• Jeudi 11 juin, Zeynep Tufekci invitée des Matins de France Culture

    Zeynep Tufekci, l’autrice de « Twitter & les gaz lacrymogènes » sera ce jeudi 11 juin l’invitée exceptionnelle des Matins de France Culture. Elle sera interviewée par Guillaume Erner de 7h45 à 8h45.

    L’occasion, en direct ou en podcast, de mieux connaître cette « technosociologue » dont nous avons publié la traduction française (par Anne Lemoine, qui a fait un excellent travail).

    Twitter & les gaz lacrymogènes
    Forces et fragilités de la contestation connectée
    Zeynep Tufekci
    ISBN 978-2-915825-95-4 - 430 p. - 29 €
    https://cfeditions.com/lacrymo

    Zeynep Tufekci est de plus en plus remarquée aux États-Unis et partout dans le monde pour les suites qu’elle a donné à son livre, en particulier dans des éditoriaux dans The Atlantic ou The New York Times. Elle a été, dès le mois de janvier, une des premières à promouvoir la « distanciation sociale » et le port du masque, quand son pays ne croyais pas au virus. Elle revenait de Hong Kong et avait pu comprendre la situation. De même, elle est en pointe sur les questions des médias sociaux et de l’élection de Trump (notamment le débat actuel entre Twitter et Facebook). Elle est enfin partie prenante des mobilisations anti-racistes qui secouent les États-Unis (et qui s’étendent, notamment chez nous). Le bon moment pour une interview.

    Je vous mets ci-après pour celles et ceux qui lisent l’anglais une liste de référence de ses articles récents sur ces sujets.

    Nous avons également produit un petit livre numérique autour de Zeynep Tufekci, intitulé « Le monde révolté ». Celui-ci comporte la traduction d’un texte autobiographique de Zeynep et un long article de Gus Massiah. Il est gratuit (complètement, on ne demande même pas de mail ou autre, cadeau on vous dit). Vous pouvez l’obtenir à :
    https://cfeditions.com/monde-revolte

    Bonne écoute et bonne lecture,

    Hervé Le Crosnier

    Voici quelques références récentes sur les publications de Zeynep Tufekci en anglais pour celles et ceux qui lisent la langue de Shakespeare.

    Preparing for Coronavirus to Strike the U.S. - Scientific American Blog Network
    https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/preparing-for-coronavirus-to-strike-the-u-s

    Opinion | Why Telling People They Don’t Need Masks Backfired - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-masks.html

    What Really Doomed America’s Coronavirus Response - The Atlantic
    https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/03/what-really-doomed-americas-coronavirus-response/608596

    Closing the Parks Is Ineffective Pandemic Theater - The Atlantic
    https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/closing-parks-ineffective-pandemic-theater/609580

    Don’t Wear a Mask for Yourself - The Atlantic
    https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/dont-wear-mask-yourself/610336

    Trump’s Executive Order Isn’t About Twitter - The Atlantic
    https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/05/trumps-executive-order-isnt-about-twitter/612349

    The Case for Social Media Mobs - The Atlantic
    https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/05/case-social-media-mobs/612202

    How a Bad App—Not the Russians—Plunged Iowa Into Chaos - The Atlantic
    https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/02/bad-app-not-russians-plunged-iowa-into-chaos/606052

    Hong Kong Protests : Inside the Chaos - The Atlantic
    https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/11/escalating-violence-hong-kong-protests/601804

    #Zeynep_Tufekci #France_Culture

  • The Pandemic Doesn’t Have to Be This Confusing - The Atlantic
    https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/pandemic-confusing-uncertainty/610819

    Past coronavirus epidemics offer limited clues because they were so contained: Worldwide, only 10,600 or so people were ever diagnosed with SARS or MERS combined, which is less than the number of COVID-19 cases from Staten Island. “For new diseases, we don’t see 100 to 200 patients a week; it usually takes a whole career,” says Megan Coffee, an infectious-disease doctor at NYU Langone Health. And “if you see enough cases of other diseases, you’ll see unusual things.” During the flu pandemic of 2009, for example, doctors also documented heart, kidney, and neurological problems. “Is #COVID-19 fundamentally different to other diseases, or is it just that you have a lot of cases at once?” asks Vinay Prasad, a hematologist and an oncologist at Oregon Health and Science University.

    Prasad’s concern is that COVID-19 has developed a clinical mystique—a perception that it is so unusual, it demands radically new approaches. “Human beings are notorious for our desire to see patterns,” he says. “Put that in a situation of fear, uncertainty, and hype, and it’s not surprising that there’s almost a folk medicine emerging.” Already, there are intense debates about giving patients blood thinners because so many seem to experience blood clots, or whether ventilators might do more harm than good. These issues may be important, and when facing new diseases, doctors must be responsive and creative. But they must also be rigorous. “Clinicians are under tremendous stress, which affects our ability to process information,” McLaren says. “‘Is this actually working, or does it seem to be working because I want it to work and I feel powerless?’”

  • Don’t Wear a Mask for Yourself - The Atlantic
    https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/dont-wear-mask-yourself/610336

    If you feel confused about whether people should wear masks and why and what kind, you’re not alone. COVID-19 is a novel disease and we’re learning new things about it every day. However, much of the confusion around masks stems from the conflation of two very different functions of masks.

    Masks can be worn to protect the wearer from getting infected or masks can be worn to protect others from being infected by the wearer. Protecting the wearer is difficult: It requires medical-grade respirator masks, a proper fit, and careful putting on and taking off. But masks can also be worn to prevent transmission to others, and this is their most important use for society. If we lower the likelihood of one person’s infecting another, the impact is exponential, so even a small reduction in those odds results in a huge decrease in deaths. Luckily, blocking transmission outward at the source is much easier. It can be accomplished with something as simple as a cloth mask.

    The good news is that preventing transmission to others through egress is relatively easy. It’s like stopping gushing water from a hose right at the source, by turning off the faucet, compared with the difficulty of trying to catch all the drops of water after we’ve pointed the hose up and they’ve flown everywhere. Research shows that even a cotton mask dramatically reduces the number of virus particles emitted from our mouths—by as much as 99 percent. This reduction provides two huge benefits. Fewer virus particles mean that people have a better chance of avoiding infection, and if they are infected, the lower viral-exposure load may give them a better chance of contracting only a mild illness.

    COVID-19 has been hard to control partly because people can infect others before they themselves display any symptoms—and even if they never develop any illness. Three recent studies show that nearly half of patients are infected by people who aren’t coughing or sneezing yet. Many people have no awareness of the risk they pose to others, because they don’t feel sick themselves, and many may never become overtly ill.

    Models show that if 80 percent of people wear masks that are 60 percent effective, easily achievable with cloth, we can get to an effective R0 of less than one. That’s enough to halt the spread of the disease. Many countries already have more than 80 percent of their population wearing masks in public, including Hong Kong, where most stores deny entry to unmasked customers, and the more than 30 countries that legally require masks in public spaces, such as Israel, Singapore, and the Czech Republic. Mask use in combination with physical distancing is even more powerful.

    We know a vaccine may take years, and in the meantime, we will need to find ways to make our societies function as safely as possible. Our governments can and should do much—make tests widely available, fund research, ensure medical workers have everything they need. But ordinary people are not helpless; in fact, we have more power than we realize. Along with keeping our distance whenever possible and maintaining good hygiene, all of us wearing just a cloth mask could help stop this pandemic in its tracks.

    #COVID-19 #Masques #Zeynep_Tufekci

  • Zeynep Tufekci - Why the World Health Organization Failed - The Atlantic
    https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/why-world-health-organization-failed/610063

    Trump’s ploy to defund the WHO is a transparent effort to distract from his administration’s failure to prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic. It would be disastrous too. Many nations, especially poor ones, currently depend on the WHO for medical help and supplies. But it is also true that in the run-up to this pandemic, the WHO failed the world in many ways. However, President Trump’s move is precisely the kind of political bullying that contributed to the WHO’s missteps.

    The WHO failed because it is not designed to be independent. Instead, it’s subject to the whims of the nations that fund it and choose its leader. In July 2017, China moved aggressively to elect its current leadership. Instead of fixing any of the problems with the way the WHO operates, Trump seems to merely want the United States to be the bigger bully.

    This mission-driven WHO would not have brazenly tweeted, as late as January 14, that “preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.” That claim was false, and known by the authorities in Wuhan to be false.. Taiwan had already told the WHO of the truth too. On top of that, the day before that tweet was sent, there had been a case in Thailand: a woman from Wuhan who had traveled to Thailand, but who had never been to the seafood market associated with the outbreak—which strongly suggested that the virus was already spreading within Wuhan.

    We can get a glimpse at that alternate timeline by looking at the two places where COVID-19 was successfully contained: Taiwan and Hong Kong. With dense populations and close links to and travel from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong are unlikely candidates for success. Yet Taiwan reported zero new confirmed cases on Tuesday, fewer than 400 confirmed cases since the beginning of the outbreak, and only six deaths. Taiwan’s schools have been open since the end of February and there is no drastic lockdown in the island of almost 30 million people.

    Taiwan and Hong Kong succeeded because they ignored, contradicted, and defied the official position and the advice of the WHO on many significant issues. This is not a coincidence, but a damning indictment of the WHO’s leadership.

    Taiwan’s and Hong Kong’s health authorities assessed the pandemic accurately, and not just with respect to the science. They understood the political complexities, including the roles of the WHO and China in shaping official statements about the virus. They did not take the WHO’s word when it was still parroting in late January China’s cover-up that there was no human-to-human transmission. They did not listen to the WHO on not wearing masks, which the WHO continues to insist are unnecessary to this late day, despite accumulating evidence that masks are essential to dampening this epidemic’s spread. Taiwan ignored the WHO’s position that travel bans were ineffective; instead, it closed its borders early and, like Hong Kong, screened travelers aggressively.

    Hong Kong and Taiwan remembered that China has a history of covering up epidemics.

    When independent access to Wuhan was denied, instead of simply relaying what China claimed as if it were factual, the WHO could have notified the world that an alarming situation was unfolding. It could have said that China was not allowing independent investigations, and that there were suggestions of human-to-human transmission that needed urgent investigation. That would have gotten the world’s attention. And it could have happened the first week of January, mere days after China reported 41 cases of a mysterious pneumonia, but before China’s first announced COVID death. This is when Taiwan banned travel from Wuhan and started aggressive screening of travelers who had been there in recent weeks. It’s also when Taiwan ramped up its domestic mask production, in order to distribute masks to its whole population, despite WHO (still!) claiming they aren’t necessary.

    Many countries may not have had their first imported case until late January or early February. Researchers estimate that acting even a week or two early might have reduced cases by 50 to 80 percent. With proper global leadership, we may have had a very different trajectory.

    A mission-driven WHO would not have repeatedly praised China for its “transparency,” (when it was anything but) nor would it have explicitly criticized travel bans when they were being imposed on China but remained silent when China imposed them on other nations. Strikingly, the only country the WHO’s leader, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has directly criticized is Taiwan, whose diplomats he accused (without proof) of being involved in racist attacks on him. Unfortunately, the WHO seems to remember its principles only when they align with China’s interests.

    Be that as it may, President Trump’s own attempt to bully the WHO is worse than being merely a distraction from his own lack of preparation and the spectacular public-health failure that is now unfolding across the United States. The president wants to break the WHO even more dramatically, in precisely the way it is already broken. He wants it to bow to the outsize influence of big powerful nations at the expense of its mission.

    Defunding the WHO is not just foolish. It is dangerous: A pandemic needs to be contained globally, including in the poor countries that depend on the WHO. The WHO is the only global organization whose mission, reach, and infrastructure are suitable for this. The U.S. funds about 15 percent of the WHO’s current budget, and the already stretched-thin organization may not be able to quickly make that up.

    We must save the WHO, but not by reflexively pretending that nothing’s wrong with it, just because President Trump is going after the organization. We should be realistic and honest about the corruption and shortcomings that have engulfed the leadership of an organization that is deeply flawed, but that is still the jewel of the international health community.

    #OMS #Chine #Etats-Unis #Santé_publique

  • Closing the Parks Is Ineffective Pandemic Theater - The Atlantic
    https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/closing-parks-ineffective-pandemic-theater/609580

    Par Zeynep Tufekci

    In the short run, closing parks may seem prudent, when our hospitals are overrun and we are trying so hard to curb the spread of COVID-19. But in the medium to long run, it will turn out to be a mistake that backfires at every level. While it’s imperative that people comply with social-distancing and other guidelines to fight this pandemic, shutting down all parks and trails is unsustainable, counterproductive, and even harmful.

    To start with, the park crackdown has an authoritarian vibe. In closing Brockwell Park, for example, pictures showed two police officers approaching a lone sunbather, who was nowhere near anyone else—well, except the police, who probably had something better to do. Such heavy-handedness might even make things worse, as it may well shift the voluntary compliance we see today into resistance.

    Finding sustainable policies is crucial, especially since this pandemic likely isn’t going away in a few weeks. It’s plausible that we will be social distancing, on and off, for another year. That means we need to consider how to maintain compliance with strict measures over that long of a time.

    he outdoors, exercise, sunshine, and fresh air are all good for people’s immune systems and health, and not so great for viruses. There is a compelling link between exercise and a strong immune system. A lack of vitamin D, which our bodies synthesize when our skin is exposed to the sun, has long been associated with increased susceptibility to respiratory diseases. The outdoors and sunshine are such strong factors in fighting viral infections that a 2009 study of the extraordinary success of outdoor hospitals during the 1918 influenza epidemic suggested that during the next pandemic (I guess this one!) we should encourage “the public to spend as much time outdoors as possible,” as a public-health measure.

    Read: How the 1918 pandemic frayed social bonds

    Mental health is also a crucial part of the resilience we need to fight this pandemic. Keeping people’s spirits up in the long haul will be important, and exercise and the outdoors are among the strongest antidepressants and mental-health boosters we know of, often equaling or surpassing drugs and/or therapy in clinical trials. Stress has long been known to be a significant suppressor of immunity, and not being able to get some fresh air and enjoy a small change of scenery will surely add to people’s stress. We may well be facing a spike in suicides and violence as individuals and families face significant stress and isolation: The Air Force Academy initially imposed drastic isolation on its cadets due to the coronavirus, but had to reverse course after two tragic suicides. Domestic violence is another real concern: Not having a place to go, even for an hour, may greatly worsen conditions in some households.

    The history of disaster response is full of examples of extraordinary goodwill and compliance among ordinary people that disintegrate after authorities come down with heavy-handed measures that treat the public as an enemy. Rebecca Solnit’s book A Paradise Built in Hell details many such cases, such as the lives lost when the military was ordered into post-earthquake San Francisco in 1906 to control the dangerous and unruly “unlicked mob” that was primarily a figment of the authorities’ imagination. Unfortunately, the official response worsened the subsequent fire (which was more damaging than the earthquake itself) by keeping away volunteers “who might have supplied the power to fight the fire by hand.” Some ordinary citizens were even shot by soldiers on the lookout for these alleged mobs of looters and dangerous behavior from citizens. Similarly, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as a review of Solnit’s book summarized, “there were myriad accounts of paramedics being kept from delivering necessary medical care in various parts of the city because of false reports of violence.”

    When the efforts to “flatten the curve” start working and the number of known infections starts going down, authorities will need to be taken seriously. Things will look better but be far, far from over. If completely kept indoors with no outlet for a long time, the public may be tempted to start fully ignoring the distancing rules at the first sign of lower infection rates, like an extreme dieter who binges at a lavish open buffet. Just like healthy diets, the best pandemic interventions are sustainable, logical, and scientifically justified. If pandemic theater gets mixed up with scientifically sound practices, we will not be able to persuade people to continue with the latter.

    This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t limit park attendance at all, but there are better answers than poorly planned full closures.

    Governments could make a special appeal to people who have yards to leave parks for those who do not. (Wealthier people tend to have their own yards or lots, which is another reason not to shut down parks and deny outdoor access to poorer people.)

    #Zeynep_Tufekci #Espaces_verts #Coronavirus #Exercice #Autoritarisme