August 10, 2024 - PBS News Weekend full episode

STEPHANIE SY: Tonight on PBS News Weekend, as millions of children admit to using E-cigarettes, we learn how text messages can help teens quit, then what's being done to combat the rise of sexually explicit images and deepfakes posted without consent, and how the fight over restricting books in schools and libraries is playing out in Indiana.

WOMAN: I worry that students won't get the reading materials that they want, and they also won't get the reading materials that they need.

I have always tried to make sure that students can see themselves on the library shelf.

(BREAK) STEPHANIE SY: Good evening.

I'm Stephanie Sy.

John Yang is away.

An Israeli air strike in Gaza hit a school today, killing at least 80 people.

The strike happened during morning prayers, according to witnesses.

Israeli defense forces say Hamas militants were operating out of the school.

Hamas disputes the claim.

A newly released 911 call during the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School reveals a family member of the gunman tried to intervene in the shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers.

Records released as part of a lawsuit against the city of Uvalde, Texas showed the shooter's uncle asked a 911 dispatcher to speak with him in an attempt to deescalate the situation.

The call came in about 10 minutes after the shooting stopped.

At the Paris Olympics today, the U.S. women's soccer team beat Brazil the first Olympic title it has claimed since 2012.

Mallory Swanson's goal early in the second half put Team USA on top.

It now has a record five Olympic gold medals in women's soccer.

And on the track, Masai Russell added to the American Gold medal count with a photo finish in the women's 100 meter hurdles.

Team USA also picked up gold in both the women's and men's four by 400 meter relays.

But a U.S. gymnast may be losing her medal.

The International Gymnastics Federation said tonight that Romanian gymnast, Ana Barbosu, who came in third in the women's floor exercise final last Saturday, not American Jordan Childs.

Childs was awarded the Bronze after Team USA made a last minute scoring appeal that has now been nullified.

It will be up to the Olympic Committee what happens with the medal.

And long-time Google executive and former YouTube CEO, Susan Wojcicki has died.

She had lung cancer.

She played a key role in the success of Google coming on as one of the first employees after renting her garage to Google's founders for almost a decade, Wojcicki was the head of YouTube, which she had urged Google to acquire.

Susan Wojcicki, also a wife and mother of five, was 56, years old.

Still to come on PBS News Weekend, the rise of explicit images online made public without consent, and the fight over book restrictions in Indiana schools and libraries.

(BREAK) STEPHANIE SY: There is new evidence that a free texting program may help teens quit e-cigarettes, also known as vaping, more than 2 million American middle and high school students now use e-cigarettes.

A clinical trial has found teens enrolled in the This is Quitting anonymous text message program where 35 percent more likely to report giving up vaping after seven months.

Doctor Amanda Graham is the principal investigator of the study and the Chief Health Officer at Truth Initiative, a nonprofit aimed at preventing youth nicotine addiction.

Dr. Graham, thank you so much for joining us.

So this program has been up and running for several years.

How many teens have enrolled, and how did you reach them?

D. AMANDA GRAHAM, Chief Health Officer, Truth Initiative: We launched the program in January of 2019 and since that time over 780,000 young people have enrolled.

This is a program that serves 13 to 24 year olds, and we consistently see tens of thousands of young people enrolling every month of the program is promoted through the Truth campaign the national public education -- public education campaign that we've run here at Truth Initiative since 1999 and that reaches young people where we know they're spending the majority of their day, which is on social media.

STEPHANIE SY: Briefly describe for us how this texting program works, and how did you design it specifically for the target audience here, which is young people.

AMANDA GRAHAM: So this is a quit vaping program that we specifically designed to meet the needs of young people.

It delivers proven behavior change techniques, things that we know are effective for helping people to break a nicotine addiction, and delivered through text messaging, which we know is the way that young people prefer to communicate.

The program is tailored by age, by the device type that they're using, and by their quit date, which ensures that we're delivering relevant support all throughout their quitting journey.

It's a very interactive program.

We deliver open ended questions, true, false questions, yes, no, things that are designed to engage young people throughout the process of using the program, and it's highly tailored.

One of the things I'll say that's unique to this program is that we've received tens of thousands of submissions from other program users wanting to support young people, and we folded their tips and advice and encouragement back into the program to convey that lots of other young people are quitting and that quitting successfully is possible.

STEPHANIE SY: You know, teen smoking, as you know, Dr, Graham, has been a problem for decades.

How do e cigarettes present a different challenge than traditional cigarettes in trying to get teens to stop?

AMANDA GRAHAM: You know, one of the challenges has been the very rapid evolution of these devices over the past five or six years.

We know that disposable devices in particular, have evolved to deliver much larger doses of nicotine, much stronger doses of nicotine, and they're relatively inexpensive.

And we know that disposable e-cigarettes are the products that young people are using most.

You know, with cigarettes, there was always a clear signal to the end of a smoking episode when you got to the end of a cigarette.

And with these big, chunky devices, some of them contain the average amount of nicotine that you would find in seven to 14 packs of cigarettes, that massive amount of nicotine is really what has changed the game for young people today.

STEPHANIE SY: And these were originally marketed as somehow safer than cigarettes, right?

And now you have governments and bans on the flavorings, and yet they still seem to be so prevalent.

AMANDA GRAHAM: They're very popular among young people.

Flavors are something that we know attract adolescents to using e-cigarettes, and they often don't know that most e-cigarettes do contain nicotine and that nicotine is highly addictive.

We also know that nicotine and these products are things that young people turn to, thinking that it will help alleviate stress, it will help alleviate anxiety and boredom.

And so there's really important to get information out specifically to young people that there is no safe level of nicotine use.

You know, there's a different story when it comes to adult smokers, and where there may be evidence emerging that e-cigarettes may help some smokers to quit, and so there's a very fine line to tread in public health about how to craft the right message that warns young people about the dangers, but that leaves open the opportunity for smokers.

STEPHANIE SY: How effective is something like this texting program compared to something like nicotine replacement therapy, which you would see a full on nicotine addict that was an adult turning to?

AMANDA GRAHAM: So this is the first study of its kind.

It's the first evidence that we have about what works for adolescents to help them quit vaping.

What we saw was about a 10 percent percentage point difference between participants randomized to this text message intervention, about 38 percent of them quit, compared to about 28 percent in the control arm.

What I'll say is that many clinicians are prescribing nicotine replacement therapy for adolescents off label their support from some of the national bodies for doing this, because we know that a combination of medication and behavioral support can be most effective.

STEPHANIE SY: That is Dr. Amanda Graham with the nonprofit Truth Initiative.

Doctor Graham, thanks so much for joining us.

AMANDA GRAHAM: Thank you.

STEPHANIE SY: Sexual images posted online without one's consent have long been a problem, starting with revenge porn, but deepfake and AI technology's ability to manipulate photos and even videos has made things worse.

Even Taylor Swift has been a victim of AI generated sexual images.

Now, Google has announced new steps to combat sexually explicit deepfakes in their search results, but there is no one size fits all solution for this complex problem.

Paresh Dave is a senior writer at Wired who's been reporting on all of this and joins us now.

Paresh, thank you so much for joining us.

How quickly have we seen the rise of nonconsensual sexual images online, and what is driving this?

PARESH DAVE, Senior Writer, Wired: I mean, it's huge.

It's a huge problem.

The doubling of these reports over the last couple of years is what we've been seeing in places like the U.K. and the U.S., and it's in part driven by those deepfakes that you were talking about.

STEPHANIE SY: It is also driven in part by the porn industry, right?

And this is all part of the porn economy now.

People are paying to download images and videos of this nature.

PARESH DAVE: The nonconsensual nature, yes, but I would draw a distinction between porn and this nonconsensual image based sexual abuse, which is not considered porn.

You know, porn is generally viewed as more consensual.

STEPHANIE SY: According to the company sensitive, 96 percent of deepfakes are sexually explicit and feature women who didn't consent to the creation of the content.

Who is most vulnerable to being victimized in this way?

PARESH DAVE: It's everyone there's been recent surveys that have shown it's men, you know, it's young boys.

There's a huge trend of sextortion that's been happening.

It's anyone that has their photo on the internet, which at this point is pretty much all of us.

STEPHANIE SY: Google has said, Paresh, that it will reduce the prominence and relevance of deepfake images in its searches that addresses deepfakes.

But what about actual images that are used without consent?

Does Google go far enough to address those victims?

PARESH DAVE: So Google already takes those measures that you described that they've just recently applied to deepfakes.

But what I've reported recently is that the key issue here is that there are numerous ideas on the table that Google could adopt to reduce the burden on victims of image based sexual abuse.

These are ideas proposed by survivors, their advocates, even employees within Google, and Google has just refused to adopt these ideas, in part because they're worried about over censorship, in part because they're worried is coming off as too much of a regulator of the internet.

But there are some basic ideas here that is just unfathomable why they haven't pursued them.

STEPHANIE SY: You use this term image based sexual abuse.

Can you describe some of what happens to victims who find themselves in this situation?

PARESH DAVE: Yeah.

I mean, it's people who might send an image consensually.

You know that they've taken themselves a selfie, and then they've shared it with a friend, and then you know that friend has seeking revenge something goes wrong in that relationship, they post it online.

This could be surreptitious recordings of people.

There's a number of ways someone could be, you know, suffering from this issue.

And then the big issue is, then they have to go to the place where they were traumatized, go to the internet and find all these images, try to get it taken down.

It's a lot of burden on the actual victims or survivors here to get rid of all this material from the internet, and it takes years and years sometimes.

STEPHANIE SY: Well, that's something that all of us parents deal with when we talk to our children.

If your photo shows up on online, it could be there forever.

How difficult is the process for victims to take this stuff down, and how willing are the technology companies to meet victims halfway and help them?

PARESH DAVE: One of the things that's remarkable here is that there's a whole cottage industry of companies that have popped up charging, sometimes thousands of dollars, you know, per sort of project or initiative to help victims get their images taken down.

So, this problem is so bad that there's like an economy that has been created around it, and these companies help the victims find the images.

They even use AI to automatically find the images as they pop up and immediately send takedown notices.

But it is but it is a pain.

Sometimes companies will ask for identity verification, so you have to send them your ID, or they might question whether it was actually, you know, nonconsensual.

You know, maybe you've been an OnlyFans creator, and then you have, you know, images of yourself leaked online.

You know, Google might question, Well, are you still commercializing those images?

It's a whole mess that these survivors have to go through.

STEPHANIE DAVE: Besides tech companies, who else can be addressing this problem.

Is this a law enforcement and regulatory policy problem as well?

PARESH DAVE: Absolutely.

One of the things that I heard consistently from employees at Google and reporting my story was that, why aren't law enforcement doing more to go after the criminals?

Why haven't we criminalized more of this behavior across the country?

There's, you know, most states have criminalized aspects of this, but there's certainly not enough effort from law enforcement to go after the underlying criminals, in part because, you know, sometimes they may be overseas, or even when they are brought to justice, you can actually maybe get them in jail or get them to pay up the damages that they're supposed to.

STEPHANIE SY: That is Paresh Dave, a senior editor at Wired, joining us.

Thanks so much, Paresh.

PARESH DAVE: Glad to be here.

STEPHANIE SY: As the school year gets underway, 13 popular books were banned at Utah's public schools this week under a new law.

It's one of many moves around the country threatening to reshape school libraries.

Lee Gaines of WFYI reports on how in Indiana, teachers may even be criminalized for providing books deemed harmful.

WOMAN: It is a parent's decision what their child is going to be reading.

LEE GAINES (voice-over): This is totally inappropriate for K2 students to be discussing this with anybody but their parents.

Last year, Indiana governor Eric Holcomb signed a controversial book restriction bill that made two sweeping changes.

First, it's now easier for community members to request the removal of books from schools that they believe are inappropriate.

Second, if a teacher or school librarian provides a student with a book their parent believes is harmful and a prosecutor agrees they could be charged with a crime and they can't use the book's educational value as a defense.

Indiana Republican state senator Jim Toms co-authored the initial legislation.

JIM TOMES (R) Indiana State Senator: These were pornographic books, something you would see probably in adult bookstores.

LEE GAINES (voice-over): Efforts to restrict kids and teens access to certain types of books are happening across the country.

PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for free expression, documented nearly 6,000 instances of book bans in 41 states and 247 public school districts over a two year period, 37 percent of the banned books included characters of color or themes of race and racism, and 36 percent included LGBTQ characters or themes.

JONATHAN FRIEDMAN, PEN America: Distinguished members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

LEE GAINES (voice-over): PEN America's Jonathan Friedman says Indiana's law doesn't ban specific types of content from schools, but it does create a sense of fear and anxiety among educators.

JONATHAN FRIEDMAN: Now no one is telling them, You better not have X book or y book or books with sexual content on the shelves, but it's clear that that kind of material is going to be targeted, and that the law that has passed is going to enable the targeting of that kind of that kind of content.

LEE GAINES: So there's a fear that this legislation is going to lead to the removal of books like that, either because parents complain about them or because educators worry that they'll get in trouble for including those types of books in their collection.

JIM TOMES: Well, maybe they should worry.

Maybe educators should work through doing it.

Maybe it should have the chilling effect if it's going to put these kind of books in the hands of a minor child.

LEE GAINES (voice-over): This targeting of books prompted Indianapolis author Leah Johnson to open her own bookstore, which stocks frequently banned titles.

LEAH JOHNSON, Owner, Loudmouth Books: In retrospect, I can identify that not having books that reflected my experience did deeply change the way I thought about myself and my position in the world.

LEE GAINES (voice-over): Johnson is now trying to fill that gap by writing stories about queer black girls.

Her debut young adult novel "You Should See Me in a Crown," follows the story of a black queer high school girl from Indiana.

The book received critical acclaim, but it was also one of about 50 titles that were put under investigation by the Oklahoma Attorney General because of complaints from parents and conservative groups that they contained obscene material.

LEAH JOHNSON: There's no content in the book that could even realistically be viewed as obscene, except for the fact that it is queer.

And to a lot of people, queerness is inherently obscene.

LEE GAINES (voice-over): The Oklahoma Attorney General dropped the investigation, but for Johnson, the current surge in book challenges and the state laws that support them are an existential threat.

LEAH JOHNSON: It's not about the removal of books from shelves.

It's about the removal of queer people from public life.

It's about making queer people ashamed and afraid and driving them back into the closet.

LEE GAINES (voice-over): Indiana's law has also sparked worry among librarians.

Diane Rogers is the president of the Indiana Library Federation.

She's a high school librarian who has made it a point to stock her shelves with a diverse range of literature.

LEE GAINES: Do you have anything in this collection that could potentially fall under the category of obscene or harmful, as defined by Indiana law?

DIANE ROGERS, President, Indiana Library Federation: I have never had items that would be considered obscene by law in my collection.

Do I have books that someone may find objectionable, but objectionable is not the same thing as obscene, and perhaps I do because people have different views about things.

People have different feelings.

LEE GAINES (voice-over): While she doesn't believe this law affects her ability to do her job right now, Rogers worries about the future.

DIANE ROGERS: I worry that students won't get the reading materials that they want, and they also won't get the reading materials that they need.

I have always tried to make sure that students can see themselves on the library shelf.

LEE GAINES (voice0over): Bruce Boyd is a resident of Noblesville, Indiana, who describes himself as a Christian missionary.

Boyd told me he thinks books that feature diverse representations of gender and sexuality could be harmful to kids.

BRUCE BOYD, Noblesville, Indiana Resident: In a public library in a Christian nation, I think that, you know, my opinion, I feel like the standard has been set, and if we a Christian nation, we need to abide by the Christian standard.

LEE GAINES: But Boyd's perspective isn't one shared by everyone in the Indianapolis suburbs.

MAX: My name is Max.

I'm 16.

LEE GAINES (voice-over): Max heard that their local public library board approved a new rule in late 2022 to ban books that contain sex, drug and alcohol use repeated profanity and violence from the children and teen sections in the library system.

The policy led to the relocation of nearly 2000 books from the youth section to the adult collection.

Max described it as outrageous.

We're not showing Max's face to shield them from potential harassment.

MAX: The first book that I read wasn't the reason I realized I was trans.

It was just nice to see once I realized that, and I see that represented a book.

So now that it's not being represented, it's might be harder for people to realize or even just feel safe in their own identity, and that's my concern.

LEE GAINES (voice-over): The American Library Association documented over 4,200 unique book titles targeted for censorship in 2023 that represents a 65 percent increase over 2022 numbers, and the highest ever recorded since the ALA began tracking this data two decades ago, of the 10 most challenged books in 2023 seven were challenged because they contained LGBTQ content, and all 10 were claimed to contain sexually explicit content.

MAN: It seemed really ill thought out.

LEE GAINES (voice-over): Following backlash in Max's community, several conservative members of the public library board either quit or were not reappointed.

And in November 2023 the board voted to rescind the policy that banned certain books from the youth section of the library.

MAX: What makes me hopeful is the fact that a lot of other people my age, who are Gen Z, we have access to the internet, and know how much power that can hold.

I think that we have the power to stop this if we all pitch in.

And I think we can.

LEE GAINES (voice-over): Legislative efforts to control the types of books and activities children have access to in schools and libraries continue across the country, including Indiana.

Legislation was filed in early 2024 that again targeted libraries and sought to define what was harmful to kids.

But these bills didn't get any traction this year.

Still, Republicans like Indiana State Senator Jim Tomes are adamant that libraries and schools continue to offer inappropriate content to kids.

TIM TOMES: I will say this if you're defending these libraries and these books, you're on the wrong side of things, but that's okay.

You're entitled to be on the wrong side.

LEE GAINES (voice-over): Meanwhile, there are librarians, educators, authors and parents determined not to let lawmakers restrict what young people have access to.

Leah Johnson says her goal with Loudmouth Books is to be a steadfast home for titles that have been the target of bands.

LEAH JOHNSON: My hope is that this is the beginning of what is going to become the new canon, full of people who look like me and move through the world the way that I move through the world.

LEE GAINES (voice-over): For PBS News Weekend, I'm Lee Gaines in Indianapolis.

STEPHANIE SY: And that's our program for tonight.

I'm Stephanie Sy.

For all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us.

See you tomorrow.