Every Monday on Global Comment, we share the slow, thoughtful, considerate words that our brains – and souls – need but that it’s easy to miss in our busy world. We distil the best of the web and recommend just three links every week that you absolutely must see.
No fluff, no fuss, just three exceptional reads.
Here are this week’s recommendations:
Do Children Have a “Right to Hug” Their Parents? (Sarah Stillman / New Yorker)
Last fall, Le’Essa learned why the children of Flint had been blocked from seeing their parents at the Genesee County Jail. In 2012, a company called Securus Technologies struck a deal with the county, offering financial incentives to replace jail visits with video calls. Families would pay fees that could exceed a dollar a minute to see their loved ones on an often grainy video feed; the county would earn a cut of the profits. “A lot of people will swipe that Mastercard and visit their grandkids,” a county official told the press at the time.
She was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and condemned. The problem? Nothing was fake after all (Jenny Kleeman / The Guardian)
Either a woman with no background in digital technology had made a sophisticated deepfake on her iPhone 8, or a 16-year-old had panicked and lied to her mother about vaping, or mother and daughter had decided together to explain away behaviour they knew would get Madi in trouble, with an elaborate story about digital manipulation. The police chose to believe the first explanation.
Israel Accuses Al Jazeera Of Being Mouthpiece For Journalism (The Onion)
Israel Accuses Al Jazeera Of Being Mouthpiece For Journalism https://t.co/X3BsoKa7Y4
— The Onion (@TheOnion) May 11, 2024
If you have any suggestions for future words to feature, contact us on our socials or at editor@globalcomment.com
Image: Markus Spiske