TikTok teens and K-pop stans don’t belong to the “resistance”

Sponsored by Hewlett Packard Enterprise

The Download

Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology

06.23.2020

Good morning! Today: TikTok teens and K-pop stans don't belong to the "resistance", green sand could be a cheap, permanent way to capture carbon dioxide, and Asian-Americans are using Slack groups to explain anti-Black racism to their families. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day.

TikTok teens and K-pop stans don’t belong to the “resistance”

Hatching a plan: The great TikTok teen and K-pop fan plan to embarrass US President Donald Trump at his Tulsa rally began with a grandmother named Mary Jo Laupp. Two weeks ago the 51-year-old from Iowa made a TikTok video for her 1,000 followers encouraging people to protest against Trump by signing up for his rally online and then not showing up. When they hit Trump where it really hurts—crowd size at rallies is one of his favorite topics to brag about—it went down a storm with a coalition of online protesters known as the #Resistance—largely older Millennial and Gen X Americans who use Twitter to confront the President on his favorite social media site.

A new story: It also created a narrative that TikTok and K-pop heroes will save America from Trump by being better at the internet than anyone else. As with all myths, the truth is more complex than that. Firstly, these groups are not monoliths. Not every K-pop fan is anti-Trump. The fandom is constantly evolving and far savvier than it’s made out to be. And now K-pop is a meme, it also has the potential to be weaponized by the far-right in response. Read the full story.

—Abby Ohlheiser

How green sand could capture billions of tons of carbon dioxide

The idea: Researchers with the San Francisco nonprofit Project Vesta are studying an obscure method of capturing the carbon dioxide driving climate change: spreading a green volcanic mineral known as olivine, ground down to the size of sand particles, across one of the beaches. The waves will further break down the highly reactive material, accelerating a series of chemical reactions that pull the greenhouse gas out of the air and lock it up in the shells and skeletons of mollusks and corals.

Why it’s so promising: This process, along with other forms of what’s known as enhanced mineral weathering, could potentially store hundreds of trillions of tons of carbon dioxide, according to a National Academies report last year. That’s far more carbon dioxide than humans have pumped out since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Unlike methods of carbon removal that rely on soil, plants, and trees, it would be effectively permanent. And it’s cheap.

Big questions remain: How do you mine, grind, ship, and spread the vast quantities of minerals necessary without producing more emissions than the material removes? Would the public be okay with it? What are the environmental side effects? And who’s going to pay for it? Read the full story.

—James Temple

Asian-Americans are using Slack groups to explain racism to their parents

Jess Fong was feeling restless. Black Lives Matter protests stemming from the death of George Floyd were spreading, and she wanted to help. So she started scrolling through the plethora of lists that appeared online in the days after Floyd’s death of resources on how to fight racism. She found the advice limiting, particularly for the Asian-American community.

“We’re not Black and we’re not white,” says Fong, who identifies as Chinese-American. “A lot of the resources that are out there geared to non-Black people are for white people. Book recommendations and donation lists are aimed at white people. I’ve personally felt a lot of difficulty connecting with them.”

Instead, what Fong found useful was Letters for Black Lives, a private Slack offshoot from a Medium-based site that has had nearly 2,000 new volunteers in just the past few weeks. It uses translated letters that are designed to help Asian-Americans to talk about anti-Blackness and antiracism with their families—something that can be tricky for children of immigrants. Read the full story.

—Tanya Basu

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet 'em at me.)

+ Songs you may not have realized were sampled.
+ This girl has mad roller-blading skills.
+ We just need to halt all work to restore paintings in Spain, pending an investigation.
+ Thailand is home to some amazing fruit.
+ This is what a 7 week old baby squirrel sounds like.

Sponsor Message

Industry icons share strategies on resilience at HPE Discover Virtual Experience, starting today

Business leaders, tech experts, and sports icons are speaking at HPE Discover Virtual Experience today on leadership and resilience during times of uncertainty – and the talent and technology that’s required to build for the future.

Tune in to a special session featuring world champion gymnast Simone Biles, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Driver Lewis Hamilton, and Golden State Warriors Head Coach Steve Kerr, who will share their strategies on building the emotional, physical, and cognitive endurance essential to performing under pressure.

Join the virtual technology conference at no cost, starting live and on demand today.

The top ten must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Contact tracing apps have flopped in the US
That hasn’t stopped local governments easing restrictions. (WSJ $)
+ Not just in the US either—although some countries are making them work. (TR)
+ France’s contact tracing app has only sent 14 notifications. (TechCrunch)

2 Millions of documents from police departments have been leaked online
Anonymous is back in business. (Wired $)
+ Google employees are demanding it stops selling tech to the police. (The Verge)

3 Google is going to fact-check images
This is the first major effort by a tech company to check if photos have been tampered with. (WP $)

4 AI researchers say scientific publishers help perpetuate racist algorithms
The field is starting to reckon with the role it has played in reinforcing structural racism. (TR)

5 More women than men seem to be dying of covid-19 in India
This runs counter to trends observed in most other countries. (BBC)
+ Does your blood type affect how badly you get coronavirus? (Gizmodo)

6 NASA and Virgin Galactic have launched a program to train private astronauts 👨‍🚀
We don’t know the price tag yet but it’s going to be a LOT. (TR)

7 Advertisers are withdrawing from Facebook over hate speech
But will it be enough to make a difference? (The Guardian)
+ Mark Zuckerberg has forged an uneasy alliance with Donald Trump. (NYT $)

8 Andrew Yang wants tech companies to pay people for their data
So can I buy mine back? (The Verge)

9 The Pizzagate conspiracy theory is still going on TikTok
Teens, you’re four years late to this one and it’s still wrong. (The Daily Beast)

10 The mental health fallout from Fukushima
Nine years on, people are still coming to terms with the nuclear accident there. (Wired UK)

Robots are the new recruits on the pandemic's front lines.

In the latest episode of Deep Tech, you'll hear from Erika Hayasaki, a writer and journalism professor in California, about how automating certain tasks in hospitals and grocery stores can keep humans out of harm's way, but could also see many out of a job. Listen here.

Quote of the Day

“That will take time to heal, it was too harsh.”

—Sweden’s foreign minister Ann Linde tells the New York Times how upset Swedes are that their Scandinavian neighbors have all closed their borders to them.

Top image credit: DREW ANGERER | GETTY IMAGES

Please send rambutans to hi@technologyreview.com.

Follow me on Twitter at @charlottejee. Thanks for reading!

—Charlotte