#this is also not a discussion of how the cc's should address the forever situation they should all go at it at their own pace and in their

[demodraws0606]

Honestly everybody talking about how Philza and other cc's have unfollowed Forever which does show how serious the situation is but like the fact Bad has completely stopped talking about Forever (and is avoiding talking about him) + has taken a hard stop to liking any fanart with him in it just shows how fucked this all is like...

When you got Badboyhalo (who was not afraid to speak his mind when he believed the green dude was being hit with false allegations) to go completely radio silent about you that's how you know you fucked up.

[lmanberg]

ok unbiased summary/paraphrased transcript from bbh's stream 'cause I watched it fully:

he had started to address the fact that people on twitter were against him working with a6d on the podcast, clarifying the position a6d would have on the podcast by saying that co-host was wrong wording and that he would be a producer/ sound designer he said that

that he had seen the threads he had been sent and the stuff he was messages about in groupchats and that he had already in the past presented his point which he repeated now:

him being friends with someone, or working with someone, or following someone on twitter does not mean he a 100% endorses or supports their actions or thoughts, that people in the audience are probably like that too, and that people do not know what relationship people can have behind closed doors and not to assume why someone may be friends or in contact with someone else

he then started talking about hate in the mcyt community (from the audience to a cc's perspective) and used "someone young" as an example, not using names and using they/them pronouns at the start

(he later reiterated that talking about tommy was on the spot and that he may have said something wrong but that is how it goes with livestreams)

he spoke of how this is not all of the twt reaction and that there are other reasons people are upset and that they have every right to, but he said that some people on twt were saying some truly horrifying stuff about this person (tommy)

he said that some people on twt were going after streamers in the same way they go against faceless corporation, and that people need to understand that they are talking to/about a real person that will take it to heart

he continued to stress that he is really young possibly not even old enough to vote (this is when he accidentally dropped they/them and used he/him and continued to do so, chat easily caught up that it was about tommy anyway)

he said to chill and cut them some slack because them (twt/the audience) don't know what is like to have millions of people to pressure you

and that people need to be careful because the things they say (especially on twt) are amplified by thousands

he said that it made him dislike the platform, bc while it's great to bring up issues to light but it's also a great platform to harass people

that millions of people pushing even the littlest of things can stress out cc's incredibly and that when a cc opens up about those stresses the response shouldn't be "oh too bad! you deserve it!" and that he had seen tons of responses like that even from people he follows and that it was crazy to him that people would react like that

after this he admitted that he was talking about tommy and started using his name going forward

he then said that tommy is super kind and genuine and literally one of the kindest people he knows in the mcyt community and that he has a big heart and that big heart is causing him to take a lot of the things people are saying about him and to him to heart and that he (bbh) thinks people should take that in account as a community and to be nice and chill, to stop being jerks

and repeated his point that because someone is friends with someone that they do not endorse their every action, and that he knows people don't believe that irl and so that they should stop believing that on twt

(in the middle of this he reiterated that he does not speak for tommy, that that are just his thoughts)

he clarified that he is picking onto only one narrow issue with the situation and that this doesn't speak for all of the reactions on the case, and that he just wants to speak on this issue specifically because he has seen it a lot and it's important to him

he then talks about a twt thread someone sent him and proceeds to read it after apologising for being so emotional about this, since he thinks this is a serious issue in the community and theres need to be compassionate, that people shouldn't immediately jump at the worst conclusions

before reading the thread he also interrupts himself to talk about a point someone made and being careful not to name drop them, talking about cc's being attacked/held accountable for past mistakes and wrongdoings, by saying that:

everyone makes mistakes, is selfish, is wrong, he doesn't care who you are, you are not perfect, but that with cc's their mistakes are recorded, filmed, on twt and youtube on twitch and that theory are there forever, and so people can easily find a catalogue of all their mistakes and that they do not understand that those mistakes happend years ago or in the course or years, they did not do those mistakes all in one day, they happened in the past

he talked about cc's fearing speaking about the toxic side of their communities because they would be attacked or cancelled for it

he admitted that he was rumbling since this was off the cuff, as he put it, but that he was simply talking from his perspective as a cc

he then started reading this thread:

https://twitter.com/barbz4dream/status/1403825864442269699?s=19

after reading it he clarified that he did not 100% agree or disagree with the thread, but that it was a great starting point for discussion because a lot of the things they said about the community was on point, that he thinks that the community pushes a culture to be toxic against someone being barely critical against a cc and that people should be critical but that people should be courteous and that people are not obligated to like them (the cc's)

that he saw recently on twt a lot of a mentality that people cannot change past their mistakes and a lot of assumptions about people behind closed doors and their relationships

he finished by reiterating that people should be kind, treat people like they would like to be treated, that you should be kind to everyone,  and that when it comes to cc's, while you are one person it may feel like not much damage, comparing it to someone throwing one pebble, that there are thousands or other that will throw stones at the same time.

this is so long but is basically a barely paraphrased transcript of what he said, make of it what you will, hope is clear to read enough, I can't bring myself to check and edit it rn since I'm busy

Thank you sm!!!

[scifigeneration]

Calling it a 'war on science' has consequences

by John C. Besley, Bruce W. Hardy,Meghnaa Tallapragada, and Shupei Yuan

How does the concept of science in the crosshairs affect opinions? gan chaonan/Shutterstock.com

National Geographic’s March 2015 cover story provided a thoughtful discussion around the question of “Why Do Many Reasonable People Doubt Science?” The actual cover, however, simply said “The War on Science.”

That article never actually uses the term “war on science” but claiming the existence of a such a conflict has become quite common.

What happens when a cover boils a measured article down to this provocative headline? National Geographic

There are books to tell readers “who’s waging it,” “why it matters,” and “what we can do about it” and many opinion articles and editorials in reputable publications describing its battles.

While we may fully agree as individuals that current approaches to science policy seem deeply problematic, we also wonder as communication scholars whether it makes strategic sense to call the current situation a “war.” Communication experts have long expressed concerns that framing an issue as a conflict might make finding a reasonable path forward harder by suggesting that people need to choose sides and vanquish their opponents in order to succeed.

Building on such arguments, our new research suggests that Americans may see scientists’ choice to accuse conservatives of waging a “war on science” as relatively aggressive compared to potential alternative ways of describing the current situation. In turn, this perceived aggressiveness may harm the credibility of scientists in conservative audiences that already have doubts about them.

Are these ground troops pushing back against a ‘war on science?’ AP Photo/Reed Saxon

Investigating the effect of the frame

Framing is how communicators put an issue in context – whether naively or on purpose. For years, communication scholars have criticized journalists for frequently framing issues as conflicts or games rather than trying to find more meaningful ways to understand disagreement. For example, researchers have argued that too much media coverage of climate change focuses on the “fight” between conservatives and liberals. This kind of framing problem isn’t exclusive to science-related coverage – but science communicators don’t need to contribute to the problem.

For our study, we surveyed 1,024 American adults who were part of an online panel, selected to be similar to the U.S. population in terms of age, gender, education and political ideology. We randomly assigned participants to read one of three different versions of a blog post about science or an article about baseball. Then we asked them a series of questions about their perception of scientists and other topics.

We adapted the science article from a 2017 Scientific American blog that framed the Trump administration’s approach to scientific evidence as a “war on science.” The article called the administration liars, talking about specific “attacks” and trying to rally scientists to fight back.

We trimmed this initial article for length and then changed some wording to make two alternate versions. Rather than a war, one framed the current situation as either a “challenge for science,” while the other used the frame of a “neglect of science.”

The “challenge for science” article kept some of same aggressive tone as the original article, calling out the White House for lying, but replacing war-related terms such the “attack on science” with the “challenge for science.” In contrast, the article that framed the administration as neglectful took a less aggressive tone, though still addressed the same ideas using the same structure.

What we ultimately found was that the level of perceived aggressiveness coupled with the “war on science” framing generally led conservatives, liberals and moderates to rate the credibility of scientists differently.

When liberals viewed the “war on science”-framed article as an aggressive message, their ratings of scientists’ credibility increased. On the other hand, when viewed as aggressive, the “war on science” framing pushed down conservatives’ perceptions of scientists’ credibility. While not everyone saw the same content as aggressive, when they did, it affected credibility perceptions.

When respondents read the article with the ‘war on science’ frame, liberals and conservatives diverged in how much credibility they gave scientists based on how aggressive they perceived the writing to be. This pattern wasn’t as evident when respondents read similar articles with the ‘challenge for science’ or ‘neglect of science’ framing. Hardy et al DOI: 10.1177/1075547018822081, CC BY-ND

The differences are fairly small, but we only showed respondents a single article.

Researchers’ understanding is that communication effects like these work cumulatively. So continued exposure to something like war framing might be expected to gradually increase the ideological differences that we found and that seems to be appearing in the available long-term data and associated research.

Scientists can’t count on high confidence ratings continuing forever. U.S. Department of Energy/flickr, CC BY

Aggressiveness won’t broaden the base of support

The pattern is still faint, and average reported confidence in scientists – which seems conceptually similar to credibility – has remained stable over time since the late 1970s. Less than 1 in 10 Americans say they have “hardly any” confidence in the scientific community.

But no one should take this stability for granted. The medical community, for example, has seen its confidence rating decline. Less than 1 in 10 Americans said they had “hardly any” confidence in medicine during the 1970s and into the 1990s, but views have deteriorated in recent decades.

And the current results build on some of our own past work showing that aggressive attacks on those who oppose technologies such as genetically engineered food or vaccines may also push down perceptions of scientists.

There may be times when an aggressive tone and conflict-framing is helpful for getting one’s existing supporters to donate money or perform some other behavior. But we have not seen any evidence that it helps expand the scope of support.

Our hope is to encourage science communicators to make choices about things like framing purposefully and to encourage research into approaches that increase the number of friends of science.

In making this argument, we’re mindful of examples such as the LGBT community’s efforts to stay away from conflict framing in its efforts to build support and lessen opposition to same-sex marriage. Rather than asking people to pick a side, the LGBT community framed marriage as a simple issue of love being love, not a fight for rights.

Aggressive tactics can come into play when those running for political office use personal attacks and negative advertising to gain advantage against their opponents. Although such an uncivil approach can damage the image of the candidate making the attacks, he or she has time to rebuild their image with supporters before the next election.

In order to have a positive impact, the science community cannot rely on aggressive communication tactics. Science needs continuous and broad support, across the ideological spectrum, to engage in research and discovery and to see that these discoveries are put to use.

About The Authors:

John C. Besley is an Ellis N. Brandt Professor of Public Relations at Michigan State University; Bruce W. Hardy is Assistant Professor of Communication and Social Influence at Temple University; Meghnaa Tallapragada is an Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication at Clemson University, and Shupei Yuan, is Assistant Professor of Public Relations at Northern Illinois University.

This article is republished from our content  partners at The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

[ofcounseltech]

Controlling Your Data and Keeping the Wolves at Bay

I our previous Blog article, we discussed how Branded Email, email addresses like Jack@OfCounselTech.com, presents a much more professional appearance than JackSmith1979@aol.com, regardless of whether Jack picked 1979 because that was the year he was born or because the previous 1978 “JackSmith”s were already taken.  But they do more than just present a professional appearance and a more memorable email (and website) address.  They let you control your firm’s data and help protect it against one of the most likely threats.  What does that mean, why should you care, and how does the equivalent of a “vanity plate” for email help you and your firm?  Let’s find out.

Your Firm’s Data

What comprises a typical law firm’s data?  Of course there’s the public information contained in its website, like the names and biographies of the attorneys, areas of practice, press releases, etc., but it is the private information that we really care about and is of the most concern.  

Some data, like basic HR information, you might not want released to the public and competitors, like salaries, social security numbers, home addresses, and the like.  But that is true of any business.  Unlike most regular businesses, law firms are in the unique position of  having very private data on, from, and about their clients.  Releasing this kind of data is just not an option and almost certainly violates one or more of the ethics guidelines resulting in state bar penalties that range from private reprimand letters to suspending or even disbarring attorneys found in violation.  Losing your ability to practice law obviously has a clear financial impact, but also can open the door to malpractice lawsuits which can get into even greater penalties.  

Before we go into the details, we should answer the question “Who are our adversaries?”  Let us simplify things and change the question from “who” to “what.”  For this article, we will go with the stock villain of so many fairy tales: the wolf.  There are two different types of wolves that can cause us to suffer a loss of confidentiality in our data.  We will cover each in turn.

Threat 1: The Big Bad (Hacker) Wolf

From the perspective of information security experts, this scenario typically results from an external, malicious, third party who manages to get into your systems.  This could be the teenage hacker from Scandinavia who breaks into your system because of an easily guessable password or, more realistically, a ransomware program that is sent as a phishing email that seems legitimate enough that someone, a partner, and associate, an admin, anyone, accidentally or purposely clicks on, and is then introduced into your system to steal or encrypt everything.  And while these are real threats, and while our everyday media, movies, and television make it look like this is a pervasive threat, statistically there are other threats much more frightening. 

I know, this is like reading an original Grimm Fairy tale, “and they were trapped there and the evil monster came home and found them and then ate them up.  The end.  Good night.   Don’t let any evil hungry monster get you.  Because it’d eat you up, too.  Sweet dreams.”  But we need to leave the Big Bad Wolf for a future discussion.  I want to talk about a much more likely and scarier threat from a much more realistic, scary wolf that poses a much greater threat to your law firm.

“But my staff are not monsters!” you say.  “I know them, I trust them.”  That’s because these are part-time wolves.  Most of the time they are trustworthy.  But at certain times, when the moon is full, they are werewolves.

Threat 2: The Insidious (Yet Trusted) Werewolf, Two Different Kinds

We all know what werewolves are: dangerous wild monsters that seem like perfectly upstanding citizens that people know, love, and trust.  It gets dark, the moon rises and the real fun starts.  (Yeah, sometimes they’re pretty sketchy and wolfy in human form, but no one trusts those kind anyway.)

The thing is, there are two kinds of werewolves: the ones who know they are wolves and understand what the full moon means  and the ones who don’t, and wander into the night not knowing what is about to happen next.  

The ones who don’t know try to do the right thing.  They have no idea that when they wake up in the aftermath of a disaster with no idea or memory of what happened that they were the cause of the problems.  In the digital world, these are the folks who have no idea what link they clicked on (hint: it was probably a link to fullmoon.com).  They are the innocent people who, because they failed to follow basic advice of “be careful where you go,” wind up getting bit and then cause lots of problems to others.  In later posts, we will address these folks and we promise we will be kind.  These are almost always innocent victims of well crafted Internet trickery and having a company culture that makes it OK to admit when you might have made a mistake, instead of persecuting them, is essential. 

Today we are focusing on the people who know they are werewolves.  Behind their smiling facade, they know what they will do when the appointed hour comes, the damage that it will cause, and they’re totally OK with it.  In the security realm, this is called an Insider Attack.  This is the real treat.  Statistically, your firm is far more likely to have data security problems caused by insiders than by outsiders. 

(If you want to dive into statistics and surveys on the insider threat, here’s one example, the 2020 Insider Threat report from Gurucul: https://go1.gurucul.com/2020-Insider-Threat-Report.)

Insider Attacks: Claws for Alarm

Insiders are trusted employees.  They have access to client data because they deal with the clients every day.  They can be secretaries, admins, paralegals, Of Counsels, associates, or even equity partners.  (While true sole practitioners do not face the risk of an inside job, there are still many valid reasons to use branded email.  Our focus here is on non-solos.)  At some point someone in the lifespan of your law firm who is working with (and for) you will at some point no longer be working at the firm.  You may fire that person or that person may choose to quit.  Perhaps they received a job offer from a competing firm.  Maybe they are being fired for cause or maybe because of economic reasons.  Whatever the reason, they now may have a vested interest in your client data, which is now no longer their client data.  It becomes pretty tempting to take any client lists and contact information they can get their paws on.  In addition to client data, simple things like model contracts, pleadings, research, and other firm work products are fair game..  How do you stop that from happening?  How do you stop your intellectual property from being stolen and your clients getting poached to another firm?  Is this unethical behavior?  Certainly!  But it can be a pretty gray area and very difficult to prove who took what when, after the barn doors have been open (and maybe were never closed).  But there is hope.

Vanity Plates or Silver Bullets?

And this (finally) brings us back to how Branded Email can be a tool to fight against insider attacks.  If your email is JackSmith1979@aol.com and your associate’s email is MoonWatcher2001@gmail.com, these are personal email addresses that are owned and controlled by the individuals, not the firm.  And when “MoonWatcher” leaves, he takes his email address with him and retains access to all the email sent from and received to that account.  Any online accounts tied to that email (westlaw, PACER, local court’s e-filing, etc.) will remain active, attached to that email.  

Let’s look at three different scenarios when a wolf is no longer employed by a firm.

Scenario 1: The Wolf Leaves (With Your Virtual Rolodex)

“MoonWatcher” leaves the firm—on good or bad terms, it makes no difference.  If active clients were communicating with him using his personal email address, then they keep communicating with him, at that address, after he leaves.  In a best case scenario, he sends a very brief reply to the client and CC:’s the firm, saying that he has left the firm and from now on please direct all communications to a specific attorney at the firm.  Sounds a bit awkward, doesn’t it?  And that is the best case.  If the client and “MoonWatcher'' have been working together for years and have a good rapport, the client might reply (but not to you) and ask for more details or where MW is now working.  That client is ripe for the picking.

Since MoonWatcher’s email account is his own personal one, he retains access to all of his old emails and all of his client contacts.  And he can send email to anyone from the same account that used to be affiliated with your business.  If other clients’ emails were included or mentioned at some point, he could contact them,and directly inquire about their legal needs..  Is that ethical?  Generally not.  It really depends on the nature and content of the communication.   Would your firm know about it and would there be an easy, quick path to remedy the situation and confirm the nature and substance of the communication?  Probably not.

So far, we have focused exclusively on email.  But what about all of the computer files?

Scenario 2: Hunting the Wolf at Midnight

As in the previous scenario, if you were sharing files, pleadings, research, etc. and MoonWatcher walked out the door (we will stick with Google Drive for our example, but the same thing is true for Office365), unless your firm has well defined policies and well defined roles (or groups) upon which access to the common drive is regulated, your drive files are exposed.  If it so happens that you had a policy that specified what to do when an employee leaves and you could figure out everything he had access to, you could revoke those permissions to the shared files.  But any files sent as attachments through email are his to keep forever.  So while it is better than doing nothing, it provides very limited protection. 

Using our werewolf analogy, it’s midnight, you hear howling, and you bang on some doors to get a few sleepy villagers together with some torches and maybe a few wooden broom handles, to try to hunt down the wolf.  The night is cloudy so you don’t know if the moon is quite full or not, and the group decides it’s best to split up.  Let’s just say the anti-werewolf squad isn’t a roaring success.  The point is that these villagers did not have a plan ahead of time and are trying to wing it.  It is possible that someone gets lucky and brings a silver pitchfork and is in the right place and the right time.  But that is not a good security plan for the village.  

Note that you absolutely should have written policy on what happens when employees come and go, but that’s a topic for a future article.  

So how would this play out if our village had a plan?

Scenario 3: Plan Ahead—Take the Moon Out of the Equation

Let’s play out our scenario of MoonWatcher leaving if your firm’s email was branded and owned 100% by the firm. 

MoonWatcher2001@gmail.com is now MWatcher@MyLawFirmsName.com.  When MW leaves, you or the HR person would simply log into the Google (or Microsoft) admin web page for MyLawFirmsName.com, select MW’s account and lock it out.  The end.  (It’s a pretty boring story, actually.  But that’s what we want.)

Typically this entire process is a few mouse clicks.  At that point, MW no longer can log in, cannot get email (old or new) from that account, cannot send email from that account (which comes from MyLawFirmsName.com or whatever name your company uses), and cannot get to any of the shared documents that could be retrieved from that account.  Sure, there are some details on how access permissions are configured and there are even ways to get around this, like if MW printed every email he ever received and took it home with him, but the gist is that for a nominal cost (about $75/year/person), you can increase the access control and protections you have on your client data, email communications, internal work products and access to third party resources.  

You don’t deal with the werewolf on his terms, he deals with you on your terms.  The anti-werewolf squad is standing by, ready to go, and they have trained in how to deal with this situation.  And most importantly, they do their job during the day when it is safe before any problems occur!  On full moon nights, the wolf has no access to anyone, all the doors are locked.  And anyone who might need to venture out has the proper protection. 

The Point Is

Custom domains are not a silver bullet cure-all, but they are also not just a vanity license plate on the “information superhighway.”  They define and identify your company and use this branded identity to set boundaries on, and protect, your private information—private information that is one of the most valuable assets, and biggest liabilities if mishandled, that your company possesses.  Use it so your protections against insider attacks will be a howling success.

Contact us at Of Counsel Technologies to learn how you can protect your assets, your reputation, and your company with this simple step.

[ixvyupdates]

If You Can Find a Budget for Arming Teachers, Then You Can Find Money for Teacher Training

This is not an article about how to stop gun violence in schools.

Like most of America, my perspective has been forever changed by the horrific events at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The president, members of Congress, governors and state legislators have all weighed in on a range of school safety proposals offered in recent weeks.

Plenty of reasons have been offered for why various policies might not work, but there has been a virtual absence of one common obstacle: cost.

“Lack of funds” is typically the beginning and end for most discussions about why something can’t be done in our schools. But in this moment, funding seems to be readily available. The president has even suggested that we could pay teachers more to carry guns. A White House official backed him up, stating, “Do we really think that’s too much to pay for school safety?”

I agree.

There is no cost too high to protect our children. I am thrilled to hear a public official share this position. However, you will find very few teachers who have stories to share about moments in their careers when they were told money is no object.

To paraphrase an oft-repeated mantra, budgets reveal what we really value. It’s true. A budget is a clear statement of priorities. And while there is no priority higher than the safety of a child, it is instructive to compare the resources our policymakers are—and are not—willing to fund in our schools.

At the same time that proposals to pay teachers a stipend for carrying a gun are being considered, many states are phasing out stipends for teachers that earn advanced certification.

We’re Not Even Funding the Things Teachers Are Supposed to Do

In my state of South Carolina, the legislature is set to eliminate a nearly 20-year-old program that provides stipends for teachers that earn National Board Certification. This decision comes despite data showing the stipend helps retain good South Carolina teachers, as well as a wide body of research showing the positive impact of National Board certified teachers on student learning.

Policymakers in many states are also willing to fund training for teachers that want to carry guns. However, many of these same policymakers are quick to point out that there isn’t enough money available in our budgets to pay for teacher training in areas like instructional strategies, educational equity and new technology.

Perhaps the most glaring example is the Trump administration’s continued proposal to eliminate Title II funding, which is often relied on by states and districts to provide professional development and teacher leadership.

Some policymakers are ready to invest funds in “hardened schools” with enhanced safety features. While I support investments in this area, I also can’t help but think of all the times that sufficient funds haven’t been available to address basic facility needs like leaky roofs or adequate heating systems.

Taken as a whole, the spending proposals from policymakers to secure schools shows we are putting a high priority on making our schools as safe as possible, and I am glad to see this level of focus. As an educator, I want to see us take the same approach to other crises that exist in our schools.

It is a crisis that 1.6 million students attend a school with a sworn law enforcement officer but no guidance counselor.

It is a crisis in my home state that the school year opened with 550 teaching vacancies that districts were unable to fill.

It is a crisis that, according to a recent study by The Education Trust, there are real and persistent funding inequities in our schools, especially for the districts serving the highest populations of students of color and low-income students.

We should react to these situations with the same type of urgency we are showing for school safety measures.

We can’t fix everything in a world of finite budgets, but we can show the same level of commitment to finding solutions. These problems are not things that can wait to be addressed in future budget cycles when “funds are available” with a promise to do better next time. Our students don’t get a next time. Finding funding solutions tomorrow for the problems of today will always be one day too late.

I want to vote for the policymaker who, in a discussion about finding the funding to ensure our students have what they need, proclaims just as loudly, “Do we really think that is too much to pay? Of course not.” And then, they act.

Photo by KOMUnews, CC-licensed.

If You Can Find a Budget for Arming Teachers, Then You Can Find Money for Teacher Training syndicated from https://sapsnkraguide.wordpress.com