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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Friday, October 21st. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news, and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
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You may have seen the women's rights protesters in Iran and understood that it's dangerous to speak out against an oppressive government. But you might not know just what they're up against until you hear this story from "CNN." It spoke to protesters who were detained and tortured by security forces. One was abused for four days. "CNN" disguised his voice to protect him as he told his story.
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Protester: [SPEAKING THROUGH TRANSLATOR]
Translator: Somebody started kicking, punching our stomach area, putting our heads in buckets of water so we couldn't breathe, and beating us with a belt, hose, and electric shockers.
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In order to get out, he said he was forced to sign a false confession saying that he was paid by the U.S., U.K. and Israeli governments. When his captors released him, they said that they would hunt down him and his family if he protested again.
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Translator: Nowadays, I don't have much sleep. I have nightmares most of the time. In my nightmares, I see someone is following me in the dark and I'm alone and no one is helping me.
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It's a rare window into how the Iranian government uses intimidation and torture to squash political dissent and preserve power. "CNN" asked the Iranian government about the torture allegations, but did not hear back.
This weekend, we're going deeper into this story with an episode of "Apple News In Conversation" all about this moment in Iran. My guest is Pardis Mahdavi, who studies Iran's feminist movements. She helps explain how what we're seeing today didn't come out of nowhere. Women in Iran have been fighting back against oppression for decades. We talked about some of the horrific treatment they face.
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Pardis Mahdavi: 2004 was called the Summer of the Cockroaches. So prior to 2004, if a woman was seen wearing red nail polish or any colored nail polish, the morality police would arrest them and dip their hands in buckets of cockroaches. And if…
Shumita Basu: What?
Mahdavi: If wom… Yeah, I know. Right? I mean…
Basu: Oh, my goodness.
Mahdavi: I know, I know. And if a woman was seen in public wearing open-toed shoes and, you know, painted toenails, they would dump the cockroaches on their feet. Now…
Basu: That was a cockroach-able offense.
Mahdavi: A cockroach-able offense. Exactly. Now interestingly, a lot of the young women got together and reasoned correctly that if thousands of women were to all go out on mass with painted nails and toenails, there aren't enough cockroaches in all of Iran to punish everybody. And so, everybody organized and went outside with open-toed shoes, red or various colored nail and toe polish, and they were right. There weren't enough cockroaches to punish everybody. And, you know, while you and I might laugh about that and think about that as somewhat flippant, it's a very significant challenge to the regime, right? This is a regime who operates their power in this way. And so to break through, and since 2004, by the way, women have been wearing open-toed shoes, you know, to be able to break through and have these incremental changes, that's pretty significant.
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Pardis and I also talk about our memories in Iran. Both of us have parents who left in the lead-up to the 1979 Revolution and family who's still there. You can hear the full interview by searching for "Apple News In Conversation" in the Apple News app or in the Podcasts app.
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Let's take a moment now with some new reporting from the "Miami Herald," about a big story from the last few weeks. Last month, dozens of migrants landed in Martha's Vineyard. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis arranged the flights that got them there from Texas. It was a political stunt, a way to call attention to Biden's immigration policies.
This group of mostly Venezuelan asylum seekers didn't know that they'd been sent there to send a message to the president. They'd been told that there would be jobs and housing waiting for them. But in reality, no one was expecting them.
Some migrants said the person who promised them these things was a woman named Perla. "Miami Herald" investigative reporter Sarah Blaskey did some digging to figure out who this mysterious person was, and she found out that Perla was Perla Huerta, a former Army counterintelligence agent working for DeSantis.
Sarah Blaskey: She was the one out there talking to migrants, trying to get them onto the flights with promises of jobs, housing, education, things that are very appealing to folks that have just crossed the border, who have gotten to the United States after a month-long journey.
Huerta recruited a migrant from outside Caracas named Emmanuel to sign people up for travel. He was paid $700. Emmanuel told the "Miami Herald," he thought Huerta was on the migrants' side.
Blaskey: And he really thought he was helping. She sold him the same line. And it was only when the planes landed in Martha's Vineyard and people started calling him saying, "No one was expecting us," that Emmanuel realized that something had gone very wrong.
There's now a criminal investigation into the operation by a Texas sheriff. Emmanuel is cooperating. The sheriff's office has designated the migrants sent to Martha's Vineyard as victims of the crime of "unlawful restraint." That opens the door for them to apply for special visas to stay in the U.S. Blaskey told us there are still a lot of unanswered questions.
Blaskey: We know that over $1.5 million dollars of Florida taxpayer money was already spent on this program, but we don't exactly know where it went. At that rate, it would've cost more than $12,000 a seat to send migrants to Martha's Vineyard. It doesn't make sense. So clearly, this money has gone to all kinds of places, and we wanna know where.
DeSantis's office did not respond to the "Herald's" questions for this story. In the past, he said migrants were given information and signed consent forms before boarding planes. His office says the state plans to continue the migrant flights.
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Instagram has often struggled to get a handle on bullying and harassment on the platform. Now, it's leaning into a strategy that's so basic, so simple, and it might be working. "Recode" reports on how Instagram is reminding people to think twice before they act, basically, telling them to be nicer.
Instagram's new moves rely on the concept of "nudging." It's something you might come across in a psychology or behavioral economics class. The idea is that tiny things can gently steer people in different directions.
Instagram's been doing a couple of these kinds of moves to try to keep people from posting hateful or harassing messages. In some cases, when you're starting to send a message or reply to a comment thread, a warning from Instagram pops up and it tells you to be respectful.
Instagram has also been using this approach to nudge teens if they're spending too much time on one topic and encourage them to take a break.
And this week, they're introducing more nudges to get people to pause and think before sending a message, particularly when messaging creator accounts. That's anyone with a high follower count.
Instagram says its internal numbers showed that after getting this kind of nudge, 30 percent of users hold back.
"Recode" asked social media experts about Instagram's nudging tactics. In general, they still think there's more the platform can do to make it a less toxic place. And it would be better if Instagram would open up its data to independent researchers. But they say these nudges feel like a step in the right direction.
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You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app now, stick around. We've got a narrated article coming up next from "The New Yorker" about America's obsession with lotteries and the cost to people and society. So sit back, enjoy listening to that, and I'll be back here with the news on Monday.
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