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Daily Archives: July 2, 2018

Reports show bias against women in public safety agencies; men oblivious

Washington Post [paywall]: “Two new reports show how hard it is for women to shoot through Uncle Sam’s glass ceiling, even when they carry guns. Studies by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Justice Department’s inspector general demonstrate that in federal public safety and law enforcement occupations, it’s still a man’s world — and men can be oblivious to the barriers they erect for women. While “the majority of men in our focus groups and interviews told us that they had not previously thought about gender equity or discrimination,” the inspector general’s report said, “many women, especially Criminal Investigators, described their experiences with discrimination and gender bias in a manner that showed how significant and personal this topic was to them.”

This comment from Inspector General Michael Horowitz shows the degree of gender discrepancies: “In 2016, women held over 57 percent of non-Criminal Investigator positions, but they only held 16 percent of Criminal Investigator positions. And during the 6-year period we examined, there were few women leading field offices, field divisions, or districts in the four law enforcement components, and even fewer in headquarters executive positions leading operational units.”

New gov’t data continues to question safety of most US supermarket meat

“This week EWG crunched federal testing data from the Food and Drug Administration, and found that more than three-fourths of American supermarket meat is tainted with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or superbugs. The report was a follow up to a 2013 EWG report, but not much has changed in the past five years. EWG also released a… Continue Reading

Web creator Tim Berners-Lee focuses on fixing the web

Vanity Fair/Hive: “I Was Devastated: Tim Berners-Lee, the Man Who Created the World Wide Web, Has Some Regrets. Berners-Lee has seen his creation debased by everything from fake news to mass surveillance. But he’s got a plan to fix it… “…Berners-Lee, who never directly profited off his invention, has also spent most of his life… Continue Reading

AP reports – High-tech deception of ‘deepfake’ videos

AP News -I never said that! “…New technology on the internet lets anyone make videos of real people appearing to say things they’ve never said. Republicans and Democrats predict this high-tech way of putting words in someone’s mouth will become the latest weapon in disinformation wars against the United States and other Western democracies. We’re… Continue Reading