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Parler is back in Apple’s App Store, with a promise to crack down on hate speech

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Parler, the conservative-friendly “free speech” social media app, is back in the Apple App Store. But like anything involving social media and free speech, its return is complicated.
Beginning on Monday, Parler is available for download on iPhones and iPads. This comes around four months after Parler <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/11/24/21579357/parler-app-trump-twitter-facebook-censorship">was banned or limited by Apple, Amazon, Google</a>, and virtually every other major tech company for allowing some of its users to openly organize violence following the 2020 US election — namely at the January 6 US Capitol insurrection.
In order for Parler to comply with Apple’s guidelines, it had to walk back its “anything goes” approach to potentially harmful speech and create a more restrictive version of its app just for iOS devices. Parler says it will start using AI to detect hate speech and block those posts in this new “Parler Lite,” according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/05/17/parler-apple-app-store/">the Washington Post</a>. Meanwhile, Parler will continue to operate a less restricted version of its app on other platforms, including Google’s Android.
Parler’s splintered return to the mainstream internet is just another example of the increasingly polarized nature of political discussion on social media. Platforms like Parler are capitalizing on the demand for a social media network where people can say anything they want, at a time when companies like Facebook and Twitter have introduced more rules to limit harmful content.
Since its launch in 2018, Parler has presented itself as a place where people can speak freely without “fear of being ‘deplatformed’ for their views.” But now, it’s agreeing to play by Apple’s rules in blocking hate speech and violent content. That’s easier said than done — especially given Parler’s relatively small size and the fact that many major tech companies no longer want to work with them.
Much larger companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter, have struggled to create and enforce their rules around harmful content, raising the question of how Parler will do so without similar issues. And Apple, which until recently had largely managed to stay out of the debate around political speech (unlike Facebook and Twitter), will now have to play a major role in deciding where to draw the line with Parler and whether the app is actually making good on its promise to block hate speech on its platform.
“It’s going to be an interesting story to watch in a number of ways,” said Evelyn Douek, a lecturer at Harvard Law School who studies content moderation online. “There’s the story of what happens with Parler itself, whether it does get more serious about policing hate speech and violent content, and then what does it mean for Apple to get into the content moderation game.”
You should now be able to download Parler from the Apple App Store. However, the relaunch seems to have some bugs. Although the company has said that people should be able to use the new app starting today, Recode ran into some problems when we tried on three different iPhones to search for the app in Apple’s App Store, create accounts, log in, and use the app.
Parler did not respond to a request for comment about these issues and other questions. Apple did not respond to a request for comment about why Parler did not show up in App Store search results.
Assuming Parler fixes whatever technical difficulties its Apple-specific app may be having at the moment, the other underlying complication involves the fact that there are two different versions of Parler: one for iOS and one for everywhere else, where you can still click into hateful content after seeing a label.
In early January, Parler was effectively booted off the internet because Amazon refused to host its web services on its AWS platform. But less than two weeks later, Parler was back online thanks in part to <a href="https://www.pcmag.com/news/parler-is-back-online-thanks-to-russian-tech-company-ddos-guard">Russian-owned DDos-Guard</a>, which helped it with the technical infrastructure to return online. Soon after, the company returned to Google’s Android platform in a sense: The app is still banned in the Google Play Store, but Android users can still bypass the Play Store and download it on their Android phones.
It’s a messy state of affairs for Parler’s two-tiered app offerings. One person reading the “Parler Lite” on Apple devices may be seeing a much friendlier discussion than someone else seeing the full-blown app. There’s also the risk that people use the Apple version of Parler to attract followers, and then organize violence on the non-Apple versions of Parler.
Even though Apple decided to let Parler back on its app store for now, it will still have to deal with reviewing whether Parler meets its standards in the long term. And since Parler has become a flashpoint in the debate around free speech and harmful content online, that will prove to be a politically thorny problem.
Big Tech’s ban of Parler was justified to many who saw the company as willfully neglecting its responsibility to stop people from organizing violence online. But others, including Republican leaders like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, saw it as Silicon Valley being overly punitive in going after conservative speech.
Parler ended up coming back online in mid-February — albeit without the mainstream distribution channels of Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store — after finding support from <a href="https://www.pcmag.com/news/parler-is-back-online-and-open-to-americans-of-all-viewpoints">alternative tech infrastructure networks</a>. And in the absence of Parler, some extremists migrated to private messaging apps like Telegram and WhatsApp, where it’s harder to get caught for violating policies.
The reality is, virtually all major social media networks have rules against violent and hateful content. And it’s inevitable that people will break them. Facebook, Twitter, and Google are far from perfect, but they generally make an effort to at least try reining in content that clearly violates these rules. That wasn’t the case for Parler, which took a radically more hands-off approach to moderating content than any of its competitors. The app quickly became the place for users who had been banned by more mainstream social media companies.
The company’s former CEO John Matze defended Parler’s content moderation policies when he was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/opinion/sway-kara-swisher-john-matze.html">interviewed by Recode co-founder and New York Times columnist Kara Swisher</a> on her podcast shortly after the Capitol riot. In early February, Matze was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/technology/parler-ceo-fired.html">fired by Parler’s board,</a> and on Monday, the company announced a new CEO, conservative UK politician George Farmer.
Parler has agreed, in theory, to take a firmer stance on hate speech for Apple. But what remains to be seen is how they will execute on that promise, and how much Apple will continue to flex its power over the mobile market to hold Parler to its new standards.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/5/17/22441143/parler-apple-app-store-hate-speech">https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/5/17/22441143/parler-apple-app-store-hate-speech</a>

vox Parler is back in Apple’s App Store, with a promise to crack down on hate speech

Parler, the conservative-friendly “free speech” social media app, is back in the Apple App Store. But like anything involving social media ...

The incomplete promise of Medicaid expansion

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In November, Missourians voted to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, granting access to health insurance to roughly <a href="https://www.healthinsurance.org/medicaid/missouri/">230,000 people</a> living in poverty. Now the state’s Republican legislators are defying the will of their voters by refusing to implement the expansion.
In late April, the Missouri Senate <a href="https://apnews.com/article/michael-brown-business-government-and-politics-a61cf94bf9af6abb509bfc0d949cf342">blocked</a> funding for Medicaid expansion. Last week, Gov. Mike Parsons cited the lack of funding to justify withdrawing the expansion plan entirely.
Lawsuits will likely be filed over Parsons’s decision. But this is not the first time Republican leaders in a conservative state have fought to block their voters’ wishes on Medicaid expansion. Utah legislators had <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/11/18220721/utah-medicaid-expansion-prop-3-sb96">sought to scale back</a> the expansion plan approved by their voters in 2018, though they eventually <a href="https://www.healthinsurance.org/medicaid/utah/">acquiesced</a> once the Trump administration said the legislature’s alternate proposal was not permissible.
The pattern demonstrates that, nearly a decade after the Supreme Court ruled that states could choose whether to expand their Medicaid programs, the fight over whether to do so is far from over. So far, 38 states and Washington, DC, have expanded Medicaid, covering <a href="https://www.kff.org/health-reform/state-indicator/medicaid-expansion-enrollment/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D">nearly 15 million people</a>. In the dozen states that have not, <a href="https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/the-coverage-gap-uninsured-poor-adults-in-states-that-do-not-expand-medicaid/">4 million people</a> are uninsured who would receive Medicaid coverage if their state expanded eligibility under the ACA. More than 95 percent live in the South, they are disproportionately Black, and many are not eligible for subsidies to buy private coverage on the ACA markets.
As I’ve reported on Medicaid expansion, I’ve often heard advocates express optimism that, eventually, some day, the holdout states will just come around. Arizona took until 1982 to implement its Medicaid program, 17 years after Medicaid was approved as part of LBJ’s Great Society agenda. At some point, the thinking goes, the allure of providing needed benefits to your constituents — and reaping billions of federal dollars — is too good to pass up. And advocates have made progress in deep-red states. Voters in Idaho, Nebraska, and Oklahoma recently voted to approve Medicaid expansion. It’s also popular with voters in holdout states like Kansas and North Carolina.
But the Missouri controversy casts doubt on those hopes; Medicaid expansion may be hitting a wall. The Affordable Care Act was signed into law more than 10 years ago and has become fairly popular nationally. Medicaid expansion won decisively with voters in Missouri. The state has a $1 billion budget surplus, as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996611586/missouri-will-not-expand-medicaid-despite-voters-wishes-governor-says">NPR noted</a>, yet the legislature and governor are citing budget concerns to block the expansion.
Meanwhile, Texas and Florida, which have more than 1 million uninsured people in poverty between them, are still the two biggest holdouts. Florida voters will decide in 2021 on a ballot referendum that would expand Medicaid, but the state legislature has already <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Florida_Amendment_4,_Voting_Rights_Restoration_for_Felons_Initiative_(2018)">shown its propensity</a> for undermining initiatives approved by popular vote. Texas, like some other states, can’t expand via ballot initiative.
Biden and Democrats in Congress are trying to nudge the holdout states along, offering new incentives for states to expand. But if those incentives don’t work, the disparities in American health care will continue to grow even worse.
Initially, expanding Medicaid — which had historically covered a narrow slice of people living in poverty — was supposed to be mandatory for all 50 states. But Medicaid expansion was also designed to be an attractive deal for states: The federal government would initially cover 100 percent of the costs and then phase down to 90 percent, picking up that share of the tab in perpetuity.
The Supreme Court’s decision in 2012 allowed states to opt out and turned expansion into a state-by-state fight. Republicans usually raise two objections to Medicaid expansion: It’s too expensive, and Medicaid isn’t such a great program to begin with, inferior to private insurance.
To address the financial concerns, Democrats in DC have tried to sweeten the offer even more to entice the holdout states. As part of the American Rescue Plan, Congress approved an additional 5-percent match for the traditional Medicaid population (mothers, the disabled, the elderly, and people in extreme poverty) for holdout states that expand Medicaid now.
That enhanced match would last for two years. Missouri, to give one relevant example, would bring in an additional $1.7 billion in federal revenue over that period, according to estimates from <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/house-bill-gives-states-incentive-to-quickly-expand-medicaid-cover-millions-of">the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities</a>. Texas would receive nearly $6 billion; Florida, more than $3.5 billion. It is as close to a (legal) bribe as you’re likely to find in public policy.
Arguably, the extra money shouldn’t even be necessary. As health economists Jonathan Gruber and Benjamin Sommers <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2007124">wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine</a> last year, states have been able to implement expansion without a negative impact on their finances. Expanding Medicaid has enabled them to cut back on other spending — for uncompensated care, care for people who are in the judicial system, and so on — while expansion is fully subsidized by the feds.
“Medicaid expansion appears to be a win–win from the states’ perspective,” they wrote, “giving health insurance to millions of low-income adults and offering financial support to safety-net hospitals, without any adverse effects on state budgets.”
And while it is true that Medicaid beneficiaries sometimes have fewer provider options because fewer providers take Medicaid because of its less generous payment rates, the evidence is clear that Medicaid expansion still benefits patients and saves lives. <a href="https://files.kff.org/attachment/Issue-Brief-The-Effects-of-Medicaid-Expansion-Under-the-ACA-Updated-Findings-from-a-Literature-Review">The body of research</a> convincingly shows that people have more access to care and better self-reported health after Medicaid expansion. Cancer diagnoses come earlier, and patients are given the prescriptions for medications they need more often.
A National Bureau of Economic Research working paper from 2019 <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/23/20703776/medicaid-expansion-obamacare-health-care-2020">concluded</a> that states’ refusal to expand Medicaid had led to more than 15,000 deaths in one year that otherwise would not have occurred.
As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden had a plan to fix the Medicaid expansion gap: Create a new public insurance option and automatically enroll people who are in the gap. But whether because of the Senate’s “budget reconciliation” rules, internal party disagreement, or fear of a backlash from the health care industry, a public option does not appear to be on the table in the next two years despite full Democratic control of Congress and the White House.
Democrats tried to offer the holdouts a new carrot, in the form of the enhanced funding included in the American Rescue Plan. There has been some preliminary interest from a handful of states (Wyoming and Alabama in particular) but the new funding does not seem like it will fix the gap on its own.
I know the Biden White House wants to find a solution to the Medicaid expansion gap because I’ve spoken with aides about it. But it’s a trickier issue to navigate than it might seem: If they go overboard in handing out these perks to holdout states, they might be challenged in court by states that have already expanded Medicaid, asking why they can’t get the same deal.
The case of Missouri should be enough to disabuse the Democrats of the notion that Republican states will simply willingly enter the fold, with time. <a href="https://tcf.org/content/commentary/the-next-step-after-obamacare-federalizing-medicaid/?agreed=1">Some left-leaning experts</a> have <a href="https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/make-medicaid-federal/">long thought</a> the federal government should simply assume full responsibility for Medicaid and take these decisions (and fiscal responsibility) out of states’ hands; Jon Walker made that case in <a href="https://prospect.org/health/democrats-must-federalize-medicaid/">the American Prospect</a> at the beginning of Biden’s term. Democrats are reportedly considering such a plan for their next legislative package, as <a href="https://t.co/2MrcQpGTkz">Politico’s Susannah Luthi reported</a>; the details are still to be determined.
Health care for millions of Americans in poverty depends on it. Otherwise, the legacy of the Biden presidency might be new health coverage, via the American Rescue Plan, for <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22360870/american-rescue-plan-act-premium-tax-credit-health-insurance">millions of middle-class Americans</a> — while the poor and uninsured are still left waiting for a solution.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22440101/missouri-medicaid-expansion-joe-biden">https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22440101/missouri-medicaid-expansion-joe-biden</a>

vox The incomplete promise of Medicaid expansion

In November, Missourians voted to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, granting access to health insurance to roughly 230,000 peo...

Israeli-Palestinian tensions erupt into open conflict

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Fighting between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas has escalated drastically in the first few weeks of May 2021, leading to fears the conflict could develop into a protracted war.
The current outbreak of fighting began with a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/5/10/22428819/israel-palestine-jerusalem-mosque-violence-biden">series of controversial Israeli actions in Jerusalem</a> — including the attempted eviction of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem by right-wing Jewish settlers, an Israeli police raid on Palestinian worshippers at al-Aqsa Mosque, and a planned provocative march by far-right Israelis — that prompted Hamas to fire a barrage of rockets at Jerusalem and other major cities in Israel. Israel responded with devastating airstrikes in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Both sides have continued their back-and-forth attacks for days, resulting in hundreds of deaths and widespread property damage, mostly but not exclusively on the Palestinian side, and the destruction of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/5/15/22437688/ap-al-jazeera-gaza-news-bureau-destroyed-live-israel-airstrike">Gaza media offices of Al Jazeera and the Associated Press in an Israeli strike</a>.
Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2021/5/15/22436068/israel-violence-lod-bat-yam-jerusalem-lynching-arab-jewish-palestinian">communal violence between Arab and Jewish Israelis</a> has broken out on the streets of cities across Israel at a level unseen in years, a troubling sign of just how fractured Israeli society has become.
So what happens next? “The most likely scenario is unfortunately the one we’ve been in for the past 15 years,” says Ilan Goldenberg, the director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. In the past, both parties have either unilaterally decided to stop bombing or agreed to an internationally brokered ceasefire. But that has done little to change the fundamental dynamics of the conflict, one Zack Beauchamp describes as <a href="https://www.vox.com/22430488/israel-gaza-war-2021-hamas-sheikh-jarrah">the “Israel-Gaza doom loop.”</a>
For the time being, Israeli leaders have pledged to continue the bombardment of Gaza indefinitely.
The latest fighting is also notable for the international response it has drawn. Pro-Palestinian solidarity protests around the world and a shifting political landscape in the United States have brought increased attention to the Palestinian cause, including from <a href="https://www.vox.com/22432247/israel-palestine-gaza-conflict-biden-democrats">Democrats, who are increasingly split on the issue</a>, and on social media.
President Joe Biden’s decision to publicly condemn Hamas’s attacks while staunchly defending Israel has drawn criticism from progressives within his own party who accuse him of hewing to an outdated approach to the conflict that has long seen the US fail to acknowledge the plight of Palestinians.
The Biden administration promised that human rights would be at the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/5/10/22428819/israel-palestine-jerusalem-mosque-violence-biden">“center” of its foreign policy,</a> but critics say his response to this crisis has shown that promise to be hollow when it comes to the rights of Palestinians.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22440330/israel-palestine-gaza-airstrikes-hamas-updates-2021">https://www.vox.com/22440330/israel-palestine-gaza-airstrikes-hamas-updates-2021</a>

vox Israeli-Palestinian tensions erupt into open conflict

Fighting between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas has escalated drastically in the first few weeks of May 2021, leading to f...

Israel Smashes Gaza With Bombs In Its War With Hamas, Killing Hundreds Of People

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By Theodore Shoebat
Israel is smashing Gaza with bombs in its war with Hamas as a reaction to the terrorist organization’s bombardment of Israel with its rockets. Hundreds have died in Gaza, as we read in a report from <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/17/middleeast/israel-palestinian-conflict-monday-intl/index.html">CNN</a>:
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The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said 212 people had been killed and 1,400 others injured since violence flared last week, in what has become the most serious Israeli-Palestinian confrontation in years. Sixty-one children and 36 women are among the dead, the ministry said
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Meanwhile, Hamas rocket fire from Gaza has killed at least 10 people in Israel, including two children, since the start of the flareup, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
On Monday, a fresh barrage of rockets from Gaza once again set off sirens and sent Israelis fleeing into bomb shelters in Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beer Sheva. At least one residential building in Ashdod was hit, the IDF said. Three people were slightly injured, according to the Israeli Red Cross.
</blockquote>
</div>
 
 
source <a href="https://shoebat.com/2021/05/17/israel-smashes-gaza-with-bombs-in-its-war-with-hamas-killing-hundreds-of-people/">https://shoebat.com/2021/05/17/israel-smashes-gaza-with-bombs-in-its-war-with-hamas-killing-hundreds-of-people/</a>

armageddon Israel Smashes Gaza With Bombs In Its War With Hamas, Killing Hundreds Of People

By Theodore Shoebat Israel is smashing Gaza with bombs in its war with Hamas as a reaction to the terrorist organization’s bombardment of ...

Crypto Scammers Made Over $2 Million Through Fake Elon Musk Giveaways

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Crypto Scammers Made Over $2 Million Through Fake Elon Musk Giveaways" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-02/9q1e92cs_elon-musk_625x300_23_February_21.jpg" title="Crypto Scammers Made Over $2 Million Through Fake Elon Musk Giveaways" /></div>
Elon Musk has also recently said that bitcoin would not be accepted to buy a Tesla. (File)
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Washington:
Fake promised giveaways by celebrities such as Telsa CEO Elon Musk are being used by scammers to cash in on interest in cryptocurrencies, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Monday in noting a jump in complaints about cryptocurrency fraud since October.
In one type of scam, people are told that if they give a certain amount of crytocurrency to a "celebrity" they will get more back.
"People have reported sending more than $2 million in cryptocurrency to Elon Musk impersonators over just the past six months," the FTC said.
Musk had been a supporter of cryptocurrencies but recently knocked dogecoin by calling it "a hustle" on national television. He has also recently said that bitcoin would not be accepted to buy a Tesla because of the environmental costs associated with mining it.
Scammers also impersonate government authorities or a potential romantic partner, the FTC said.
Overall, nearly 7,000 people reported losses of more than $80 million since October, with a median loss of $1,900, the agency said. That's twelve times more reports of scams than the same period a year earlier, the agency said.
People in their 20s and 30s were the biggest victims, reporting losing much more money on investment and cryptocurrency fraud than any other type of scam. Older people, over 50, were less likely to report falling for the scams but when they did the losses were bigger, with a median loss of $3,250.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/crypto-scammers-made-over-2-million-through-fake-elon-musk-giveaways-2443805">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/crypto-scammers-made-over-2-million-through-fake-elon-musk-giveaways-2443805</a>

news world Crypto Scammers Made Over $2 Million Through Fake Elon Musk Giveaways

Elon Musk has also recently said that bitcoin would not be accepted to buy a Tesla. (File) Washington: Fake promised giveaways by celeb...

US To Share Extra 20 Million Covid Vaccine Doses With Other Countries

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="US To Share Extra 20 Million Covid Vaccine Doses With Other Countries" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-05/ocvejri8_covid19-vaccine-generic-reuters_625x300_13_May_21.jpg" title="US To Share Extra 20 Million Covid Vaccine Doses With Other Countries" /></div>
President Joe Biden that US is surging exports of Covid vaccines to other countries. (File)
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Washington:
President Joe Biden said Monday that the United States is surging exports of Covid vaccines to other countries to reclaim "American leadership" in the global fight against the pandemic, dismissing rival efforts by China and Russia.
Biden confirmed that 20 million more doses of Covid vaccines are being released over the next six weeks, bringing the total earmarked for shipping out by the end of June to 80 million.
The boost follows pressure on the Biden administration from other governments to use its large vaccine surplus to help struggling countries, now that significant progress has been made in rolling out vaccinations at home.
The initiative also addresses concerns that Moscow and Beijing have been taking advantage of the worldwide crisis to spread influence through distribution of their own national vaccines in a so-called "vaccine diplomacy" contest.
By July, the United States will have easily cemented its place as leader on this stage, Biden said, while pointedly adding that Washington was not using the rollout as leverage over countries.
"This will be more vaccines than any country has actually shared today, five times more than any other country," Biden said in a White House speech.
"Russia and China... have donated 15 million doses. You know there's a lot of talk about Russia and China influencing the world with vaccines. We want to lead the world with our values," he said.
"We will not use our vaccines to secure favors from other countries."
The White House would not say which countries were being prioritized for the shipments, but Biden has signaled that Washington will be doing what it can to help India push back against a surge in the pandemic.
An initial 60 million doses have already been pledged.
These will all be of AstraZeneca, a British-developed vaccine that has yet to be used in the United States and looks increasingly unlikely ever to be needed. Exports will begin as soon as US health regulators give approval.
Biden said the next wave of 20 million doses would also include already authorized vaccines being used in the United States -- Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-to-share-extra-20-million-covid-19-vaccine-doses-with-other-countries-2443803">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-to-share-extra-20-million-covid-19-vaccine-doses-with-other-countries-2443803</a>

news world US To Share Extra 20 Million Covid Vaccine Doses With Other Countries

President Joe Biden that US is surging exports of Covid vaccines to other countries. (File) Washington: President Joe Biden said Monday...