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On a breezy Sunday afternoon, Biola University is a postcard of serenity. A soft light filters through a small prayer chapel where a plain wooden cross stands in front. At its base someone has left a message on a scrap of paper.

For the record:

Correction: An earlier version of this story said students at Biola University sign Articles of Faith. Actually, prospective students sign a statement of faith when applying to Biola. Faculty and staff sign the universitys Articles of Faith.

Jesus, you are my guide, the joy of my heart, the author of my hope, the object of my love.

Ascetic and minimal, the room invites conversations with God. Wall niches contain similar handwritten notes.

I pray that you draw me back to you. Teach me what the weight of the cross means fully.

Biola is a private Christian university in La Mirada, whose mission is to equip its students in mind and character to impact the world for the Lord Jesus Christ. They know the work will be difficult. So much around them is thought to be sinful.

Jesus Im afraid. Your people have hurt me. My brothers and sisters in the church, betraying Black brothers & sisters with racism and hate on their lips. And Biola is no better.

Biola University in La Mirada pays tribute to its past with a trompe loeil hanging on the side of a campus parking structure that features an image of its founding institution, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. Its Italian Renaissance high-rise featured two JESUS SAVES neon signs that were familiar landmarks in the citys skyline.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Biola has attempted to shelter its students and itself from the social and civil disturbances of recent years, but its efforts have been marginally successful. Like evangelical institutions across the country, the university is facing growing disillusionment among young Christians who believe their faith should be more progressive and socially minded.

They resent how politics has shadowed their relationship with God and believe that Christs lessons of humility, tolerance and love have been forgotten amid the Christian communitys embrace of the Big Lie, former President Trump and culture-war dog whistles such as LGBTQ restrictions and anti-mask and vaccination declarations.

Evangelicals are losing their young in epidemic numbers, said David Gushee, a nationally known pastor, ethicist and author of After Evangelicalism: A Path to a New Christianity. Smart, young minds rarely color within the lines, and if they cant ask questions and get decent answers, they will bail.

One of Southern Californias oldest religious colleges, Biola has seen its enrollment drop, has trimmed next years budget and is trying to stay relevant for students while not alienating faculty and alumni.

The tension, said Richard Flory, executive director of the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture, helps us read what the future of evangelicalism in America might look like.

::

More than 100 years ago, Charles Darwin forced Christians to an uncomfortable reckoning over the Bible. Either creation took six days, God flooded the world, Jesus performed miracles and the prophecies are true, or none of that ever happened or ever will happen.

When Texas preacher Thomas Horton took the stage before 4,200 congregants in downtown Los Angeles on Easter 1915, he made clear that the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, founded seven years earlier, stood for Scripture without error or misstatement.

We believe in the old Bible and the whole Bible and have no confidence in anyone who seeks to unsettle this belief, he said.

Hortons charisma, together with the money and zeal of Lyman Stewart, co-founder of Union Oil Co., helped spread fundamentalism around the world.

Their success led to the construction of an Italian Renaissance high-rise with twin 13-story dormitories for fledging theologians. Its two rooftop, neon-red JESUS SAVES signs were landmarks in the citys skyline for decades.

But as fundamentalism spread, it was challenged. In 1925 during the Scopes monkey trial, when a Tennessee jury convicted a high school teacher of introducing evolution to his classroom, its anti-science stance was ridiculed.

Biola College, later known as Biola University, opened in 1959. The Bible Institute of Los Angeles developed the campus in La Mirada with the fundraising help of evangelist Billy Graham.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

By the 1940s, Christians began turning toward evangelicalism, a less dogmatic version of the faith, and in that spirit, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles opened Biola College (later Biola University) in 1959. Evangelist Billy Graham helped with the $3-million fundraising drive.

Today students can take classes in criminology, physics, accounting, gender studies and cinema. They sign a statement of faith during the application process, and each year faculty sign Articles of Faith pledging allegiance to the truth of Scripture as it articulates Gods vision for humanity and prescribes a course for living in this broken world.

University President Barry Corey quotes Isaiah to rebuild the ancient ruins and raise up the age-old foundations in arguing that Biola graduates are ready to make the necessary repairs.

Our students whether they are screenwriters or accountants, policy wonks or research nerds are Gospel witnesses, Corey said. We want their vocations and lives to be a reflection of their Christian faith and a longing for others to know the redeeming love of Jesus.

But some students and faculty wonder if that is enough.

::

It grieves me deeply when students dont feel like they are welcome here.

Biola University President Barry Corey

To argue that the Bible is without error means more than accepting its origin stories. It means accepting that the problems of the world derive from Adams sin and can be solved only by Christ. For some that means the Second Coming.

As dean of faculty for the theology school, Scott Rae, said last year about climate change: Our best hope for the planet is that Gods coming back to reclaim it and to set things right and to heal what had been previously broken.

Rae qualifies that statement (Im not suggesting we passively wait, he said; we have responsibility now), but the role of Christs return has divided the evangelical community especially as it wrestles over its response to oppression and injustice in American society.

For some Christians, the path ahead is simple: Pray, proselytize and prepare your hearts. For others, fixing and reforming the world cant wait.

Earlier this year, Biola University hosted its annual three-day conference focusing on the schools missionary work and designed to ignite students hearts for the glory of God. Inspirational notes were given a public forum.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Handwritten notes fill niches in the walls of a small prayer chapel on the Biola campus. The messages celebrate a love for Jesus and the word of God and express more intimate worries and concerns.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The party line, said one Biola professor who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity out of concern of reprisal, is that Jesus died for your sins and to have a personal relationship with Jesus is to have eternal life. Anything else is a distraction. But we think the Gospel is also about bringing healing, restoration, justice and love to a broken world.

The debate has taken on red and blue hues.

In some parts of the university, there is a flowering of a more progressive, justice-oriented Christianity, said a colleague who also asked not to be identified. In other parts, there is pushback, a fear of a liberal Christianity that strays from Biolas conservative roots.

Dissent is hard to find at a university known for its culture of niceness. Yet fractures are conspicuous.

Not long after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the opinion editor for Biolas student-run news site called on millennials and Gen Z to help guide Christians away from their support of the Trump presidency.

That editor, Evana Upshaw, cited Scripture to argue that, just as Moses encouraged the Israelites entering the promised land not to repeat the sins of earlier generations, young Christians need to chart a new course toward hope and healing.

Our faith, now synonymous with unwavering support for Donald Trump, is causing many to question how Christians could sell out women, immigrants, Black people, Indigenous people, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community and the poor for the sake of political power, she wrote, concluding that Gen Z sees the hypocrisy of Christians today. ... Its time to pass the torch.

Reaction was quick. Readers, commenting online, branded the piece as propaganda, racist and trash, riddled with unfounded assumption and presumption.

When the faculty advisor asked Upshaw, who identifies as Black/biracial, to start publishing more conservative opinions, she felt sidelined.

I didnt want to fight it. I felt like I was the only one giving Black issues a voice, and I was exhausted, said Upshaw, who eventually transferred to another university.

Race, as much as politics, cuts through campus life at Biola. In 2020, during Black History Month, posters of African American leaders were defaced with a racial slur, and the university held a lament session for students to talk about discrimination on campus.

Corey acknowledges that polarization and the toxic nature of the culture have found their way to Biola.

It grieves me deeply when students dont feel like they are welcome here, he said. Were in the business of helping students think deeply and express themselves in a reasonable, civil and humble manner, but this is taking more work than it did 15 years ago.

With a mixed student body (43% white, 20% Latino, 15% Asian and 3% Black, with the rest identifying as other races and ethnicities), some argue that if Biola wanted to create a more inclusive culture, it would remove the 30-foot-tall Jesus mural on the side of the art building.

Completed in 1990 by L.A.-based artist Kent Twitchell, the bearded figure in a red robe overlooking the student union has long been controversial. Eyes peering skyward, he holds a leather-bound Bible.

The image is not only historically inaccurate, but it enables and reinforces dangerous racist ideas of white power, white supremacy and white saviorism, alumna Brianna Eng wrote in a letter to the university last year. Since graduating in 2018, Eng has lobbied for its removal.

Completed in 1990 by muralist Kent Twitchell, The Word is a 30-foot-tall portrait of Christ overlooking the student union. The image is controversial for students who question its historical accuracy and believe it reinforces concepts of white power and white saviorism.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Corey is accustomed to defending the mural, arguing that it is a source of important conversations on our campus about where we are and how to move forward.

But Megumi Nakazawa wishes the conversations were more robust. Nakazawa, 20, who will be a senior this fall, grew up overseas and was not prepared for the contradiction she found in American life between Christian values and their application.

She cited the shootings of Asian women by a white Christian man last year in Georgia and the difficulty some people had acknowledging race as a factor in the killings.

That was when I started to think of Christianity as causing more harm than good, she said, and the argument from the pulpit that the most Christians can do to improve the world is make sure their hearts are in the right place sounded empty.

We talk about theological principles of justice, Nakazawa said, but it is not applied to whats happening outside of campus.

::

When former Biola professor Lisa Swain considers the division on campus, she is reminded of the schism that emerged last year within the countrys largest evangelical denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention.

The debate focused in part on the question of racial diversity after Christian symbols and Scripture were appropriated by white nationalists.

It begs the question of what it means to be evangelical, Swain said, and who gets to decide.

A larger conversation, Swain said, is taking place within the Christian community over the role of authority. By claiming to know Gods intentions, institutions such as Biola signal a greater interest in protecting power rather than grace.

To relax its power, Biola would have to acknowledge different interpretations of Scripture, she said, and give students an opportunity to apply faith to their lives as they see fit.

Ethicist Gushee wonders if Biola can afford this stance. Christian universities, he said, are being watched by heavy hitters in the evangelical world who will quickly call out any institution that they believe is straying.

Straying has consequences at tuition-dependent institutions such as Biola, where undergraduate enrollment has fallen 18% from 2014 to 2021 and $5 million has been cut from next years budget. These declines are mostly related to the pandemic but give benefactors and donors additional leverage over the universitys future.

Corey, the university president, has made it clear that Biola will not veer from its original mission.

For Biola, faithfulness into our strongest years to come will be possible if, and only if, we do not forsake what our founders gave us, he wrote last September, signaling commitment to the universitys fundamentalist roots.

Some wonder if this stance might help explain the departure over the last two years of 46 faculty members, especially women and those of color.

Rae, the theology school dean, defends Coreys commitment to Biolas original mission and expresses no interest in Biola becoming the equivalent of a Cal State University school, but with a veneer of Christianity.

What we have seen, Rae said, is that schools who have doubled down on their original identity and committed to biblical faithfulness are the ones whose enrollments are actually growing.

The recent appointment of Matthew Hall as provost seems to confirm this intention.

Hall, formerly with the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, questions critical race theory, believes church is far more consequential to eternity than any earthly political development and argues that adherence to biblical truth will reward not just students and faculty but also donors.

Gushee is not surprised the university would follow this course.

Conservative Christian universities play a kind of trick here, he said. They say they are returning to their founding principles, but their responses are remarkably similar to whatever conservative Republican politics looks like at a given moment.

Right now, he added, that is culture wars-oriented, white reactionary politics, and if this reactionary politics shuts down urgent educational discussions, it is the students who lose.

::

Frustrated by Biolas doctrinal rigidity, a group of students and alumni gathers Sunday evenings off campus to listen to one another and share their doubts and concerns about Christian faith. They call themselves the St. Thomas Collective.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Frustrated by the universitys doctrinal rigidity, some current and former Biola students are having their own theological discussions. They gather two miles off campus at a United Methodist Church every other Sunday with the belief that faith is more than an either/or proposition.

They call themselves the St. Thomas Collective for the apostle who questioned the resurrection until the crucified Jesus stood before him. Christian in spirit, nondenominational in practice, they want to provide what they havent found at Biola: a nonjudgmental space for open inquiry.

The group started in 2016, initially meeting in a garage to voice their questions and doubts and wild ideas. They currently have up to 50 members at large.

This is the community that Biola should be trying to hold on to, USCs Flory said. Most young people dont care about religion, but if you have young people trying to grapple with their faith so they can make sense of it, given the world they experience you should listen to them.

On a recent Sunday, nine members sat in a semicircle in front of the altar sipping tea and munching Oreos.

A senior majoring in Christian ministries, Jaloni Wilson Ford recently attended a meeting of the St. Thomas Collective for the first time. From an early age, his path to becoming a pastor seemed clear, but he now has his doubts.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

From an early age, my family told me I was going to be a pastor, said Jaloni Wilson Ford, 22, a senior majoring in Christian ministries. All that I did was to lead me to God, but over the last five years, Ive done a 180- or at least a 90-degree turn, questioning traditional understandings of God.

Most grew up in their parents church. They said prayers before each meal, read the Bible at night and understood that they were being kept safe from the world. Now they were stepping out on their own.

When I got to Biola, I saw a lack of consistency between the biblical values of loving your neighbor and the way many students treat and talk about others on campus, said Brandon Hall, 22, a senior majoring in human biology.

They hold no ill will toward Biola and are not ready to leave the university. But Samantha Smith, who graduated in 2019 with a degree in psychology, remembers feeling alone and frustrated as a student.

Professors had their cookie-cutter answers, she said, and friends told her how wonderful God is. Everybody was on the Jesus train, where the choices were either hop on or burn.

When Sophie Byerly arrived at Biola three years ago, she wondered if she had made the right decision to attend the university. Each day felt like a test among those who could profess their faith as the most on fire for God. Her faith practice was more quiet, more questioning, which drew her to the St. Thomas Collective.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Sophie Byerly, 21, a junior majoring in music therapy, started at Biola three years ago, and each day felt like a test among those who could profess to be the most on fire for God.

Her practice was more quiet. As a teenager, she aspired to be the radically good person that Jesus wanted his disciples to be. Now she is trying to decide whether or not to believe in Christianity.

Originally posted here:
Column One: CRT, Trumpism and doubt roil Biola University. Is this the future of evangelical Christianity? - Los Angeles Times

by Allison S. Finkelstein

Womens Overseas Service League Seattle Unit members on the 50th Anniversary of Armistice, November 11, 1968. From left to right: Mrs. Edna Lord (American RedCross), Mrs. I.M. (Anna) Palmaw (Army Nurse Corps), Miss Rose Glass (YMCA), and Miss Blanche Wenner (YMCA). Womens Overseas Service League Collection, National WWI Museum and Memorial Archives, Kansas City, Missouri.

The past several years of domestic debate over the roles and meanings of memorials on the American landscape can be enriched by looking to the example of female commemorators of the past. Todays conversations tend to focus on statues and other artistic works. By learning about an overlooked cohort of American women who served in World War I, we can find inspiration for creative memorialization projects that will expand our understandings of memorials beyond physical statues and monuments.

In the decades after World War I, American women who served or sacrificed during that conflict championed memorial projects that prioritized community service over statues. Their efforts can provide a blueprint for how to change our approach to memorialization, should we care to look for it. Examining their philosophy can yield the untapped wisdom of a generation of activists, mothers, civic leaders, and unrecognized female veterans.

The women who pursued this unconventional approach to memorialization had contributed to the war effort in a variety of ways. Some had directly supported the military through service in wartime organizations, both at home and abroad. Others had suffered extreme sacrifices. In their number were Gold Star mothers and widows who lost a child or husband. The larger community of female veterans embraced these women as their own and honored them as having served the nation just as much as male veterans.

These women banded together and put service at the center of their commemorative work. They coordinated their efforts through new organizations such as the Womens Overseas Service League (WOSL), which represented the interests of the thousands of American women who served overseas during the war.[i] Instead of monuments, the WOSL concentrated their memorialization projects on aiding people impacted by the war, whether male or female. They felt obligated to help the male veterans they served during wartime, but they also supported their own community, particularly civilian women excluded from veteran status. [ii] In the absence of government support for them, the WOSL served as their advocates and benefactors.

Although these projects included no constructed components, the WOSL defined them as memorials. In 1923, WOSL President Louise Wells wrote that in her organization, there was an overwhelming sentiment to the effect that for the present at least our best memorial to the dead would be our service to the living.[iii] WOSL members repeated this mantra as they pushed for a radical reinterpretation of memorials focused on service. Instead of spending their limited resources on statues or memorial buildings, they funded what Wells had identified in 1923 as a more pressing need: projects to help disabled ex-service women.[iv] For the WOSL, these were the most important memorials they could ever create.

During World War I, gender-based restrictions on military service meant that many American women served as civilians outside of the official armed forces, even when they worked directly for the military, in uniform and under oath. As a result, the government did not consider them to be veterans. They could not receive veterans benefits such as medical care, even for illnesses and injuries that stemmed from their wartime service. The WOSL took it upon themselves to aid these women, who included the telephone operators known as the Hello Girls, the Reconstruction Aides who worked as physical and occupational therapists, and others.[v] Among numerous initiatives, the WOSL established the Fund for Disabled Overseas Women to provide financial aid to women disqualified from government veterans medical benefits.[vi]

Despite only achieving limited success during their lifetime, both in their quest for veteran status and their attempt to change commemorative practices, these womens experiences provide powerful lessons for today. Their wartime service offers examples of how women supported the armed forces even before they could fully and equally enter all branches of the military. By identifying as veterans, they compel us to question the definition of a veteran and to consider that those who serve outside of the ranks may also be veterans in their own right.

Through their memorialization projects, the unrecognized female veterans of World War I offer alternatives to traditional memorials. They pioneered a selfless form of commemoration that memorialized the past by helping those in the present. What if we also sometimes chose this method? How much time and money would we save if, instead of debating the next memorial on the national mall, we pursued a commemorative service project? How many people could we help if we directed even just a portion of funds for memorials into service projects alongside them? Recently, we have seen how problematic permanent memorials can be. Foregoing them for intangible memorials could save future generations from further culture wars. As the nation grapples with this current reckoning over memorialization, we can learn much from the American women of the World War I generation who prioritized the needs of the living over bronze and stone.

[i] Helene M. Sillia, Lest We Forget: A History of the Womens Overseas Service League (privately published, 1978), 1, 218; Allison S. Finkelstein, Forgotten Veterans, Invisible Memorials: How American Women Commemorated the Great War, 1917-1945 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2021), 70; Susan Zeiger, In Uncle Sams Service: Women Workers with the American Expeditionary Force, 19171919 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), 2; Dorothy Schneider and Carl J. Schneider, Into the Breach: American Women Overseas in World War I (New York: Viking Adult, 1991), 287-289. Estimates of how many American women served overseas in WWI vary widely. Zeiger estimated there were at least sixteen thousand, while Sillia estimated about ninety thousand. Dorothy Schneider and Carl J. Schneider argued that twenty-five thousand seemed like a realistic, conservative figure.

[iii] Finkelstein, Forgotten Veterans, Invisible Memorials, 70; Louise Wells to Mabel Boardman, June 19, 1923, box 428, folder 481.73, Memorials-Inscriptions, RG 200, National Archives, College Park (NACP).

[iv] Finkelstein, Forgotten Veterans, Invisible Memorials, 70; Louise Wells to Mabel Boardman, June 19, 1923, box 428, folder 481.73, Memorials-Inscriptions, RG 200, NACP.

[v] Finkelstein, Forgotten Veterans, Invisible Memorials, 7-8, 39-40; Zeiger, In Uncle Sams Service, 170-171; Elizabeth Cobbs, The Hello Girls: Americas First Women Soldiers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), 73, 78, 83, 94, 102, 104-105, 133; Lena Hitchcock, The Great Adventure, V, Box 240, The Womens Overseas Service League Records, MS 22, University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections.

[vi] Finkelstein, Forgotten Veterans, Invisible Memorials, 34-36.

Visit link:
"Our Best Memorial to the Dead Would be Our Service to the Living" - History News Network

Digital marketing has exploded in popularity over the past decade, and it shows no signs of slowing down in the near future. To bring you up to speed on this increasingly important topic, we will define what digital marketing is, how it differs from Internet marketing and search engine optimization (SEO), the benefits it can provide, plus the top tools that can help you bring it to life.

We have a great guide that discusses the difference between Internet marketing and SEO if you want to learn more.

Although its definition varies, digital marketing boils down to this: The use of all digital channels to promote products and services, such as:

As you can see, most digital channels deal with the Internet and could give your business a proper online presence. But digital marketing goes beyond the Internet, as it also includes offline channels such as:

If you want to simplify digital marketings definition even more, you could say that it is the method of marketing via an electronic device or the Internet.

While you may sometimes hear digital marketing and Internet marketing (even online marketing) used interchangeably, they are not precisely the same. Why? Because digital marketing employs both online (Internet) and offline (TV, billboards, radio, etc.) methods.

Internet marketing, meanwhile, needs Internet connectivity to function so it can transmit a message and connect with leads. In short, you could say that Internet marketing is a type of digital marketing, but not vice versa.

As with Internet marketing, SEO (search engine optimization) is a type of digital marketing. It involves using tactics to boost your websites ranking so that it sits near the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs).

The fact that SEO falls under the digital marketing umbrella is just one difference between the two. Another is the cost. SEO is considered more of a free strategy for building a brand since it uses time and effort to attract higher rankings. Digital marketing is seen as more of a costly strategy to expand a business since it employs paid advertising, whether online via paid search or offline via radio spots, billboards, and the like. While this is primarily true, it should be known that SEOs time commitment and the possible need to hire experts to handle the work make it anything but free.

SEO can play a huge role in any digital marketing campaign. The better your SEO efforts, the more successful your digital marketing campaign can be since you can appear higher in the SERPs, drive more traffic and eyeballs to your site and content, and increase your conversions and sales.

SEO is an extensive topic that can take a lot of time to master. To give you a brief overview of what it involves, here are some SEO practices that are used to boost site rankings:

All of the above are examples of on-page SEO tactics. You will also need to use off-page and technical SEO tactics to give your site its best chance for optimal ranking. Off-page SEO includes link building, content marketing and syndication, guest posting, influencer marketing, podcasts, public relations, reviews, etc. Technical SEO deals with URL structure, SSL, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, crawlability, fixing site errors, and more.

To learn more about search engine optimization and SEO strategies, we recommend reading the following, in-depth SEO guides:

Many companies are making the shift towards digital marketing and away from traditional marketing since the former can provide all of these benefits:

Now that you see the many benefits digital marketing can provide, here is a list of tools that can help you make the most of this method for reaching and converting customers.

SendGrid makes it easy to connect with your prospects and customers via email. If you are new to email marketing, you can make use of SendGrids free plan and user-friendly drag-and-drop editing to get your feet wet.

Moosend is another excellent digital marketing tool for those looking to connect via email. It is user-friendly, affordable, and beginner-friendly, thanks to its automations, detailed reporting, and email campaigns that you can launch without having to code a thing.

Loomly is a digital marketing tool ideal for small teams looking to boost their social media presence. Use it to manage your posts, find new content ideas to snag followers, collaborate with your team, so everyone stays on the same page, and more.

When it comes to social media management platforms, Sprout Social is near the top of the list since it lets you organize all of your content and assets in one place. This makes scheduling and publishing content across different platforms a cinch, so you do not miss anything. And while Sprout Social is great for managing multiple social media profiles, it also has extensive analytics to help you see what works and what should be avoided to ensure no post goes to waste.

Dipping into the SEO region of digital marketing, we come across Semrush, a popular SEO tool great for keyword research, position tracking, and spying on your competitors to surge up the SERPs without time-consuming trial and error.

Read our review of Semrush: Semrush SEO Tool Review

You can ensure your current content is SEO-friendly and keep up with your competitors via Ahrefs. It also works wonders for creating new, captivating content your audience is seeking, plus performing site audits to check that you are not lacking in any areas of your on-page, off-page, or technical SEO strategies.

Read our review of Ahrefs: Ahrefs SEO Software Review

If you use paid search to boost your digital marketing efforts, you will need landing pages where you can drive traffic. Unbounce is a digital marketing tool that helps you build, tweak, and publish winning landing pages that convert.

Driving traffic to your site is just part of the digital marketing equation. To get visitors to convert, they have to stay, which is what OptiMonk helps you do via customized popups that grab attention.

Infographics are a great way to convey information and grab customers attention. Venngage makes it easy to create infographics to be shared on your page, via social media, etc.

Read more search engine optimization tutorials and SEO tool reviews.

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What Is Digital Marketing? | HTML Goodies

All right so I have been bombarded with questions aboutJavierover the last 10 days or so. Everyone wants the Czars take. So let me give it to you.

First, here is California Penal Code Section 631the bringer of weird wiretap claims in all of its unedited glory:

Any person who, by means of any machine, instrument, or contrivance, or in any other manner, intentionally taps, or makes any unauthorized connection, whether physically, electrically, acoustically, inductively, or otherwise, with any telegraph or telephone wire, line, cable, or instrument, including the wire, line, cable, or instrument of any internal telephonic communication system, or who willfully and without the consent of all parties to the communication, or in any unauthorized manner, reads, or attempts to read, or to learn the contents or meaning of any message, report, or communication while the same is in transit or passing over any wire, line, or cable, or is being sent from, or received at any place within this state; or who uses, or attempts to use, in any manner, or for any purpose, or to communicate in any way, any information so obtained, or who aids, agrees with, employs, or conspires with any person or persons to unlawfully do, or permit, or cause to be done any of the acts or things mentioned above in this section, is punishable by a fine not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500), or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or by imprisonmentpursuant tosubdivision (h) of Section 1170, or by both a fine and imprisonment in the county jail orpursuant tosubdivision (h) of Section 1170. If the person has previously been convicted of a violation of this section orSection 632,632.5,632.6,632.7, or636, he or she is punishable by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or by imprisonmentpursuant tosubdivision (h) of Section 1170, or by boththatfine and imprisonment.

What a mess.

Read it fast and it seems to only apply to physical wiretapping. Read it slowly and it still seems that way.

But read it like a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel and it applies to recording of information regarding events taking place on websites. And Im struggling with that.

Javiersays the statute applies to Active Prospect because [Section 631] makes liable anyone who reads, or attempts to read, or to learn the contents of a communication without the consent of all parties to the communication.

I see those words in there in the mishmash above. Here they are re-printed with emphasis:

Any person who willfully and without the consent ofall parties to the communication, attempts to read, or to learn the contents or meaning of any message, report, or communication while the same is in transit or passing over any wire, line, or cable, or is being sent from, or received at any place within this stateis [in trouble.]

So this is where I struggle.

In the first place, a website visit isnt a communication in my mind. Its an interaction with a bunch of servers with a human being on one end and a computer responding by either supplying or storing stuff on the other. I guess you can call that a sort of communication (the word is defined as the imparting or exchanging of information or news so I guess this counts) but I never think of time spent on a website as communication. But perhaps thats just me.

Getting past that, I am lost how Active Prospect is attempting to read or learn the contents or meaning of the communication when it records certain pieces of data being supplied by the consumer. As a reminder, Active Propsects Trusted Form simplyrecordsan interaction as it is taking place on a website at the behest of the website owner.This is done for the purpose of assisting the website owner to prove what took place during the web session; e.g. that a webform submission was made or that a disclosure was accepted by the consumer.

In the first place, the word store or record do not appear in this portion of 631, although those words feature prominently in 632 and other portions of the California Privacy Act. Instead 631 is focused on the literal realtime act ofunderstandingthe content of information being transferred in a communication. So if Active Prospect had agents truly listening in to the communicationi.e. watching the website visitthen I could see 631 being tripped. But merelystoringinformation is not read[ing] or learn[ing]its storing. Theres no computational assessment taking place. So nothing is being read or learned. So that should be the end of the case.

But no one seems to even be talking aboutthatissue. Everyone seems to have leapt over it.

Yet we have one more hurdle hereand its a real stunner that no one has jumped on this yet.

The final supremely interesting question in my mind is this:whenandwhereis the wiretap taking place? The statute says that the tap must take place eitherduringtransmission or as the transmission is beingsentorreceived. And, critically, the place of the tap has to bein California.

In the Active Prospect scenario it is pretty clear that the wiretap is not taking place where the information is beingsentAP is not residing on the Plaintiffs computer system like a cookie. Nor, it seems to me, is it taking placeduringtransmissionAP is not a backbone internet service provider capable of tracking the contents of signals travelling underseas cables, satellite transmissions, etc. Instead, APs conduct is taking place where the data isreceivedhere when Assurance receives the transmission.

But where is the receipt taking place?

I dont know this first hand, but I suspect the transmissions at issue were received nowhere and everywhere at the same timei.e. in cloud data centers.

Importantly, unlike Section 632that looks at the location of where the recorded party resides afterKearny Section 631 does not look at the location of the recorded party. Instead, it is focused solely onwhere the wiretap takes place.So unless Plaintiff can prove that the servers housing the AP java script that enabled the reading and learning at issue here was somehow physically located within California, this feels like a dead stick to me.

Interesting, as far as I can tellnoneof these issues were raised yet (and perhaps properly so since we are only at the pleadings stage in this case.)

Instead the big issues raised to date were: i) whether Plaintiffs consent to be recordedafterthe recording was taking place is a viable defense (district court said yes, appellate court said nothats the real thrust ofJavier); ii) whether Plaintiff impliedly consented to be recorded (no real discussion on this one yetand I like it because it could be a class killer); and iii) whether or not AP was a third-party.

This last question is an odd one.

When you read the long and laborious wording of Cal Penal Code Section 631 you dont see the phrase third party. Indeed, all you see if the words all partiessuggesting that if either party to a website communication records it without the others consent it (somehow) constitutes wiretapping.

Now that wouldnt make sense, of course, because reading or learning the content of a communication isliterallyall the recipient of a communication can do with it. So every communication (i.e. every website visit) would have a sender (the consumer) and a wiretapper (the website operator) if Californias Rule 631 were read the wayJavierreads it.

Mercifully, the California Supreme Court and other California appellate courts haveprobablyrejected this assertion, albeit in the context of cases decided before the internet existed. E.g.Warden v. Kahn,99 Cal.App.3d 805, 160 Cal. Rptr. 471, 475 (1979)([S]ection 631 has been held to apply only to eavesdropping by a third party and not to recording by a participant to a conversation.).

Relying on the old parties to a communication cant wiretap themselves line of cases a website operator should be perfectly free to record transmission of communicationsi.e. information regarding website visitswithout risk of violating CIPA. But afterJavierI really wish this line of cases was better developed and, you know, more applicable to the internet. (This is one of those examples where the expansion of substantive provisions by the courts may end up outrunning the common-sense exceptions that existed back when the substantive provisions were very narrow; see also the last 20 years of TCPA jurisprudence.)

And one otherreallyimportant thing to keep in mind. Californias famous call recording statute Section 632 is limited toconfidentialcommunications. Its wiretapping statute- Section 631 is not. So any old communication can be wiretapped.

Getting back to the pointAP is arguing it was not a third party, but rather an agent of Assurance for purposes of recoding the web session at issue. And if Assurance can record its own web session without it being wiretapping, then AP can do it for itor so the argument goes.

The problem for APand TrustedForm users everywhereis this case calledRevitch v. New Moosejaw, LLC, No. 18-cv-06827-VC, 2019 WL 5485330, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 23, 2019).

InMoosejawMoosejaw imbedded NaviStones code in its website, enabling NaviStone an online marketing company and data broker that deals in U.S. consumer data to collect visitor data such as keystrokes, mouse clicks, and page scrolling. NaviStone captured the data, de-anonymized it, and matched it with other databases, thereby creating marketing databases of identified website visitors. The district court held that the allegations plausibly pleaded a section 631(a) claim that NaviStone was a third-party eavesdropper. It rejected NaviStones contention that it received the communications directly and therefore was a party to them: it cannot be that anyone who receives a direct signal escapes liability by becoming a party to the communication. Someone who presses up against a door to listen to a conversation is no less an eavesdropper just because the sound waves from the next room reach his ears directly.

Respectfully, the Moosejaw court is bad at analogies. Navistone wasnt listening in from outside. It was seated at the table while consumers blabbed on and on with Moosejaw about their outdoor apparel needs (again, treating website visits as communications which I am still struggling with.) But at the end of the day the Moosejaw court held that Navistone wiretapped at that Moosejaw helped it do it. (Oh yeah, even though you cant wiretap yourself if you let someone else wiretap you then you can be liable for aiding and abetting the wiretapso Assurance can (theoretically) be liable for AP wiretapping, even though it could not have been directly sued for it. Fun right?)

On the other hand is the case ofGraham v FullStory20-cv-06903 Dkt. 51 (N.D. Cal. April 8, 2021). InGrahamthe Court held that a third-party that essentially gained access to the Defendants servers for the purpose of helping it to process and preserve data wasnotwiretapping:

Noom is a vendor that provides a software service that captures its clients data, hosts it on FullStorys servers, and allows the clients to analyze their data. Unlike NaviStones and Facebooks aggregation of data for resale, there are no allegations here that FullStory intercepted and used the data itself. Instead, as a service provider, FullStory is an extension of Noom. It provides a tool like the tape recorder in Rogers that allows Noom to record and analyze its own data in aid of Nooms business.22 See 52 Cal. App. 3d at 89799. It is not a third-party eavesdropper.

So is AP more like the tape recorder inGraham (that allowed only the website owner to keep records) or the tape recorder inMoosejaw(that monetized and sold those records)?

If we are being intellectually honest the resulting use of the data shouldnt matter at all. The statute prohibits reading or learningnot theuseof information read or learned. So a tape recorder is a tape recorder. And either the use of a tape recorder by the website owner is eavesdropping, or it isnt. And it isnt. If the recorded data is then sold without permissionthatmight be a problembut the problem it is isnt wiretapping.

But lets lean into theGraham/Moosejawdichotomy for a moment.

For my money a TrustedForm that is used for no reason other than to confirm that a TCPA consent was given is aGrahamscenario pure and true. TF serves a critical business record retention function and a critical evidentiary record keeping function. Thats it. And while Plaintiffs counsel are almost certainly hoping the lower court will followMoosejaw,I just dont see that happening here. AP is not selling off any data to enhance marketing efforts by third-parties.

Dont get me wrong I still struggle with the third party argument out of the gate. Feels like a square peg round hole argument given the other more significant interpretive issues I raised at the outset of this analysisbut to the extent AP is driving toward applyingGrahamas a shield, I think semantics will matter less than the facts: AP is a good company helping other good companies to do good (consumer-friendly) things. It is not stealing or compiling consumer information to sell for profit. If it were, things might be different. But it isnt. So it (and other users of APs TrustedForm product) DESERVE TO WIN.

(Reminder: Deserve to Win is a TM property of theTroutman Firm, and I even have thiscool video to prove itthanks)

So in conclusion:

Any attempt to apply 631 to website visits does violence to the words of the statute as well as common sensebut that hasnt stopped courts from doing it so far. And theyll probably keep doing itso watch out.;

I think AP will eventually win this thing becauseGrahamapplies the proper analysis and because this 631 fad is going to fizzle once Defendants actually start laying out the absurdity here;

In the meantime website operators areprobablysafe to record information about their own traffica line of cases from the 70s and 80s says thats ok (but capturing consent to do so is safest!);

DO NOT ever use any sort of third party to secretly monitor traffic on your website, record keystrokes, and then attempt to monetize non-anonymized datasuch as passwords or credit card numbers or purchasing decisions captured by a third party.Thatis trouble under CIPA (and preventing that conduct is why the Ninth Circuit ruled the way it did inJavier). If you plan to do that capture consent BEFORE you do it;

The Plaintiffs bar shouldnt be so bullish on these website CIPA cases as theyre professing to be. Sure the defense bar hasnt really found its footing here yetweve seen that beforebut they will. And when they do, these data analytic/web session recording cases are deadeven if cookie and non-consented data transfer cases continue to gain steam.

Happy Monday TCPAWorld!

Continue reading here:
Why the Website CIPA Claims Bubble Will Burst - The National Law Review

Global Acrylic Processing Aid Market: Snapshot

The global acrylic processing aid market is primarily driven by the need for cost-efficient aid for manufacturing plastic products, increasing requirement from the building and construction as well as the automotive sector, and the escalating demand for APA-based PVC in end-use application such as trim-board, containers, roofing, windows & doors, and flooring and pipes. On the other hand, the lack of research and development expenditure in emerging markets is restricting the acrylic processing aid market from achieving its true potential.

This report on the global acrylic processing aid market targets audiences such as APA manufacturers, APA suppliers, services providers, raw material suppliers, end users such as building and construction, automotive, packaging, and consumer goods, and government bodies. Compiled using proven research methodologies, this report contains quantitative and qualitative analysis of all above mentioned factors that may impact the demand for acrylic processing aid in the near future, and provides projections of the market scenario until 2025. To understand the competitive landscape and the opportunities for new players, the report contains a dedicated section on the profiles of some of the key companies, estimating their share in the global acrylic processing aid.

Based on fabrication process, the global acrylic processing aid market can be segmented into extrusion and injection molding. Some of the key end-use industries of this market are building and construction, consumer goods, and automotive. Geographically, the report takes stock of all important regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, and the Middle East and Africa.

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As the application industries of PVC are growing, the market for acrylic processing aid will grow simultaneously to achieve new heights. PVC products such as foam sheets, pipe fittings, profiles, bottles, sheets, and fencing among many others need acrylic processing aids to gain better fluidity during the process, produce superior surface gloss, and increase their production efficiency, thereby increasing the overall output.

The report discusses the key factors driving and restraining the market for acrylic processing aid, along with the market trends and opportunities. The report throws light on aspects such as value chain dynamics, market attractiveness, and market forecasts based on authentic statistical findings. The past and the prevailing key segments have been revealed, along with projections about which segment is expected to lead during the forecast period. The key market players and their business strategies have also been analyzed, providing a 360-degree view of the global market for acrylic processing aids.

Based on type, polyvinylchloride (PVC) is expected to be a major segment in the global acrylic processing aid market. PVC is likely to enhance market opportunities as several manufacturers are inclined towards cost-efficient and light-weight materials. Using light weight elements is fundamental in reducing the weight of vehicles. Therefore, the automobile industry, a rapidly magnifying domain, will ensure the expansion of the PVC segment in the global market for acrylic processing aids.

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PVC compounds use acrylic processing aids because they promote PVC fusion, provide lubrication, and change the melt rheology. They also ensure constant, uninterrupted flow of PVC melt in order to achieve a smooth surface in PVC finished products. Since the applications of PVC compounds have been increasing rapidly to include industries such as electric enclosures, business equipment, and electrical appliances, the market for acrylic processing aids will expand considerably.

Plastic materials are processed with the help of fabrication processes that use acrylic processing aids. Fabrication processes can be segmented broadly into injection molding and extrusion. Of these, the extrusion segment, on account of its widespread use, is projected to grow substantially over the next few years. On the contrary, stringent regulatory policies might curb growth to some extent.

Based on geography, the global market for acrylic processing aid can be segmented into Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America, and MEA. North America and Europe presently hold a major share in the global acrylic processing aid market.

Asia Pacific is expected to emerge as a key market, exhibiting a promising CAGR during the forecast period. Large-scale investments in numerous industries such as packaging, consumer goods, automotive, and building and construction is a key factor driving the growth of this regional market. The increasing disposable incomes of people in this region will also aid growth.

The major companies operating in the global market for acrylic processing aid include The Dow Chemical Company, Shandong Rike Chemicals Co., Ltd., Kaneka Corporation, BASF SE, Akdeniz Kimya A.S., Sundow Polymers Co., Ltd. and Arkema SA. Several significant companies have been sprouting in emerging economies. India-based Indofil Industries Limited, a major company manufacturing acrylic processing aids in the region, is conducting extensive R&D activities for developing a wide, customized range of products, catering to the increasing demand for acrylic processing aids. This is expected to intensify the level of competition among the leading players.

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Acrylic Processing Aid Market To Perceive Biggest Trend and Opportunity By 2025 - Digital Journal