The Weekly Round-Up: July 25th 2021
Welcome to the Weekly Round-Up — a series where we bring you five big stories from across the internet that you should know about. This week, we’re looking at the effects that Victoria’s strict bail laws are having on women, unpacking Australia’s problem with Islamophobia and heading down the TikTok rabbit hole.
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The Guardian’s latest Essential Poll is showing that Morrison’s poor management of the COVID crisis might finally be catching up to him. The prime minister has taken a significant hit in voter confidence since March, suffering a 15% drop in public perception that he is good in a crisis, with more voters being inclined to say that Morrison is out of touch with ordinary people and avoids responsibility. And you can add to that a good three-quarters of respondents believing that Morrison does, in fact, play politics. One on the hand, duh, thanks for catching up. But it’s also a promising change in perceptions as we slowly make our way to a federal election. Question is, will all of this still be front of mind by the time we finally get there?
2. Majority of women in Victoria’s prisons have not been found guilty
New Corrections Victoria data released last week show that 54% of the people in Victoria’s women’s prisons are un-sentenced. To reframe that a bit, that means that there are currently more women in Victorian prisons that have not been convicted of any crimes than people who have. And of course, this all goes back to economic inequality. The majority of these cases are a result of strict bail laws that were passed three years ago making it so that people who simply cannot afford to post bail are finding themselves behind bars for minor offences. And from the data, it’s clear that this law is disproportionately affecting women and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. That means that every month, because of a poorly designed law that is essentially criminalising poverty, hundreds of women and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are entering the prison system for low-level, non-violent offences and having their entire lives disrupted as a result. The article is definitely worth a read and a perfect example of how our criminal justice system is fundamentally not designed to help anyone.
3. Great Barrier Reef avoids UNESCO ‘in danger’ listing after Australian lobbying effort
Welp, it’s official. This week, Australia decided to flex its diplomatic muscles to effectively further its climate denial agenda — and it worked. Thanks to Sussan Ley, the Great Barrier Reef will not be listed as an endangered world heritage site by UNESCO. That’s despite the fact that the World Heritage Programme’s director argued that the reef “unambiguously” met the criteria for making it onto the list. Instead, the decision was delayed to 2022, following from its previous delay in 2015. So basically, we’re still burying our heads under the sand — except we’re also now spending money to fund diplomatic missions to make sure everyone else is doing the same.
4. ‘Do I say anything or do I survive?’: Muslim Australians share experiences of Islamophobia
A tough read from the Guardian covering a recent survey by the Australian Human Rights Commission that found that 80% of Muslim people living in Australia have experienced some form of unfavourable treatment because of their religion, race or ethnicity. Half of these had come from law enforcement with a significant portion also taking place in school settings. This is exactly why allowing people like Katie Hopkins into our country and potentially giving her a primetime platform was so dangerous. That kind of rhetoric has real life consequences and we can’t let that be ignored any longer.
5. Investigation: How TikTok’s Algorithm Figures Out Your Deepest Desires
In case you felt like having a little Sunday freak-out about exactly how much of your data is out there while scrolling through this blog post, this video from the Washington Street Journal basically unpacks exactly how TikTok figured your whole life and interests in a couple of hours. Turns out, it’s all about how long you linger over a piece of content (so if you thought you were being slick by not liking, following or commenting on anything, might be time to reconsider that). Its algorithm is basically dealing with a MASSIVE amount of data that can allow it to pretty quickly figure out what users are interested in. The more time you spend on the app, the more niche it gets with what it recommends. And we all know what happens when a social media platform starts sending people down highly specific rabbit holes that push more and more extreme content…
