“an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture,” originating in the same root as “imitation.”

Now imagine doing it in front of millions of people and the international media. And imagine doing it without the benefit of a true celebrity’s phalanx of staff and bodyguards or the lucre such a status normally confers. Instead, all you have is that same vulnerability before a vast crowd that feels entitled to the most intimate parts of your life. How difficult would it be to conduct that relationship on your own terms?

The problem, of course, was that she was telling a story about two people who had no idea they’d been cast as leads in a riveting story for thousands of strangers.

But someone who sends pipe bombs to Democrats; plows through a crowd of anti-racism protesters in Charlottesville, Va.; or shoots up a church in Charleston, S.C., will not face domestic terrorism charges.

You can dig into this if you want, and look through the numerous links in that Wikipedia page that support this description.

Published in 2010, Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, offers a three-fold story.  It is the story of the development of the first immortal human cell line (called HeLa) and the scientific advances facilitated thereby. It is also the story of the African American woman from whom the cell line came: Henrietta Lacks was the great-great granddaughter of slaves, who grew up in extreme poverty in Virginia in the 1920s and who died of an aggressive cervical cancer in 1951 in the ward for “colored people” at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Finally, it is the story of her family members, who had no idea about the existence, importance and the financial gains made from HeLa cells until Skloot began her research.   This book sparked more than just an HBO film by the same name starring Oprah Winfrey, it also sparked an attempt at broad policy change in the U.S. regarding consent procedures for human tissue research. Currently, the regulations on research with human subjects issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate informed consent for the use of biospecimens in research when those specimens are taken specifically for the purpose of research. However, no informed consent for research use is required for tissue samples taken in the course of clinical practice. In 2015, HHS proposed a rule change to give patients much greater control over the use of their biospecimens in research. Yet this effort failed due to backlash from the scientific community.   In this paper, I shall address some of the major arguments against such regulatory changes. For instance, Chadwick & Berg stress a duty to participate in research for the benefit of others; Knoppers & Chadwick further criticize the emphasis on individualism and autonomy over the value of solidarity in contemporary research ethics and policy. My aim is to counter these arguments and to support the proposed regulatory changes in the U.S. regarding tissue research. I hope to highlight important contemporary lessons we have yet to fully appreciate from the case of Henrietta Lacks.

That day in Erika Johnson’s high-school biology class, some 20 years ago, is seared into her memory. The teacher was leading the students through experiments involving cells from a widely used line known as HeLa. The cell line originated from tissue taken from a woman named Henrietta Lacks — and Johnson’s mother was a Lacks. “This is my great-grandmother I’m holding in my hand,” Johnson remembers feeling. “It was a very surreal situation.”Last month marked 100 years since Lacks’s birth. She died in 1951, aged 31, of an aggressive cervical cancer. Months earlier, doctors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, had taken samples of her cancerous cells while diagnosing and treating the disease. They gave some of that tissue to a researcher without Lacks’s knowledge or consent. In the laboratory, her cells turned out to have an extraordinary capacity to survive and reproduce; they were, in essence, immortal. The researcher shared them widely with other scientists, and they became a workhorse of biological research. Today, work done with HeLa cells underpins much of modern medicine; they have been involved in key discoveries in many fields, including cancer, immunology and infectious disease. One of their most recent applications has been in research for vaccines against COVID-19.But the story of Henrietta Lacks also illustrates the racial inequities that are embedded in the US research and health-care systems. Lacks was a Black woman. The hospital where her cells were collected was one of only a few that provided medical care to Black people. None of the biotechnology or other companies that profited from her cells passed any money back to her family. And, for decades after her death, doctors and scientists repeatedly failed to ask her family for consent as they revealed Lacks’s name publicly, gave her medical records to the media, and even published her cells’ genome online. (Following an outcry, the genome was soon removed.) Nature later published the genome of another HeLa line1 after the Lacks family reached an agreement with the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to approve its release. Racism in science: the taint that lingers Now, the extraordinary events of 2020 — the #BlackLivesMatter movement for racial justice, and the unequal toll of COVID-19 on communities of colour — are compelling scientists to reckon with past injustices. Some have called for a reduction in the use of HeLa cells in research, or even an end to their use entirely. The argument is that, because the cells were obtained without Lacks’s knowledge or consent (even though this was legal at the time), any use of them is unethical and perpetuates an injustice.But that is not what many Lacks family members want. Henrietta Lacks has dozens of descendants, several of whom are leading a new effort in her centennial year, #HELA100, that instead calls for people to celebrate her life and legacy. “I want scientists to acknowledge that HeLa cells came from an African American woman who was flesh and blood, who had a family and who had a story,” her granddaughter Jeri Lacks-Whye told Nature.And there is so much to her story. Henrietta Lacks loved to cook — spaghetti was a favourite — and she loved to dance, often with one of her five children in her arms. She dressed stylishly and wore red nail polish. She was the emotional and psychological centre of a home where the extended family gathered and where the door was always open to anyone in need.To her grandson Alfred Lacks Carter, the most important thing about HeLa cells is how they have advanced cancer research — a fitting tribute, given that Lacks died of the disease. Many people have also told him that they were able to conceive a child because of in vitro fertilization, which was developed with the help of HeLa cells. “They were taken in a bad way but they are doing good for the world,” he says. And they do so for people of all ethnicities.Policy reviewOver the past decade, scientists and the Lacks family have worked together to establish stronger rules to govern the use of these precious specimens. But there is still much work to be done.First is action on consent. NIH director Francis Collins has signalled that he wants the research community to consider changing the Common Rule, the set of policies that protect human participants in research funded by the US government2.This revision would require consent to be obtained from anyone from whom biological specimens are taken before the samples are used in research — even if the specimens are “deidentified” from the person they came from. Most popular human cell in science gets sequenced Earlier efforts to make this change failed in 2017, but now is the time to revisit the Common Rule, and to reconsider the question of consent. In the past, some researchers have warned that this would impose additional burdens. But a compromise must be found. The last time the US Department of Health and Human Services worked to revise the Common Rule, it proposed a series of other changes at the same time; perhaps one way forward is to tackle the question of consent for biospecimens on its own, and with thorough discussion involving not only scientists, but also the public.A second, separate step must be to acknowledge and undo the disparities that are baked into basic research — because the systemic racism that existed when Lacks’s cells were taken still exists today.In the current climate of reckoning with racial injustice, some researchers who use HeLa cells have concluded that they should offer financial compensation. For example, a laboratory at the University of California, San Diego, and a UK-based biomedical company have announced donations to the Henrietta Lacks Foundation, which was established in 2010 by Rebecca Skloot, the author of a book about Lacks. The foundation awards grants both to Lacks’s descendants and to family members of others whose bodies have been used without consent for research. Other institutions and researchers must examine whether — and how — their own work builds on past injustices. And they must consider how best to make amends.COVID-19, a disease that is disproportionately affecting Black people in a number of countries, offers an opportunity for those who wish to usher in a fairer era of research. To give back now, researchers should not only study why the disease is more prevalent and severe among Black people, but also help to implement solutions to close the gap. And, once a vaccine is available — possibly as a result of work with HeLa cells — researchers must work with marginalized communities to see that it reaches those who need it most.The fact that Lacks’s cells were taken in a different era of consent will never justify what happened. The past cannot be undone, but we must acknowledge the wrongs of previous generations, and those wrongs that persist today. Justice must be done, and the time to start is now. Nature 585, 7 (2020)

According to the Daily Beast, the Trump administration even disbanded a unit in the Department of Homeland Security dedicated to domestic terrorism and right-wing extremists, upsetting many intelligence and law enforcement officials.

Pressley: How many extremist murders has the FBI linked to Black Lives Matter or similar black activist groups? McGarrity: We don’t work Black Lives Matter it’s a movement. It’s an ideology. We don’t work that. Pressley: So the answer is none. Can you just say that for the record? There has been no killing that the FBI can link to black Lives Matter or similar black activist groups, to your knowledge.McGarrity: To my knowledge—I’d have to go back—but to my knowledge, right now, no

Holden embraced the choice that had been made for him; his companion clearly hasn’t. She’s since taken her Instagram offline after receiving some harassing comments, at least one of which was related to Blair’s speculation about what happened when the pair simultaneously got up to use the restroom (and Holden’s cheeky comment that “a gentleman never tells” when asked about it). Of course, the sexual implication is something he’d be praised for, while the woman is attacked.

As with so much else that is mediated by the internet, the medium’s dissociative effects prevent us from centering the humanity of the people involved.

The mystery man revealed himself on Twitter as former soccer player Euan Holden and gave Blair permission to share his Instagram and reveal his name. He has eagerly taken a liking to his newfound social media fandom and embraced the moniker of “Plane Bae,” even appearing on NBC’s Today to bask in the attention.

Richard Dawkins is credited as having coined the term in The Selfish Gene (1976). Memes are the units that transmit ideas, behaviors, styles and usage within a culture through a variety of media, like nursery rhymes passed down from parent to child.

so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.”

Lantagne and Patel agree on the inability of copyright law to fully address the subject of memes, given their cultural importance as what Lantagne calls “pure engines of expression with their own symbolic vocabulary” while also relying, in Patel’s words, on “massive unauthorized copying” to attain such importance.

Truog, Robert D.Kesselheim, Aaron S.Joffe, StevenSource:Science. 7/6/2012, Vol. 337 Issue 6090, p37-38. 2p.

When a story is truly breaking, this is what it looks like. Our technique here is simple. Select some relevant text. Right-click or Cmd-click to search Google When you get to Google don’t stop, click the “News” tab to get a more curated feed Read and scan. Investigate more as necessary.

Or maybe — here’s a thought — find a similar article from some other site that hasn’t been called a white supremacist organization by half a dozen mainstream groups. Because no matter what you think of the article, funneling friends and family to a site that has published such sentences as “When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears” is not ethical — or likely to put you in the best light.

In this case, the URL does match. What does this look like if the site is fake? Here’s an example. A while back a site at bloomberg.ma impersonated the Bloomberg News site. Let’s see what that would look like: You do the same steps. In this case Bloomberg News is not the top result, but you scroll down and click the Bloomberg News link, and check the URL and find it is different. If you’re lazy (which I am) you might click that link to get to the real site.

More people than you would think believe that the blue checkmark = trustworthy. But all the blue checkmark really does is say that the person is who they say they are, that they are the person of that name and not an imposter.

The FBI said it has stopped using the "Black Identity Extremist" tag and acknowledged that white supremacist violence is the biggest terrorist threat this country faces.

Today, these incredible cells — nicknamed "HeLa" cells, from the first two letters of her first and last names — are used to study the effects of toxins, drugs, hormones and viruses on the growth of cancer cells without experimenting on humans. They have been used to test the effects of radiation and poisons, to study the human genome, to learn more about how viruses work, and played a crucial role in the development of the polio and COVID-19 vaccines.Although Mrs. Lacks ultimately passed away on October 4, 1951, at the age of 31, her cells continue to impact the world.

e of artistic methods to treat psychological disorders and enhance mental health is known as art therapy. Art therapy is a technique rooted in the idea that creative expression can foster healing and mental well-being.1

I wryly grin at these fulanos and let my smile speak on my behalf. It answers, “Yes, bitch, in México, there are things to publicize such as our own fucking opinions about YOU.”

More people than you would think believe that the blue checkmark = trustworthy. But all the blue checkmark really does is say that the person is who they say they are, that they are the person of that name and not an imposter.

oday’s news reveals that Russian-connected entities were trying to spoof sites like the Hudson Institute for possible spear-phishing campaigns. How do we know if the Hudson Institute site we are on is really the real site? Here’s our check: The steps: Go up to the “omnibar” Strip off everything after the domain name, type wikipedia and press enter This generates a Google search for that URL with the Wikipedia page at the top Click that link, then check in the sidebar that the URL matches. Forty-nine out of fifty times it will. The fiftieth time you may have some work to do.

One of the things I’ve been trying to convince people for the past year and a half is that the only viable literacy solution to web misinformation involves always checking any information in your stream that you find interesting, emotion-producing, or shareable. It’s not enough to check the stuff that is suspicious: if you apply your investigations selectively, you’ve already lost the battle.

she perceives her own country through the eyes of a pearl-clutching American tourist.

Of course, the sexual implication is something he’d be praised for, while the woman is attacked.

McGarrity: We don’t work Black Lives Matter it’s a movement. It’s an ideology. We don’t work that. Pressley: So the answer is none. Can you just say that for the record? There has been no killing that the FBI can link to black Lives Matter or similar black activist groups, to your knowledge.McGarrity: To my knowledge—I’d have to go back—but to my knowledge, right now, no.

always checking any information in your stream that you find interesting, emotion-producing, or shareable. It’s not enough to check the stuff that is suspicious:

Once you accept that, certain things become clear. Your methods of checking have to be really quick. They have to be habitual, automatic. They can’t be cognitively expensive. And those who teach media literacy have to be conscious of this trade-off between depth and efficacy and act accordingly.

We are all watching each other, mining each other’s lives for “content” that we give for free

This is the Faustian alchemy of social media: we are all given the opportunity to become celebrities in an instant, sometimes for nonsensical reasons, with or without our input.

Seemingly innocent cases, like that of “Plane Bae,” are small warning signs on the road to our even more networked future. We are all watching each other, mining each other’s lives for “content” that we give for free to large corporations who then monetize it.

Respondents to the original thread, in thrall to the “love story” and eager to thwart Blair’s half-hearted attempts at anonymizing the pair, soon found and shared the woman’s Instagram. Holden embraced the choice that had been made for him; his companion clearly hasn’t.

But we gain virtually none of the benefits of that fame, none of the glamor or the institutional support to help deal with the invasiveness of celebrity and how it can eat away at every boundary you ever took for granted.

Instead, all you have is that same vulnerability before a vast crowd that feels entitled to the most intimate parts of your life. How difficult would it be to conduct that relationship on your own terms?

ABC News implied that Holden said “there’s still hope” for the relationship, though this framing is at odds with what Holden actually said, which seemed to be a more generic statement about hopefulness. That narrative frame is a reminder of the story everyone here is being coerced into. They must get together.

We are all watching each other, mining each other’s lives for “content” that we give for free to large corporations who then monetize it.

Yet the identities of both were inevitably pursued and eventually discovered. At a certain level of virality, you cannot stop motivated people on the internet from piercing your veils. In the case of that woman from Blair’s flight, her legions of “fans” are digging day and night to find more information, to meet the female lead of this summer’s hottest rom-com. They want to know what happens next. They want to make her finish the story. Go on a date; now kiss; now get engaged; tell us what it was like. We need to know more. More. More.

Seemingly innocent cases, like that of “Plane Bae,” are small warning signs on the road to our even more networked future. We are all watching each other, mining each other’s lives for “content” that we give for free to large corporations who then monetize it. “Plane Bae” didn’t just benefit Twitter, a company badly in need of good PR, but also T-Mobile, whose savvy CEO swooped in to offer Blair a reimbursement on the Wi-Fi she purchased to write her thread.

Meme creators and posters have been sued for using people’s images without permission, especially those who were not already public figures.

Memes are the units that transmit ideas, behaviors, styles and usage within a culture through a variety of media

There is no official definitive answer for whether a use can be considered fair, as every case must be judged on its own merits, but there are some types of use generally allowed under fair use, including criticism and commentary, parody, journalism, education, and research.

Stacey M. Lantagne expands on this in Famous on the Internet: The Spectrum of Internet Memes and the Legal Challenge of Evolving Methods of Communication (2017), in which she identifies use ranging from “static,” a relatively straightforward reproduction of an image, to “mutating,” in which the role of the internet is directly responsible for the meme’s alteration from the original to the point that “[m]utating memes, because of their unique characteristics, are more like ideas,” thus unprotected under copyright.

Merriam-Webster defines “meme” (pronounced “meem”) as “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture,” originating in the same root as “imitation.”

In 2003, the parents of the unwilling star of the “Star Wars Kid” video sued their son’s classmates for posting the video online. Though the suit was settled, the video did not disappear, and the Star Wars Kid learned to deal with his fame.

Similarly, the DMCA was used to quash parodies of the German World War II movie “Downfall.” In 2010, the movie’s production company, Constantin Films, started pulling these parodies from YouTube, to which meme creators had little recourse. However, Constantin Films did not sue anyone, so it is unknown whether the parodies might have been considered fair use.

Says Dawkins, “[j]ust as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.”

Richard Dawkins is credited as having coined the term in The Selfish Gene (1976). Memes are the units that transmit ideas, behaviors, styles and usage within a culture through a variety of media, like nursery rhymes passed down from parent to child.

Meme creators and posters have been sued for using people’s images without permission, especially those who were not already public figures. In 2003, the parents of the unwilling star of the “Star Wars Kid” video sued their son’s classmates for posting the video online. Though the suit was settled, the video did not disappear, and the Star Wars Kid learned to deal with his fame.

Image-based memes are easy to create and easy to spread, though whether they will go viral is never a given. If you create or post one, remember to pay attention to the source of the image. Your best bet is to start with an image or clip that is already labeled for reuse or is in the public domain, meaning out of copyright protection altogether. Google Images search tools provides such a filter, or try the Creative Commons search for work licensed for reuse via Creative Commons licenses. When you see a meme going around, give a thought to the subject of that meme image, whose life may forever be changed.  

When Nikki Adams turned to yoga to heal the trauma she endured as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, she found that the same spaces which often preached inclusivity were unwelcoming.

he most challenging aspect of using yoga is that it is not a “one size fits all” solution.  Some survivors need a community or space where they can speak or write about their emotions. Other survivors feel like they need more of a physical workout. And sometimes it’s a combination of all of these. Each survivor is different, and I wouldn’t push yoga on someone as a guaranteed way to help someone heal. I just know that it has worked for me, and I encourage other survivors to find their “yoga,” whatever that might look like.

Her life immediately changed. After the attack, she started experiencing flashbacks, nightmares and anxiety. She sought help from professionals but felt that talk therapy and medications weren’t providing the kind of recovery she needed.

“Trauma,” Bessel van der Kolk explains, “is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body.”

Jenkins remembers the first time she met her. Elaine was very agitated, in a constant state of hyper-arousal, “alert to every movement in the room, every sound, even the rise of my eyebrow,” Jenkins says. But when it came to talking about her emotions, Elaine shut down.

Bessell van der Kolk: Overcome Trauma With Yoga 103,308 views103K viewsSep 5, 20183K I like this 28 I dislike this Share Share Save

Many women in this study described yoga as an empowering practice due to feeling more regulated and in touch with their bodies. Ms. S., a 42-year-old Latina married social worker, had been physically and sexually abused by her father from middle school through late high school. She entered the study after 5 years of trauma-focused talk therapy and had a CAPS score of 60 and a DES score of 10 at the baseline assessment. During the course of the study, she attended 16/20 yoga classes and practiced an average of 43 min per day at home, even practicing while away on vacation. She mentioned that her husband commented on her “Zen-like” ability to maintain focus during her yoga practice. Ms. S. was able to use this skill in other aspects of her life, as she indicated in a note on her homework sheet: “The yoga has helped me be able to pay attention to the rhythm of my breathing, which has helped me be able to run, which I have never been able to do before. I ran for 2¼ miles for the first time in my life.” At the post-treatment assessment, her CAPS score was 25, and at the 1-month follow-up assessment, her CAPS score was 14, indicating that she was asymptomatic and experienced >50% reduction in reported symptoms

Another important aspect of the Yoga classes at the Trauma Center is the development of community. As the author and trauma clinician Judith Herman has noted, trauma survivors typically feel deeply alienated from society.

As students develop the ability to make choices for them-selves based on their own internal feedback, they are learn-ing that their feelings matter and that they can take effective action to make themselves feel better.

Identifying how the body feels is very difficult for trauma survivors who have, in many cases, been avoiding noticing their bodies or neglecting to care for their bodies for a prolonged period of time. Making choices to lessen pain, strain, or discomfort may be more challenging still.

Along with the principals discussed above, Trauma Center Yoga teachers keep in mind the healing benefits of two key elements of a group Yoga practice: making choices and community. The process of being traumatized involves a fundamen-tal lack of choice—you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Your choices as an individual did not matter. What happened happened, despite your complete insistence that it not happen. This can result in a deeply damaged sense of agency in the world and a complete lack of faith that you can do anything to improve your situation or change things to better suit yourself

e decided that trauma-sensitive Yoga was not so much about getting students to do something but more about invitingthem to try something. As a result of this decision, we came up with what we call Invitatory Language

For many trauma survivors, physical assists are a clinical issue and should be treated with great care and attention. We do not offer physical assists for the first several months of an open Yoga class and would suggest not doing physical assists at all if your class is limited to several weeks in dura-tion. Verbal assists, however, can be very valuable and will show that you are attending to your students in a nurturing way, while respecting their physical space and the integrity of those boundaries. For example, rather than physically ad-just a student’s posture, you might suggest that the student try a block or blanket to make a posture more accessible.

An essential aspect of recovering from trauma is learn-ing ways to calm down, or self-regulate. For thousands of years, Yoga has been offered as a practice that helps one calm the mind and body. More recently, research has shown that Yoga practices, including meditation, relaxation, and physical postures, can reduce autonomic sympathetic ac-tivation, muscle tension, and blood pressure, improve neuroendocrine and hormonal activity, decrease physical symptoms and emotional distress, and increase quality of life.10-21 For these reasons, Yoga is a promising treatment or adjunctive therapy for addressing the cognitive, emotional, and physiological symptoms associated with trauma, and PTSD specifically

Given the prevalence of trauma exposure in our society, effective treatment interventions for individuals who develop PTSD are essential. Unfortunately, trauma has long-lasting effects on mental health and is extremely treatment-resis

And despite the insistence of the president, Steve King and every guest on Fox News that there are bad people on “both sides,” including Black Lives Matter terrorists

Scan the stories. If you want to be hypervigilant, scan for sources you recognize, and consider sharing one of the stories featuring original reporting instead of the tweet.

But I end up coming back to this simple stuff because I can’t shake the feeling that digital literacy needs to start with the mirror and head-checks before it gets to automotive repair or controlled skids. Because it is these simple behaviors, applied as habits and enforced as norms, that have the power to change the web as we know it, to break our cycle of reaction and recognition, and ultimately to get even our deeper investigations off to a better start.

This review is unique in being the first systematic review and quantitative synthesis of yoga interventions for psychological symptoms following trauma and is a first attempt to summarize the existing literature in this growing field.

This review is unique in being the first systematic review and quantitative synthesis of yoga interventions for psychological symptoms following trauma and is a first attempt to summarize the existing literature in this growing field.

Yoga may be a promising treatment for trauma sequelae, given research that supports yoga for general distress, specifically in decreasing physical symptoms and emotional distress and increasing quality of life (for a review, see, e.g., Emerson et al., 2009). Because the experience of trauma is physically impactful both during (e.g., in the midst of domestic violence, sexual abuse, combat, natural disasters) and after (e.g., alterations in physiological stress responses) the trauma, mind and body connections may be particularly healing. A systematic review demonstrated that those who have experienced a trauma were 2.7 times more likely to have a functional somatic syndrome (e.g., chronic pain, temporomandiular disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome) than those who did not report experiencing a trauma (Afari et al., 2014); these results are similar in studies examining specific types of trauma, for example, sexual abuse (Finestone et al., 2000). Thus, as Afari et al. (2014) express, effects of the experience of trauma that alter one’s cognitive and behavioral responses may also result in the expression of somatic changes. From evidence suggesting how traumatic stress has lasting impacts on the body, van der Kolk (2006) suggests that the most effective treatments involve (a) increasing one’s tolerance of the physical sensations in one’s body, (b) regulating arousal, and (c) learning effective actions in the body, which are particularly important after the experience of peritraumatic physical helplessness. Interoceptive, body-oriented therapies, which allow for more physical and mental self-awareness and mindfulness, may be promising interventions for trauma survivors. Yet, the current state of evidence-based treatments for posttraumatic stress lack these components. For instance, due to high noncompleter rates and residual symptoms, the National Academies Health and Medicine Division (formerly the Institute of Medicine [IOM]) deems that PTSD treatment outcomes do not have sufficient certainty in their effectiveness (Institute of Medicine Committee on Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, 2008

As a way to address physiological dysregulation and somatic symptoms, scholars have begun to explore the use of mind-body practices (Minton et al., 2006; Salmon, Lush, Jablonski & Septon, 2009). Techniques that increase mindfulness of internal states and physiological responses to internal and external stimuli have especially demonstrated promise in addressing the way trauma is held in the body (Follette, Palm, & Pearson, 2006; Ware, 2007). Recent studies have also shown that mindfulness-based interventions reduce PTSD symptoms and improve functioning by increasing the capacity to recognize, tolerate, and utilize internal states and ease the physical co-morbidities often associated with PTSD (Boden et al., 2012; Thompson, Arnkoff, & Glass, 2011; Vujanovic, Youngwirth, Johnson, & Zvolensky, 2009).

ut I end up coming back to this simple stuff because I can’t shake the feeling that digital literacy needs to start with the mirror and head-checks before it gets to automotive repair or controlled skids. Because it is these simple behaviors, applied as habits and enforced as norms, that have the power to change the web as we know it, to break our cycle of reaction and recognition, and ultimately to get even our deeper investigations off to a better start.

Investigation admitted that prejudiced assumptions against the Black Lives Matter movement, Muslim Americans and black identity extremists was all a lie. Intelligence officials sat in front of lawmakers and openly admitted that white supremacists and right-wing violence are the biggest domestic terror threat but also admitted that federal agencies aren’t really doing anything about it.

One of the things I’ve been trying to convince people for the past year and a half is that the only viable literacy solution to web misinformation involves always checking any information in your stream that you find interesting, emotion-producing, or shareable. It’s not enough to check the stuff that is suspicious: if you apply your investigations selectively, you’ve already lost the battle.

I can’t get these processes down to a two second mirror-and-head-check, but I can get them close.

Container and Packaging Recycling Law

The newest hotspots for handling US plastic recycling are some of the world’s poorest countries, including Bangladesh, Laos, Ethiopia and Senegal, offering cheap labor and limited environmental regulation.

The value of plastic, glass and aluminum has decreased, forcing many redemption centers to shut their doors, despite a state subsidy program designed to help them weather market downturns.

I'm so glad you shared this and I'm so, so, so glad that you're doing okay. I'm sure it's strange to read it - but I was worried about you. I'm sure a lot of us nameless, faceless people out here were.I cried reading this. I've been there. I'll probably be there again. Thank you for being brave enough to share more of your journey with us.

And in these dangerous and unsure times, in the midst of it all, I think the thing that we have to hold on to is other people. And I know that is a small thing made up of small moments, but I think it is one tiny, tiny sliver of light in all the darkness. 

t can feel like you are writing in this personal, intimate diary that's completely private, yet at the same time you want everyone in the world to read it. And I think part of that, the joy of that is that we get to experience things from perspectives from people who are completely different from ourselves, and sometimes that's a nice thing. 

“For us, it slows things down. We try to integrate people back to humanity,” Mr. McAleer said. “If isolation and shame is the driver for people joining these types of groups, doxxing certainly isn’t the answer.”

Now the online hunt to reveal extremists has raised concerns about unintended consequences, or even collateral damage. A few individuals have been misidentified in recent weeks, including a professor from Arkansas who was wrongly accused of participating in the neo-Nazi march.

But doxxing has emerged from subculture websites like 4Chan and Reddit to become something of a mainstream phenomenon since a white supremacist march on Charlottesville,

The next year, doxxing became a tool by in the “GamerGate” controversy, an online dispute purportedly about ethics in video game journalism that became a foundational moment for some of today’s fringe far right. Mostly male video-game players began to publish personal information — including home address and phone numbers — for women in their community, typically journalists and game designers who they said were unfairly politicizing gaming culture.

It is not as though they are hiding their identities.

Now the online hunt to reveal extremists has raised concerns about unintended consequences, or even collateral damage. A few individuals have been misidentified in recent weeks, including a professor from Arkansas who was wrongly accused of participating in the neo-Nazi march.

The next year, doxxing became a tool by in the “GamerGate” controversy, an online dispute purportedly about ethics in video game journalism that became a foundational moment for some of today’s fringe far right. Mostly male video-game players began to publish personal information — including home address and phone numbers — for women in their community, typically journalists and game designers who they said were unfairly politicizing gaming culture.

But the two young men pictured were not the bombers. At one point, Reddit sleuths even set their sights on a student from Brown University, about 60 miles away in Providence, R.I., who was missing. He had nothing to do with the bombing; he had committed suicide.

“People went berserk,” Ms. Coleman said. “That, to me, was this interesting turning point where it showed the general public would be willing to jump into the fray.”

White supremacists marched with torches during a rally in Charlottesville, Va.Credit...Edu Bayer for The New York Times

SAN FRANCISCO — Riding a motorized pony and strumming a cigar box ukulele, Dana Cory led a singalong to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.”“You’re a Nazi and you’re fired, it’s your fault,” she sang. “You were spotted in a mob, now you lost your freaking job. You’re a Nazi and you’re fired, it’s your fault.”“All together now!” Ms. Cory, 48, shouted to a cheering crowd in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood on Saturday. They were protesting a rally planned by far-right organizers about a mile away.“Dox a Nazi all day, every day,” she said.

he problem, of course, was that she was telling a story about two people who had no idea they’d been cast as leads in a riveting story for thousands of strangers.

In the case of that woman from Blair’s flight, her legions of “fans” are digging day and night to find more information, to meet the female lead of this summer’s hottest rom-com. They want to know what happens next. They want to make her finish the story. Go on a date; now kiss; now get engaged; tell us what it was like. We need to know more. More. More.

Seemingly innocent cases, like that of “Plane Bae,” are small warning signs on the road to our even more networked future. We are all watching each other, mining each other’s lives for “content” that we give for free to large corporations who then monetize it. “Plane Bae” didn’t just benefit Twitter, a company badly in need of good PR, but also T-Mobile, whose savvy CEO swooped in to offer Blair a reimbursement on the Wi-Fi she purchased to write her thread.

The problem, of course, was that she was telling a story about two people who had no idea they’d been cast as leads in a riveting story for thousands of strangers.

It was, after all, the digital equivalent of must-see TV. “Have not been this riveted since the final episode of Lost, and this *didn’t* piss me off! Amazing!” wrote one Twitter user in reply to Blair’s thread. “Please @TheEllenShow have a look on it! We need to know more about this happy end,” wrote another. Blair should be credited, if nothing else, with spinning the relatively unremarkable behavior of two strangers into such a simple but compelling story.

This is the Faustian alchemy of social media: we are all given the opportunity to become celebrities in an instant, sometimes for nonsensical reasons, with or without our input. But we gain virtually none of the benefits of that fame, none of the glamor or the institutional support to help deal with the invasiveness of celebrity and how it can eat away at every boundary you ever took for granted.

Experts say that we would need to implement changes across the board. Legislators may need to pass laws requiring manufacturers to use more recyclable materials, companies would need to build much-needed recycling infrastructure and people would need to recycle properly.

Given the immense harm inflicted on individuals and groups of color via prejudice and discrimination, it becomes imperative for our nation to begin the process of disarming, disrupting, and dismantling the constant onslaught of micro- and macroaggressions.

n the United States, the omnipresence of racial bias and bigotry has led many to question the reasons for their persistence in light of widespread public condemnation. Social scientists have proposed a number of reasons for people’s failure to act: (a) the invisibility of modern forms of bias, (b) trivializing an incident as innocuous, (c) diffusion of responsibility, (d) fear of repercussions or retaliation, and (e) the paralysis of not knowing what to do (Goodman, 2011; Kawakami, Dunn, Karmali, & Dovidio, 2009; Latané & Darley, 1968; Scully & Rowe, 2009; Shelton, Richeson, Salvtore, & Hill, 2006; Sue, 2003).

I have received numerous texts and emails from white friends recently — checking in, asking whether I’m okay. I appreciate the concern, and I want everyone to know I’m fine. Well, I’m as fine as I’ve been since 1982. That’s when, after my family moved to a new neighborhood in Chicago, a group of white kids tried to blow up our car by sticking a rag in the gas tank and lighting it on fire.

Of course, white people, like everyone else, face genuine hardships, but these hardships do not negate white privilege. Consider the difference in responses to the suffering of black people during the crack cocaine epidemic and that of rural whites during the opioid epidemic. O

This will not be easy. The price of justice — the loss of privilege — will be a painful shock.

As Frederick Douglass said, without struggle, there is no progress. Let’s struggle together for our collective soul.

Meanwhile, I hope college students will go forth, outside the campus bubble, and help people. The relationships they form will generate orders of magnitude more wisdom and understanding about people unlike themselves than any social-justice dogma.

The high school volunteers mentioned above and the special-needs community with whom they allied are both better off for the fact that service to others through outward action was emphasized, rather than inward reflection on privilege.

This is this really kind of a generational upheaval. We can either make some serious structural changes, redistribute power and wealth in a way that we haven't been willing to consider in the past.

I think at the time of the Rodney King beating it was easier to view it as an isolated incident or as a few bad apples. But now, over time, we see a persistent and pervasive pattern. Over years and years.

I think a lot of people, when they saw that video of George Floyd, who weren't in the black community, felt agony.

The protests and marches today you see are multiethnic, multicultural, even multigenerational. And the allyship is something that is more pronounced now than it perhaps once was.

In a 2014 report by the Sentencing Project, a national nonprofit, 68% of Black respondents said the U.S. justice system is biased against Black people compared with 25% of whites. The report went on to say that white perceptions of overall fairness led to greater levels of punitive sentencing for people of color.

n the early 2010s, as grassroots Black demonstrations emerged after the killings of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York City, both state and federal government were again there to watch. Protest and advocacy organizations such as Black Lives Matter and government-labeled “Black Identity Extremists” are being monitored and infiltrated.[15]

ervasive government surveillance in America is not a new phenomenon. Government monitoring and suppression of Black speech and conduct has been an essential feature of American society far before the public at large realized the potential dangers of widespread surveillance. Although privacy is a national value, it has been an elusive concept for Black people in America.

Many people know that during World War II, innocent Americans of Japanese descent were surveilled and detained in internment camps. Fewer people know that in the wake of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson openly feared that black servicemen returning from Europe would become “the greatest medium in conveying Bolshevism to America.” Around the same time, the Military Intelligence Division created a special “Negro Subversion” section devoted to spying on black Americans. Near the top of its list was W.E.B. DuBois, a “rank Socialist” whom they tracked in Paris for fear he would “attempt to introduce socialist tendencies at the Peace Conference.”

We now find ourselves in a new surveillance debate—and the lessons of the King scandal should weigh heavy on our minds. A few months after the first Edward Snowden revelation, the National Security Agency disclosed that it had itself wiretapped King in the late 1960s. Yet what happened to King is almost entirely absent from our current conversation. In NSA reform debates in the House of Representatives, King was mentioned only a handful of times, usually in passing. And notwithstanding a few brave speeches by senators such as Patrick Leahy and Rand Paul outside of the Senate, the available Senate record suggests that in two years of actual hearings and floor debates, no one ever spoke his name.  

However, within copyright law exists the doctrine of fair use, which allows for use of a copyrighted work in the creation of new work without permission, as long as the use fits within certain parameters.

Image-based memes are easy to create and easy to spread, though whether they will go viral is never a given. If you create or post one, remember to pay attention to the source of the image. Your best bet is to start with an image or clip that is already labeled for reuse or is in the public domain, meaning out of copyright protection altogether.

Algorithms are taking over – and woe betide anyone they class as a 'deadbeat' This article is more than 1 year old Zoe Williams

The more difficult question concerns whether scoring systems’ source code, algorithmic predictions, and modeling should be transparent to affected individuals and ultimately the public at large. Neil Richards and Jonathan King astutely explain that “there are legitimate arguments for some level of big data secrecy,” including concerns “connected to highly sensitive intellectual property and national security assets.”146 But these concerns are more than outweighed by the threats to human dignity posed by pervasive, secret, and automated scoring systems

05 - Citron & Pasquale Article.docx (Do Not Delete)3/26/2014 2:47 PM14 WASHINGTON LAW REVIEW[Vol. 89:1 and data behind them.73 Software engineers construct the datasets mined by scoring systems; they define the parameters of data-mining analyses; they create the clusters, links, and decision trees applied;74 they generate the predictive models applied.75 The biases and values of system developers and software programmers are embedded into each and every step of development

05 - Citron & Pasquale Article.docx (Do Not Delete)3/26/2014 2:47 PMTHE SCORED SOCIETY: DUE PROCESS FOR AUTOMATED PREDICTIONSDanielle Keats Citron* & Frank Pasquale**Abstract: Big Data is increasingly mined to rank and rate individuals. Predictive algorithms assess whether we are good credit risks, desirable employees, reliable tenants, valuable customers—or deadbeats, shirkers, menaces, and “wastes of time.

One of the most shocking things that many of us learned when the Covid-19 pandemic was first landing on our shores, and we were weighing the pros and cons of closing the schools, was that for tens of millions of American kids, going to school represents the only guarantee of a decent meal on any given day. I’m pretty confident that most of the kids we’re talking about here aren’t white. And whatever you think about the opportunities in this country and whatever individual success stories you can call to mind, there is no question that some of us start on third base, or second base. Everyone has a lot to deal with, of course. Life is hard. But not everyone is a single mom, or single grandparent, struggling to raise kids in the inner city, all the while trying to keep them from getting murdered. The disparities in our society are absolutely heartbreaking and unacceptable. And we need to have a rational discussion about their actual causes and solutions. We have to pull back from the brink here. And all we have with which to do that is conversation. And the only thing that makes conversation possible is an openness to evidence and arguments—a willingness to update one’s view of the world when better reasons are given.

How much of this is inequality due to the legacy of slavery? And how much of it is due to an ensuing century of racist policies? I’m prepared to believe quite a lot. And it strikes me as totally legitimate to think about paying reparations as a possible remedy here.

with social media, we’ve all been enrolled in a psychological experiment for which no one gave consent, and it’s not at all clear how it will turn out. And it’s still not clear how it will turn out, but it’s not looking good. It’s fairly disorienting out there. All information is becoming weaponized. All communication is becoming performative. And on the most important topics, it now seems to be fury and sanctimony and bad faith almost all the time.

In some cases, our use of cellphone cameras has the potential to liberate us when directed at the state, subjecting the powerful and privileged to forms of accountability that they’re not used to. That’s been made plain by the significant role of cellphone video in the movement against police brutality.

The story’s charm disguises the invasion of privacy at its heart: the way technology is both eroding our personal boundaries and coercing us in deleterious ways.

unintended consequences

Online vigilantism has been around since the early days of the internet. So has “doxxing” — originally a slang term among hackers for obtaining and posting private documents about an individual, usually a rival or enemy.

’m talking with professor Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist and the Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. We talk about racial disparities, policy, and equality, but we really focus on How to Be an Antiracist, which is a groundbreaking approach to understanding uprooting racism and inequality in our society and in

Why are so many unarmed black people being killed by police while armed white people are simply arrested? Why are officials addressing violent crime in poorer neighborhoods by adding more police instead of more jobs?

Ms. Williams, a real estate marketing director and food blogger, also tweeted at the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, which took an immediate interest.

The Friday that Mr. Williams sat in a Detroit police interrogation room was the day before his 42nd birthday. That morning, his wife emailed his boss to say he would miss work because of a family emergency; it broke his four-year record of perfect attendance.In Mr. Williams’s recollection, after he held the surveillance video still next to his face, the two detectives leaned back in their chairs and looked at one another. One detective, seeming chagrined, said to his partner: “I guess the computer got it wrong.”

The stakes are too high in criminal investigations to rely on unreliable—or wrong—inputs. It is one thing for a company to build a face recognition system designed to help individuals find their celebrity doppelgänger6 or painting lookalike7 for entertainment purposes. It's quite another to use these techniques to identify criminal suspects, who may be deprived of their liberty and ultimately prosecuted based on the match. Unfortunately, police departments' reliance on questionable probe photos appears all too common.

This List Of Books, Films And Podcasts About Racism Is A Start, Not A Panacea

And it will be a multipart process.

Sheree Atcheson

The designation no longer exists?” Pressley asked.“It hasn’t existed since I’ve been here for 17 months,” McGarrity replied. “We are not using ‘black identity extremists’ as a term or for a group.”Advertisement

there’s no domestic terrorism charge.”To be clear, there is a law that defines domestic terrorism but not one that charges people who commit acts of terrorism in America. People who conspire with international terrorists—even if they aren’t materially involved in an act of violence—are charged with “

The subcommittee noted that there was a 17 percent increase in reported hate crimes in 2017 from the previous year and a 31 percent increase since 2014. And in spite of the ADL’s report that white supremacists were responsible for 78 percent of extremist murders in 2018, the FBI still dedicates most of its time, money and manpower to investigating and stopping international terrorism. According to the Daily Beast, the Trump administration even disbanded a unit in the Department of Homeland Security dedicated to domestic terrorism and right-wing extremists, upsetting many intelligence and law enforcement officials. cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '4e065883-27be-43c1-b568-898f10d3390b' }).render('f10c6314028348d6baed500a30d59066'); }); G/O Media may get a commissionSave Your Floors From Dirt and Grime With $130 off a Dyson V10 Cordless Vacuum From NeweggDyson V10 Cordless Vacuum (Refurbished)Buy for $270 from Newegg“The FBI has testified the bureau allocates its resources almost exactly backwards than the problem would suggest,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said. “Devoting 80 percent of field agents to stopping international terrorism including Islamic extremism and only 20 percent to stopping domestic terrorism including far right and white supremacist extremism.”

Pressley: How many extremist murders has the FBI linked to Black Lives Matter or similar black activist groups? McGarrity: We don’t work Black Lives Matter it’s a movement. It’s an ideology. We don’t work that. Pressley: So the answer is none. Can you just say that for the record? There has been no killing that the FBI can link to black Lives Matter or similar black activist groups, to your knowledge.McGarrity: To my knowledge—I’d have to go back—but to my knowledge, right now, no.

McGarrity explained that right-wing extremists like the Tree of Life Synagogue shooter in Pittsburgh were charged with hate crimes instead of domestic terrorism simply because “there’s no domestic terrorism charge.”To be clear, there is a law that defines domestic terrorism but not one that charges people who commit acts of terrorism in America. People who conspire with international terrorists—even if they aren’t materially involved in an act of violence—are charged with “acts of terrorism transcending international boundaries.” But someone who sends pipe bombs to Democrats; plows through a crowd of anti-racism protesters in Charlottesville, Va.; or shoots up a church in Charleston, S.C., will not face domestic terrorism charges.

Gregory McMichael “stated he was in his front yard and saw the suspect from the break-ins ‘hauling ass’” down the road, according to the police report. McMichael “stated there have been several Break-ins in the neighborhood and further the suspect was caught on surveillance video,” the report said. But where is the surveillance video linking Arbery to a recent burglary? And McMichael’s neighborhood had gone seven weeks without a reported burglary, a local police lieutenant recently told CNN. The last reported burglary was on January 1, when a 9-mm pistol was stolen from an unlocked truck outside the McMichaels’ home.

Go up to the “omnibar” Strip off everything after the domain name, type wikipedia and press enter This generates a Google search for that URL with the Wikipedia page at the top Click that link, then check in the sidebar that the URL matches. Forty-nine out of fifty times it will. The fiftieth time you may have some work to do.

There are some hard problems with misinformation on the web. But for the average user, a lot of what goes wrong comes down to failure to follow simple and quick processes of verification and contextualization. Not after you start thinking, but before you do.

Your methods of checking have to be really quick. They have to be habitual, automatic. They can’t be cognitively expensive.

If you’re a human being reading this on the internet and if you’re not a time traveler from some future, better world, there is less than a one in a hundred chance you do the sort of checks we’re showing regularly. And if you do do this regularly — and not just for the stuff that feels fishy — then my guesstimate is you’re about two to three standard devs out from the mean. Now imagine a world where checking your mirrors before switching lanes was rare, three standard-deviations-out behavior. What would the roads look like? Well, it’d probably look like the Mad Max-like smoking heap of collisions, car fires, and carnage that is our modern web.

digital literacy needs to start with the mirror and head-checks before it gets to automotive repair or controlled skids. Because it is these simple behaviors, applied as habits and enforced as norms, that have the power to change the web as we know it, to break our cycle of reaction and recognition, and ultimately to get even our deeper investigations off to a better start.

ut never before have the cries carried this kind of muscle. Among American voters, support for the Black Lives Matter movement grew in the first two weeks of protests almost as much as it did in the preceding two years.

supplement protests with other actions, such as supporting black-owned businesses and donating to bail funds and advocacy groups.

The killing of Mr. Floyd, Mr. Boyer said, brought a shift in perceptions of what Mr. Kaepernick was trying to achieve. “Whereas kneeling was received as such a divisive gesture, it’s sort of become a uniting gesture,” he said. “But it takes a lot more to actually change” the system that athletes like Mr. Kaepernick are protesting against.

The ACLU of Southern California has fought for decades against police abuse and for policing that is equitable, transparent and democratic. In the courts, in city halls, in the legislature, the ACLU SoCal has challenged excessive force, racial profiling, broken-windows policing and dragnet surveillance.

The FBI came under heavy criticism in 2017 for creating the designation ”Black Identity Extremist” as a discriminatory measure to target racial-justice advocates for surveillance and prosecution. Similarly, the DHS memo appears to wrongly characterize peaceful, anti-racist groups carrying out protests as worthy of invasive and persistent surveillance. “We are concerned that biases and inaccuracies reflected in the ‘Race Paper’ could result in unconstitutional law enforcement activities throughout the country that disproportionately impact activists, protesters, and communities of color,” reads the letter. The signers include 18 Million Rising, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Brennan Center for Justice, the Center for Media Justice, Color Of Change, Free Press, the Muslim Justice League, the NAACP, the National Lawyers Guild, Project Censored, the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

So here it is. And here is what it expresses — my utter shock that when talking to some otherwise intelligent adults about the fact that we are not educating our students to be critical consumers of web content, or to use networks to solve problems, etc — my utter shock that often as not the response to this problem is “Well, if students would just stop getting information from the web and go back to books, this whole problem would go away.”

Meme creators and posters have been sued for using people’s images without permission, especially those who were not already public figures. In 2003, the parents of the unwilling star of the “Star Wars Kid” video sued their son’s classmates for posting the video online.

In using images taken from creative works or private life, memes show how copyright law intersects with issues of internet use and privacy.

Image-based memes involve, primarily, an image created by somebody. Sometimes the meme creator is also the image creator, but often, when involving movie stills or images of celebrities, the image’s copyright is owned by someone else. American copyright law gives creators the exclusive rights of reproduction, modification, distribution, performance, and display. The viral spread of a meme infringes on theses protections as the original image is modified and then displayed, distributed and reproduced when posted and reposted.

Lantagne notes that if memes are considered a form of communication, they are also subject to the limits placed on speech including the rights of others to privacy.

. If you create or post one, remember to pay attention to the source of the image.

When you see a meme going around, give a thought to the subject of that meme image, whose life may forever be changed.

Meme histories are tracked from first appearance, providing a reference of viral memes.

When memes or the subjects of a meme are used for commercial purposes without permission, the meme creator may sue, as the effect of the commercial use on the market value of the original meme usually prevents a finding of fair use.

Lantagne and Patel agree on the inability of copyright law to fully address the subject of memes, given their cultural importance as what Lantagne calls “pure engines of expression with their own symbolic vocabulary” while also relying, in Patel’s words, on “massive unauthorized copying” to attain such importance.

“[j]ust as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.”

she identifies use ranging from “static,” a relatively straightforward reproduction of an image, to “mutating,” in which the role of the internet is directly responsible for the meme’s alteration from the original to the point that “[m]utating memes, because of their unique characteristics, are more like ideas,” thus unprotected under copyright.

Meme creators and posters have been sued for using people’s images without permission, especially those who were not already public figures. In 2003, the parents of the unwilling star of the “Star Wars Kid” video sued their son’s classmates for posting the video online.

Sometimes the meme creator is also the image creator, but often, when involving movie stills or images of celebrities, the image’s copyright is owned by someone else. American copyright law gives creators the exclusive rights of reproduction, modification, distribution, performance, and display. The viral spread of a meme infringes on theses protections as the original image is modified and then displayed, distributed and reproduced when posted and reposted. However, within copyright law exists the doctrine of fair use, which allows for use of a copyrighted work in the creation of new work without permission, as long as the use fits within certain parameters. A legal finding of fair use takes into account the following factors: The purpose of the use, The amount of the work to be used, The effect of the use on the market for or value of the original work, and The nature of the copyrighted work. There is no official definitive answer for whether a use can be considered fair, as every case must be judged on its own merits, but there are some types of use generally allowed under fair use, including criticism and commentary, parody, journalism, education, and research.