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For Immediate Release
October, 16 2012, 02:24pm EDT
Contact:
Carolyn Eisenberg
Department of History
347-743-8401, hiscze@aol.com
Martin Melkonian
Department of Economics
516-741-4360, Martin.Melkonian@Hofstra.edu
Debra Goodman
Department of Teaching, Literacy and Leadership
516-505-5062, Debra.goodman@hofstra.edu
Hofstra Faculty and Staff Call for "Real Debate" on Poverty, Peace and Human Rights
Statement by Long Island Teachers and Friends for Human Rights
Hempstead, New York
With the second Presidential Debate scheduled for this evening at Hofstra University, members of its faculty and staff are calling upon the two candidates and moderator Candy Crowley to hold a "real debate over how we can best protect human rights, advance social justice and end unnecessary wars. "
Observing that both campaigns have essentially ignored these concerns, the group emphasized that "with forty-six million people now living in poverty, it is a stunning abdication of responsibility" for the candidates to focus exclusive attention on the middle class.
At a time when worries over the deficit are driving demands for draconian cuts in vital human services, the educators challenged President Obama and Governor Romney to explain why they support a military budget in FY 2013, which is in excess of $600 billion.
Noting that on average one American soldier is committing suicide every day, another 2000 have been killed, and an estimated 15,000 Afghan civilians have perished in the conflict, group spokesman Professor Martin Melkonian asked, "why is the United States government planning to keep its troops in Afghanistan for another two years?"
And why, the Hofstra educators wanted to know, is it acceptable to use Predator drones, over the villages of Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, terrorizing the inhabitants and assassinating alleged "militants" without proof or accountability? "Who will protect our people from the rage such attacks inspire?"
Hofstra Debate Should Focus on Social Justice, Peace and Human Rights!
Statement by Long Island Teachers and Friends for Human Rights
In this election year, we are concerned that neither campaign has addressed vital issues of peace, social justice and human rights.
With forty-six million Americans now in poverty, it is a stunning abdication of responsibility to refer exclusively to problems of the middle class. What shall be done for the 22% of children in the richest country of the world, who lack adequate food, housing and access to quality education?
With states and cities across the United States laying off hundreds of thousands of teachers, firemen, hospital workers and other public employees, why is there no acknowledgement by either candidate that this is not an imagined future but a contemporary reality? And why are there no serious proposals on the table for reversing these losses?
With heightened alarm about the deficit, and the curtailment of essential human services from day care facilities, to senior citizens centers, to repair of our bridges, roads and transportation network, why are candidates from both parties advocating military expenditures for FY 2013 that are in excess of $600 billion?
With one American soldier committing suicide every day, another 2000 killed, an estimated 15,000 Afghan civilians who have perished in violent attacks, $500 billion already spent, why is the United States government planning to remain in Afghanistan for another two years? Can either candidate explain how this will achieve any practical goal? And if there is none, why are we continuing to forfeit money and lives?
With American Predator drones, hovering over foreign territory in Pakistan and Yemen, terrorizing the inhabitants and assassinating individuals for unstated, undocumented reasons, can either candidate explain why this will make our country more secure? Or how this will protect our people from the anger that such attacks inspire?
These urgent questions require forthright answers. And we call upon both candidates and the Town Hall moderator to provide the American public with a real debate over how we can best protect human rights, advance social justice and end unnecessary wars.
Signed:
Faculty, Staff and Friends
Johan Ahr (History)
Iska Alter (English)
Valerie Barr (friend)
Cindy L. Bell (Music)
Robert Brinkman (Geology, Environment and Sustainability)
Ann M. Burlein (Religion)
Jacqueline Grennon Brooks (Education)
John L. Bryant (English)
Chandler Carter (Music)
Sally Charnow (History)
Judy D'Angio (History)
Timothy P. Daniels (Sociology)
Tom DelGudice (Economics)
Neil Donahue (German and Comparative Literature)
Simon Doubleday (History)
Carolyn Eisenberg (History)
Rosebud Elijah (Education)
Brenda Elsey (History)
Anita Feldman (Dance)
Laurie Fendrich (Fine Arts)
Massoud Fazuli (Economics)
Ann Feuerbach (Anthropology)
David Friedkin (Writing Studies)
Esther Fusco (Education)
Ignacio L. Gotz (emeritus)
Debra Goodman (Education)
David Green (Political Science)
Robert Guttmann (Economics)
Russ Harrison (Writing Studies)
Conrad Herold (Economics)
Kari P. Jensen (Global Studies and Geography)
Elena Jurasaite-Harbison (Education)
Jessica Karmen (Sociology)
Sharryn M. Kasmir (Anthropology)
Judy Kaufman (Education)
Louis J. Kern (History)
Stefan Krieger (Law)
James P. Levy (History)
Barbara Lekatsas (Comp Lit and Languages)
Charles F. Levinthal (Psychology)
Andrea Libresco (Education)
Rick Ligouri (Education)
Linda Longmire (Global Studies and Geography)
Michael J. Ludwig (Health Professions)
Greg Maney (Sociology)
Martin Melkonian (Economics)
Cheryl B. Mwaria (Anthropology)
John Munz (History)
Mario Murillo (Radio, Television, Film)
Stefanie E. Nanes (Political Science)
Christopher Niedt (Sociology)
Edward Ostling (Mathematics)
Irene Plonczak (STEM, Science, Technology and Math)
Erica Percorale
Stan Pugliese (History)
Cindy Rosenthal (Drama)
Benita Sampedro (Romance Languages)
Sabina Sawhney (English)
Eileen Simons (Education)
Alan Singer (Education)
Judy Singer (Friend)
Tim Smith (Education)
Sandra L. Stacki (Education)
John Teehan (Religion)
Daniel Martin Varisco (Anthropology)
Sharon Whitton (Education)
Susan Yohn (History)
Lee Zimmerman (English)
Paul Zimmerman (English)
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'Safeguards? What Safeguards?': Grok's New 'Spicy Mode' Makes Nude Taylor Swift Deepfakes
"Deepfakes are evolving faster than human sanity can keep up," said one critic. "We're three clicks away from a world where no one knows what's real."
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Grok Imagine—a generative artificial intelligence tool developed by Elon Musk's xAI—has rolled out a "spicy mode" that is under fire for creating deepfake images on demand, including nudes of superstar Taylor Swift that's prompting calls for guardrails on the rapidly evolving technology.
The Verge's Jess Weatherbed reported Tuesday that Grok's spicy mode—one of four presets on an updated Grok 4, including fun, normal, and custom—"didn't hesitate to spit out fully uncensored topless videos of Taylor Swift the very first time I used it, without me even specifically asking the bot to take her clothes off."
Weatherbed noted:
You would think a company that already has a complicated history with Taylor Swift deepfakes, in a regulatory landscape with rules like the Take It Down Act, would be a little more careful. The xAI acceptable use policy does ban "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner," but Grok Imagine simply seems to do nothing to stop people creating likenesses of celebrities like Swift, while offering a service designed specifically to make suggestive videos including partial nudity. The age check only appeared once and was laughably easy to bypass, requesting no proof that I was the age I claimed to be.
Weatherbed—whose article is subtitled "Safeguards? What Safeguards?"—asserted that the latest iteration of Grok "feels like a lawsuit ready to happen."
Grok is now creating AI video deepfakes of celebrities such as Taylor Swift that include nonconsensual nude depictions. Worse, the user doesn't even have to specifically ask for it, they can just click the "spicy" option and Grok will simply produce videos with nudity.Video from @theverge.com.
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— Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) August 5, 2025 at 9:57 AM
Grok had already made headlines in recent weeks after going full "MechaHitler" following an update that the chatbot said prioritized "uncensored truth bombs over woke lobotomies."
Numerous observers have sounded the alarm on the dangers of unchained generative AI.
"Instead of heeding our call to remove its 'NSFW' AI chatbot, xAI appears to be doubling down on furthering sexual exploitation by enabling AI videos to create nudity," Haley McNamara, a senior vice president at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said last week.
"There's no confirmation it won't create pornographic content that resembles a recognizable person," McNamara added. "xAI should seek ways to prevent sexual abuse and exploitation."
Users of X, Musk's social platform, also weighed in on the Swift images.
"Deepfakes are evolving faster than human sanity can keep up," said one account. "We're three clicks away from a world where no one knows what's real.This isn't innovation—it's industrial scale gaslighting, and y'all [are] clapping like it's entertainment."
Another user wrote: "Not everything we can build deserves to exist. Grok Imagine's new 'spicy' mode can generate topless videos of anyone on this Earth. If this is the future, burn it down."
Musk is seemingly unfazed by the latest Grok controversy. On Tuesday, he boasted on X that "Grok Imagine usage is growing like wildfire," with "14 million images generated yesterday, now over 20 million today!"
According to a poll published in January by the Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute, 84% of U.S. voters "supported legislation making nonconsensual deepfake porn illegal, while 86% supported legislation requiring companies to restrict models to prevent their use in creating deepfake porn."
During the 2024 presidential election, Swift weighed in on the subject of AI deepfakes after then-Republican nominee Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image suggesting she endorsed the felonious former Republican president. Swift ultimately endorsed then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
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One advocate said the ruling "offers hope that we can restore protections to wolves in the northern Rockies, but only if the federal government fulfills its duty under the Endangered Species Act."
Aug 05, 2025
Conservationists cautiously celebrated a U.S. judge's Tuesday ruling that the federal government must reconsider its refusal to grant protections for gray wolves in the Rocky Mountains, as killing regimes in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming put the species at risk.
Former President Joe Biden's administration determined last year that Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for the region's wolves were "not warranted," sparking multiple lawsuits from coalitions of conservation groups. The cases were consolidated and considered by Montana-based District Judge Donald Molloy, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton.
As the judge detailed in his 105-page decision, the advocacy groups argued that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) failed to consider a "significant portion" of the gray wolf's range, the "best available science" on their populations and the impact of humans killing them, and the true threat to the species. He also wrote that "for the most part, the plaintiffs are correct."
Matthew Bishop, senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC), which represented one of the coalitions, said in a statement that "the Endangered Species Act requires the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to consider the best available science, and that requirement is what won the day for wolves in this case."
"Wolves have yet to recover across the West, and allowing a few states to undertake aggressive wolf-killing regimes is inconsistent with the law," Bishop continued. "We hope this decision will encourage the service to undertake a holistic approach to wolf recovery in the West."
Coalition members similarly welcomed Molloy's decision as "an important step toward finally ending the horrific and brutal war on wolves that the states of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming have waged in recent years," in the words of George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch.
Predator Defense executive director Brooks Fahy said that "today's ruling is an incredible victory for wolves. At a time where their numbers are being driven down to near extinction levels, this decision is a vital lifeline."
Patrick Kelly, Montana director for Western Watersheds Project, pointed out that "with Montana set to approve a 500 wolf kill quota at the end of August, this decision could not have come at a better time. Wolves may now have a real shot at meaningful recovery."
Breaking news! A federal judge in Missoula ruled USFWS broke the law when it denied protections for gray wolves in the western U.S. The agency must now reconsider using the best available science. A major step forward for wolf recovery.Read more: 🔗 wildearthguardians.org/press-releas...
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— Wolf Conservation Center 🐺 (@nywolforg.bsky.social) August 5, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Sierra Club northern Rockies campaign strategist Nick Gevock said that "wolf recovery is dependent on responsible management by the states, and Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming have shown that they're grossly unsuited to manage the species."
Gevock's group is part of a coalition represented by the Center for Biological Diversity and Humane World for Animals, formerly called the Humane Society of the United States. Kitty Block, president and CEO of the latter, said Tuesday that "wolves are deeply intelligent, social animals who play an irreplaceable role in the ecosystems they call home."
"Today's ruling offers hope that we can restore protections to wolves in the northern Rockies, but only if the federal government fulfills its duty under the Endangered Species Act," Block stressed. "These animals deserve protection, not abandonment, as they fight to return to the landscapes they once roamed freely.
While "Judge Molloy's ruling means now the Fish and Wildlife Service must go back to the drawing board to determine whether federal management is needed to ensure wolves survive and play their vital role in the ecosystem," as Gevock put it, the agency may also appeal his decision.
The original rejection came under Biden, but the reconsideration will occur under President Donald Trump, whose first administration was hostile to the ESA in general and wolves in particular. The current administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have signaled in recent months that they intend to maintain that posture.
WELC highlighted Tuesday that Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) "introduced H.R. 845 to strip ESA protections from gray wolves across the Lower 48. If passed, this bill would congressionally delist all gray wolves in the Lower 48 the same way wolves in the northern Rockies were congressionally delisted in 2011, handing management authority over to states."
Emphasizing what that would mean for the species, WELC added that "regulations in Montana, for example, allow hunters and trappers to kill several hundred wolves per year—with another 500-wolf quota proposed this year—with bait, traps, snares, night hunting, infrared and thermal imagery scopes, and artificial light."
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Press Freedom Coalition to FCC: Don't Ditch Checks on Corporate Media Consolidation
The 16 groups urge the agency "to uphold its obligation to promote competition, localism, and diversity in the U.S. media."
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A coalition of 16 civil liberties, press freedom, and labor groups this week urged U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to abandon any plans to loosen media ownership restrictions and warned against opening the floodgates to further corporate consolidation.
Public comments on the National Television Multiple Ownership Rule were due to the Federal Communications Commission by Monday—which is when the coalition wrote to the FCC about the 39% national audience reach cap for U.S. broadcast media conglomerates, and how more mergers could negatively impact "the independence of the nation's press and the vitality of its local journalism."
"In our experience, the past 30 years of media consolidation have not fostered a better environment for local news and information. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 radically changed the radio and television broadcasting marketplace, causing rapid consolidation of radio station ownership," the coalition detailed. "Since the 1996 act, lawmakers and regulators have further relaxed television ownership limits, spurring further waves of station consolidation, the full harms of which are being felt by local newsrooms and the communities they serve."
The coalition highlighted how this consolidation has spread "across the entire news media ecosystem, including newspapers, online news outlets, and even online platforms," and led to "newsroom layoffs and closures, and the related spread of 'news deserts' across the country."
"Over a similar period, the economic model for news production has been undercut by technology platforms owned by the likes of Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta, which have offered an advertising model for better targeting readers, listeners, and viewers, and attracted much of the advertising revenue that once funded local journalism," the coalition noted.
While "lobbyists working for large news media companies argue that further consolidation is the economic answer, giving them the size necessary to compete with Big Tech," the letter argues, "in fact, the opposite appears to be true."
We object."Handing even more control of the public airwaves to a handful of capitulating broadcast conglomerates undermines press freedom." - S. Derek TurnerOur statement: https://www.freepress.net/news/free-press-slams-trump-fccs-broadcast-ownership-proceeding-wildly-dangerous-democracy
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— Free Press (@freepress.bsky.social) August 5, 2025 at 12:58 PM
The letter points out that a recent analysis from Free Press—one of the groups that signed the letter—found a "pervasive pattern of editorial compromise and capitulation" at 35 of the largest media and tech companies in the United States, "as owners of massive media conglomerates seek to curry favor with political leadership."
That analysis—released last week alongside a Media Capitulation Index—makes clear that "the interests of wealthy media owners have become so inextricably entangled with government officials that they've limited their news operations' ability to act as checks against abuses of political power," according to the coalition.
In addition to warning about further consolidation and urging the FCC "to uphold its obligation to promote competition, localism, and diversity in the U.S. media," the coalition argued that the agency actually "lacks the authority to change the national audience reach cap," citing congressional action in 2004.
Along with Free Press co-CEO Craig Aaron, the letter is signed by leaders at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians - Communications Workers of America, National Coalition Against Censorship, Local Independent Online News Publishers, Media Freedom Foundation, NewsGuild-CWA, Open Markets Institute, Park Center for Independent Media, Project Censored, Reporters Without Borders USA, Society of Professional Journalists, Tully Center for Free Speech, Whistleblower and Source Protection Program at ExposeFacts, and Writers Guild of America East and West.
Free Press also filed its own comments. In a related Tuesday statement, senior economic and policy adviser S. Derek Turner, who co-authored the filing, accused FCC Chair Brendan Carr of "placing a for-sale sign on the public airwaves and inviting media companies to monopolize the local news markets as long as they agree to display political fealty to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement."
"The price broadcast companies have to pay for consolidating further is bending the knee, and the line starts outside of the FCC chairman's office," said Turner. "Trump's autocratic demands seemingly have no bounds, and Carr apparently has no qualms about satisfying them. Carr's grossly partisan and deeply hypocritical water-carrying for Trump has already stained the agency, making it clear that this FCC is no longer independent, impartial, or fair."
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