Quiz #70. Twitter-
How did Twitter ruin my night hours after the Twitter security breach--and what do I plan on doing about it? Steve's Stay-at-Home Coronavirus for July 16, 2020.
Twitter ruined my night on Wednesday, July 15th. I’ll tell you why, but--fair warning--it may ruin your day.
Beginning late Wednesday afternoon, some of the most prominent users on Twitter, were breached. From Barack Obama to Bill Gates, from Apple to Wendy’s. Messages sent from these accounts included a pitch for bitcoin.
My first response when I saw this happening on Twitter Wednesday was to immediately change the password for my Twitter account. No one came after @stlewisoil (at least not yet), but changing the password likely would not have helped those who were breached. By Wednesday night, Twitter announced that the breach involved Twitter’s own internal security system being compromised, allowing the hackers to make posts seemingly without the typical security credentials of a password.
Think of it as a bank or corporate entity dipping into your online account to make some kind of internal correction--except this was a hacker somehow inside Twitter’s security system.
Twitter responded by briefly shutting down all verified Twitter accounts--those with blue checks, a special status in the Twitter universe. Watching Twitter Wednesday evening, I was struck by the number of established, verified users who had backup accounts--including Brian Stelter from CNN’s Reliable Sources.
I am not a tech writer, but those who are, are warning of the implications that this breach could have for an information site like Twitter. Imagine if instead of asking for bitcoin, the hackers had targeted the accounts of world leaders and corporations to spread misinformation at a time of crisis or during the election. Twitter is a major source of news and information and it’s hard to imagine a world without news from Twitter.
I work in TV news--and when Twitter was having problems Wednesday afternoon, there was a fleeting thought that the crush of news might also somehow slow down with Twitter sidelined for a while. Ha! It did not happen--and, of course, the collapse of Twitter was its own breaking news story.
Twitter and social media have changed the news industry over the course of my career. The news cycle is shorter and shorter--and things now happen very quickly. There are services like Dataminr that aggregate Twitter feeds from across the world, alerting news organizations, corporations and world leaders to almost any first report on Twitter of anything that might be news. That first report can come from anywhere or anyone, but with services that search for phrases like “active shooter,” the news travels fast. To use a metaphor that’s all too familiar these days, Twitter spreads news like a virus. Once something is somewhere on Twitter, pretty soon it’s everywhere--even if it’s wrong. Because so many of these initial reports are often wrong, a lot of them are truly “fake news” and every news organization now grapples with verifying what’s first seen and “reported” on Twitter.
All of which brings me back to how Twitter ruined my night on Wednesday. I work from home in the evening and it was an active night at work for me. I know that scrolling through social media--especially late at night--can be harmful to your mental health especially with so much bad and ominous news these days.. As explained in Quiz #63. “Says Steve,” there is a name for it: doomscrolling. This week, the New York Times published tips to avoid the dangers of doomscrolling, “You’re Doomscrolling Again. Here’s How to Snap Out of It.”
Reporter Brian Chen got practical advice from neuroscientist Adam Gazzzaley.
People are, by nature, information consumers, and the news is like digital candy being dispensed 24 hours a day. To resist information bingeing, we can create a plan to control how much we consume, similar to how people can create a dieting plan to lose weight
The basic idea is to set limits on your time scrolling through social media. Schedule time to do other things--and avoid looking at screens before going to bed.
I have tried to follow this advice, but I failed on Wednesday night. In part, I wanted to see what was happening on Twitter. Was it back to normal? What were people saying about the Twitter breach? Were the blue checks elites still being Twitter-teased by the unverified, proletarian masses?
And that’s when I saw this tweet from MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. 11:04 PM.
Hayes linked to this article from Alexis Madrigal in The Atlantic, “A Second Coronavirus Death Surge is Coming.” For Madrigal, it’s all there in the numbers.
There is no mystery in the number of Americans dying from COVID-19.
Despite political leaders trivializing the pandemic, deaths are rising again…
The deaths are not happening in unpredictable places. Rather, people are dying at higher rates where there are lots of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations: in Florida, Arizona, Texas, and California, as well as a host of smaller southern states that all rushed to open up.
The deaths are also not happening in an unpredictable amount of time after the new outbreaks emerged. Simply look at the curves yourself. Cases began to rise on June 16; a week later, hospitalizations began to rise. Two weeks after that—21 days after cases rose—states began to report more deaths. That’s the exact number of days that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated from the onset of symptoms to the reporting of a death.
There have been, as I noted on July 2nd in Quiz #63. “Says Steve,” reports earlier this month that the national death rate for the virus had been falling in June and early July even when new cases were climbing. For Madrigal, this is because the national death numbers were distorted by the falling death rates in the Northeast which masked the rising deaths in the South and West. Even accounting for better treatments and reports of younger people getting infected, the deadly surge is coming.
Now, with the national death numbers rising once again, there’s simply no argument that America can sustain coronavirus outbreaks while somehow escaping fatalities. America’s deadly summer coronavirus surge is undeniable. And it was predictable this whole time by looking honestly at the data.
Madrigal’s Atlantic article is a devastating must-read with more understanding and nuance of the virus than I will ever have--or could ever explain in this quiz.
The simplest take-away is the headline, “A Second Coronavirus Death Surge is Coming.” If you’re hearing about hospitals hitting their limits this week--in two weeks from now, the news will be about record numbers of deaths. Even if every state locked things down right now, those deaths will still happen. Again.
The deadly time lag of this pandemic doesn’t translate well on Twitter. In a world of breaking news alerts, we don’t simply process time lags very well. It is not how we get the news. If you’re just focused on the now, you may not be able to take in what’s going to happen in two weeks--even if, in a very real sense, it’s already set in motion. Already happening. Per Madrigal and his numbers, undeniable and predictable.
Sadly, today, we know what the headline will be in two weeks.
Sorry to ruin your day.
Tonight, I’m not going to look at Twitter before going to sleep.
I promise.
What did NOT happen?
A. Will has gotten the results from his coronavirus test after his visit with college friends. He’s negative and, with no symptoms, will be emerging from his self-imposed basement quarantine by this weekend;
B. Facebook friend Phil finally read one of my quizzes and asked the following question, “But seriously, where do you find the time! Lol;”
C. My daughter Annie has taken a week off from work and on Wednesday received an Amazon care-package that Sara and I sent her. Beyond Diet Coke, it contained her new favorite: Toasted Cheez-its with a box of Pop Tarts;
D. As part of my stay-at-home routine, on the advice of two doctors, I am now drinking more water. Four 20-ounce glasses a day. I’ve told Sara that I find drinking water boring;
E. To make the water that I drink interesting, each night I create lemonade ice cubes by pouring lemonade into an ice tray and putting it in the freezer.
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Want more?
Here’s the next quiz in the series: Quiz #71. “Everyone is Good.”
Here’s the previous quiz in the series: Quiz #69. After the Dogs Days.
Here’s the first quiz in the series: Quiz #1. Stella and Social Distancing, March 13, 2020
Here is an archive of all the quizzes.
The quiz is explained here: Steve’s Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz.
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