Zeynep Tufekci

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Un pelícano que se sospecha murió a causa de la influenza aviar H5N1 en una playa de Perú en diciembre. Ernesto Benavides/Agence France-Presse vía Getty Images

InternacionalSalud Pública, ,  

Mientras el mundo apenas está comenzando a recuperarse de los estragos de la COVID-19, ya se enfrenta a una posible pandemia provocada por un patógeno mucho más mortífero.

Desde hace mucho tiempo, la gripe aviar —llamada más formalmente influenza aviar—ha estado atemorizando a los científicos. Este patógeno, sobre todo la cepa H5N1, no ha infectado con frecuencia a los seres humanos, pero cuando lo ha hecho, ha causado la muerte del 56 por ciento de quienes se sabe que la han contraído. No ha generado una pandemia gracias a la poca capacidad que tiene de pasar con facilidad de una persona a otra, si es que lo hace.…  Seguir leyendo »

A pelican suspected to have died from H5N1 avian influenza on a beach in Peru in December. Ernesto Benavides/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

InternacionalSalud Pública, ,

As the world is just beginning to recover from the devastation of Covid-19, it is facing the possibility of a pandemic of a far more deadly pathogen.

Bird flu — known more formally as avian influenza — has long hovered on the horizons of scientists’ fears. This pathogen, especially the H5N1 strain, hasn’t often infected humans, but when it has, 56 percent of those known to have contracted it have died. Its inability to spread easily, if at all, from one person to another has kept it from causing a pandemic.

But things are changing. The virus, which has long caused outbreaks among poultry, is infecting more and more migratory birds, allowing it to spread more widely, even to various mammals, raising the risk that a new variant could spread to and among people.…  Seguir leyendo »

Prince Harry Is Right, and It’s Not Just a Matter of Royal Gossip

Europa,

Any close follower of the British media should not have been surprised that after Prince Harry fell in love with Meghan Markle, the biracial American actress, years of vitriolic, even racist coverage followed.

Whipping hatred and spreading lies — including on issues far more consequential than a royal romance — is a specialty of Britain’s atrocious but politically influential tabloids.

People like me, uninterested in celebrities, shouldn’t dismiss the brouhaha around Harry’s memoir as mere celebrity tittle-tattle. He has made credible, even documented claims that his own family refused to stand up against their ugly, sustained attacks against Meghan. In other words, it appears that Britain’s most revered institution, funded by tens of millions in taxpayer funds annually, plays ball with one of its most revolting institutions.…  Seguir leyendo »

Hay buenas noticias sobre los refuerzos de las vacunas contra la covid

InternacionalSalud Pública, , ,

Por primera vez, Estados Unidos está lanzando vacunas contra la COVID-19 actualizadas para las variantes que predominan en este momento, así como para la cepa original. Esta bivalencia no solo permitirá responder mejor a las variantes más amenazadoras que existen hoy, sino probablemente también a las futuras, porque, cuando el sistema inmune se enfrenta a distintas versiones del mismo virus, genera unas protecciones generales más amplias.

Esto es una gran noticia, y aún hay más. No solo las dosis de refuerzo de las nuevas vacunas disminuirán la probabilidad de contagios y enfermedades graves, además de ayudar a mitigar la transmisión del virus: también podría reducir la probabilidad de la covid prolongada.…  Seguir leyendo »

I Wish I Could Ask Alaa Abd el-Fattah What He Thinks About the World Now

MundoOriente Próximo,

In early 2011, after huge protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square ended Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade autocracy, many activists who had taken to the streets found themselves in high demand. They were guests on “The Daily Show”. Hillary Clinton, then the U.S. secretary of state, visited the square, remarking it was “extraordinary” to be “where the revolution happened”, and met with some of the activists.

Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the Egyptian activist, intellectual and blogger described as “synonymous with Egypt’s 25 Jan. Revolution” knew the world’s attention would soon move on.

“They’ll soon forget about us”, he told me more than a decade ago.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica,

Como crecí en Turquía, viví mi niñez a la sombra de una fuerte censura y me sentí fascinada por lo que las nuevas tecnologías significarían para el mundo y en especial para la libertad de expresión y el disenso. Ingresé a una escuela de posgrado en Estados Unidos, con el anhelo de estudiar cómo internet y la transformación digital afectan a la sociedad. Tenía un especial interés en las relaciones entre la tecnología, el disenso y las protestas.

Sin embargo, la reacción del gobierno de George W. Bush al 11 de septiembre cambió la manera en la que pasé mi tiempo.…  Seguir leyendo »

Así es como el mundo habría podido evitar la pandemia de la COVID-19

InternacionalSalud Pública, , ,

No es posible bañarse dos veces en el mismo río, se dice que observó el filósofo griego Heráclito. Hemos cambiado nosotros y ha cambiado el río.

Es cierto, pero eso no significa que no podamos aprender algo viendo qué otro curso podría haber tomado el río. Ahora que iniciamos el tercer año de la pandemia, debemos reflexionar sobre esos momentos en que el río se bifurcó y los países tomaron decisiones que afectaron a miles, millones de vidas.

¿Y si China hubiese sido franca y sincera en diciembre de 2019? ¿Y si la reacción del mundo en enero de 2020 hubiese sido tan rápida y enérgica como la de Taiwán?…  Seguir leyendo »

Llegó la variante ómicron y tenemos algunas ventajas

InternacionalSalud Pública, ,

Sabemos muy poco sobre ómicron, la variante del coronavirus detectada en Sudáfrica que, ahora que se avecina el invierno, ha generado pánico en muchas personas. En realidad es una buena noticia. Gracias a las acciones rápidas y honestas de Sudáfrica, el mundo ha podido adoptar medidas para controlar esta variante a pesar de que tenemos pocos datos de estudios clínicos y epidemiológicos.

Así que ahora hay que ponernos a trabajar. Ómicron, que según los primeros datos parece ser más transmisible que la variante delta y tener mayor posibilidad de causar más infecciones posvacunación, podría llegar pronto a Estados Unidos, si no es que ya está en el país.…  Seguir leyendo »

Where Did the Coronavirus Come From? What We Already Know Is Troubling.

InternacionalSalud Pública,

There were curious characteristics about the H1N1 influenza pandemic of 1977-78, which emerged from northeastern Asia and killed an estimated 700,000 people around the world. For one, it almost exclusively affected people in their mid-20s or younger. Scientists discovered another oddity that could explain the first: It was virtually identical to a strain that circulated in the 1950s. People born before that had immunity that protected them, and younger people didn’t.

But how on earth had it remained so steady genetically, since viruses continually mutate? Scientists guessed that it had been frozen in a lab. It was often found to be sensitive to temperature, something expected for viruses used in vaccine research.…  Seguir leyendo »

Facebook pages created by a Russian troll factory, the Internet Research Agency, on display at a House Intelligence Committee hearing last November. Credit Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto Agency

Europa

Given the credible evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, it’s only natural that Americans are concerned about the possibility of further foreign interference, especially as the midterms draw closer.

But I worry that we’re focusing too much on the foreign part of the problem — in which social media accounts and pages controlled by overseas “troll factories” post false and divisive material — and not enough on how our own domestic political polarization feeds into the basic business model of companies like Facebook and YouTube.

It’s this interaction — both aspects of which are homegrown — that fosters the dissemination of false and divisive material, and this will persist as a major problem even in the absence of concerted foreign efforts.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías

Al parecer, los magnates de Silicon Valley creen que pueden arreglar prácticamente todo y se ofuscan cuando sus intentos no son recibidos con gran entusiasmo.

El multimillonario de la tecnología Elon Musk estuvo entre los millones de personas cautivadas por el drama de los doce adolescentes y su entrenador de fútbol que quedaron atrapados en una cueva en Tailandia. Sin embargo, a Musk no le bastó con ver los acontecimientos en las noticias o las redes sociales; él tiene enormes recursos, así que también intentó ayudar.

Dio la orden a sus ingenieros de construir un “minisubmarino” (en esencia, un sofisticado cilindro de metal) con la esperanza de que pudiera usarse para el rescate.…  Seguir leyendo »

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.Credit Jeff Roberson/Associated Press

ReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías,

This week, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, is scheduled to testify before two congressional committees amid the growing outcry over the company’s data collection practices. Because I have been analyzing the potential negative effects of Facebook on politics for a long time, I am fielding a lot of inquiries about what legislators should ask Mr. Zuckerberg.

Here’s my answer: Nothing. We already know most everything we need for legislators to pass laws that would protect us from what Facebook has unleashed.

The sight of lawmakers yelling at Mr. Zuckerberg might feel cathartic, but the danger of a public spectacle is that it will look like progress but amount to nothing: a few apologies from Mr.…  Seguir leyendo »

YouTube, the Great Radicalizer

ReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías

At one point during the 2016 presidential election campaign, I watched a bunch of videos of Donald Trump rallies on YouTube. I was writing an article about his appeal to his voter base and wanted to confirm a few quotations.

Soon I noticed something peculiar. YouTube started to recommend and “autoplay” videos for me that featured white supremacist rants, Holocaust denials and other disturbing content.

Since I was not in the habit of watching extreme right-wing fare on YouTube, I was curious whether this was an exclusively right-wing phenomenon. So I created another YouTube account and started watching videos of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, letting YouTube’s recommender algorithm take me wherever it would.…  Seguir leyendo »

A sample of the ransomware cyberattack on a laptop in Taipei, Taiwan, on Saturday. Credit Ritchie B. Tongo/European Pressphoto Agency

ReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías

The path to a global outbreak on Friday of a ransom-demanding computer software (“ransomware”) that crippled hospitals in Britain — forcing the rerouting of ambulances, delays in surgeries and the shutdown of diagnostic equipment — started, as it often does, with a defect in software, a bug. This is perhaps the first salvo of a global crisis that has been brewing for decades. Fixing this is possible, but it will be expensive and require a complete overhaul of how technology companies, governments and institutions operate and handle software. The alternative should be unthinkable.

Just this March, Microsoft released a patch to fix vulnerabilities in its operating systems, which run on about 80 percent of desktop computers globally.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Truth About the WikiLeaks C.I.A. Cache

MundoAmérica, , ,

On Tuesday morning, WikiLeaks released an enormous cache of documents that it claimed detailed “C.I.A. hacking tools.” Immediately afterward, it posted two startling tweets asserting that “C.I.A. hacker malware” posed a threat to journalists and others who require secure communication by infecting iPhone and Android devices and “bypassing” encrypted message apps such as Signal and WhatsApp.

This appeared to be a bombshell. Signal is considered the gold standard for secure communication. WhatsApp has a billion users. The C.I.A., it seemed, had the capacity to conduct sweeping surveillance on what we had previously assumed were our safest and most private digital conversations.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías, ,  

Donald J. Trump’s supporters were probably heartened in September, when, according to an article shared nearly a million times on Facebook, the candidate received an endorsement from Pope Francis. Their opinions on Hillary Clinton may have soured even further after reading a Denver Guardian article that also spread widely on Facebook, which reported days before the election that an F.B.I. agent suspected of involvement in leaking Mrs. Clinton’s emails was found dead in an apparent murder-suicide.

There is just one problem with these articles: They were completely fake.

The pope, a vociferous advocate for refugees, never endorsed anyone. The Denver Guardian doesn’t exist.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías, ,  

Los simpatizantes de Donald Trump probablemente se alegraron mucho en septiembre cuando el candidato recibió el respaldo del papa Francisco, según un artículo que se compartió cerca de un millón de veces en Facebook. Las opiniones negativas de estos sobre Hillary Clinton tal vez se acrecentaron después de leer un artículo del Denver Guardian, que también se difundió ampliamente en Facebook, en el cual se señalaba que días antes de la elección se había encontrado muerto, en un aparente homicidio-suicidio, a un agente del FBI sospechoso de haber filtrado los correos electrónicos de Clinton.

Pero hay un problema con estos artículos: son completamente falsos.…  Seguir leyendo »

How the Internet Saved Turkey’s Internet-Hating President

Europa, , ,

When I was stuck at the airport in this city in southern Turkey, on Friday night, I had many things to worry about. A coup attempt had just begun and the country was in turmoil. My plane to Istanbul had almost flown into the worst of the fighting, but luckily we were prevented from taking off at the last minute when the airspace was closed.

One thing I did not have to worry about, though, was running out of data on my phone. In the early morning hours, Turkey’s leading cellphone provider topped up the internet allowance of every subscriber. This was more than unusual.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalTerrorismo Internacional,

Is the ability to send encrypted messages making it hard to stop terrorists? That’s what many intelligence officials and politicians have been saying about rumors that the terrorists in France communicated using encrypted services like WhatsApp or Apple iMessage.
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For decades, government officials have been warning about the threat of criminals and terrorists “going dark” — becoming impenetrable to law enforcement surveillance — through the use of encryption. There is a bill in Britain calling for weaker encryption. Here in the United States, Senator John McCain says he will hold hearings in the Senate and propose legislation on this topic, while Hillary Rodham Clinton warned that encryption was a “particularly tough problem.”…  Seguir leyendo »

Internacional

The world is facing the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, a staggering 60 million people displaced from their homes, four million from Syria alone. World leaders have abdicated their responsibility for this unlucky population, around half of whom are children.

The situation is sadly reminiscent of that of refugees fleeing the destruction of World War II and the Nazi onslaught. Then, too, most governments turned their backs, and millions who were trapped perished.

We are mired in a set of myopic, stingy and cruel policies. The few global institutions dedicated to supporting this population are starved of resources as governments either haven’t funded them or have reneged on their pledges of funds.…  Seguir leyendo »