Here is a link to the Times story we discussed Tuesday about Clearview AI and its alarming facial recognition software, now owned by hundreds of police departments nationwide. Twitter told the company yesterday it must stop “scraping” photos from its platform or face possible legal action.

When we think about our own privacy, and how much of it we’ve already given away, the issues raised in this in-depth report will be incredibly illuminating to you. They were to me.

As I heard a colleague say yesterday: “If you are not paying for something, you are what’s being sold.”

Social media — especially Facebook, Google and Twitter — have siphoned off billions in ad revenue from one of their primary sources of content: local news organizations. The result has been disastrous for newsrooms large and small across the U.S.

Please read this recent story in The New York Times about a Congressional response to this challenge to local news organizations.  In typed essay of 500 words or less, due in class Tuesday, please identify the issues the story illuminates. What are the concerns? What has been the impact on communities as local news has withered? Why, in this time of deep political polarization, is there some bipartisan support to address the problem?

Finally, reflect on how local news is covered in your own community. Are you aware of the health of your local news media; do you read and watch it when home (or from afar); do you or your family depend on it? Please tell me what you think here, not what you think I want to hear. (Local news, important as it is, can often be its own worst enemy in its appeal to news consumers).

Please print your essay and bring to class (there are too many of you for me to print your essays).