Biden ending a Trump policy on child border crossings
Social media sites slow to weed out falsehood
BALTIMORE – The Biden administration hopes to relieve the strain of thousands of unaccompanied children coming to the southern border by ending a Trump-era order that discouraged potential family sponsors from coming forward to care for them.
The 2018 policy called on Health and Human Services to share information about family sponsors with immigration authorities, a move that discouraged parents and other relatives from stepping forward out of fear they would be deported.
A senior administration official said Friday the Department of Health and Human Services was not a law enforcement agency and that the goal of Friday’s announcement was to encourage family members and other sponsors to step forward. It comes as U.S. authorities saw a 60% increase in children crossing the southwest border in January and February to more than 9,400. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.
Much of the policy has already been chipped away at through lawsuits and other directives, but administration officials said its full repeal sends a more forceful message. Government-funded facilities have been constrained because the coronavirus has limited how many beds are available, while the number of children crossing the border has overwhelmed the processing system. Officials say children are staying an average of 37 days at Health and Human Services-sponsored facilities.
The move is another step to repeal policies of former President Donald Trump that discouraged people from seeking refuge in the U.S.
Most notably, the Biden administration is unwinding a policy that made asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for court hearings in the U.S.
With vaccination against COVID-19 in full swing, social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter say they’ve stepped up their fight against misinformation that aims to undermine trust in the vaccines. But problems abound.
For years, the same platforms have allowed anti-vaccination propaganda to flourish, making it difficult to stamp out such sentiments now. And their efforts to weed out other types of COVID-19 misinformation – often with factchecks, informational labels and other restrained measures, has been woefully slow.
Twitter, for instance, announced this month that it will remove dangerous falsehoods about vaccines, much as it has done for other Covid-related conspiracy theories and misinformation. But since April 2020, it has removed a grand total of 8,400 tweets spreading Covid-related misinformation – a tiny fraction of the avalanche of pandemicrelated falsehoods tweeted out daily by popular users with millions of followers, critics say.
“While they fail to take action, lives are being lost,” said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a watchdog group. In December, the nonprofit found that 59 million accounts across social platforms follow peddlers of anti-vax propaganda – many of whom are immensely popular superspreaders of misinformation.
Efforts to crack down on vaccine misinformation now, though, are generating cries of censorship and prompting some posters to adopt sneaky tactics to avoid the ax.
“It’s a hard situation because we have let this go for so long,” said Jeanine Guidry, an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who studies social media and health information. “People using social media have really been able to share what they want for nearly a decade.”
The Associated Press identified more
than a dozen Facebook pages and Instagram accounts, collectively boasting millions of followers, that have made false claims about the COVID-19 vaccine or discouraged people from taking it. Some of these pages have existed for years.
Of more than 15 pages identified by Newsguard, a technology company that analyzes the credibility of websites, roughly half remain active on Facebook, the AP found.
One such page, The Truth About Cancer, has more than a million Facebook followers after years of posting baseless suggestions that vaccines could cause autism or damage children’s brains. The page was identified in November as a “COVID-19 vaccine misinformation super spreader” by Newsguard.
Recently, the page stopped posting about vaccines and the coronavirus. It now directs people to sign up for its newsletter and visit its website as a way to avoid alleged “censorship.”
Facebook said it is taking taking “aggressive steps to fight misinformation across our apps by removing millions of pieces of COVID-19 and vaccine content on Facebook and Instagram during the pandemic.”
“Research shows one of the best ways to promote vaccine acceptance is by showing people accurate, trusted information, which is why we’ve connected 2 billion people to resources from heath authorities and launched a global information campaign,” the company said in a statement.
Facebook also banned ads that discourage vaccines and said it has added warning labels to more than 167 million pieces of additional COVID-19 content thanks to our network of fact-checking partners. (The Associated Press is one of Facebook’s fact-checking partners).
Youtube, which has generally avoided the same type scrutiny as its social media peers despite being a source of misinformation, said it has removed more than 30,000 videos since October, when it started banning false claims about COVID-19 vaccinations. Since February 2020, it has removed over 800,000 videos related to dangerous or misleading coronavirus information, said Youtube spokeswoman Elena Hernandez.
Prior to the pandemic, however, social media platforms had done little to stamp out misinformation, said Andy Pattison, manager of digital solutions for the World Health Organization. In 2019, as a measles outbreak slammed the Pacific Northwest and left dozens dead in America Samoa, Pattison pleaded with big tech companies to take a closer look at tightening rules around vaccine misinformation that he feared might make the outbreak worse – to no avail.
It wasn’t until COVID-19 struck with a vengeance that many of those tech companies started listening. Now he meets weekly with Facebook, Twitter and Youtube to discuss trends on their platforms and policies to consider.
“When it comes to vaccine misinformation, the really frustrating thing is that this has been around for years,” Pattison said.
The targets of such crackdowns are often quick to adapt. Some accounts use intentionally misspelled words – like “vackseen” or “v@x” – to avoid bans. (Social platforms say they’re wise to this.)
Other pages use more subtle messaging, images or memes to suggest that vaccines are unsafe or even deadly.
“When you die after the vaccine, you die of everything but the vaccine,” read one meme on an Instagram account with more than 65,000 followers. The post suggested that the government is concealing deaths from the COVID-19 vaccine.
“It’s a very fine line between freedom of speech and eroding science,” Pattison said. Purveyors of misinformation, he said, “learn the rules, and they dance right on the edge, all the time.”
Twitter said it is continuously reviewing its rules in the context of COVID-19 and changes them based on guidance from experts. Earlier this month, it added a strikes policy that threatens repeat spreaders of coronavirus and vaccine misinformation with bans.
But blatantly false COVID-19 information continues to pop up. Earlier this month, several articles circulating online claimed that more elderly Israelis who took the Pfizer vaccine were “killed” by the shot than those who died from COVID-19 itself. One such article from an anti-vaccination website was shared nearly 12,000 times on Facebook.
Americans owe an estimated $1.57 trillion in student loan debt. Some want the debt “forgiven,” and some want college to be “free.” Like most important topics in today’s society, it can quickly turn into a polarizing discussion.
Politics aside, there are affordable solutions out there for students and families if you know how to navigate the system. If you take advantage of the opportunities available right now in Ohio, you can receive a college degree, an industry-recognized credential and a pathway to a rewarding career, all debt-free, no matter your age or background.
Earn college credit while in high school
Ohio’s College Credit Plus helps high school students earn college and high school credits at the same time. Students can complete college courses through Ohio colleges and universities for free. As of the 2019-20 academic year, College Credit Plus students have earned 969 certificates and 2,666 associate’s degrees.
Career-ready before graduating high school
Our administration’s proposed budget supports the opportunity for students to earn 70,000 industry-recognized credentials each year. Students can start early on their career pathway by earning these credentials for free before even graduating high school. These in-demand credentials can help students qualify for graduation and earn more in their future careers. Every school district in Ohio is part of a career-technical planning district and can offer courses for credentials.
Students can also transfer many career-tech and credential courses into college credit at Ohio’s public colleges and universities – allowing them to start with credits already under their belts.
Turn a 2-year degree into a bachelor’s degree
You can also begin a low or no-cost path to a bachelor’s degree by starting at a community college. During the 2020-21 school year, tuition at an Ohio community college was around $5,000, which is below the maximum Federal Pell Grant. This means that learners who complete the FAFSA could qualify for a full Pell Grant and attend a public community college for free.
Ohio is one of the best states in the nation for helping you turn your previously earned credits and job experience into a degree. If you’ve completed coursework at another school or gained experience another way, chances are an Ohio college or university will recognize that in the form of transfer credits.
Turn your experience into a degree
Ohio has several programs to help you turn your previous experience into a degree. Through Ohio’s “Oneyear Option,” students who’ve earned an industry-recognized credential through an Ohio Technical Center can receive up to 30 technical credit hours toward an associate’s degree . The Prior Learning Assessment program awards college credit for experiences gained outside the classroom. Veterans are able to transfer their military experience into college credit.
Ohio’s Apprenticeship Pathways initiative turns apprenticeship experience into academic credit. This creates a pathway to an associate’s degree through one of Ohio’s community colleges at minimal cost – and you can even earn while you learn.
Earn credentials or a degree while you work
More than half of employers offer tuition assistance for employees pursuing degrees, but fewer than 10% of the employees actually use the benefit annually. Tuition reimbursement and pre-imbursement help Ohioans earn a degree at no cost. Check with your human resources department to learn whether your employer offers tuition assistance.
And if you’re looking to upskill, Techcred and the Individual Microcredential Assistance Programs help Ohioans earn industry-recognized credentials at no cost to them. Today in Ohio, there are pathways to receive a degree or a credential at little or no cost. Over the next few weeks, check out my social media pages to see some real-life examples of how students have made it work for them. I hope you will, too.
Jon Husted is Ohio’s lieutenant governor.