They Promoted Body Positivity. Then They Lost Weight. (NYT)
BY KATIE J. M. BAKER
Do plus-size influencers owe their followers an explanation when their bodies change?
The longtime curve model Gabriella Lascano filmed a TikTok video last year about her decision to lose weight, explaining that she felt “guilty” for being part of the body-positive movement. She told The Times she hadn’t been honest about “the trials and tribulations of gaining weight and getting older.” People accused her of equating thinness with health and of producing content that could be used to “justify fatphobia.” The outrage was so intense that she removed the video.
“I think it’s strange to be so hurt when someone chooses something for themselves,” Ms. Lascano said about the criticism she received.
But influencers’ personal choices affect the community they’ve cultivated, often leaving followers, especially vulnerable young people, feeling disillusioned and adrift. Those who appear to flip-flop can cause “intense feelings of betrayal,” said Sally A. Theran, a clinical psychologist and professor at Wellesley College who has researched parasocial relationships — the one-sided ties people form with media figures and influencers — and disordered eating in adolescence.
Boeing and the Dark Age of American Manufacturing (The Atlantic)
BY JERRY USEEM
Somewhere along the line, the plane maker lost interest in making its own planes. Can it rediscover its engineering soul?
A dark age doesn’t descend all at once. The process of emerging from one also takes time. It must begin with a recognition that something has been lost. Boeing’s fall just might have provided that rush of clarity. You could be from the 12th century and still know that soap and cheesecloth aren’t for making flying machines. Boeing’s chief financial officer recently admitted that the company got “a little too far ahead of itself on the topic of outsourcing.” It is in talks to reacquire Spirit AeroSystems and is already making the composite wings of its next-gen plane, the 777X, in-house at a new, billion-dollar complex outside Seattle. “Aerospace Executives Finally Rediscover the Shop Floor,” Aviation Week declared on the cover of a recent issue.
Revealed: Tyson Foods dumps millions of pounds of toxic pollutants into US rivers and lakes (The Guardian)
BY Nina Lakhani
Nitrogen, phosphorus, chloride, oil and cyanide among the 371m lb of pollutants released by just 41 plants in five years
The water pollution from Tyson, a Fortune 100 company and the world’s second largest meat producer, was spread across 17 states but about half the contaminants were dumped into streams, rivers, lakes and wetlands in Nebraska, Illinois and Missouri.
The midwest is already saturated with nitrogen and phosphorus from industrial agriculture – factory farms and synthetics fertilizers – contributing to algal blooms that clog critical water infrastructure, exacerbate respiratory conditions like asthma, and deplete oxygen levels in the sea causing marine life to suffocate and die.
ONLINE GIG WORK IS FEEDING RUSSIA’S SURVEILLANCE MACHINE (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism)
BY Niamh McIntyre, Leonie Kijewski, Hannes Munzinger, Carina Huppertz, Lukas Kotkamp
TBIJ can reveal that the technology used to repress dissent against Putin’s authoritarian regime is powered by unwitting gig workers in the global south
Now TBIJ, in partnership with Follow The Money and Paper Trail Media, can reveal that the technology used to repress dissent against Putin’s authoritarian regime is powered by unwitting gig workers in the global south. A sprawling global network supporting Russia’s surveillance regime draws in US investment firms, one of Russia’s biggest tech companies and two companies sanctioned for their alleged role in Putin’s oppression.
At the heart of it all is Toloka, a little-known tech platform that recruits the gig workers and raises questions about the effectiveness of EU sanctions. Before a recent restructure, all of Toloka was ultimately owned by Yandex, a Russian tech giant with major shareholders in the west.
War Zone Surveillance Technology Is Hitting American Streets (NOTUS)
BY BYRON TAU
At least two Texas communities along the U.S.-Mexico border have purchased technology that tracks people’s locations using data from personal electronics and license plates.
“These devices are inherently dangerous for the public,” said Jennifer Granick, surveillance and cybersecurity counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. “You have these police departments where officers have access to information like this. This information tells them things about their friends and family. It’s very sensitive information that you don’t want people to randomly have access to.”
“We are well beyond the idea that people have no privacy in public. Here, they’re installing this mass surveillance system. The public doesn’t know about it,” Granick said.
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