Like a Face Drawn in Sand at the Edge of the Sea. Vicissitudes of the Posthuman Forty Years After Foucault’s Death … – Fabula, la recherche en…

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WORKSHOP:

Like a Face Drawn in Sand at the Edge of the Sea. Vicissitudes of the Posthuman Forty Years After Foucaults Death.

May 30-31, 2024, Masaryk University, Room M117 Jotova 10, Brno, Czech Republic.

Does man really exist? To imagine, for an instant, what the world and thought and truth might be if man did not exist, is considered to be merely indulging in paradox. This is because we are so blinded by the recent manifestation of man that we can no longer remember a time and it is not so long ago when the world, its order, and human beings existed, but man did not.

M. Foucault, The Order of Things

Forty years after Foucault's death and sixty after the publication of An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, we would like to invite you to interrogate the posthuman as an open problem and process on the historical and epistemic level. In particular, we would like to discuss whether and how historiographical and methodological issues pertaining to the archeological project have been transformed, scaled down, transposed or partially resolved today.

The Order of Things wished to show the emergence and disappearance of the configurations of knowledge in their empirical arising. Among them, we see man taking his ambivalent place as both mysterious object and sovereign subject of western knowledge, only to soon disappear along the lines of the image we captured in the title. But, however deferred, historiographical and epistemological problems return incessantly, questioning the status of discontinuities in the archaeological project: what backdrop would be able to account for both the emerging and the fading away of orders of identities and differences? To what logic do their mutations respond? What explanation is offered?

According to the archaeological instance, posthuman is then manifestly not a condition of existence but an open process: the uncertain outcome of the mutations of these conditions of possibility, of their precipitation.

What does it mean to question this diagnostic today? What mutations have taken place or struggle to do so? What are the stakes? Would it be legitimate to say that today we speak from the space of knowledge left vacant by the disappearance of the figure of western knowledge that gave rise to the humanities?

The workshop's aim would be to draw a map, though bound to be partial, fragmentary and mobile, of a range of practices both in research and in applied fields related to the tools forged in the debate pertaining to posthumanism. This could be done, on the one hand, by exploring the current functioning of the toolbox elaborated by the thinker in the 1960s and early 1970s, and on the other hand, by interrogating the way in which these tools have been brought into contact and fruitful interaction with different theoretical inputs and epistemic and political instances (feminist, anti-racist, queer, post-colonial, ecological, a.o.).

We look forward to your contribution!

Please submit the title and abstract (no more than 500 words) of your contribution by March 24th, 2024, to https://emorob.fss.muni.cz/conferences/2024-foucault40 or by email to: Foucault40Brno@muni.cz

DEADLINE: March 24th

VENUE: May 30-31, 2024, Masaryk University, Room M117 Jotova 10, Brno, Czech Republic.

The workshop is supported by the project EMOROB (2023-2027) Robots, Computing the Human and Autism/ Cultural Imaginations of Autism Diagnosis and Emotion AI (EXPRO GAR_ 2023/23/GX23-05692X), FSS MU.

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Like a Face Drawn in Sand at the Edge of the Sea. Vicissitudes of the Posthuman Forty Years After Foucault's Death ... - Fabula, la recherche en...

As Odysseus lands on the moon, space exploration is having a moment – Newsday

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Even admitting all the difficulty we humans have recognizing when something is having a moment, and acknowledging all the times we get it wrong, it sure does seem like space exploration is having a moment.

With rovers and landers on the moon and Mars, the James Webb telescope a million miles away broadcasting surreal images of deep space, and all sorts of plans from a variety of nations and companies in the offing, it certainly appears that a new space age is upon us.

The latest evidence, of course, is the landing on the moon of the American-built spacecraft known as Odysseus, even if Thursdays touchdown of the robotic lander came more than 50 years after the end of the still-astonishing chapter of humans walking on the moon. Odysseus is special because of its whats-next signification.

Technology has advanced far beyond those Apollo days, making this seemingly modest mission anything but that. The expectation is that Odysseus will lead to humans living on the moon and using its resources to jump-start transportation all around the solar system first Mars, and then beyond, to borrow from one intrepid animated astronaut.

Boosting the chances of this becoming real is the involvement of private business. Space is no longer the sole domain of government.

Odysseus was designed, built and operated by a private company, Houston-based Intuitive Machines, under a contract from NASA, and launched by a Falcon 9 rocket built by another private company, SpaceX. A bevy of other companies are also making rockets, landers and plans. You can see a competitive ecosystem developing around space exploration and cheer it for its possibilities while also being wary of its potential for commercial exploitation.

Even as we can be inspired about what Odysseus tells us about the future, there also is much to learn by taking a took at what led up to this moment.

Billions of dollars, for starters. Space exploration is expensive. But it also has brought big payoffs as much as tantalizing promises. Most obvious is how much more we know about our solar system and Earths place in it. But there is also a near-endless list of cool and indispensable things invented because of space program research like scratch-resistant lenses and CT scans, water purification systems and dust busters, home insulation and wireless headsets and the computer mouse.

This wont be the end of technologys evolution, either, which makes it exciting to think about what advances will follow as we push into our final frontier given everything thats happened to date.

But there is another lesson in the buildup to this latest mission that we need to learn. Achievement can be expensive but it also takes time. Overnight successes are rare and there seldom is an easy button in life.

Its no accident that this new lander was named Odysseus. Its namesake, the mythological Greek king, was part of the great victory in the Trojan War. But then he had to overcome a daunting series of obstacles and ordeals in his attempt to return home to Ithaca, a journey of about 550 nautical miles that took Odysseus 10 years to complete.

The result, we are meant to understand, is worth the effort.

We see it all the time. The writing of a book, the carving of a sculpture, the execution of a painting, the composition of a symphony, the filming of a movie, the education of a child, the building of a company, the forming of a family, the development of a leader, the living of a good life.

Greatness in whatever form is never dashed off. It is cultivated, and nurtured, and pursued, and if we keep going and if were lucky, achieved.

And so were back to the moon, and perhaps someday beyond.

Lets enjoy the moment, and the ride.

COLUMNIST MICHAEL DOBIES opinions are his own.

Michael Dobie is a member of the Newsday editorial board.

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As Odysseus lands on the moon, space exploration is having a moment - Newsday

Space exploration and colonisation: US, China, Russia and others | TheCable – TheCable

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Space exploration is dynamic and developments have been ongoing over the years with several countries actively engaged in space exploration; and have demonstrated interest in the long-term goal of space colonization. Three prominent countries at the fore of space exploration and showing interest in colonization include the United States, China, and Russia.

The United States, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), has played a lead role in space exploration since when it was established in 1958. They have a rich history of crewed space missions, which included the Apollo moon landings. In recent years, NASA has paid more attention to projects some of which are:

These are just a few, and NASA is working on various other scientific missions, technological advancements, and international collaborations. For the latest updates and detailed information, its recommended to visit NASAs official website and follow their press releases and mission updates.

Private Companies: SpaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies Corp., founded by Elon Musk in 2002, is a private aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company. They have been driving interesting activity in various space exploration initiatives. This is aimed at revolutionizing space travel and making it more accessible. Some space exploration activities and projects that SpaceX has been working on include:

Another country doing some work is China. China National Space Administration (CNSA) has been actively working on space exploration with some achievements under its belt. It is noteworthy to mention that the space industry is evolving rapidly. Here are some major areas of Chinas space exploration efforts:

Furthermore, the Russian Roscosmos has a long history in space exploration, with a rich history of achievements dating back to the era of the Soviet Union. Here are some major areas of Roscosmoss space exploration efforts:

Besides, several African countries have shown an increasing interest in space exploration and have taken steps to develop their space capabilities. It is important to say that Africas involvement in space activities varies among its countries. Here are some major aspects of space exploration in Africa:

While these examples demonstrate the progress made by some African countries in space exploration, it is important to recognize that the level of involvement varies across the continent, and yes more work can be done through private organizations active involvement. Collaboration and the sharing of resources and expertise have been major conversations in promoting Africas presence in space exploration. Continued efforts and investments are likely to shape Africas role in future space activities.

In conclusion, while space exploration has led to numerous benefits and advancements, some challenges need to be addressed, including cost, environmental impact, and ethical considerations. Continued international collaboration and responsible exploration practices are crucial for ensuring the sustainable development of space activities.

Thank you for the investment in time, and I am open to conversations on furthering these thoughts. To be notified each time I publish a new post, follow my Medium: https://medium.com/@roariyo and LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olufemi-ariyo-923ba6130/ or send an email to [emailprotected]

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As Space Exploration Expands, So Will Space Law – Science Friday

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Credit: Shutterstock

Almost 70 years agoin the middle of the Cold Warthe United States and the Soviet Union kicked off the race to space, and that high-stakes sprint transformed humanitys relationship with space forever. Ultimately the USSR launched the first satellite, Sputnik, and the U.S. put the first humans on the moon.

Now were in a different space race. But this time, there are a lot more contenders. There are more satellites in orbit than ever before, NASA is trying to put humans on Mars, countries are still sending landers to the moon, and billionaires are using rockets as tourist vehicles. All this activity raises some serious questions: Who is in charge of space? And who makes the rules?

Journalist Khari Johnson explored these questions in a recent feature for Wired magazine, featuring experts at the forefront of these issues. Guest host Sophie Bushwick is joined by two of them: Dr. Timiebi Aganaba, assistant professor of space and society at Arizona State University, and Dr. Danielle Wood, assistant professor and director of the Space Enabled Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They discuss the role of space lawyers, what cases they may argue, and how the rules of spaceand the potential for conflictsare evolving.

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As Space Exploration Expands, So Will Space Law - Science Friday

How Supreme Court arguments over social media laws and free speech defined social media itself – Quartz

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The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday for two lawsuits about how social media giants should or should not be able to regulate speech on their platforms. Chief justices went back and forth with state solicitors general and their opposing party, making what may seem like far-fetched comparisons between social media and everything from bookstores to parade organizers and wedding planners.

Facebook's 2016 election problems will be the same in 2024 | What's Next for Meta?

The two cases in question one from Florida, one from Texas were brought by NetChoice, a trade association that represents social media sites like Metas Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, and more. NetChoice said two state laws in Florida and Texas that ban companies from censoring content on their platforms are actually forms of censorship themselves. Paul Clement, the attorney for NetChoice, argued that the laws violate the First Amendment because they compel speech, forcing platforms to host posts that violate their policies.

At the heart of NetChoices argument is that social media platforms are like newspapers, so editorializing content is their First Amendment right.

But Florida solicitor general Henry Whitaker said social media is more like a telephone company (pdf): If Verizon asserted a First Amendment right to cancel disfavored subscribers at a whim, that claim would fail.

The design of the First Amendment is to prevent the suppression of speech not to enable it. That is why the telephone company and the delivery service have no First Amendment right to use their services as a chokepoint to silence those they disfavor, he said.

Texas solicitor general Aaron Nielson had a similar argument (pdf), but likened social media to a public square. [I]f platforms that passively host the speech of billions of people are themselves the speakers and can discriminate, there will be no public square to speak of.

One concern of chief justice Amy Coney Barrett is that the state laws would consider algorithms to be editors, meaning that states could ban how algorithms are applied by online sites or other businesses that sell content. Florida solicitor general Whitaker said algorithms are just a means of sites organizing content, not editorializing it.

That led to more concern, though. Could Florida enact a law telling bookstores that they have to put everything out by alphabetical order? Coney Barrett asked.

Whitaker said, no, the state laws prevent social media sites from censorship, not how they organize their content.

But NetChoices Clement argued that algorithms are editors: These algorithms dont spring from the ether. They are essentially computer programs designed by humans to try to do some of this editorial function. That means that a Supreme Court ruling allowing the state laws to remain would open the door for lawsuits against how algorithms function.

Were not quite sure who it covers, chief justice Ketanji Brown told Whitaker about the Florida law.

So Whitaker said the Florida law would apply to sites like Etsy and Uber, meaning those sites couldnt ban user-generated content unless they provide thorough rationale. Meanwhile, Nielson said the Texas state law, which is narrower than Floridas in scope, wouldnt apply to platforms outside of classic social media sites.

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How Supreme Court arguments over social media laws and free speech defined social media itself - Quartz

U.S. Supreme Court to hear Texas and Florida cases about free speech and social media platforms – Texas Standard

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The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments today in two cases related to some of the worlds biggest social media platforms.

Considered by many to be two of the hottest free speech cases of the internet age, one case is from Texas, the other from Florida. And though there are slight differences between the two state laws being challenged here, the cases appear to center on a central question: do social media companies have the right to independently decide what content appears on their platforms, amplifying or removing content as they see fit?

The social media companies say their First Amendment free speech rights are being violated with the Texas and Florida laws. The states say those social media companies arent entitled to First Amendment free speech protection. And it may come down to whether a majority of the court sees social media as more like a newspaper or more like a telephone company.

Charles Rocky Rhodes, a professor of law at South Texas College of Law in Houston, said both of these laws are on hold and have not yet gone into effect because of pending court cases.

They were a response to some of the social media platforms de-platforming Donald Trump and other politicians in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, Rhodes said. And there was a concern from Texas and from Florida that [these politicians] were being targeted because of their conservative beliefs.

And so the idea of both of these laws was to try to keep social media platforms from banning individuals or discriminating against individuals based on the viewpoints of their speech. And it also placed some very onerous burdens on social media companies with respect to disclosure requirements of their terms and their policies with respect to data management and content, and the use policies that they would be using.

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The plaintiff in the case is NetChoice, an industry association that includes most of the big platforms we all think of Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, etc.

Theyre making the play that when they are deciding which messages to amplify and which messages that they want to remove from their platform, that they are acting as the modern editor of a newspaper, and there are good precedent for the United States Supreme Court saying that a state cant tell a newspaper what to print, Rhodes said.

Theyre arguing that the same principle applies to them, that they are allowed to make editorial decisions on their private platform. And this is something that people have to keep in mind that the social media companies, as big and important as they are, are not the government. They are actually privately-owned.

Texas and Florida, however, say these companies are acting as a common carrier and therefore do not have a claim to free speech.

Theyre trying to say that social media companies are a modern equivalent of what used to be a very familiar idea of the common carrier, that they dont have the ability to discriminate with respect to their service. They have to accept everyone, Rhodes said. And the social media companies come back and say, well, common carriers were different because they never engaged in their own expressive activities.

Common carriers did sometimes transmit the speech of others, like a telegraph would be the old example, or telephone But they did not actually engage in their own expressive activities. And the social media companies are claiming that we do because we are trying to communicate messages. Were creating news feeds for individuals. Were trying to increase, of course, advertising streams that we are engaged in expressive activities in a way that your internet service provider or in a way that your telephone company is not.

As this case goes forward, Rhodes said the states arguments are rooted in political ideology.

The Texas law has a specific exemption for companies under 50 million users. So it wouldnt cover conservative sites like Parler, he said. The Florida law had exemptions for Disney and for Universal that were then taken out once Disney and Universal started criticizing Florida [political leaders]. A big part of the underlying motivation for these laws was the political concern that conservatives thought that their voices were being removed from the site and the marketplace of ideas.

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U.S. Supreme Court to hear Texas and Florida cases about free speech and social media platforms - Texas Standard

Generative AI, Free Speech, & Public Discourse: Why the Academy Must Step Forward | TechPolicy.Press – Tech Policy Press

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On Tuesday, Columbia Engineering and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University co-hosted a well-attended symposium, Generative AI, Free Speech, & Public Discourse. The event combined presentations about technical research relevant to the subject with addresses and panels discussing the implications of AI for democracy and civil society.

While a range of topics were covered across three keynotes, a series of seed funding presentations, and two panelsone on empirical and technological questions and a second on legal and philosophical questionsa number of notable recurring themes emerged, some by design and others more organically:

This event was part of one partnership amongst others in an effort that Columbia University president Manouche Shafik and engineering school dean Shih-Fu Chang referred to as AI+x, where the school is seeking to engage with various other parts of the university outside of computer engineering to better explore the potential impacts of current developments in artificial intelligence. (This event was also a part of Columbias Dialogue Across Difference initiative, which was established as part of a response to campus conflict around the Israel-Gaza conflict.) From its founding, the Knight Institute has focused on how new technologies affect democracy, requiring collaboration with experts in those technologies.

Speakers on the first panel highlighted sectors where they have already seen potential for positive societal impact of AI, outside of the speech issues that the symposium was focussed on. These included climate science, drug discovery, social work, and creative writing. Columbia engineering professor Carl Vondrick suggested that current large language models are optimized for social media and search, a legacy of their creation by corporations that focus on these domains, and the panelists noted that only by working directly with diverse groups can their needs for more customized models be understood. Princeton researcher Arvind Narayanan proposed that domain experts play a role in evaluating models as, in his opinion, the current approach of benchmarking using standardized tests is seriously flawed.

During the conversation between Jameel Jaffer, Director of the Knight Institute, and Harvard Kennedy School security technologist Bruce Schneier, general principles for successful interdisciplinary work were discussed, like humility, curiosity and listening to each other; gathering early in the process; making sure everyone is taken seriously; and developing a shared vocabulary to communicate across technical, legal, and other domains. Jaffer recalled that some proposals have a lot more credibility in the eyes of policymakers when they are interdisciplinary. Cornell Tech law professor James Grimmelman, who specializes in helping lawyers and technologists understand each other, remarked that these two groups are particularly well-equipped to work together, once they can figure out what the other needs to know.

President Shafik declared that if a responsible approach to AIs impact on society requires a +x, Columbia (surely along with other large research universities) has lots of xs. This positions universities as ideal voices for the public good, to balance out the influence of the tech industry that is developing and controlling the new generation of large language models.

Stanfords Tatsunori Hashimoto, who presented his work on watermarking generative AI text outputs, emphasized that the vendors of these models are secretive, and so the only way to develop a public technical understanding of them is to build them within the academy, and take on the same tasks as the commercial engineers, like working on alignment fine-tuning and performing independent evaluations. One relevant and striking finding by his group was that the reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) process tends to push models towards the more liberal opinions common amongst highly-educated Americans.

The engineering panel developed a wishlist of infrastructure resources that universities (and others outside of the tech industry) need to be able to study how AI can be used to benefit and not harm society, such as compute resources, common datasets, separate syntax models so that vetted content datasets can be added for specific purposes, and student access to models. In the second panel, Camille Franois, a lecturer at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs and presently a senior director of trust & safety at Niantic Labs, highlighted the importance of having spaces, presumably including university events such as the one at Columbia, to discuss how AI developments are impacting civil discourse. On a critical note, Knight Institute executive director Katy Glenn Bass also pointed out that universities often do not value cross-disciplinary work to the same degree as typical research, and this is an obstacle to progress in this area, given how essential collaboration across disciplines is.

Proposals for regulation were made throughout the symposium, a number of which are listed below, but the keynote by Bruce Schneier was itself an argument for government intervention. Schneiers thesis was, in brief, that corporation-controlled development of generative AI has the potential to undermine the trust that society needs to thrive, as chatbot assistants and other AI systems may present as interpersonally trustworthy, but in reality are essentially designed to drive profits for corporations. To restore trust, it is incumbent on governments to impose safety regulations, much as they do for airlines. He proposed a regulatory agency for the AI and robotics industry, and the development of public AI models, created under political accountability and available for academic and new for-profit uses, enabling a freer market for AI innovation.

Specific regulatory suggestions included:

A couple of cautions were also voiced: Narayanan warned that the Liars Dividend could be weaponized by authoritarian governments to crack down on free expression, and Franois noted the focus on watermarking and deepfakes at the expense of unintended harms, such as chatbots giving citizens incorrect voting information.

There was surprisingly little discussion during the symposium of how generative AI specifically influences public discourse, which Jaffer defined in his introductory statement as acts of speaking and listening that are part of the process of democracy and self-governance. Rather, much of the conversation was about online speech generally, and how it can be influenced by this technology. As such, an earlier focus of online speech debates, social media, came up a number of times, with clear parallels in terms of concern over corporate control and a need for transparency.

Hashimoto referenced the notion that social media causes feedback loops that greatly amplify certain opinions. LLMs can develop data feedback loops which may cause a similar phenomenon that is very difficult to identify and unpick without substantial research. As chatbots become more personalized, suggested Vondrick, they may also create feedback on an individual user level, directing them to more and more of the type of content that they have already expressed an affinity for, akin to the social media filter bubble hypothesis.

Another link to social media was drawn in the last panel, during which both Grimmelmann and Franois drew on their expertise in content moderation. They agreed that the most present danger to discourse from generative AI is inauthentic content and behavior overwhelming the platforms that we rely on, and worried that we may not yet have the tools and infrastructure to counter it. (Franois described a key tension between the Musk effect pushing disinvestment in content moderation and the Brussels effect encouraging a ramping up in on-platform enforcement via the DSA.) At the same time, trust and safety approaches like red-teaming and content policy development are proving key to developing LLMs responsibly. The correct lesson to draw from the failures to regulate social media, proposed Grimmelmann, was the danger of giving up on antitrust enforcement, which could be of great value when current AI foundation models are developed and controlled by a few (and in several cases the same) corporations.

One final theme was a framing of the current moment as one of transition. Even though we are grappling with how to adapt to realistic, readily available synthetic content at scale, there will be a point in the future, perhaps even for todays young children, that this will be intuitively understood and accounted for, or at least that media literacy education, or tools (like watermarking) will have caught up.

Several speakers referenced prior media revolutions. Narayanan was one of several who discussed the printing press, pointing out that even this was seen as a crisis of authority: no longer could the written word be assumed to be trusted. Wikipedia was cited by Columbia Engineering professor Kathy McKeown as an example of media that was initially seen as untrustworthy, but whose benefits, shortcomings, and suitable usage are now commonly understood. Franois noted that use of generative AI is far from binary and that we have not yet developed good frameworks to evaluate the range of applications. Grimmelman mentioned both Wikipedia and the printing press as examples of technologies where no one could have accurately predicted how things would shake out in the end.

As the Knight Institutes Glenn Bass stated explicitly, we should not assume that generative AI is harder to work through than previous media crises, or that we are worse equipped to deal with it. However, two speakers flagged that the tech industry should not be the given free rein: USC Annenbergs Mike Ananny warned that those with invested interests may attempt to prematurely push for stabilization and closure, and we should treat this with suspicion; and Princetons Narayanan noted that this technology is producing a temporary societal upheaval and that its costs should be distributed fairly. Returning to perhaps the dominant takeaways from the event, these comments again implied a role for the academy and for the government in guiding the development of, adoption of, and adaptation to the emerging generation of generative AI.

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Generative AI, Free Speech, & Public Discourse: Why the Academy Must Step Forward | TechPolicy.Press - Tech Policy Press

Supreme Court to hear landmark case on social media, free speech – University of Southern California

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Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a pair of cases that could fundamentally change how social media platforms moderate content online. The justices will consider the constitutionality of laws introduced by Texas and Florida targeting what they see as the censorship of conservative viewpoints on social media platforms.

The central issue is whether platforms like Facebook and X should have sole discretion over what content is permitted on their platforms. A decision is expected by June.USC experts are available to discuss.

Depending on the ruling, companies may face stricter regulations or be allowed more autonomy in controlling their online presence. Tighter restrictions would require marketers to exercise greater caution in content creation and distribution, prioritizing transparency, and adherence to guidelines to avoid legal repercussions. Alternatively, a ruling in favor of greater moderation powers could potentially raise consumer concerns about censorship and brand authenticity, said Kristen Schiele, an associate professor of clinical marketing at the USC Marshall School of Business.

Regardless of the verdict, companies will need to adapt their strategies to align with advancing legal standards and consumer expectations in the digital landscape. Stricter regulations will require a more thorough screening of content to ensure compliance. Marketers may need to invest more resources to understand and adhere to the evolving legislations, which would lead to shifts in budget allocation and strategy development. In response, the industry will most likely see new content moderation technologies and platforms emerge to help companies navigate legal challenges and still create effective marketing campaigns, she said.

Erin Miller is an expert on theories of speech and free speech rights, and especially their application to mass media. She also writes on issues of moral and criminal responsibility. Her teaching areas include First Amendment theory and criminal procedure. Miller is an assistant professor of law at the USC Gould School of Law.

Content:emiller@law.usc.edu

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Jef Pearlman is a clinical associate professor of law and director of the Intellectual Property & Technology Law Clinic at the USC Gould School of Law.

Contact:jef@law.usc.edu

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Karen Northis a recognized expert in the field of digital and social media, with interests spanning personal and corporate brand building, digital election meddling, reputation management, product development, and safety and privacy online. North is a clinical professor of communication at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Contact:knorth@usc.edu

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Wendy Wood is an expert in the nature of habits. Wood co-authored a study exploring how fake news spreads on social media, which found that platforms more than individual users have a larger role to play in stopping the spread of misinformation online.

Contact:wendy.wood@usc.edu

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Emilio Ferrara is an expert incomputational social sciences who studies socio-technical systems and information networks to unveil the communication dynamics that govern our world. Ferrara isis a professor of computer science and communication at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Contact:emiliofe@usc.edu

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(Photo/Benjamin Sow/Unsplash)

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Supreme Court to hear landmark case on social media, free speech - University of Southern California

America Divided Part II: Mideast war magnifies free speech challenges on college campuses – The Daily Reflector

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Since Hamas Oct. 7 attacks inside Israel and U.S. support for the resulting war in Gaza, protests and rallies have sprouted at college campuses across the U.S.

Tempers have flared, and tensions have risen.

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American colleges have become places of anguish, with Jewish and other pro-Israel students condemning the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, while Muslim and progressive students are pressing for recognition of suffering by Palestinians in Gaza.

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Jewish Rutgers University students and community members hold a vigil in support of Israel on Oct. 25, 2023, in New Brunswick, N.J..

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Pro-Palestinian protesters argue with a pro-Israel demonstrator during a protest at Columbia University in New York. Jewish students across the country worry about safety and a rise in antisemitism, while the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is concerned about universities squelching anti-war sentiments on campuses.

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An anti-war protester interrupts President Joe Biden during a campaign event touting abortion rights on the campus of George Mason University in Virginia, Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024. College campuses have become epicenters for protests against U.S. (and Bidens) support for Israels war versus Hamas in Gaza.

Read more here:

America Divided Part II: Mideast war magnifies free speech challenges on college campuses - The Daily Reflector

Free Speech or Hate Speech? | GW Today | The George Washington University – GW Today

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What are the free speech rights of university students? That was the first question posed by moderator Jeffrey Rosen, GW Law professor and president of the National Constitution Center, to a panel of George Washington University faculty experts on the First Amendment.

The webinar, Free Speech v. Hate Speech: First Amendment Scholars Discuss Where to Draw the Line in the Context of Higher Education, was held as part of the universitys plan for strengthening the GW community in challenging times, with the goal of fostering civil conversations about complex issues and emphasizing university policies.

The incoming inaugural Burchfield Professor of First Amendment and Free Speech Law, Mary-Rose Papandrea, began by noting that the First Amendment applies to public and not private universities, but private universities often look to the First Amendment principles for guidance. Under the First Amendment, she explained, some categories of speech receive no First Amendment protection, such as incitement of unlawful conduct, threats of violence, or giving material support to terrorists. But offensive speech and bad words are not carved out from the First Amendment. In a public university setting, however, there is some leeway for penalizing speech that would be otherwise protected. She suggested classrooms provide the best example of this.

When I ask a student to tell me the holding of a case, I actually want the holding of the case, and there is a wrong answer, Papandrea said. And if the student doesnt give me the correct answer, that will result in a lower grade in the class. Outside in the town square you can engage in false speech, incorrect speech, or misrepresentations and cannot be, as a general matter, punished by the government.

Most of the tensions surrounding free speech on campuses today, she added, arise when universities attempt to regulate the speech of faculty and students outside of the classroom.

Universities are the quintessential marketplace of ideas, Papandrea said, and we should be really concerned when the university starts making viewpoint-based speech restrictions outside of the classroom.

First Amendment: Does everything go?

In the view of Mary Anne Franks, Eugene L. and Barbara A. Bernard Professor in Intellectual Property, Technology and Civil Rights Law, free speech issues are clouded by unequal power relations, often resulting in protection of reckless speech for the majority but not for minorities. Franks proposes an alternative paradigm encouraging what she describes as fearless speech.

If we really want to talk about free speech, we actually need to get away from the First AmendmentI mean the kind of popularized version of the First Amendment which says everything goes, and you can never have any kind of intervention, Franks said.

People operating under this misconception, she added, argue that any kind of devaluation or nonplatforming constitutes censorship. That idea, she said, is pernicious.

When we think about what the First Amendment actually does, its not really telling us anything about free speech, Franks said. Its telling us about what the government cant do in certain contexts. And thats really useful to know, because the government has a lot of power that no individual has and because the kinds of measures it can take against you include the loss of your liberty. But I dont know that its such a good model for us as a private university. How much are we like a government? What we could be doing instead, and what I think successful universities do when they want to be marketplaces of ideas or spaces for intellectual, robust debate, is set standards. What are the good ideas? Whether an idea is controversial or noncontroversial is not the point.

Instead, Franks said, ideas should be well informed and argued eloquently. She argues in favor of a conscious curation of the best ideas that reflect the universitys values, expressed as persuasively as possible without threats of force or ad hominem attacks.

What is the kind of speech that a university could uniquely try to foster? she asked. What kind of space could it foster to become a forum where really difficult ideas get aired out in a way that is physically safe but also sophisticated? Im suggesting that we move toward fearless speech and critiques of current power structures, that we take notice of the fact that reality is a certain way. There are certain sensitivities to race and gender and class that we really need to have on our radar, if we want to make sure that people within the university space can speak equally.

Free speech at a private university

Dawn Nunziato, Pedas Family Professor of IP and Technology Law, agreed that the First Amendment is not necessarily the right one for every context.

At a private university like GW, we have the autonomy and the freedom and the duty to decide what kind of community we want to be, Nunziato said, and within certain bounds, what types of speech we want to protect and to not protect. Our speech policies are not governed by the First Amendment. So we dont need to protect hate speech in the same way that the First Amendment protects hate speech. We could draw the line very differently. And there are reasons why we should, and we should be very thoughtful about how we draw the line. We may choose to value inclusivity and belonging over the unfettered marketplace of ideas.

Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Nunziato noted, GW has a responsibility to provide an educational environment free of discrimination.

Robust discussion and respectful listening

The panels discussion touched on the recent congressional hearings at which the presidents of three elite universities were criticized for saying that whether speech could be considered hate speech depends on context.

After pointing out that she didnt view it as incorrect to say that the answer to questions of free speech v. hate speech can depend on context, Papandrea noted examples of speech that should be protected, such as an antisemitic line spoken by a character in a play meant to condemn antisemitism. The same line spoken by a student marching across campus could be viewed as creating a hostile environment.

Franks, too, was sympathetic to the trio of university presidents, who may have been reacting to the charge that universities are a woke paradise for snowflakes who require trigger warnings.

The most upsetting thing about the spectacle is not any of those presidents answers, Franks said. It was the fact that the spectacle was happening at alla real invocation and revitalization of a McCarthyesque kind of moment, with legislators who have made it clear that antisemitism and white supremacy are things that they either dont have a problem with or actively support. It was a really grotesque spectacle, she added, a bad faith attempt to attack diversity.

If we object to the First Amendments protection of vile speech in the public square, Nunziato said, we take that up with the Supreme Court, which defines the First Amendments protections. But whether vile speech should be restricted in the university environment is a different question, she added.

Balancing robust, sometimes caustic and heated discussion on issues of public importance against the legal obligations that we have to protect our community members from discriminatory harassment, Nunziato said, is an important part of what we do as a university.

Being part of a university community, Nunziato said, presents a unique opportunity to interact more thoughtfully than people do on social media.

Our University Yard and the quad are spaces where there may be protesters and counter-protesters, but we can be there together, Nunziato said, and engage in speech and counterspeech, unlike in some of the online environments where we have egregious problems of information silos and people going down rabbit holes. In the university environment, were all on our phones and on social media, but were also in spaces where we can engage with one another. Maybe were raising our voices, but we can listen to one another. One of the principles in our code of conduct is that members of the university community are urged to hear all sides of controversial issues.

In closing remarks, Rosen quoted Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who argued that the correct remedy for harmful speech is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression.

The concluding webinar, Rosen said, was a model of the kind of robust discussion and respectful listening that Brandeis advocated.

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Free Speech or Hate Speech? | GW Today | The George Washington University - GW Today

Why Online Free Speech Is Now Up to the Supreme Court – Bloomberg

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Conspiracy theories, election lies and Covid misinformation before the 2020 US presidential election led social media companies to implement rules policing online speech and suspending some users including former President Donald Trump. That practice, known as content moderation, will be put to the test after two Republican-led states, Florida and Texas, passed laws in 2021 to stop what they believed were policies censoring conservatives. The fate of those social media laws now rests with the US Supreme Court, which could fundamentally reshape how platforms handle speech online in the run-up to the 2024 election and beyond.

The central issue is whether the laws violate the free speech rights of social media platforms by limiting the companies editorial control. The laws apply to companies including Meta Platforms Inc.s Facebook, Alphabet Inc.s Google, X Corp. (formerly Twitter) and Reddit Inc. The justices will scrutinize provisions of the new laws that require the companies to carry content that violates their internal guidelines and to provide a rationale to users whose posts are taken down.

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Why Online Free Speech Is Now Up to the Supreme Court - Bloomberg

An Argument for Free Speech, the Lifeblood of Democracy – Tufts Now

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You devote the first part of the book to Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and his journey into skepticism about universal morality. To whom is that relevant today?

Many of todays students have a keen thirst for social justice, which I admire. When Holmes was their age, he shared that thirst, dropping out of college to enlist in the Union Army in a war against slavery, in which he was nearly killed several times.

He became very skeptical of people who believe they have unique access to universal, absolute truth, who view their adversaries as evil incarnate. That, he believed, leads ultimately to violence.

All of us today need to approach public debate with a bit of humility, recognizing that none of us is infallible and that rigid moral certitude leads down a dangerous path.

We know from centuries of experience, in many countries, that censorship inevitably backfires. It discredits the censors, who are seen as patronizing elites. It demeans listeners who are told they cant handle the truth. It makes martyrs and heroes out of the censored and drives their speech underground where its harder to rebut.

Suffragettes, civil rights leaders, and LGBTQ+ activists all have relied on free speech to get their messages out. Censorship alienates the public, generates distrust, fosters social division, and sparks political instability.

Its not that some speech isnt harmfulits that trying to suppress it causes greater harm.

Not all hateful speech is protected. Incitement to violence, fighting words, defamation, and true threats are all often hateful yet that speech is not protected. But other hateful speech is protected, for several reasons.

Hatred is a viewpoint. Its for the individual to think and feel as he or she wishes; its only when the individual crosses the line between thought and action to incite violence or defame or threaten someone that the state can intervene.

Hate speech laws are also invariably vague and overbroad, leading to arbitrary and abusive enforcement. In the real world, speech rarely gets punished because it hurts dominant majorities. It gets punished because it hurts disadvantaged minorities.

The ultimate problem with banning falsehoods is that to do so youd need an official Ministry of Truth, which could come up with an endless list of officially banned falsehoods. Not only would that list inevitably be self-serving, but it could be wrong.

Even when it comes to clear falsehoods, there are reasons to leave them up. [Former President Donald] Trump claimed, for example, that the size of the crowd at his inauguration was larger than [former President Barack] Obamas, which was indisputably false. But the statement had the effect of calling into question not only Trumps veracity but also his mental soundness, which is important for voters to assess.

They were wrong to apply a norm of international human rights law in banning hima supposed prohibition against glorifying violence. Thats a vague, overly broad standard that can pick up everything from praising Medal of Honor winners to producing Top Gun.

Were dealing here with an American president speaking from the White House to the American people, so I say the proper standard should have been the U.S. First Amendment and whether Trump intended to incite imminent violence and whether that violence was likely. Under that test, I think its a close case.

Justice Louis Brandeis [who served on the Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939] said that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones.

If someone counsels drinking bleach to cure COVID, the remedy is not to suppress itits to point out why thats wrong. But over and over, the governments remedy for speech it didnt like was to strongarm social media platforms to take it down.

The government wouldnt have lost so much credibility if it had only said, This is our best guess based on available evidence. Instead, it spoke ex cathedra on masks, lockdowns, school closings, vaccine efficacy, infection rates, myocarditis, social distancing, you name itclaims that often turned out to be untenableand then it bullied the platforms to censor prominent experts who took issue with its misinformation.

The remedy for falsehoods is more speech, not enforced silence. If someone thinks a social media post contains altered imagery or audio, the initial solution is simply to say that and let the marketplace of ideas sort it out.

Obviously counter-speech isnt always the answer: You still run into eleventh-hour deep fakes that theres no time to rebut. People do have privacy rights and interference with elections undercuts democracy.

The trick is to write legislation that catches malign fakery but doesnt also pick up satire and humor that is obviously bogus. Thats not easy. Well-intended but sloppy laws often trigger serious unintended consequences.

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An Argument for Free Speech, the Lifeblood of Democracy - Tufts Now

Supreme Court justices appear skeptical of GOP states in major internet free speech case – Washington Examiner

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The Supreme Court appeared skeptical of arguments Monday by the states of Florida and Texas that they are justified in regulating social media content moderation in a landmark case with major implications for speech on the internet.

The court heard oral arguments for two major speech-related cases on Monday: NetChoice v. Moody and NetChoice v. Paxton. The technology industry group NetChoice sued the states of Texas and Florida over laws imposed by Republicans meant to hold social media platforms accountable for banning users based on viewpoint.

Floridas law would allow residents to take legal action and the state to fine companies if they remove political candidates from social media platforms. The Texas law would require platforms to be content-neutral and allow the states attorney general and residents to sue platforms for removing content or blocking accounts. The court pressed the states to provide a justification for restricting speech. The justices, though, also asked questions aimed at determining the extent of Big Techs power over speech on the internet.

NetChoice v. Moody

Florida Solicitor General Henry Whitaker was the first to appear before the court to argue in NetChoice v. Moody. He said that platforms had to be neutral when it comes to content moderation and that the law merely regulates the conduct of a platform rather than the content. He also alleged that platforms such as Facebook and Google need to be treated as common carriers. Being defined as a common carrier, a term initially used for public transportation services and utilities but expanded to include radio stations and telephone services, would subject platforms to additional restrictions, including anti-discrimination regulations.

Multiple members of the court appear skeptical of Floridas law, noting that it was very broad and affected more platforms than some claimed it would. [Floridas law is] covering almost everything, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. The one thing I know about the internet is that its variety is infinite.

Justice Samuel Alito noted there is also no list of platforms covered by Floridas statutes. This broadness makes it challenging to deal with the cases particulars, Justice Clarence Thomas argued. Were not talking about anything specific, Thomas said. Now were just speculating as to what the law means. The e-commerce platform Etsy was brought up multiple times by the court as an example of a platform that would be inadvertently affected by Floridas law.

Paul Clement, NetChoices representative, responded in his arguments by saying that Floridas law violated the First Amendment multiple times over. He also tried to create a distinction between content moderation decisions made by government entities versus private entities. There are things that if the government does, its a First Amendment problem, and if a private speaker does it, we recognize that as protected activity, Clement argued.

The Biden administrations Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar seemed to affirm Clements arguments, arguing in favor of NetChoice and limiting Floridas power over speech.

Netchoice v. Paxton

The court reconvened a short time after to hear arguments about Texass law. Clement returned to represent NetChoice, arguing that Texass law requiring neutrality on the platform would make social media less attractive to users and advertisers since it would require platforms to host both anti-suicide and pro-suicide content as well as pro-Semitic and antisemitic content.

He also emphasized to the justices that a social media company was more like a parade or newspaper than a common carrier, trying to focus on the state of speech on the platform.

Aaron Nielson, Texass solicitor general, emphasized that social media platforms are a lot like telegraphs and that this nature should be why the state should restrict the sorts of censorship that platforms allow.

Nielson was questioned multiple times about how the state would handle its viewpoint-neutral emphasis. When asked how platforms could regulate viewpoint-neutral approaches to subjects such as terrorism, Nielson said platforms could just remove it. Instead of saying that you can have anti-al Qaeda but not the pro-al Qaeda, if you just want to say, Nobody is talking about al Qaeda here, they can turn that off, Nielson argued.

Court conclusions

The court appeared divided on the extent to which content moderation was allowed. On one hand, they saw government-enforced moderation as questionable, mainly if it focused on content. On the other hand, they criticized the power exerted by Big Tech companies. Justice Neil Gorsuch brought up the example of private messaging services such as Gmail deciding to delete communications due to them violating certain viewpoint communications, a matter that multiple justices brought up before Clement.

The court appeared bothered by the two cases being facial challenges, a legal term for cases in which a party claims that a specific law is unconstitutional and should be voided. This approach offers little flexibility for the Supreme Court since the court could not limit the laws effect to only a specific form of speech but leave other parts of the law intact.

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Section 230, a part of the Communications Decency Act that protects platforms from being held accountable for content posted by third parties, was also brought up by the justices multiple times. The justices tried to weigh how that law would interact with the states attempts to block speech, as well as NetChoices arguments in favor of the platforms. Thomas argued that NetChoices argument that platforms had editorial control undermined its defense under Section 230.

The court is expected to release a decision on both cases sometime before July. The court will only be ruling on the preliminary injunction, which means that the decision will come quicker than other cases and that the decision will decide if the lower courts blocking of the laws will be upheld or overturned.

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Supreme Court justices appear skeptical of GOP states in major internet free speech case - Washington Examiner

Supreme Court Will Decide What Free Speech Means on Social Media – Gizmodo

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The Supreme Court is hearing two cases on Monday that could set new precedents around free speech on social media platforms. The cases challenge two similar laws from Florida and Texas, respectively, which aim to reduce Silicon Valley censorship on social media, much like Elon Musk has done at X in the last year.

Twitter Verification is a Hot Mess

After four hours of opening arguments, Supreme Court Justices seemed unlikely to completely strike down Texas and Floridas laws, according to Bloomberg. Justice Clarence Thomas said social media companies were engaging in censorship. However, Chief Justice John Roberts questioned whether social media platforms are really a public square. If not, they wouldnt fall under the First Amendments protections.

At one point, the lawyer representing Texas shouted out, Sir, this is a Wendys. He was trying to prove a point about public squares and free speech, but it didnt make much sense.

The cases, Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton, both label social media platforms as a digital public square and would give states a say in how content is moderated. Both laws are concerned with conservative voices being silenced on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media platforms, potentially infringing on the First Amendment.

Silencing conservative views is un-American, its un-Texan and its about to be illegal, said Texas Governor Greg Abbott on X in 2021, announcing one of the laws the Supreme Court is debating on Monday.

If Big Tech censors enforce rules inconsistently, to discriminate in favor of the dominant Silicon Valley ideology, they will now be held accountable, said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in a 2021 press release, announcing his new law.

NetChoice, a coalition of techs biggest players, argues that these state laws infringe on a social media companys right to free speech. The cases have made their way to the United States highest court, and a decision could permanently change social media.

The laws could limit Facebooks ability to censor pro-Nazi content on its platform, for example. Social media companies have long been able to dictate what kind of content appears on their platform, but the topic has taken center stage in the last year. Musks X lost major advertisers following a rise in white supremacist content that appeared next to legacy brands, such as IBM and Apple.

NetChoice argues that social media networks are like newspapers, and they have a right to choose what appears on their pages, litigator Chris Marchese told The Verge. The New York Times is not required to let Donald Trump write an 0p-ed under the First Amendment, and NetChoice argues the same goes for social media.

NetChoices members include Google, Meta, TikTok, X, Amazon, Airbnb, and other Silicon Valley staples beyond social media platforms. The association was founded in 2001 to make the Internet safe for free enterprise and free expression.

Social and political issues have consumed technology companies in recent months. Googles new AI chatbot Gemini was accused of being racist against white people last week. In January, Mark Zuckerberg, sitting before Senate leaders, apologized to a room of parents who said Instagram contributed to their childrens suicides or exploitation.

Both of these laws were created shortly after Twitter, now X, banned Donald Trump in 2021. Since then, Musk has completely revamped the platform into a free speech absolutist site. Similar to Governors Abbot and DeSantis, Musk is also highly concerned with so-called liberal censorship on social media.

The Supreme Courts decision on these cases could have a meaningful impact on how controversy and discourse play out on social media. Congress has faced criticism for its limited role in regulating social media companies in the last two decades, but this decision could finally set some ground rules. Its unclear which way the Court will lean on these cases, as the issues have little precedent.

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Supreme Court Will Decide What Free Speech Means on Social Media - Gizmodo

The Ally, a Play About Israel and Free Speech, Tackles Big Issues – The New York Times

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Before his audition for The Ally, a new play by Itamar Moses, the actor Michael Khalid Karadsheh printed out the monologue that his character, Farid, a Palestinian student at an American university, would give in the second act.

The speech cites both the Mideast conflicts specific history and Farids personal testimony of, he says, the experience of moving through the world as the threat of violence incarnate. Karadsheh who booked the part was bowled over.

I dont think anyone has said these words about Palestine on a stage in New York in such a clear, concise, beautiful, poetic way, said Karadsheh, whose parents are from Jordan and who has ancestors who were from Birzeit in the West Bank.

Farids speech sits alongside others, though, in Mosess play: one delivered by an observant Jew branding much criticism of Israel as antisemitic; another by a Black lawyer connecting Israels policies toward Palestinians to police brutality in the United States; another by a Korean American bemoaning the mainstreams overlooking of East Asians. These speeches are invariably answered by rebuttals, which are answered by their own counter-rebuttals, all by characters who feel they have skin in the game.

In other words, The Ally, which opens Tuesday at the Public Theater in a production directed by Lila Neugebauer and starring Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother), is a not abstract and none too brief chronicle of our times, a minestrone of hot-button issues: Israelis and Palestinians, racism and antisemitism, free speech and campus politics, housing and gentrification, the excesses of progressivism even the tenuous employment of adjunct professors.

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The Ally, a Play About Israel and Free Speech, Tackles Big Issues - The New York Times

Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus Spacecraft Lands on Moon Carrying 6 NASA Payloads – Executive Gov

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An Intuitive Machines-built lunar lander carrying six NASA science research and technology demonstrations has touched down on the lunar surface following a seven-day journey to lunar orbit.

NASA said Friday its Navigation Doppler Lidar for Precise Velocity and Range Sensing guidance system for descent and landing has helped Intuitive Machines Nova-C lander, called Odysseus, softly land Thursday near Malapert A, a landing site close to the moons South Pole region.

According to NASA, Intuitive Machines turned to the guidance system when it encountered a sensor issue with its navigation system.

The NASA instrument uses a laser that emits pulses through three optical telescopes and measures speed, direction and altitude during descent and touchdown.

Other NASA payloads launched onboard Odysseus are a CubeSat-sized autonomous navigation demonstrator, a laser retroreflector array, a radio frequency mass gauge, a photoelectron sheath density observation instrument and stereo cameras for lunar plume-surface studies.

This feat from Intuitive Machines, SpaceX, and NASA demonstrates the promise of American leadership in space and the power of commercial partnerships under NASAs CLPS initiative. Further, this success opens the door for new voyages under Artemis to send astronauts to the Moon, then onward to Mars, said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

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Intuitive Machines' Odysseus Spacecraft Lands on Moon Carrying 6 NASA Payloads - Executive Gov

NASA Invites Media to Speak with Artemis II Moon Crew, Recovery Team – NASA

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Media are invited to speak with the four Artemis II astronauts on Wednesday, Feb. 28, at Naval Base San Diego in California. The crew will fly around the Moon next year as part of NASAs Artemis campaign, marking the first astronauts to make the journey in more than 50 years.

NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense are conducting training with the crew in the Pacific Ocean to demonstrate the procedures and hardware needed to retrieve NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen after their approximately 10-day, 685,000-mile journey beyond the lunar far side and back.

The flight is the first crewed mission under NASAs Artemis campaign and will test the agencys Orion spacecraft life support systems needed for future lunar missions.

Attendees will be able to view hardware associated with the training, including a test version of Orion aboard the USS San Diego, and speak with other personnel from the agency and the Defense Department who are responsible for bringing the crew and the capsule to safety after the mission.

Media interested in attending must RSVP by 4 p.m. PST, Monday, Feb. 26, to Naval Base San Diego Public Affairs atnbsd.pao@us.navy.mil or 619-556-7359. The exact time of the planned afternoon Feb. 28 event is subject to the conclusion of testing activities.

Under Artemis, NASA will establish the foundation for long-term scientific exploration at the Moon, land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the lunar surface, and prepare for human expeditions to Mars for the benefit of all.

For more about NASAs Artemis II mission, visit:

Artemis II

-end-

Rachel Kraft Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1100 rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov

Madison Tuttle Kennedy Space Center, Florida 321-298-5868 madison.e.tuttle@nasa.gov

Courtney Beasley Johnson Space Center, Houston 281-483-5111 courtney.m.beasley@nasa.gov

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NASA Invites Media to Speak with Artemis II Moon Crew, Recovery Team - NASA

Artemis II Crew, Recovery Teams Train for Final Phase of Moon Mission – NASA

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NASA astronaut and Artemis II pilot Victor Glover is assisted by U.S. Navy personnel as he exits a mockup of the Orion spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean during training Feb. 25, while his crewmates look on. The Artemis II crew and a team from NASA and the Department of Defense are spending several days at sea to test the procedures and tools that will be used to help the crew to safety when they splash down in the ocean at the end of their 10-day, 685,000-mile journey around the Moon next year as part of the first crewed mission under NASAs Artemis campaign.

On the day of the crews return to Earth, a Navy ship with specially trained personnel will await splashdown and then approach the Orion capsule to help extract the four astronauts. An inflatable raft, called the front porch, will provide a place for them to rest when they exit the capsule before they are then individually hoisted by helicopters and flown to the waiting ship.

Artemis II, launching atop the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will test the Orion spacecrafts life support systems needed for future lunar missions.

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Artemis II Crew, Recovery Teams Train for Final Phase of Moon Mission - NASA

DOD, GSA & NASA Release Interim Rule on SDVOSB Certification – Executive Gov

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The Department of Defense, NASA and the General Services Administration have issued an interim rule to implement the final rules by the Small Business Administration with regard to the certification of service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses.

The provisional rule was introduced as an amendment to the Federal Acquisition Regulation to implement sections of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal years 2021 and 2022, according to a Federal Register notice published Friday.

Section 862 of FY 2021 NDAA moves the verification of SDVOSBs from the Department of Veterans Affairs to SBA and establishes a certification requirement for such businesses seeking set-aside and sole-source awards under the SDVOSB program within the federal government.

Meanwhile, section 863 of FY 2022 NDAA requires that a small business determined ineligible by SBA for SDVOSB certification to update its status in the System for Award Management within two days of the eligibility determination.

The interim rule intends to implement SBAs governmentwide certification program for SDVOSBs and update protest procedures for such business concerns.

Interested stakeholders have until April 23 to submit comments that will help inform the final rule.

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DOD, GSA & NASA Release Interim Rule on SDVOSB Certification - Executive Gov

SpaceX, NASA ‘go’ to launch Crew-8 astronaut mission to ISS on March 1 – Space.com

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SpaceX and NASA are officially go to launch their next astronaut mission to International Space Station (ISS) this week, with its four-person crew arriving at their Florida launch site on Sunday (Feb. 25).

Called Crew-8, the upcoming SpaceX mission will launch four astronauts into orbit on the Dragon capsule Endeavour and Falcon 9 rocket from Pad 39A of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. Liftoff is scheduled for March 1 at 12:04 a.m. EST (0504 GMT).

Related: 8 ways SpaceX has transformed spaceflight

"Even though we all go today, we're constantly paying attention to what the rocket and spacecraft are telling us so that we'll make sure that we launch when the crew and the spacecraft are ready to go, and we're ready to have a good flight to the station and a good return," Ken Bowersox, NASA's associate administrator for space operations and a former astronaut, told reporters in a Sunday night teleconference.

SpaceX's Crew-8 mission for NASA will launch NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barrett, Jeannette Epps and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin on a six-month expedition to the ISS. They will relieve their Crew-7 predecessors, another four-astronaut team, who will return to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon a week after Crew-8 reaches the ISS.

Dominick will command the Crew-8 flight to the ISS with Barrett as pilot. Epps and Grekenkin are mission specialists. The mission is the first career spaceflight for all but Barrett on the Crew-8 team. NASA and SpaceX initially aimed to launch Crew-8 to the ISS on Feb. 22, but delayed it to March 1 to clear a path for a private moon launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from their same launch pad on Feb. 15.

The Crew-8 astronauts arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on Sunday afternoon as they spend their final days on Earth ahead of launch. The quartet will perform a dress rehearsal for their launch overnight on Monday and Tuesday, with SpaceX expected to perform a so-called "hot-fire" test of the Falcon 9's first stage engines a day later.

Steve Stitch, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager, told reporters Sunday that NASA and SpaceX are working through some final issues to clear ahead of the Crew-8 launch. Those include reviews of composite material fasteners on the Dragon/Falcon 9 launch vehicle for Crew-8 that are expected to be resolved before flight. Engineers are also reviewing some paint discoloration on Crew-7's Dragon capsule currently docked at the ISS, apparently due to residue tape on the capsule, to ensure it's not an issue for reentry and landing.

Crew-8 will mark the fifth flight of the Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour, which first flew astronauts to the ISS in May 2020 on SpaceX's first-ever human spaceflight, Demo-2. SpaceX and NASA are currently working to certify the reusable Dragon capsules for up to 15 spaceflights, NASA officials said.

SpaceX is one of two commercial companies with multi-billion-dollar contracts to fly astronauts to and from the ISS for NASA. The other company, Boeing, aims to launch the first crewed flight on its Starliner spacecraft no earlier than April 22.

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SpaceX, NASA 'go' to launch Crew-8 astronaut mission to ISS on March 1 - Space.com