A26 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14 , 2019
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
[email protected]LOCAL OPINIONS
Regarding the Nov. 5 Metro article “Future of
e-scooters in D.C. debated”:
The District can pass all the laws it can dream up,
but until they’re enforced, people will keep doing
whatever they find convenient, the rest of us be
damned. Expecting scooter companies to “ensure
users know the rules” is unrealistic. Scooter users
aren’t the only ones endangering others; that descrip-
tion of bad behavior also fits more than a few
bicyclists.
You take your life into your hands crossing the
street in the District. I can’t count the number of
times I’ve almost been hit by vehicles — most often
bicycles — racing through crosswalks against the
signal. This wouldn’t be a problem if everyone fol-
lowed basic traffic rules and those who didn’t were
penalized. But scofflaws are so rarely caught that it’s
no wonder many people don’t comply.Drivers on roads must put pedestrian safety first;
why allow vehicles in areas intended for pedestrians?
Any wheeled vehicle, with a motor or without, that
moves significantly faster than a person on foot is
dangerous on a sidewalk. Pedestrians don’t move in
designated lanes, can’t always hear things approach
even when warnings are given, must keep looking
down to avoid holes and uneven surfaces, and aren’t
shielded by protective clothing or helmets. The idea
that soon many more e-scooters may be on D.C. side-
walks is horrifying.
Why are pedestrians at the bottom of the District’s
priority list? Why do people walking downtown
deserve more protection than pedestrians in other
busy neighborhoods? Makes you wonder if you
shouldn’t go back to using your car, if only in self-
defense.
Linnea Warren, WashingtonA horrifying future for pedestrians
“W
ILL BE meeting with representatives
of the Vaping industry, together with
medical professionals and individu-
al state representatives, to come up
with an acceptable solution to the Vaping and
E-cigarette dilemma,” President Trump tweeted
Monday. “Children’s health & safety, together with
jobs, will be a focus!”
This might not sound like one of Mr. Trump’s
alarming tweets. But it is. The president announced
two months ago that he would crack down on
e-cigarettes, following dire news about their appeal
to teenagers. Now — reading “together with jobs” —
public-health advocates are worried he might re-
verse course.
Policy must be aimed, first and foremost, at
preventing a generation of teenagers from getting
hooked on nicotine. A secondary goal is ensuringthat smokers trying to quit have access to well-
regulated vaping products that are likely safer than
traditional cigarettes when used long-term. Vaping
industry jobs are no priority when the health of two
large groups of Americans is on the line. But this
impulsive president might suddenly buy the pitch
from a loud alliance of hard-right conservatives and
e-cigarette groups arguing that vaping policy should
be written in deference to their interests rather than
the general public’s health.
The crackdown he announced two months ago
had been the right idea. Mr. Trump pledged to ban
flavored vaping liquids, which hold particular
appeal to teenagers. Only tobacco-flavored vaping
fluids would be legal, allowing former smokers
access to nicotine-laced liquids in a flavor to which
they are accustomed while repelling young non-
smokers. Companies that wished to sell e-cigarettepods in different flavors, such as mint or menthol,
would have to persuade the Food and Drug Adminis-
tration that allowing their sale would benefit public
health on net, which would no doubt require solid
plans to ensure they would be marketed and sold
only to adults seeking a healthier alternative to
smoking. The president’s initial instinct to set a
cautious policy, allowing for exceptions only after
careful study, was the right one.
The federal health data that spurred Mr. Trump
two months ago indicated that more than a quarter
of high schoolers reported having used an e-
cigarette in the past 30 days — and they mostly chose
fruit or mint flavors — up from 21 percent last year.
Those numbers, rather than the number of adult
smokers who will not use the patch or gum to quit,
or the number of jobs in the vaping business, should
be the overriding factors shaping the vaping debate.Don’t reverse course on vaping
Mr. Trump must aim policy at preventing teenagers from getting hooked on nicotine.
E
VERYONE AGREES that child exploitation
material should be off the Web. The trouble is
actually getting rid of it. The New York Times
writes that technology companies last year
reported 45 million online photographs and videos of
minors, including infants and toddlers, being sexual-
ly assaulted and in some cases even tortured.
The startling surge results in part from inventions
that make images simple to disseminate and compli-
cated to detect. This is society’s chronic Internet-
induced headache: We’ve opened up the world, and
that comes with horrors as well as wonders. But the
spike also represents an increase in successful polic-
ing by platforms — which is better news. Still, there’s a
long way to go.
The first challenge is technical. The most common
technology for catching child exploitation imagery
was crafted to identify illicit photos, not videos. That
roadblock is dwarfed by another: Today’s tried-and-
true tools match uploads to known violating materi-
al; they do not nab new content as it comes in — but
nabbing new content is essential to stopping ongoing
abuse. Firms such as Facebook are developing algo-
rithms to do this trickier job, as well as to anticipate
abuse before it happens by detecting exploitative
relationships as they’re forming.
That trickier job also involves trickier trade-offs. The
Times found that even companies that do have access
to top-tier technology for scanning content for abuse
often choose not to use it. The cynical interpretation of
this negligence is that platforms fear the negative
press, plus the added expense, that may result from
acknowledging there’s a problem. But it’s also the case
that any system that monitors users’ communications
at all poses a privacy risk, and the risk is heightened
when the system relies on still-untested algorithms
attempting to ensnare anything that resembles exploi-
tation material. There’s more to consider: Scanning
public content such as search engine results or posts on
Twitter, for example, may be less of an infringementthan combing through private messages or uploads to
the cloud that have not been shared with others.
The complexity of the problem, not to mention its
magnitude, makes a compelling case for platforms to
coordinate more closely on how they police their own
sites and how they share what they find with one
another and the underfunded, overwhelmed federal
clearinghouse, the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children. A legal wrinkle strengthens the
case for private companies to take the initiative: More
leadership from the government might also meanmore Fourth Amendment challenges to court cases
trying to take down perpetrators.
The responsibility to eradicate this scourge is one
of many challenges being at least partially outsourced
from Washington to Silicon Valley. Others, from
fighting terrorism to monitoring misinformation,
invite far more controversy. The photographed and
filmed abuse of children is unquestionably reprehen-
sible, and it’s also unquestionably illegal. Platforms’
ability to take on this task will say much about their
ability to take on all the others.Ending child sex
abuse online
Tech platforms have made progress
but still have a long way to go.ABCDE
FREDERICK J. RYAN JR., Publisher and Chief Executive Officer
News pages: Editorial and opinion pages:
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Executive Editor Editorial Page Editor
CAMERON BARR JACKSON DIEHL
Managing Editor Deputy Editorial Page Editor
EMILIO GARCIA-RUIZ RUTH MARCUS
Managing Editor Deputy Editorial Page Editor
TRACY GRANT JO-ANN ARMAO
Managing Editor Associate Editorial Page Editor
SCOTT VANCE
Deputy Managing Editor
BARBARA VOBEJDA
Deputy Managing Editor
Vice Presidents:
JAMES W. COLEY JR. ..................................................................................... Production
L. WAYNE CONNELL..........................................................................Human Resources
KATE M. DAVEY .................................................................................. Revenue Strategy
ELIZABETH H. DIAZ ................................................. Audience Development & Insights
GREGG J. FERNANDES........................................................Customer Care & Logistics
STEPHEN P. GIBSON...................................................................Finance & Operations
SCOT GILLESPIE .......................................................................................... Engineering
KRISTINE CORATTI KELLY...................................................Communications & Events
JOHN B. KENNEDY.................................................................General Counsel & Labor
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The Washington Post
1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071 (202) 334-6000In a time when it has become commonplace for
the president of the United States to spew divisive,
racist bombast, it was heartening and inspiring to
read the Nov. 9 front-page article “At a Gaithersburg
farm, an unlikely bond forms.” The King family
found and visited the farm, even the cabin, where
their enslaved ancestors lived and toiled. Slavehold-
er Thomas Griffith’s descendants were gracious in
welcoming the Kings.
The greatest lesson from this profoundly moving
story was when Frances Becker, a Griffith descen-
dant, was advised to refer to the King ancestors as
being “enslaved” rather than as “slaves.” Ms. Becker
conceded: “I’m a work in progress.” We as individu-
als and as a nation must all be “works in progress”
as we continue to struggle with the painful experi-
ence of slavery. We have much to learn from these
two remarkable families and their inescapable
bond.
Larry K. Houck, McLeanIn the article “At a Gaithersburg farm, an
unlikely bond forms,” John B. King Jr. eloquently
credited his enslaved ancestors for the life he and his
family enjoy today. Would that they could know not
only of their descendant’s accomplishments in edu-
cational equity as President Barack Obama’s educa-
tion secretary but also of the strength of character
that made his department such a wonderful place
for employees to work and achieve together the
noble goals he set.
My husband was Mr. King’s deputy general coun-
sel, and he never stopped marveling at the collegiali-
ty and cohesiveness Mr. King was able to establish
among their widely diverse cadre. He has done those
forebears proud.
Marilyn Urwitz, WashingtonLessons from two families
The Nov. 10 Business article “Applying for a job? A
face-scanning algorithm could be the gatekeeper.”
described HireVue’s claims that its artificial-
intelligence evaluation of video interviews operates
with “superhuman precision and impartiality.” Us-
ing AI, however, will not eliminate bias in hiring.
An AI algorithm bases its judgments on similari-
ties with the data it’s given. For example, an AI
algorithm used to evaluate arrestees considered
black people more likely to reoffend than white
people. This was because the data used to train the
AI had a much higher rate of recidivism for blacks,
possibly because of systematic bias. Instead of
eliminating prejudices, AI can obfuscate them,
masking them behind a veneer of mathematical
certainty.
HireVue claims it can eliminate such “adverse
impacts” by drawing on videos of diverse people.
However, the problem cannot be solved this easily.
Personality traits that lead to promotion, such as
extroversion, will be selected for, even if they are not
beneficial to an employee’s performance on the job.
We must stop thinking of AI as a panacea for
human subjectivity. Artificial intelligence will do
only what we tell it to do.
Daniel Fu, Great FallsAs someone who has spent many years hiring
people, the Nov. 10 Business article about using
artificial intelligence in hiring (as a candidate said)
“made my skin crawl.” Amazon and Netflix now use
algorithms to determine something much simpler
than who is right for the job. They show me what
they think my next purchase or movie rental would
be, and they are dead wrong more than 95 percent of
the time. More than 95 percent of my hires have been
terrific employees; I doubt artificial intelligence
could do better.
Roslyn Lang, BethesdaAI won’t eliminate bias in hiring
In his Nov. 10 Business column, “Warren’s
health-care plan isn’t progressive or courageous. It’s
a cop-out.,” Steven Pearlstein was wrong that the
$25 million remaining after taxes would be reduced
by a 6 percent wealth tax to $13 million over a
decade. That would happen only if the $25 million
were not invested. The net worth of the 1 percent has
grown an average of 6.34 percent a year for the past
30 years. So, if invested and taxed at 6 percent, the
$25 million would grow at the rate of 0.34 percent a
year to $25.9 million over a decade. The 1 percent,
which includes all households worth $10 million or
more, holds close to $32 trillion in wealth. If that
were taxed at 6 percent a year, the tax revenue would
total roughly $1.9 trillion a year, leaving more than
$32 trillion after taxes because of 6.34 percent
growth.
Tom Clarkson, ViennaInvesting after the wealth tax
As a longtime reproductive health advocate who
provides critical support for the family planning
safety net in Texas, I was deeply troubled by the
Nov. 8 front-page article “Christian centers turn to
contraception,” detailing a new chain of Christian
pregnancy centers organizing in Texas.
One of the goals of the Trump administration’s
recent Title X rule is to provide federal family
planning funds to new, unproven organizations
such as the Source. This will mean fewer resources
for qualified providers that offer a broad range of
contraceptive options and preventive services. This
troubling trend is reminiscent of Texas’s failed
experiment in funding an untested group compara-
ble to the Source (and including the Source San
Antonio). In 2016, Texas awarded the Heidi Group
$6.7 million to provide reproductive health services
to 70,000 clients, but fewer than 2,500 clients were
served, according to a recent report by Texas’s
health inspector general (which also found that the
group owes Texas $1.5 million for a lack of contrac-
tual compliance).
I caution that people who need critical health care
will go unserved if funding is redirected to unquali-
fied providers such as the Source and that reducing
support for comprehensive sexual and reproductive
health providers is not in the best interest of our
nation’s public health.
Kami E. Geoffray, Austin
The writer is chief executive of the Women’s Health
and Family Planning Association of Texas.A waste of family-planning funds
T
WO VETERAN U.S. diplomats on Wednesday
told a compelling story of how U.S. policy
toward Ukraine was undermined and cor-
rupted to serve President Trump’s personal
political interests. For years, they testified to the
House Intelligence Committee, the aims of the Unit-
ed States had been to help Ukraine resist armed
aggression by Russia and to press it to tackle endemic
corruption. That abruptly changed earlier this year.
“The security assistance we provide is crucial to
Ukraine’s defense,” said William B. Taylor Jr., the
acting head of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. So Mr. Tay-
lor was appalled when the aid was suspended in
July, and even more so when he learned it had been
linked to a demand by Mr. Trump for political
investigations, including of Joe Biden. “To withhold
that assistance for no good reason other than help
with a political campaign made no sense,” he said.
“It was counterproductive to all of what we had been
trying to do. It was illogical. It could not be
explained. It was crazy.”
George Kent, the State Department official in
charge of Ukraine policy, said in pursuing U.S. anti-
corruption initiatives, he had “a front seat to problem-
atic activities by successive prosecutors general in
Ukraine.” So he was shocked when he became aware of
an effort by Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph
W. Giuliani, to smear the U.S. ambassador in Ukraine.“The chief agitators on the Ukrainian side of this
effort,” Mr. Kent testified, “were some of those same
corrupt former prosecutors I had encountered....
They were now peddling false information in order to
exact revenge against those who had exposed their
misconduct.”
That is the heart of the case against Mr. Trump: that
he allied his administration with some of Ukraine’s
most corrupt elements, and undercut its military
defense at a time when its soldiers were fighting and
dying, to obtain what he thought might be evidence of
wrongdoing by Mr. Biden or proof that Ukraine
rather than Russia was responsible for meddling in
the 2016 presidential election. At the least, he wanted
to create the impression that such evidence might
exist: Mr. Taylor testified about “the odd push” to
force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to
publicly commit to investigating the allegations — an
announcement that might hurt Mr. Biden and help
Mr. Trump even if nothing came of it.
As expected, Intelligence Committee Republicans
devoted some of their time to trying to make the
allegations about Mr. Biden and the Ukrainians look
credible. To his credit, Mr. Kent, a 27-year veteran of
the Foreign Service, responded pithily. Asked if there
were any basis for the theory that Ukraine interfered
in the election, he responded: “No factual basis.”
Asked if there were evidence of wrongdoing byMr. Biden, he said: “None whatsoever.”
The two witnesses were convincingly nonparti-
san. Mr. Kent readily detailed how he had raised
concerns about Hunter Biden’s acceptance of a board
position on a Ukrainian gas company whose owner
had been credibly accused of corruption. Republican
attempts to connect that corruption to the Bidens
were flimsy: The activities that raised U.S. concerns
occurred before Hunter Biden joined the board, and
Joe Biden pressed for the removal of a prosecutor
who had failed to investigate them. Mr. Trump,
meanwhile, did not demand the investigation of the
company or its owner, but of the Bidens.
Perhaps the most cynical argument made by
Republicans was that neither Mr. Taylor nor Mr. Kent
had direct knowledge of Mr. Trump’s demand for a
quid pro quo, as neither had spoken to him personal-
ly or heard his phone call with Mr. Zelensky. Yet GOP
legislators know that senior officials who could
testify to Mr. Trump’s actions and motives, including
acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former
national security adviser John Bolton, have refused
to respond to congressional summons on the White
House’s instructions. Firsthand testimony may be
heard next week from an ambassador who spoke to
Mr. Trump about Ukraine repeatedly. But Republi-
cans who genuinely want more direct evidence
should be pressing Mr. Trump to stop withholding it.Witnesses to corruption
Two U.S. diplomats testify to Mr. Trump’s abuse of power in Ukraine.
ABCDE
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