#but yeah i was just thinking about all the research papers about how serious covid is

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

Humans are very much a social species. We look to each other without even always noticing, for cues about how to interpret the world around us.

Unfortunately this often leads to people thinking stuff just isn't that serious because if it were, the people around me would be taking it seriously!

But the people around you do not always have the best view of the situation, and they can be wrong.

Some things you have to decide for yourself whether they're worth being concerned about, or worth acting on.

[demigodsanswer]

How did Clarisse gojng into labour affect Percabeth’s baby making plans? Did it put an even bigger damper on everything or did it make them want a baby more? Also have you considered writing a fic for the situation cause I can picture so much chaos and drama.

It did in two key ways: (quick warning, this one does deal with more direct discussion of the virus, rather than the virus just being an unnamed thing perpetually in the background)

The childbirth itself didn’t affect anything, because everyone knows that childbirth hurts. Annabeth did ask to be in the room (although she didn’t really help with anything, she mostly just watched), and she thought that it was pretty remarkable, honestly. 

What did deter her and Percy was when Clarisse, before the baby was born, was actually vulnerable with Annabeth about how hard being pregnant during the pandemic has been. Annabeth made a joke about how every day they flip flop on if they should wait or go for it, and Clarisse got really serious and told her that they should wait: 

“There isn’t a lot of research, but what we have says that covid can result in miscarriage, still birth, and preterm birth. We really spent the last four months worried that we would lose her, or that she would be born too soon and too sick. And we still worry about that, and I’m basically full-term. It’s really been hell. Don’t put yourself through that if you don’t have to.” 

This was reenforced for Annabeth when she watched both parents cry when the baby was born. And not just a “there’s a new and wonderful life in the room” cry, like a true “I didn’t know if you’d live, and I’m so happy to see you,” cry. 

So she and Percy officially decided to put it off until at least six months after a vaccine rolls out. 

Annabeth, though, thinks this might take even longer once she learns about postpartum pain. (This is potential delay #2). 

Because everyone knows childbirth is hard, everyone knows pregnancy is messy, and that babies don’t sleep through the night (actually, fun fact, my mom didn’t know babies didn’t sleep through the night, so the first night i was home from the hospital, she just kept giving me my pacifier to get me to stop crying). But no one talks about how rough postpartum is. 

The day after Maddy is born, Clarisse still looks 6 months pregnant, and Annabeth is just like “???” And Clarisse is like, “Oh yeah, my uterus is still contracting pretty bad to shrink back to its normal size. My vagina hurts like hell and is bleeding a lot, so I’m literally wearing a frozen diaper, and I can’t use toilet paper, so I have to bring a little squirt bottle to the bathroom with me.” 

At this point, Drew, who has never wanted babies at all in anyway, just says, “Wow, I have literally never in my life been so glad that humans invented the IUD.” 

Meanwhile, Annabeth is just thinking, “Huh, maybe we will wait until we’re in our thirties. Or forties.” 

But, generally, all of them were really excited about the baby being born. Once they were all still there in June, they realize they’ll be spending the summer there, so they all get excited about finally meeting the baby. There is a real sense that, yeah sure it’s Chris and Clarisse’s baby, but it’s also all of our baby. Like, they’ve all gone through and dealt with the last few months of virus and mass insurrection together, and the baby being born is the end of a major chapter, but it’s also something be excited about and happy about as a group. And that’s something they’ve all lacked in the last few months. 

Sure, Annabeth is the only one of them in the room during the birth (except Chris, of course), but they all stayed up until she was born to meet her. They all also helped take care of Katherine and Hunter that night. And by 4a.m, they had all gotten to hold her, and introduce themselves to her. It takes a village and all that. 

Pollux also had a few bottles of champaign for them to pop and enjoy together, which they did. Even Clarisse had a few sips, although cautiously because she hadn’t eaten in a number of hours and hadn’t drank in a number of months. 

So it ends up being the lovely and incredible moment and day for all of them, as well as a hilarious birth story.  

Also, I would consider writing the full fic, but I also think it would only appeal to about four people (but then again, most of my content only appeals to like 4 people) 

[miki-agrawal]

Are we really in for a summer of love? A post-vaccine dating investigation.

Dating podcasters, condom companies, bartenders, and college students weigh in on the horny months to come.

Originally Posted On vox.com By Lauren Vespoli On may 3, 2021

How much kissing will happen this summer? Annette Riedl/picture alliance via Getty Images

This story is part of a group of stories called

“I’m excited to go a bit buck wild and feel so much safer,” says Elena, a recently vaccinated college student. “Just go on a lot of dates, make out with some guys, nothing serious.”

The 20-year-old Salt Lake City resident, who asked that her last name be withheld to protect her privacy, is ready to make up for lost time in her romantic life. She did some app dating during the pandemic, but Covid-19 was a constant presence, with several of her dates later telling her they’d been exposed (though she never caught the coronavirus). During quarantine, Elena spent time rehashing missed chances in her love life. “I was just thinking, ‘When I’m out of this, I’m going to make the most of every opportunity,’” she says.

In Manhattan, Marc Hernandez, a bartender at the cocktail bar Ampersand, says that even at 50 percent capacity, the scene — “which has always been one for first dates” — is already feeling like its pre-Covid days. “That gets me thinking that the summer is going to be a little wild,” he says.

“WHEN I’M OUT OF THIS, I’M GOING TO MAKE THE MOST OF EVERY OPPORTUNITY”

“Shot girl summer.” “Vaxxed and waxed.” The “whoring 20s.” As the US becomes increasingly inoculated and the weather continues to warm, the number of Americans who are ready to date is on the rise: A Morning Consult survey for the week ending April 25 found that 53 percent of adults feel “comfortable” dating right now, up 9 percent from the last week in March (although women still feel less comfortable than men). Everyone from Andrew Yang to the bidet company Tushy — which is maintaining a herd-immunity countdown clock at CanIEatAssYet.com — are building anticipation for a hedonistic release of pent-up sexual energy.

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“Hot vax summer is coming,” Insider proclaimed in March. “NYC singles ready for ‘slutty summer’ of casual sex,” screamed the New York Post. Clearly, many are ready to throw themselves back into the social melee. “Touch starvation” is real, and it can increase stress, depression, and anxiety. But after a year of such intense isolation, fear, suffering, and grief — and as the pandemic continues to rage across many parts of the world — the answer to how people will try to make up for lost time and lost touch is more complex than the orgiastic fantasy hawked by Suitsupply.

According to psychologist Amanda Gesselman, associate director for research at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, the pandemic has motivated American singles to look for partners rather than casual sex. While “there will [certainly] be people having the time of their lives” when it’s safe to do so, Gesselman says, “we actually found that people are less interested in no-strings-attached sex than they used to be.” In a recent Kinsey Institute study on post-pandemic sex (conducted in partnership with Cosmopolitan and Esquire), which surveyed 2,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 45, more than half — 52 percent — of singles said they want to find a committed relationship post-pandemic, while about only one in 10 said they’re looking for no-strings-attached sex.

“That was a bit lower than we expected, considering everyone’s locked up and has been for a year,” Gesselman says. That said, as most people have spent more than a year worrying about infection and thinking about how to protect themselves from germs, she reasons the mindset “might be extending to sex with unfamiliar partners.”

“WE ACTUALLY FOUND THAT PEOPLE ARE LESS INTERESTED IN NO-STRINGS-ATTACHED SEX THAN THEY USED TO BE”

Ilana Dunn, co-host of the dating podcast Seeing Other People, says she’s been hearing similar feedback from listeners and friends. “Everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, of course, I’m going to get really drunk and go wild for like, a week. Because we need to do that. But my goal is to find someone.’” In an Instagram poll that received more than 1,000 responses, Dunn says she was surprised to see 88 percent say that as people get vaccinated and the world opens up, they feel more inclined to look for something serious, while 52 percent said they’ll be open to hookups once they’re vaccinated.

Gesselman believes the pandemic has pushed many people to be more introspective about what they want in their lives, particularly younger adults. “When you’re in your mid-20s and you have your entire future ahead of you, and then you just sat through an entire year of social isolation and halted progress, it really makes you think about the things you want in your life,” she says. “I think a lot of people are thinking more towards what would make their future the best rather than what would be good short-term gratification.”

Meanwhile, condom companies are cautiously hopeful demand for their products will continue to grow along with the vaccinated portion of the US population. Male contraceptives saw a 2.5 percent uptick in sales at the beginning of April, according to Ken DeBaene, LifeStyles’ vice president of sales in the Americas, who says he’s “optimistic this is a return to more normalized consumption levels.” (Between late March and mid-April, the sexual wellness industry overall saw a 4 percent sales bump.) LifeStyles is looking at returns to employment in the hospitality and service industries, as well as colleges’ fall opening plans, to help anticipate demand, DeBaene added.

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At LOLA, a feminine care and sexual wellness company, chief marketing officer Monica Belsito says both “self-play and partner play” have been prevalent this year, with the brand seeing a 40 percent spike in lubricant sales and a record number of preorders for its new vibrator. However, as vaccinations of younger populations increase, the company “expects STI protection to steadily increase, creating a demand spike in condoms this summer and fall.”

Many people are also searching for a historical precedent that can shed light on what awaits us in the post-Covid recovery period, from the Roaring ’20s — when the nation indulged after the ravages of World War I and the 1918 pandemic — to 1967’s Summer of Love, when tens of thousands of young people gathered in San Francisco to listen to rock ’n’ roll, experiment with sex and drugs, and protest the Vietnam War.

“If you look at the middle to late 1960s as an opening up after a period of considerable repression in the ’50s, I think the parallel is not unreasonable,” says historian Dennis McNally, who also worked as a publicist for the Grateful Dead. However, he points to the FDA’s 1960 approval of the first birth control pill as a key influence in the sexual liberation movement that climaxed that summer. Even after seeing the hordes of spring breakers that descended upon Miami in March, before vaccines were widely available to younger adults, McNally isn’t convinced the vigilant “pandemic safety” mindset will be banished with vaccines. “The message of all of this is that reality is dangerous, which is a very repressive lesson, and it’s going to take a while, I think, to unlearn that lesson and be able to go out and relax,” he says.

As for the Roaring ’20s comparison often attributed to social epidemiologist Dr. Nicholas Christakis, the timeline he’s laid out doesn’t predict a pendulum swing away from the risk aversion of the present moment until 2024, when vaccines will have been distributed around the world and there’s been more of a recovery from some of the pandemic’s economic devastation. He sees this summer as having the potential to offer “a taste of the past and a hope for the future,” Christakis recently told NPR.

“PEOPLE GO ON A DATE AND NOBODY KNOWS HOW TO TALK ABOUT ANYTHING BESIDES COVID”

Gesselman and Dunn also cite lingering pandemic-induced social anxiety as another obstacle to a bacchanal this summer. “A lot of people didn’t date last year, and I keep hearing from our listeners that people go on a date and nobody knows how to talk about anything besides Covid, and it’s not leading to good date conversations,” Dunn says. And in Gesselman’s research, one of the top fears respondents have cited is not having the ability to protect their own mental health as they reemerge from quarantine. “It seems like people’s biggest concern is when life opens back up and they’re finally able to pursue these connections, ‘What if I get rejected or things go wrong? What happens if disappointment strikes?’” Gesselman says.

Elena, the college student who’s excited to get back to more carefree dating, is also wary of the expectations she and many of her peers are putting on this post-vaccine summer. “I do think people have very, very high expectations, because you kind of need to live your entire life that’s been put on hold for the past year all in this summer, and if they’re not met it’s going to be tough,” she says. “But I think for the most part, people are really down to do anything.”

Tushy is a bidet startup which aims to replace toilet paper, Tushy was founded by Miki Agrawal.

[caeleighsims]

FINAL SCRIPT

(signs to direct him to the room)

Sign on the door (studio sign?)

Name plackets on the table for each “expert”

Cheesy music playing

2. Roll intro to our “show”

Rebeccas’s welcome

“Hi, hello and welcome back to your annual transmission of Good Morning, AMFI.  My name is Rebecca and I'll get this show on the road! I am very happy to welcome all of you and very excited to announce that today‘s talk is about ... Fabulous Fashion Mags!

Aren’t you sick and tired of buying the same old glossy magazines? Of seeing the same covers, photoshoots, brands and even models all the damn time?

Well, we are! Today in the house, live, on screen and in color: representatives of this year’s issue of GARMENT! If you don't know Garment Magazine, it’s time to get an editorial update! The magazine is annually relaunched, honoring a single garment at a time. This issue treats SCARVES as royalty from the cover 'til the very end. Next to the representatives of Garment, we have a special guest over today.

“My sources tell me, that this year's issue is, next to the scarf, all about wittiness and having fun! The status quo is questioned, humor is used as coping mechanism, and the content is putting boring stereotypes into a new spotlight.. Sounds fun, right?

But before we dive into details, I’d like to welcome our panel of Garmenteers!

Please put your hands together for Xenia, the Editor in Chief, Milembe, who makes sure the magazine is printed to perfection! And Caeleigh, curator of all the knee-slapping content found on Garment’s Social Media!”

PAUZE & APPLAUSE  

***Xenia, Milembe, Caeleigh enter***

So Xenia, welcome, you are joining us on screen because you are managing the entire magazine from another part of the globe! ** XENIAS SAYS HELLO** As I mentioned every generation of the magazine revolves around one garment. This year you chose the scarf, an interesting choice if you ask me...what made the scarf the perfect garment for the 2020 issue??”

Xenia: “Even though you might think the scarf is one of the simplest garments that exists, it is actually incredibly versatile. Tell me, do you know of any other garment that you can wear around your neck, on your head, around your waist… literally anywhere. Next to its versatility, the scarf is also a great carrier of meaning. It is basically a fashionable, wearable banner. A scarf communicates, whether this is cultural, religious or empowering matters. A scarf can literally say it all! Besides that, the scarf has been the hottest topic on the catwalks this season, haven”t you seen?”

Rebecca: “I see. So, the scarf can actually send out powerful messages. I understand that your message to the readers is to question the status quo, while having fun. How did you find this approach, and how did you translate the ‘having fun’ part of the brand?”

Xenia: Aren’t we all tired of the humdrum and monotony we are fed by typical glossy magazines? We wanted a fresh take and make it entertaining! By doing this we want to challenge the reader and create awareness among them so they can recognize the stereotypes themselves, and think about how we can do it differently. How are we making sure there’s fun involved? I’ve got one magic word…PARODY. We are playing with the exaggeration of stereotypes, we make them absurd and hilarious. So while having a laugh, we make you wonder: Why are all these ridiculous clichés the norm for magazines at the moment? And why don’t we play around with it more often instead of staying stuck on the same content all the time?”

Rebecca: “I like that! But why do you think we need this now? What makes it so…2020?”

Xenia: “Have you been on social media at all? Hahahaha. When COVID-19 broke out the only thing I saw on there were all these memes about our ridiculous behavior. Even though you might think it’s risky to make fun of a situation like that, I am sure we all secretly laughed. And it actually made me reconsider our behavior. I realized that I don’t actually need to stack up on toilet paper, it’s just straight up absurd! I think that especially now, in times of meme-culture, our target group needs a dose of humor in order to cope with and challenge the crazy, stereotypical ideas that are out there. So yes, I think our magazine concept is very 2020!”

Rebecca: “An interesting outlook, very in line with the Zeitgeist. You made a comment about COVID-19. You’re creating and printing a magazine in times of isolation and social distancing, while the whole team is sprinkled all over the globe! How has this affected your way of working?”

Xenia: “Obviously it was a little, WELL, no, actually very, different from what we expected, but we made the best out of it!! I see the whole team on the screen and communicate via digital platforms, although quite unfamiliar at the beginning, worked out well for us. I would like to give out a special thanks to the team for adapting that fast, since it can be hard communicating when we don’t get to see each other physically. Next to communication, of course, there were some difficulties with getting productions done, such as photoshoots and interviews. But we managed to create all content within the safety measurements made by the Dutch Government.”

Rebecca: “That is great to hear! I can imagine it was a struggle delivering a magazine with all its expected photoshoots, interviews, and content which needs field research in general.  

Speaking of photoshoots: As we know, the major names in the magazine world, such as Vogue, Elle and Harper’s have their editorials filled with well-known brands, which - spoiler alert - are also their biggest sponsors. I assume that you guys did this differently and that you carefully chose which brands to include in the magazine, am I right?”

Xenia: “Yes, definitely. The fashion in the magazine obviously mostly features AMFI Designers. Besides that, we decided to support young and conscious designers, brands that are commonly seen as ‘unconventional’, vintage clothing and of course some digital fashion! “

Rebecca: “I’m excited to see all the brands and designs in the magazine! One thing makes me curious, how was the process of finding AMFI designers for collaborations?”

Xenia: “It was a struggle sometimes, as we wanted to include current designs and many of the designers weren’t in Amsterdam for us to borrow their creations. On top of that, most of them were pre-occupied with their own Corona worries. However, with helping hands from all departments we were able to reach a good number of designers and used their designs for our shoots and cover.”

Rebecca: “I think it is truly amazing what you guys have managed to create in such wild times. Now, I have been asking myself, Milembe: how on earth do you get a magazine printed during quarantine?”

Milembe: “It sure has been a lot of phone calls and discussions with different print shops. But all is looking good, and our pre-sales are rising daily!”

Rebecca: “Where can I buy mine? It truly sounds like a worthwhile investment, which is important because we are killing trees for it after all. Sustainability is an ever-present topic, and you guys have been taking this very seriously, am I right?  

Milembe: “You can buy the magazine with one of our students or at Athenaeum Boekhandel. We also have a distributor who makes sure the magazine is sold in stores all over Europe.

Sustainability is very important to us indeed. That's why we chose a sustainable printer. They print with sustainable ink, we chose recycled paper and the printer is CO2 neutral. They invest in planting new forests as well. So yeah, I think it’s fair to say that we are trying to take eco-friendly to the next level!”

Rebecca: “Now I don’t know about you, but these experts got me really excited to see this magazine! I think it’s time to stop the talking and start seeing what it looks like! Xenia, I’ll pass the mic onto you, and let’s have a look into this mag!”

6. Xenia walks through the plank

PLEASE FILL IN

8. Explanation of social (ask questions to Caeleigh)

Rebecca: “Well that was very exciting, I can’t wait to get mine delivered! But before it comes to that, I can enjoy all the content you are showing on your social channels! Because yes, Garment has been very active on social media, and dear viewers if u are not following them I strongly advise you do so.

This morning before coming here, I actually did some serious stalking online. When I took a look at the Instagram account of Garment magazine I found all the wit, the fun and the parody representing your magazine. You really got me with the memes, the ironically long list of hashtags and your interactive and surprising stories. I was laughing out loud and tagged all my friends instantly!

So Caeleigh, as the mastermind behind all these productions, can you start with telling me something about all the different social platforms you’re using?

Caeleigh: “As of now we have mainly been active on Instagram. And by posting daily, uploading frequent stories, using hashtags, and creating content that that encourages interaction and reposting, we have managed to steadily grow our following. Other than that, we will soon be making use of IGTV, and posting more frequently on Facebook once we start uploading articles and content onto our website… which just went live today!

Rebecca: “I can imagine it takes a lot of creativity to make all posts for these platforms. How do you come up with the designs for social, the images, the captions, the memes, the gifs and all? In other words, how are you translating the magazine to online?”

Caeleigh: “I think the most important thing for us has been to pay very close attention to the magazine development in the workshops. And we also have people from image, design and text on the Social team that provide great insight into each department. We always use the same colours, fonts, graphic elements and tone of voice to keep it all within the brand. And the magazine has even taken on a couple of ideas of ours as well. Like a horoscopes spread, for example. And finally, every post we upload is either discussed in the workshops, or sent to Xenia and the other leads for approval before going live.”

Rebecca: “It is really great to see how everything comes together like that, giving us a holistic idea of your brand identity. Now I don’t want to spoil things, but I heard some rumors about a Garment reality show… That would definitely be something I have never seen with Garment before!”

Caeleigh: “Yes! definitely something new for us... which is really exciting. We were brainstorming ideas on how we could make our viewers more invested in the process that goes on behind the scenes of Garment Magazine. And instead of just showing snippets of content here and there, we came up with the idea to create a whole storyline for people to follow along, where we introduce them to all the jobs on an editorial team and their role within the company. We decided to embrace the idea of parodying reality television, playing into the tropes of what people consider "fashion people" to be like. Again, inviting our viewers to laugh at the exaggeration of these stereotypes and question how or why they exist.”

Rebecca: “I can’t wait for this!!! How often will it be produced and where can I check it out?”

Caeleigh: “So, we will be filming on June 8, with a crew of 6 actors, a director and a cameraman. We're also getting help from an editor in Toronto. But the bottom line is, you should all expect to see 5 episodes posted bi-weekly, with the last one airing at our launch!”

Rebecca: “A launch event? During quarantine? What can I expect this to look like?!”

Caeleigh: “It's definitely going to be unlike the launches from past years. At first, we bounced back and forth between a couple of online ideas, but since this quarantine has dragged on for so long we've noticed that people are getting really tired of just staring at their screens all day. Now that the laws regarding social distancing have become more lenient, we're planning to use this to our advantage and plan a very small pop-up event. The idea is for it is to be a maze-like event, almost like an art installation, where each section or room is a different theme, in line with the magazine. Expect to see parodies of cliches found at award shows, articles in the magazine brought to life, and an over-the-top Tell-Sell booth at the end where you can purchase your own copy of Garment. Obviously, we'll stay in contact with the RIVM to make sure the protocol is followed properly at all times and people are safe.

Rebecca: “This all sounds very promising, but quite difficult to handle all by yourself. Will you make use of any sponsors or partners?”

Caeleigh: “Yes, of course. We already have our location sponsored, as they are willing to offer a very significant discount on the space. Next to that we've been reaching out to Dutch beverage companies to see if they would be willing to sponsor our event as well. We only just changed the whole launch plan last week, but there's been an impressive amount of progress made already.”

Rebecca: “Thank you Caeleigh, looks like you’ve got it all figured out. Please keep posting and please make sure to send me an invite for the event!”

9. Go over to Milembe

Rebecca: “So, I would like to move over to this lovely lady, the queen of print, Milembe! I understand Garment is quite a big production. Can you tell me precisely how many magazines will be printed?”

Milembe: “We'll print 1250 magazines to be precise. Last year a number of 1500 were printed but quite a lot were left over. Selling this year will be a lot more difficult than last year because of these weird times. This is why we decided that it would be good to slightly reduce the copy count, also keeping sustainability and less waste in mind.”

Rebecca: “Good number! I would definitely be able to get my hands on one of these gems. Right?”

Milembe: “Pre-sales continue to rise despite the extenuating circumstances”

Rebecca: “Wow, that’s great!!! Must help in financing the print, but how else are you handling the finances for the production? Maybe you can give our special guest Dirk a closer look into this?”

*** Milembe hands over the financial overview and shortly explains to Dirk what he can find inside this document ***

10. Sign off “thanks for tuning in / Questions

Rebecca: “Now that we’ve seen every inch of Garment’s scarf issue. From concept, to social media, to finances, I would like to thank you all for joining in. Especially our team of experts and our VIP Dirk! I can’t wait to see the end-product and I hope we got you excited as well! In case our special guest or the audience have any questions, now is the time to ask!”

[shirlleycoyle]

Am I a Jerk for Refusing to Use a Coronavirus Contact Tracing App?

More than 280,000 people globally have died from COVID-19. As countries begin to contain the pandemic, and consider slowly reopening their economies, more than twenty governments are developing and pushing citizens to use apps designed to detect when someone gets in contact with an infected person, and track how the infection spreads.

After years of privacy and surveillance scandals, from the Snowden revelations to Cambridge Analytica, people are wary of such apps. A recent survey found that more than half of Americans would not want to use this kind of app, and a contact tracing app will not work if more than half of the population refuses to use it. A recent study from Oxford estimated that for contact-tracing to be effective, at least 56 percent of the population needs to use the app. On top of it all, it’s not even clear how this kind of app would really help.

All this raises the question: is it ethical to refuse using contact tracing apps during a deadly global pandemic?

We asked Brent Mittelstadt, a bioethicist from the Oxford University Internet Institute who has studied the ethical implications of health monitoring devices, and the digital ethics surrounding the use of personal data for health research.

Mittelstadt was also the lead author on a 2018 academic paper that attempted to explain whether people have a moral duty to participate in digital epidemiology, a field that studies the use of people’s internet and mobile data with the goal of tracking epidemics.

“When there is a serious threat to population health—such as in light of a possible pandemic—public health measures infringe on individual rights and interests for the sake of collective interests, i.e. the health of a population,” Mittelstadt and his colleagues wrote in the paper.

The researchers laid out eight “justificatory conditions,” such as a strong public interest to prevent disease, or the “minimal amount of identifiable data necessary is being used,” to help people assess and decide whether there’s a moral duty to opt-in and participate in an epidemiological study or install an app that has the purpose of tracking an epidemic or pandemic.

I caught up with Mittelstadt by phone last week. What follows is an edited version of our conversation.

Let's start with a personal question: Am I an asshole for putting privacy above anything else and refusing to use a Coronavirus tracking app? Brent Mittelstadt: It's an interesting way of putting it. [LAUGHS] No, no. I mean, you can't make a blanket statement like that. Certainly not.

I can absolutely understand—I have hesitation about using a contact tracing app myself. I think it's very reasonable to have concerns about it.

I think at least here in the UK—I've been focusing much more on the development of contact tracing in the UK and EU more than in the US—it seems like there's been an absence of a positive case to reassure people on some of the privacy concerns where that reassurance is justified. But then also just to make this positive public health case, like: 'Hey, you know, you could actually be a significant help in fighting this thing.' I feel like the privacy side of it has really sort of overshadowed the rest of it.

Is it just because of all the stories about Cambridge Analytica and other privacy issues in the last few years? Or is it because governments have not been good at communicating what you just said: that this is more important, perhaps, more important than privacy that it is about saving lives? Yeah, I think before the pandemic started privacy and data protection were certainly on the minds of a lot of people in Europe, in the UK, and in the USA. You have GDPR of course in Europe, you have the Californian Privacy Act.

Basically [privacy] was a relatively hot topic before the pandemic started. I think it's also in a way a very reasonable or very predictable response to a pandemic situation. This positive case that I'm talking about it's like: you can help save lives and here's why. Here's what you'd be giving up in terms of privacy or here's what you'd be giving up in terms of data. And here's how that data that you're giving up could actually be helpful.

For example, making an argument for a particular app design or collecting a particular type of data that may or may not be on the table in other countries, all of that depends on evidence of efficacy or evidence of the utility of those things. You can make an argument for it up front, when you're actually designing the app, but you can't prove it, you can only prove it months or years down the line, once the thing already exists. There's a lot of uncertainty around the utility side and the efficacy side.

Have you studied, analyzed, or designed any COVID-19 contact-tracing apps? We’d love to hear from you. You can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, OTR chat at lorenzofb@jabber.ccc.de, or email lorenzofb@vice.com

Because there is this absence of evidence I think it's quite natural to then turn to topics that feel much more concrete and privacy is one of those. If we know the type of data that the apps would collect, for example, then we can start to imagine all the different ways that those types of data could be misused.

It's also uncertain how the data will actually be used in the future. But we can look at past instances, like Cambridge Analytica, for example, and have a much more serious prediction about how these things can be misused in the future. There's been a lot of that, for example, around sharing identifiable data through these apps sharing your contact networks, which could have huge epidemiological benefit or utility. But that case hasn't or almost cannot be made at this point. So it's quite understandable to be very concerned about it.

Considering all you've said about the current circumstances, and especially considering the extraordinary nature of this pandemic, do I have a moral duty to participate in something like that, downloading an app to save lives? To be honest it's such a hard question to answer right now because some of the apps have been rolled out already. The one in the UK, the NHS app, is currently being tested, and it's being picked apart as we speak by engineers to see how it works exactly. But a lot of the concerns would be ways that the data that's being collected could actually be repurposed in the future, used for broader surveillance. A lot of the concerns, rightly so, are around future surveillance that's enabled by this sort of technology becoming commonplace or socially accepted.

So, I don't know. I'm torn on it because at least in the UK, I don't think we're at a point where I could definitely say even just to friends and family that there is an obligation—a moral duty—to use this app. I think it's very easy to say: look, if you're willing to accept the risks, the uncertainty that maybe the data could be used in ways you wouldn't completely agree with in the future. And maybe—in an ideal situation—you would not be sharing data, say, about your contact networks.

If you're willing to take on those risks yourself, then it can be effectively just an altruistic act to say yes, I am going to use this app because it could potentially help other people or save the lives of other people.

This is all sort of separate from the political conversations which should be going on at the same time around setting clear limits on how long the data is retained for, how long the app functions for, how the data can be reused in the future. Those conversations should absolutely be going on simultaneously. And even if we say now that it can be an altruistic act, it can be a good thing to use the the apps because of their potential utility, it doesn't then give a blank check to public health authorities or to government to say: "okay, society has accepted this so we can use it however we please."

In the paper we were focusing primarily on potential moral duties on individuals to participate in epidemiological research. But there's also duties on the other side, placed on researchers and on data controllers, or whoever it is that's actually governing the systems. I think it's really important to remember that. We have to have some level of faith in our ability to govern things through law, through policy, through ethical frameworks. We've built these things up over time, and it feels like in a crisis situation, we're suddenly forgetting that actually, hey, we do have—depending on the country—relatively robust regulatory frameworks that can help us in these situations.

Given the magnitude of this pandemic, is there a case for governments to make the adoption of an app like this mandatory? It would be really interesting to know what that would look like in specific countries. Because as soon as you start thinking about it being mandatory, then you run into the problem of who actually has phones that are capable of running it? What are the demographics of people that don't have access to phones, don't have access to the internet? What sort of problems do you run into in terms of bias in your data and the representative mess of your data? How are you going to actually address those problems?

I think in the UK, there are not significant enough safeguards in place. There's not nearly a strong enough framework in place yet to say that yes, it could justifiably be made mandatory. That's just on the downloading and actually using the app question. The question of making it mandatory for the purposes of say, limiting access to employment, or travel, or restaurants, or just society in general, that, to me is a completely different question. And something that should not even be on the table at this point.

Why is that question or discussion completely different? If you're talking about making it mandatory as a way to basically limit people's access to society, to employment, we're talking about things that are connected to fundamental human rights. To suddenly turn around and use the pandemic as a excuse to severely limit people's ability to exercise their rights, to me that would require a completely different sort of justification, one that would not be accepted certainly within Europe, that I would hope in the U.S. as well, though I take nothing for granted in the U.S. in terms of politics.

This is sort of a complete authoritarian turn, where you're saying, okay, we're not just going to handle it by trying to detect cases early, we're actually going to prevent new cases by locking people down in their houses or preventing them from essentially participating in the economy and society.

How much does consent from citizens play into this whole discussion? How much importance should we give to consent? You should always give it significant importance. It's one of the strongest protections that we have in Western society around medical research. And that shouldn't change. We're seeing quite a bit of importance being attached to it where apps are being designed so that you disclosing that you've had a positive test for COVID is actually voluntary, that it's your choice to upload that to a public health authority and to researchers. And the same goes for downloading the app in the first place.

I feel like we need to, because we have examples of countries that have successfully contained the virus without going towards more invasive options such as mandatory app usage or mandatory uploading of different types of identifiable data. The ideal here is that you would always ask for consent, that you would always respect people's privacy as much as you possibly could.

Anything else that you would like to tell people like me who don't really have any experience in this and may be soon faced with this dilemma? I think because of our recent experiences with Cambridge Analytica and misinformation campaigns the immediate gut reaction a lot of people will be to say, “no, I'm not going to use that because that's not information I want to share with anybody, or my privacy is more important than what's been asked for here.” I would just urge people to give some serious consideration, to really talk to other people and actually take a look at what is being offered not just in terms of the design of the apps, but also the governance of them.

Keep up with the evidence and see whether it turns out that these apps are particularly useful, or if they are being repurposed for other means, and are actually being used in a way that doesn't match up with the initial bargain that was being presented to the public.

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Am I a Jerk for Refusing to Use a Coronavirus Contact Tracing App? syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/