social media livestreamers — plays in providing a comprehensive and well-rounded accounting of protest and social mobilizations , ” Bond told Vox .
“ The ubiquity of social media might attenuate any negative effects from a lack of media coverage — but how much is likely heavily determined by what sorts of information you allow across your online boundaries and within your social network.
” The most recent protest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New York Times ’ s “ Drivers Are Hitting Protesters as Memes of Car Attacks Spread ” and USA Today ’ s “ ‘ I would be very careful in the middle of the street ’ : Drivers have hit protesters 66 times since May 27 ” — focus on violence or arrests .
Then there is CBS ’ s “ 87 people charged with felonies after Breonna Taylor protest at attorney general ’ s house ” following Tuesday ’ s events , framed around protesters trespassing on an elected official ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of violence to cover or criminalize protesters , they are choosing drama and sensationalism over the larger narrative — that the biggest anti-racism movement in a generation is still happening in the US .
“ It comes down to what is considered newsworthy , which is often action , large numbers , and apparent mayhem , ” Bond told Vox .
“ Burning buildings , smashing glass , and bleeding people are often visually riveting and can add a sense of vicarious danger and unpredictability , while direct actions like sit-ins , public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meal distributions don ’ t offer people that sense of ‘ ooh , what ’ s going to happen next ’ the way that other actions might.
” The fight for justice lives on Activists recognize how much has changed in public opinion since the first Floyd protests — and that ’ s why they haven ’ t stopped organizing .
According to Omeoga , protests have taken place every day in Minneapolis since Floyd ’ s fatal arrest .
Omeoga told Vox that part of what ’ s been missing in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we mean when we say “ protest ” or “ public demonstration ” to fully capture how people are mobilizing .
“ The occupation of ‘ George Floyd Ave , ’ the place where he was murdered , is an act of resilience or a protest .
We have been occupying that space every day since George Floyd was lynched .
Folks are protesting for change in the simplest terms , ” Omeoga said .
“ Folks are protesting for Breonna Taylor , Tony McDade , Riah Milton , and Dominique Fells .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ state-sanctioned violence and for interpersonal violence against Black trans women .
Folks are out protesting for Black lives.
” According to Omeoga , the media largely focused coverage on the peak of the protests because “ that ’ s what they think people are interested in , ” she said .
“ We have been conditioned under this capitalist society to only find value in things for very short , transactional periods of time .
The media affirms that in the ways they show what is worthy of news and what isn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like Democracy Now and Unicorn Riot are alternative media outlets that can help people stay up to date .
Ashton P. Woods , an organizer with Black Lives Matter Houston , recognizes that while coverage may now only extend to protests that feature celebrities or to protests where politicians are present , he can ’ t get comfortable and rely on politicians to do the work .
“ We have a responsibility to protect what we have secured for ourselves and dismantle white supremacy , ” Woods told Vox .
That work , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ having to show up in the streets .
With the number of coronavirus cases surging across the country and its disproportionate impact on Black , Latinx , and Native American communities , Woods acknowledges that people have to mind their health and the health of friends and family and community members .
The work can take place in online seminars and gatherings that educate people who are new to the movement .
For Woods , in Houston , it also includes showing up to courts and to city hall to pressure Texas lawmakers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And moving forward , he said , protests must continue to create safe spaces for all Black lives , including women and trans , queer , and nonbinary people .
“ There ’ s been an erasure of what we are really protesting for , like the Black LGBTQ community or the Black immigrants — all Black lives matter , ” Woods told Vox .
“ We ’ ve been doing this anti-racism work since before Trump got into office .
We ’ ve been planning , coordinating , and doing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get on the news for a long time.
” The lack of attention and accountability by lawmakers means protesters have to keep elevating their message , whether in the streets or online , he said .
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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 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 .

In the weeks following the police killing of George Floyd, millions of Americans marched in the streets. Many had never attended a protest before, and some lived in historically conservative towns. At the peak of the protests — around June 6, according to publicly collected data from the Crowd Counting Consortium — people across all 50 states and dozens of cities around the world had participated in demonstrations that called for racial justice and an end to police violence.
But with the protests came a nonstop news cycle that seemed to fixate on burning cars and buildings, and clashes between police officers and protesters. As long as there were riots and looting, television news helicopters descended upon their respective cities, with organizers lamenting online that the media wasn’t interested in stories beyond those of broken windows, pepper spray, and vandalized storefronts.
And now, almost two months after the first protests erupted, national news cameras have fled, which makes it hard for the general public to recognize that protests are still going strong in cities and towns across America.
In Louisville, hundreds of protesters continue in their mission to bring to justice the police officers involved in Breonna Taylor’s death. Protesters have engaged in a number of large-scale public actions, from converging on the steps of the state’s capitol building to disrupting a mayoral press conference and hosting “blackout” marches.
On Tuesday, which marked day 48 of protests in the city, activists traveled to the home of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, where they sat on his lawn and demanded he bring criminal charges against the officers. More than 100 people were reportedly detained at the demonstration for trespassing, according to organizer Tamika D. Mallory, co-founder of the social justice organization Until Freedom. Even Wanda Cooper-Jones, the mother of Ahmaud Arbery, traveled to Louisville to advocate on Taylor’s behalf. (She also spoke to local reporter Senait Gebregiorgis while she was there.)
The momentum is similar in other cities across the country, such as Minneapolis and New York, where multiple demonstrations happen every day. However, mainstream news stories about the protests seem to only emerge now in the event of isolated violence (including multiple instances of suspected or avowed white nationalists running their vehicles into protesters) or protester clashes (like the recent spat between “Blue Lives Matter” protesters and counterprotesters in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn).
Local activists say the waning media attention is expected, but the work must continue. “We are in the biggest social movement this country has ever seen,” said activist Oluchi Omeoga, co-founder of the Black liberation nonprofit Black Visions Collective based in Minnesota. “When we say this is what will be written in the history books, it’s not an exaggeration. The folks calling for change in this moment are the folks who are going to be on the right side of history.”
The early news cycle’s focus on violence and destruction
Early news reports of the protests focused heavily on images of fires, overturned vehicles, and elevated scenes that distorted what was really taking place on the ground, with some pointing out that coverage seemed to exploit Black pain and violence.
On June 1, the front page of the New York Times read, “Twin crises and surging anger convulse U.S.” above a photo of protesters with their hands in the air and another showing police dressed in riot gear in a cloud of smoke. The same day, the Washington Post published an image of Minneapolis protesters crying and hugging one another after a truck ran through the crowd, with its own front-page headline reading, “U.S. at a precipice as demonstrations intensify.” (The bottom two images depict demonstrators at protests in Kansas City, Missouri, and Washington, DC.) And a San Francisco Chronicle headline on May 31 read “Riots, shooting rock Oakland” above an image of a protester standing with a fist raised in front of a dumpster fire.
The early coverage seemed “breathless,” Kanisha Bond, assistant professor of political science at Binghamton University, told Vox. “But that is not an unfamiliar tone when it comes to media coverage, specifically of urban uprisings involving both violent and nonviolent protest activity, and particularly when people who have been historically excluded from the traditional centers of American power are engaged in any sort of unrest.”
This was seen in the media coverage of the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the police shooting of Michael Brown. A Race Forward analysis found that news reports at the time largely lacked context explaining the “patterns of racially skewed police violence” that sparked the protests, with some not even mentioning the word “race” at all, Vox reported in 2015. Race Forward research director Dominique Apollon, who authored the study, told Vox that part of his advice to journalists was to “not take police accounts at face value.”
As Morgan State University politics and journalism professor Jason Johnson wrote for Vox in May, news coverage of uprisings often fails to show the full scale of protest activity — just because a few trash cans are on fire in one location doesn’t mean the entire city is on fire. Moreover, news reports of the Floyd protests didn’t always cover the cause of much of the violence: the police themselves. In many instances caught on camera, police used inordinate force against protesters who were silently marching or otherwise engaged in a peaceful group demonstration.
“Much of the damage attributed to protesters is often the result of police action or inaction in the face of lawful public behavior,” Johnson wrote. “Sometimes buried at the end of post-protest reports by local authorities is the fact that police munitions often start fires at protests, but this is seldom reported by the press, and there have been surprisingly few protesters arrested for arson relative to the fires that erupted during the unrest.”
Johnson also noted that news reports didn’t do much to highlight the presence of “run-of-the-mill opportunistic criminals” who seized on the moment to raid local businesses. For example, the media didn’t distinguish these actors from the protesters who, in a targeted effort, burned down the Third Police Precinct in Minneapolis, which was “a specific act of revolt.” The focus on damaged property over lost lives illustrated the media’s “misplaced priorities,” Johnson wrote.
Now, nearly two months after the first protests, a quick scan of the front pages of newspapers and digital media outlets would likely have one believe that the protests have altogether stopped. While they have surely shrunk in number and size, the social media accounts of activists and organizers continue to show compelling images of daily demonstrations.
In the past two weeks, there have been demonstrations in Sartell, Minnesota, and Keystone, South Dakota. Protests also carry on in Philadelphia, Houston, and Washington, DC. Meanwhile, in New York, the Instagram account JusticeforGeorgeNYC lists a collection of daily rallies, marches, protests, and vigils for Black people who have lost their lives to police brutality. On Wednesday, July 15, there are nearly a dozen events planned across Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan — from 8 in the morning to just before sunset.
News coverage can both help and hinder ongoing demonstrations
According to activists, the lack of coverage both hurts and helps protest movements as they continue through the summer.
On one hand, the absence of widespread protest coverage creates a false sense that the demonstrations have largely come to an end. “Some people do get their political cues from what makes its way into the general public discourse, which is largely shaped by what’s in the news, so media blackouts or withdrawals can give them the impression that either the ‘newsworthy part’ of the protests has expired or that there are simply no more events to be covered,” Bond told Vox.
The importance of protests as a tool for shifting public opinion is already evident in national polls. Monmouth University found at the end of May that 76 percent of Americans believe that racism is a big problem now, up from 51 percent in 2015. Other polls show that more people support the defunding of police than ever before. A June poll from the research firm PerryUndem found that 72 percent of respondents supported reallocating funds away from police and to other services like health care.
As political scientist Megan Ming Francis told Vox last month, systemic change begins with a shift in public opinion that’s brought about through protest. “The history of protest in this country is that when there’s more people, politicians pay attention,” she said. “If you want legal change, if you want political change, then it means you need to, at the same time or before, shift public opinion. That is crucial.”
On the other hand, some activists believe the constant presence of news cameras could hamper progress. If activists are constantly under the gaze and watch of the state, this could invite more violence on protesters and open up the opportunity for derailment.
“When the mainstream media steps away, we see even more clearly the vital function that independent media — including social media livestreamers — plays in providing a comprehensive and well-rounded accounting of protest and social mobilizations,” Bond told Vox. “The ubiquity of social media might attenuate any negative effects from a lack of media coverage — but how much is likely heavily determined by what sorts of information you allow across your online boundaries and within your social network.”
The most recent protest headlines at mainstream outlets — including the New York Times’s “Drivers Are Hitting Protesters as Memes of Car Attacks Spread” and USA Today’s “‘I would be very careful in the middle of the street’: Drivers have hit protesters 66 times since May 27” — focus on violence or arrests. Then there is CBS’s “87 people charged with felonies after Breonna Taylor protest at attorney general’s house” following Tuesday’s events, framed around protesters trespassing on an elected official’s property. When news outlets cherry-pick moments of violence to cover or criminalize protesters, they are choosing drama and sensationalism over the larger narrative — that the biggest anti-racism movement in a generation is still happening in the US.
“It comes down to what is considered newsworthy, which is often action, large numbers, and apparent mayhem,” Bond told Vox. “Burning buildings, smashing glass, and bleeding people are often visually riveting and can add a sense of vicarious danger and unpredictability, while direct actions like sit-ins, public education sessions, street parties, and/or meal distributions don’t offer people that sense of ‘ooh, what’s going to happen next’ the way that other actions might.”
The fight for justice lives on
Activists recognize how much has changed in public opinion since the first Floyd protests — and that’s why they haven’t stopped organizing. According to Omeoga, protests have taken place every day in Minneapolis since Floyd’s fatal arrest. Omeoga told Vox that part of what’s been missing in the coverage that has existed is expanding what we mean when we say “protest” or “public demonstration” to fully capture how people are mobilizing.
“The occupation of ‘George Floyd Ave,’ the place where he was murdered, is an act of resilience or a protest. We have been occupying that space every day since George Floyd was lynched. Folks are protesting for change in the simplest terms,” Omeoga said. “Folks are protesting for Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Riah Milton, and Dominique Fells. Folks are protesting against police brutality and state-sanctioned violence and for interpersonal violence against Black trans women. Folks are out protesting for Black lives.”
According to Omeoga, the media largely focused coverage on the peak of the protests because “that’s what they think people are interested in,” she said. “We have been conditioned under this capitalist society to only find value in things for very short, transactional periods of time. The media affirms that in the ways they show what is worthy of news and what isn’t.” For Omeoga, left-friendly platforms like Democracy Now and Unicorn Riot are alternative media outlets that can help people stay up to date.
Ashton P. Woods, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Houston, recognizes that while coverage may now only extend to protests that feature celebrities or to protests where politicians are present, he can’t get comfortable and rely on politicians to do the work. “We have a responsibility to protect what we have secured for ourselves and dismantle white supremacy,” Woods told Vox.
That work, he said, doesn’t mean having to show up in the streets. With the number of coronavirus cases surging across the country and its disproportionate impact on Black, Latinx, and Native American communities, Woods acknowledges that people have to mind their health and the health of friends and family and community members. The work can take place in online seminars and gatherings that educate people who are new to the movement. For Woods, in Houston, it also includes showing up to courts and to city hall to pressure Texas lawmakers to sign legislation that tackles systemic racism. And moving forward, he said, protests must continue to create safe spaces for all Black lives, including women and trans, queer, and nonbinary people.
“There’s been an erasure of what we are really protesting for, like the Black LGBTQ community or the Black immigrants — all Black lives matter,” Woods told Vox. “We’ve been doing this anti-racism work since before Trump got into office. We’ve been planning, coordinating, and doing the type of work that doesn’t get on the news for a long time.”
The lack of attention and accountability by lawmakers means protesters have to keep elevating their message, whether in the streets or online, he said.


vox--2020-07-16--Syria’s Idlib was already a humanitarian nightmare. Now the coronavirus has arrived.

Last week , a doctor in his 30s working at a hospital in Syria near the Turkish border tested positive for Covid-19 .
Three more confirmed cases came after : two doctors and a nurse .
The coronavirus had officially arrived in Idlib , the last rebel-held territory in Syria .
The outbreak threatens to exacerbate the ever-present humanitarian disaster in northwest Syria .
The United Nations estimates about 4 million people now live in the region , almost half of whom have fled from other parts of the country , displaced , sometimes more than once , during the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years of conflict and the targeting of hospitals and medical staff , the medical system , particularly in the northwest , is on its knees , ” Vanessa Jackson , the United Nations representative for the humanitarian aid agency CARE International , told me .
“ There really aren ’ t enough doctors and health care professionals available if there is a significant outbreak , let alone access to ICUs , let alone to ventilators , PPE [ personal protective equipment ] .
“ You name it , ” she added , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of July , approximately 11 people have tested positive in northwest Syria , in Idlib and Aleppo , according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights .
At least six were health care workers .
It was always a matter of time before the coronavirus crept into Idlib .
And while these past few days saw the first confirmed Covid-19 cases , it does not mean they are the first infections .
The question now is whether the virus can be contained , and what that might mean for the millions of civilians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the spread of the coronavirus also come as a vital United Nations humanitarian aid route into northwest Syria has been cut off following a UN Security Council vote .
Russia , which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has veto power on the UNSC , wanted to shut off the route .
That leaves just one available crossing for the United Nations to provide critical aid — food , medical supplies , and everything else — into the northwest .
This puts Idlib , and northwestern Syria more generally , in an even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the pandemic spiking against the backdrop of food insecurity , a collapsing Syrian economy , and the threat of violence .
Omar Al-Hiraki , a surgeon at the Bab Al-Hawa Hospital in northwestern Syria , is currently in Turkey , but he told me via WhatsApp that he ’ s been in touch with his staff and his hospital , where the first coronavirus case in Idlib was detected .
He told me he ’ s unsure “ how to deal with this dire situation , without equipment , without enough testing.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States and the UK — it ’ s chaotic what happened , ” he said .
“ How can you imagine what can happen in northwest Syria ?
” Idlib ’ s health care system was already strapped .
Then the coronavirus threat came .
Earlier this year , Assad , backed by Russia and Iran , waged a bloody campaign to retake Idlib , the last remaining opposition stronghold , as the dictator sought to consolidate control over the country .
The United Nations has accused the regime of committing war @ @ @ @ @ @ @ targeting hospitals and schools .
That fighting threatened to unleash the worst humanitarian catastrophe in almost a decade of war .
It forced approximately 1 million people to flee deeper into Idlib in a matter of months , pushing civilians into a smaller area closer to the Turkish border .
According to the UN , almost 80 percent of the newly displaced were women and children .
Then in March , Turkey , which backs the anti-regime rebels , launched an offensive into Idlib , saying it was doing so “ to stop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and to prevent the continued displacement of civilians .
But another reason for the offensive , experts say , was that Turkey , which already hosts about 4 million Syrian refugees , did not want to see tens of thousands more people flood over the border into the country .
Turkey ’ s intervention increased the chances of direct confrontation with Russia , with millions of civilians potentially caught in a crossfire .
Ultimately , Moscow and Ankara brokered a ceasefire agreement in early March .
The deal was shaky and imperfect , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the worst of the violence for months .
This left Idlib in a precarious limbo .
Only about 100,000 displaced people — of the nearly million who fled from December to early March — have returned to their homes .
Tens of thousands still live in makeshift housing or congested encampments , with limited access to water and sanitation .
“ There are basic services but they ’ re of varying quality , ” Paul Spiegel , director of the center for humanitarian health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve got poor water , sanitation , increased congestion .
All of these are very good conditions , unfortunately , for the virus to spread.
” In March , just as the pandemic was spreading worldwide , a report by CARE International surveyed 78 camps housing internally displaced people in northwest Syria ; of those , 91 percent did not have access to soap , and 83 percent did not have any place for people to wash their hands .
Water was scarce , and almost 45 percent reported not having enough to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of course , people are living in very cramped conditions , ” Kieren Barnes , Syria country director at Mercy Corps , told me .
“ There ’ s not a lot of social distancing .
That ’ s not very easy to do in an informal camp setting , or in the community .
So if [ the coronavirus ] were to catch , ” he said , “ it would be quite devastating.
” The health care system in northwest Syria was already under strain even before the threat of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worn thin from the Syrian government ’ s assault .
Russia , Assad ’ s benefactor , targeted hospitals and health care facilities in its indiscriminate bombing campaign throughout the war .
There are not enough ICU beds — just 148 for a population of more than 3 million in Idlib , half of whom are displaced people .
There are only 153 ventilators , according to Save the Children .
There is not enough personal protective equipment .
Al-Hiraki told me they have modeled out it and could expect to see a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ care system , he said , will collapse in six .
“ There really is not the infrastructure to cope with a pandemic in this community , ” Barnes said .
The World Health Organization sent coronavirus tests to Idlib in March , and as of June 30 , more than 1,600 people had been tested for the virus in northwestern Syria — all negative up to that point , per Save the Children .
( The whole of Syria has confirmed more than 458 cases and 22 deaths , according to data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the health care system still has limited capacity for testing and contact tracing .
That does not mean Syrians aren ’ t trying .
Syria had one of the stronger public health care systems in the region before the war , and that technical knowledge has persisted in the few institutions still operating in Idlib .
Sahar Atrache , senior advocate for the Middle East at Refugees International , told me the Idlib directorate still has solid institutions that function and have maintained distance from the extremist groups operating in the area .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a “ combined effort ” among the directorate , the World Health Organization and United Nations , and Syrian and international nongovernmental organizations .
And NGOs operating in the country took steps to prepare for Covid-19 as best they could .
Barnes said Mercy Corps tried to increase deliveries of hygiene kits , more soap , and more water .
Organizations promoted messaging on social distancing , including in camp settings .
But there ’ s only so far that can go .
“ [ N ] ow that the coronavirus has reached @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to quarantining again and trying to find masks and gloves , ” Darwish , who lives in Deir Hassan in northern Idlib with his family , told Al Jazeera .
“ We ’ re scared it will reach us at the camps .
It will be a disaster.
” A United Nations aid route just closed , adding yet another complication The ability to meet the basic needs of civilians in northwest Syria also just got harder , now that a critical United Nations aid route into Syria has been shut down .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ delivered critical food and medical aid to northwest Syria for six years : the Bab al-Salam border crossing , which leads to northern Aleppo , and Bab al-Hawa , which goes directly to Idlib .
( Part of northern Aleppo is still under opposition control , though Assad has retaken most of the province . )
The mandate was set to expire last Friday , unless the UN Security Council moved to reauthorize it .
And some member states , specifically Russia , objected to simply renewing the program .
As Assad ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get rid of one of the routes — specifically , the Bab al-Salam route into northern Aleppo .
Russia argued that it violated Syria ’ s sovereignty and that any aid operations needed to be done in coordination with the Syrian government .
As Assad seeks to consolidate control over Syria , these areas are particular sticking points .
“ The problem with their argument is the Syrian government is not willing to provide humanitarian assistance to communities who are in opposition-held areas , and those are exactly these areas , it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Idlib , ” Jackson said .
Western governments , particularly Belgium and Germany , pushed back , saying the closure could deny more than 1 million people vital aid .
Ultimately , the UNSC voted to keep one route — Bab al-Hawa , the one that goes to Idlib — open for 12 months .
( Russia , China , and the Dominican Republic ultimately abstained . )
The United Nations can no longer deliver aid through the other route , into northern Aleppo .
Representatives from aid groups told me closing off @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to deliver aid — with no clear , or rapid , alternative available to make up the difference .
Though international NGOs can still use the route , the United Nations can not — and the UN has been the main logistical channel for getting supplies in , Hardin Lang , vice president for programs and policy at Refugees International , told me .
Jackson from CARE International told me the convoys on the Bab al-Salam route also carried a lot of the medical equipment and PPE brought in to defend against the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Friday .
And even though the Idlib route remains open for the next 12 months , that crossing was already nearing capacity .
“ So it ’ s not simply a matter of , ‘ Oh , we ’ ll just divert those trucks and we ’ ll get it all out there by a longer route that costs more money , ’ ” Jackson said .
“ It ’ s physically not possible to just simply divert the convoys.
” Getting from Idlib to northern Aleppo is challenging .
It would involve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ control .
Roads and infrastructure are poor , or nonexistent .
Plus , it adds hours and hours to any journey .
“ Capacity , politics , and also just the logistics of access to terrain and who ’ s controlling it ” makes it incredibly difficult to make up the difference , Lang said .
And , of course , this is happening amid a pandemic .
Travel restrictions , a global economic crisis , and safety concerns are also complicating the efforts of aid groups on the ground , further restricting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Idlib — and the rest of Syria — teeters on crisis Zoom out and the scale of the crisis is even greater .
Though the Idlib ceasefire has largely held , it hasn ’ t entirely eliminated the violence .
Other parts of Syria are also seeing renewed conflict , including attacks from ISIS .
The World Food Program estimates that 9.3 million Syrians are now food insecure , a record , and an increase of more than 1 million in just the past six months .
Syria ’ s collapsing economy is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of food in Syria has doubled in the past year .
New US sanctions , which went live last month , could further damage the economy .
And with the rest of the world consumed by the pandemic , the help that ’ s needed may be harder to come by .
“ You have to add to all these challenges — the growing food insecurity , growing poverty , lack of security or social security , ” Atrache said .
It is crisis on top of crisis on top of crisis , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ This , ” Atrache said , “ is the situation inside Idlib.
” 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 — particularly during a pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 .

Last week, a doctor in his 30s working at a hospital in Syria near the Turkish border tested positive for Covid-19. Three more confirmed cases came after: two doctors and a nurse. The coronavirus had officially arrived in Idlib, the last rebel-held territory in Syria.
The outbreak threatens to exacerbate the ever-present humanitarian disaster in northwest Syria. The United Nations estimates about 4 million people now live in the region, almost half of whom have fled from other parts of the country, displaced, sometimes more than once, during the nine-year civil war.
“After nine years of conflict and the targeting of hospitals and medical staff, the medical system, particularly in the northwest, is on its knees,” Vanessa Jackson, the United Nations representative for the humanitarian aid agency CARE International, told me. “There really aren’t enough doctors and health care professionals available if there is a significant outbreak, let alone access to ICUs, let alone to ventilators, PPE [personal protective equipment].
“You name it,” she added, “they do not have it.”
As of July, approximately 11 people have tested positive in northwest Syria, in Idlib and Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. At least six were health care workers.
It was always a matter of time before the coronavirus crept into Idlib. And while these past few days saw the first confirmed Covid-19 cases, it does not mean they are the first infections. The question now is whether the virus can be contained, and what that might mean for the millions of civilians in the region.
Renewed fears about the spread of the coronavirus also come as a vital United Nations humanitarian aid route into northwest Syria has been cut off following a UN Security Council vote. Russia, which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has veto power on the UNSC, wanted to shut off the route. That leaves just one available crossing for the United Nations to provide critical aid — food, medical supplies, and everything else — into the northwest.
This puts Idlib, and northwestern Syria more generally, in an even more precarious position, with the possibility of the pandemic spiking against the backdrop of food insecurity, a collapsing Syrian economy, and the threat of violence.
Omar Al-Hiraki, a surgeon at the Bab Al-Hawa Hospital in northwestern Syria, is currently in Turkey, but he told me via WhatsApp that he’s been in touch with his staff and his hospital, where the first coronavirus case in Idlib was detected. He told me he’s unsure “how to deal with this dire situation, without equipment, without enough testing.”
“When we look at the United States and the UK — it’s chaotic what happened,” he said. “How can you imagine what can happen in northwest Syria?”
Idlib’s health care system was already strapped. Then the coronavirus threat came.
Earlier this year, Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, waged a bloody campaign to retake Idlib, the last remaining opposition stronghold, as the dictator sought to consolidate control over the country. The United Nations has accused the regime of committing war crimes during its assault, including attacks targeting hospitals and schools.
That fighting threatened to unleash the worst humanitarian catastrophe in almost a decade of war. It forced approximately 1 million people to flee deeper into Idlib in a matter of months, pushing civilians into a smaller area closer to the Turkish border. According to the UN, almost 80 percent of the newly displaced were women and children.
Then in March, Turkey, which backs the anti-regime rebels, launched an offensive into Idlib, saying it was doing so “to stop the Syrian regime’s massacres” and to prevent the continued displacement of civilians. But another reason for the offensive, experts say, was that Turkey, which already hosts about 4 million Syrian refugees, did not want to see tens of thousands more people flood over the border into the country.
Turkey’s intervention increased the chances of direct confrontation with Russia, with millions of civilians potentially caught in a crossfire. Ultimately, Moscow and Ankara brokered a ceasefire agreement in early March. The deal was shaky and imperfect, but it has largely held, averting the worst of the violence for months.
This left Idlib in a precarious limbo. Only about 100,000 displaced people — of the nearly million who fled from December to early March — have returned to their homes. Tens of thousands still live in makeshift housing or congested encampments, with limited access to water and sanitation.
“There are basic services but they’re of varying quality,” Paul Spiegel, director of the center for humanitarian health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told me. “You’ve got poor water, sanitation, increased congestion. All of these are very good conditions, unfortunately, for the virus to spread.”
In March, just as the pandemic was spreading worldwide, a report by CARE International surveyed 78 camps housing internally displaced people in northwest Syria; of those, 91 percent did not have access to soap, and 83 percent did not have any place for people to wash their hands. Water was scarce, and almost 45 percent reported not having enough to last 30 days.
“And, of course, people are living in very cramped conditions,” Kieren Barnes, Syria country director at Mercy Corps, told me. “There’s not a lot of social distancing. That’s not very easy to do in an informal camp setting, or in the community. So if [the coronavirus] were to catch,” he said, “it would be quite devastating.”
The health care system in northwest Syria was already under strain even before the threat of the coronavirus emerged, starved for resources and worn thin from the Syrian government’s assault. Russia, Assad’s benefactor, targeted hospitals and health care facilities in its indiscriminate bombing campaign throughout the war.
There are not enough ICU beds — just 148 for a population of more than 3 million in Idlib, half of whom are displaced people. There are only 153 ventilators, according to Save the Children. There is not enough personal protective equipment.
Al-Hiraki told me they have modeled out it and could expect to see a spike in four weeks. The health care system, he said, will collapse in six.
“There really is not the infrastructure to cope with a pandemic in this community,” Barnes said.
The World Health Organization sent coronavirus tests to Idlib in March, and as of June 30, more than 1,600 people had been tested for the virus in northwestern Syria — all negative up to that point, per Save the Children. (The whole of Syria has confirmed more than 458 cases and 22 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.)
But the health care system still has limited capacity for testing and contact tracing. That does not mean Syrians aren’t trying.
Syria had one of the stronger public health care systems in the region before the war, and that technical knowledge has persisted in the few institutions still operating in Idlib. Sahar Atrache, senior advocate for the Middle East at Refugees International, told me the Idlib directorate still has solid institutions that function and have maintained distance from the extremist groups operating in the area.
They’re coordinating what Atrache called a “combined effort” among the directorate, the World Health Organization and United Nations, and Syrian and international nongovernmental organizations.
And NGOs operating in the country took steps to prepare for Covid-19 as best they could. Barnes said Mercy Corps tried to increase deliveries of hygiene kits, more soap, and more water. Organizations promoted messaging on social distancing, including in camp settings.
But there’s only so far that can go.
“[N]ow that the coronavirus has reached us in Idlib, we are back to quarantining again and trying to find masks and gloves,” Darwish, who lives in Deir Hassan in northern Idlib with his family, told Al Jazeera. “We’re scared it will reach us at the camps. It will be a disaster.”
A United Nations aid route just closed, adding yet another complication
The ability to meet the basic needs of civilians in northwest Syria also just got harder, now that a critical United Nations aid route into Syria has been shut down.
Two UN aid routes from Turkey have delivered critical food and medical aid to northwest Syria for six years: the Bab al-Salam border crossing, which leads to northern Aleppo, and Bab al-Hawa, which goes directly to Idlib. (Part of northern Aleppo is still under opposition control, though Assad has retaken most of the province.)
The mandate was set to expire last Friday, unless the UN Security Council moved to reauthorize it. And some member states, specifically Russia, objected to simply renewing the program. As Assad’s primary backer, Russia wanted to get rid of one of the routes — specifically, the Bab al-Salam route into northern Aleppo.
Russia argued that it violated Syria’s sovereignty and that any aid operations needed to be done in coordination with the Syrian government. As Assad seeks to consolidate control over Syria, these areas are particular sticking points.
“The problem with their argument is the Syrian government is not willing to provide humanitarian assistance to communities who are in opposition-held areas, and those are exactly these areas, it’s northern Aleppo, it’s Idlib,” Jackson said.
Western governments, particularly Belgium and Germany, pushed back, saying the closure could deny more than 1 million people vital aid. Ultimately, the UNSC voted to keep one route — Bab al-Hawa, the one that goes to Idlib — open for 12 months. (Russia, China, and the Dominican Republic ultimately abstained.) The United Nations can no longer deliver aid through the other route, into northern Aleppo.
Representatives from aid groups told me closing off that route will substantially disrupt the ability to deliver aid — with no clear, or rapid, alternative available to make up the difference. Though international NGOs can still use the route, the United Nations cannot — and the UN has been the main logistical channel for getting supplies in, Hardin Lang, vice president for programs and policy at Refugees International, told me.
Jackson from CARE International told me the convoys on the Bab al-Salam route also carried a lot of the medical equipment and PPE brought in to defend against the coronavirus. Those convoys stopped coming in Friday.
And even though the Idlib route remains open for the next 12 months, that crossing was already nearing capacity. “So it’s not simply a matter of, ‘Oh, we’ll just divert those trucks and we’ll get it all out there by a longer route that costs more money,’” Jackson said. “It’s physically not possible to just simply divert the convoys.”
Getting from Idlib to northern Aleppo is challenging. It would involve crossing front-lines, and territories under varying control. Roads and infrastructure are poor, or nonexistent. Plus, it adds hours and hours to any journey. “Capacity, politics, and also just the logistics of access to terrain and who’s controlling it” makes it incredibly difficult to make up the difference, Lang said.
And, of course, this is happening amid a pandemic. Travel restrictions, a global economic crisis, and safety concerns are also complicating the efforts of aid groups on the ground, further restricting their limited ability to scale up.
Idlib — and the rest of Syria — teeters on crisis
Zoom out and the scale of the crisis is even greater. Though the Idlib ceasefire has largely held, it hasn’t entirely eliminated the violence. Other parts of Syria are also seeing renewed conflict, including attacks from ISIS.
The World Food Program estimates that 9.3 million Syrians are now food insecure, a record, and an increase of more than 1 million in just the past six months. Syria’s collapsing economy is making that even worse; the cost of food in Syria has doubled in the past year. New US sanctions, which went live last month, could further damage the economy.
And with the rest of the world consumed by the pandemic, the help that’s needed may be harder to come by. “You have to add to all these challenges — the growing food insecurity, growing poverty, lack of security or social security,” Atrache said.
It is crisis on top of crisis on top of crisis, including the still-unresolved Syrian civil war. “This,” Atrache said, “is the situation inside Idlib.”


vox--2020-07-16--Lawmakers are very upset about this week’s massive Twitter breach

Politicians on both sides of the aisle had scathing words and warnings for Twitter after a hacker was able to infiltrate the service and send scammy requests for bitcoin from a number of high-profile accounts , including those of Elon Musk , Bill Gates , and Barack Obama .
Notably , the account belonging to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was also implicated .
This made one thing clear : The breach — and its consequences — could have been much worse .
Lawmakers now say Twitter must do better to stop something like this from ever happening again @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Oregon , expressed concern over the security of direct messages in the attack and said Twitter hadn ’ t done enough to protect them , despite previous assurances that it would .
In a statement , the senator told Recode that he felt let down by Twitter and its executives , especially as they promised him they would improve their security : In September of 2018 , shortly before he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee , I met privately with Twitter ’ s CEO Jack Dorsey .
During that conversation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ working on end-to-end encrypted direct messages .
It has been nearly two years since our meeting , and Twitter DMs are still not encrypted , leaving them vulnerable to employees who abuse their internal access to the company ’ s systems , and hackers who gain unauthorized access .
While it still isn ’ t clear if the hackers behind yesterday ’ s incident gained access to Twitter direct messages , this is a vulnerability that has lasted for far too long , and one that is not present in other , competing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ users ’ DMs , this breach could have a breathtaking impact , for years to come .
Meanwhile , others drew direct lines between the threats exposed by Wednesday ’ s breach and the upcoming presidential election .
Sen. Richard Blumenthal blamed Twitter for its “ repeated security lapses ” and “ failure to safeguard accounts ” that could have caused the incident .
“ Count this incident as a near miss or shot across the bow , ” Blumenthal , a Connecticut Democrat , said in a tweet .
“ It could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Sen. Josh Hawley , a Republican from Missouri who has been a frequent Big Tech critic in his short DC tenure , tweeted a letter that he said he sent to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey even as the attack was happening .
“ Millions of your users rely on your service not just to tweet publicly but also to communicate privately through your direct message service , ” Hawley wrote .
“ A successful attack on your system ’ s servers represents a threat to all of your users ’ privacy and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accounts protected by two-factor authentication could possibly be hacked , if user data was stolen , and what measures Twitter takes to prevent system-level hacks .
These questions are mostly still unanswered , but within hours of the scammy tweets being sent , a picture of how the Twitter breach happened started to emerge .
The accounts in question were not compromised due to lax security practices by the account holders , as Twitter explained .
Instead , someone gained access to Twitter ’ s own internal controls .
There was nothing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this .
Separate reports from Vice and TechCrunch confirmed that the hack occurred through Twitter ’ s internal controls , but their sources offered different accounts as to who manipulated those controls .
Vice ’ s hacker sources claimed they paid off a Twitter employee or contractor to do “ all the work for us , ” while TechCrunch indicated that the hacker ( known as “ Kirk ” ) was able to hijack an employee ’ s account and carry out the attack himself .
As for why arguably the most high-profile @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President Trump , wasn ’ t affected by the hack , it ’ s possible that his account has special safeguards that the other accounts didn ’ t .
Trump ’ s Twitter account was famously deleted by an employee in 2017 , so it would make sense that Twitter put things in place to prevent that from happening again .
The hacker ’ s apparent motivation for the attack — money — appears to have paid off to some degree .
According to the cybersecurity company Check Point , the bitcoin wallet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about $ 120,000 .
But , as Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Markey said in a statement , both the service and its users mostly dodged a considerable bullet .
“ While this scheme appears financially motivated and , as a result , presents a threat to Twitter users , imagine if these bad actors had a different intent to use powerful voices to spread disinformation to potentially interfere with our elections , disrupt the stock market , or upset our international relations , ” he said in a statement to Recode .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what happened and what it is doing to ensure this never happens again.
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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 .
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A Florida teenager who was behind a massive hack of celebrity Twitter accounts last July has pleaded guilty and will likely serve three years in prison.
Graham Ivan Clark, now 18, was 17 when he commandeered some of the platform’s highest-profile accounts, including those belonging to Elon Musk and former President Barack Obama, and ended up scamming people out of about $120,000 in bitcoin. The verified accounts sent tweets directing followers to send bitcoin to a wallet, promising they’d get double their money back in return. They did not get double their money back, though prosecutors said Clark turned over whatever bitcoin he had left to go toward paying restitution to the victims.
Clark was charged with 30 felonies related to the hack, but his youthful offender status allowed him to avoid the mandatory 10-year minimum sentence. Instead, he’ll serve three years in a state prison for young adults and three on probation, assuming a judge signs off on the agreement.
Two others — Mason John Sheppard, 19, of the United Kingdom, and Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, Florida — were also charged by the Department of Justice with felonies related to the hack. Sheppard was charged with three, and Fazeli was charged with one. Their cases have not yet been resolved; Fazeli’s lawyer maintains that his client is not guilty and that the one charge leveled against him, for aiding and abetting, is unrelated to the celebrity account hacks.
There may be more arrests to come; the charging documents say an as-yet-unidentified hacker named “Kirk” “played a central role.” This is consistent with TechCrunch’s earlier reporting that said a hacker named “Kirk” was behind the attack. Last September, the New York Times reported that a 16-year-old in Massachusetts was also being investigated and his home was searched.
Though initial reports said the hack might be an inside job, given how much access the perpetrator had to the company’s internal controls, Twitter later confirmed its employees were targeted by a “phone spear phishing attack.” Assuming this is true, it should serve as a cautionary tale. Spear phishing via mobile devices has become more common, especially since people don’t check links on their mobile devices the way they might in a message received on their computers.
“People often overlook their phone because they think of it more as a personal device, not a work device,” Mark Ostrowski, security evangelist at cybersecurity company Check Point, told Recode last May.
The details of the hack suggest that Twitter employees should have practiced better cyber hygiene, and there was nothing the account holders themselves could have done to prevent what happened.
“We will continue to organize ongoing company-wide phishing exercises throughout the year,” Twitter said in a statement shortly after the hack.
Details from the charging documents appear to show that finding the alleged hackers wasn’t a heavy lift for investigators. Fazeli and Sheppard’s handles on Discord, where they allegedly discussed purchasing access to hacked accounts with “Kirk,” were the same as their handles on a forum for people interested in acquiring “OG” Twitter accounts, which are typically very short (one letter or number each) and among the first profiles created for the service. Using that forum’s records, investigators were able to link those accounts to email addresses, Coinbase accounts, and IP addresses that made identifying them fairly simple. Fazeli, for example, used his real name in his email address, which he verified with his driver’s license.
Lawmakers blame Twitter for lax security
Politicians on both sides of the aisle had scathing words and warnings for Twitter in the wake of the mid-July attack, which caused 45 accounts to request bitcoin from their followers, promising they would receive double their donation in return. The hacker was also able to access 36 accounts’ direct messages and seven accounts’ Twitter data. But, politicians stressed, the breach — and its consequences — could have been much worse, and they demanded that Twitter do better to stop something like this from ever happening again.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) expressed concern over the security of direct messages in the attack and said Twitter hadn’t done enough to protect them, despite previous assurances that it would. In a statement, the senator told Recode that he felt let down by Twitter and its executives, especially as they promised him they would improve their security:
In September of 2018, shortly before he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, I met privately with Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey. During that conversation, Mr. Dorsey told me the company was working on end-to-end encrypted direct messages. It has been nearly two years since our meeting, and Twitter DMs are still not encrypted, leaving them vulnerable to employees who abuse their internal access to the company’s systems, and hackers who gain unauthorized access. While it still isn’t clear if the hackers behind yesterday’s incident gained access to Twitter direct messages, this is a vulnerability that has lasted for far too long, and one that is not present in other, competing platforms. If hackers gained access to users’ DMs, this breach could have a breathtaking impact, for years to come.
Meanwhile, others drew direct lines between the threats exposed by the breach and the upcoming presidential election. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) blamed Twitter for its “repeated security lapses” and “failure to safeguard accounts” that could have caused the incident.
“Count this incident as a near miss or shot across the bow,” Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said in a tweet. “It could have been much worse with different targets.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who has been a frequent Big Tech critic in his short DC tenure, tweeted a letter that he said he sent to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey even as the attack was happening.
“Millions of your users rely on your service not just to tweet publicly but also to communicate privately through your direct message service,” Hawley wrote. “A successful attack on your system’s servers represents a threat to all of your users’ privacy and data security.”
Hawley then asked how accounts protected by two-factor authentication could possibly be hacked, if user data was stolen, and what measures Twitter takes to prevent system-level hacks.
As Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) said, both the service and its users mostly dodged a considerable bullet.
“While this scheme appears financially motivated and, as a result, presents a threat to Twitter users, imagine if these bad actors had a different intent to use powerful voices to spread disinformation to potentially interfere with our elections, disrupt the stock market, or upset our international relations,” he said in a statement to Recode. “That is why Twitter must fully disclose what happened and what it is doing to ensure this never happens again.”
As for why arguably the most high-profile and influential Twitter account of all, President Trump, wasn’t affected by the hack, it’s possible that his account has special safeguards that the other accounts didn’t. Trump’s Twitter account was famously deleted by an employee in 2017, only to be permanently suspended last January following the Capitol riots.
Update, March 17, 2021, 11:45 am: Updated with Clark’s guilty plea.
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