Archive for October 2024

To truly change history, it is not enough for the masses to rise up; they must subsequently win concessions such as ceasefires, fair elections, environmental protections, or new policies that promote racial justice. While protests continue erupting with remarkable frequency, they are also failing, at historic rates, to achieve protesters’ stated goals. As Time hailed the power of the protester, the rate at which mass protests succeeded in meeting their objectives was plummeting, from two in three during the early 2000s to just one in six by the early 2020s.

Putting all these stories together, we are left with a picture of a professional regulator that can’t progress its own investigations properly, has subjected a social worker to harassment, needs to train itself on freedom of speech, and is now no longer going to properly review the CPD logs of its registrants.

Malaysia’s most vulnerable communities, including the thousands of children facing abuse and neglect, are at risk due to a critical shortage of qualified, trained social workers. The Social Work Profession Bill has yet to be tabled and social workers continue to await the recognition, resources and support they need to protect those in crisis.

The other day I was stopped on the street by someone who told me that during a particularly bad depressive episode in which she was hospitalised, she just thought of me and realised her life wasn’t actually that bad. Um, thanks? I’m not sure if that comment was more or less offensive than the guy who told me he “wasn’t sure how I got out of bed each day”. Cheers bro.

For almost a decade, researchers have been gathering evidence that the social media platform Facebook disproportionately amplifies low-quality content and misinformation. So it was something of a surprise when in 2023 the journal Science published a study that found Facebook’s algorithms were not major drivers of misinformation during the 2020 United States election. This study was funded by Facebook’s parent company, Meta.

In May, I completed a 120-hour practicum with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) as part of the requirements for the Queen’s Concurrent Education program. The same month, on May 16, the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) celebrated a landmark achievement: the successful lobbying for paid placements for social work students in Australia.