Category: English

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Shreyas Sen, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com.

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What is Bluetooth? – Henry, age 13, Somerville, Massachusetts

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How do headphones, toys, gadgets and other devices talk to each other without any wires? Many of them connect with Bluetooth. It’s a technology that allows different devices to communicate wirelessly. Think of it as a device’s voice that it uses to share information.

Bluetooth works by sending radio wave signals between devices. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves, which are a type of energy that moves from one place to another. Other kinds of electromagnetic waves include heat, light and X-rays. Radio waves can carry information, from the sights and sounds on a TV to data on a laptop. As an example, your music player sends the music through these invisible waves to your headphones.

I’m an electrical and computer engineer and I study wireless technologies. Every device that uses Bluetooth contains a set of computer chips that send and receive these radio waves.

Connecting through Bluetooth starts with a process called pairing. Pairing is like first introductions between two people, where they acknowledge each other and agree to talk to each other. Once paired, the devices remember each other and don’t have to be paired the next time.

Bluetooth is everywhere! Over 5 billion Bluetooth devices were sold worldwide in 2025. It’s in headphones for listening to wireless music and in video games that let you play with wireless controllers. Smartphones and tablets use Bluetooth to share photos, videos and files with friends. Smartwatches connect to your phone to get notifications and track your fitness. In cars, Bluetooth lets you play music from your phone and enables hands-free calls.

Bluetooth is named after a Scandinavian king, Harald Bluetooth Gormsson, who united parts of the Nordic region in the 900s, because the technology unites different devices. The symbol for Bluetooth comes from a combination of two ancient Nordic runes, or symbols, for the king’s initials.

Bluetooth vs. Wi-Fi

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi complement each other, serving different purposes in our everyday connected world.

Bluetooth is great for things that need moderate but not superfast speeds, such as streaming music or connecting devices. For faster needs, people use Wi-Fi. Bluetooth is not ideal for transferring large files or streaming high-definition video. But for most everyday tasks, it’s pretty capable.

Bluetooth is ideal for short-range connections up to 30 feet, so mostly when the two connected devices are in the same room. Wi-Fi, on the other hand, is designed for longer-range communication, up to 300 feet – for example, within a house or school building.

Bluetooth connects devices directly to each other without needing to connect to the internet. But if you need high-speed internet access or to create a local network of multiple devices, Wi-Fi is the way to go.

Bluetooth is good for when it’s important to use low amounts of power to connect devices, like for wireless devices that run on batteries. Wi-Fi consumes more power, so the Wi-Fi routers that connect devices to each other and the internet typically have to be plugged into an outlet.

From blasting music to tracking your steps or sharing a meme with a friend, Bluetooth makes it faster and easier. So the next time you use your wireless headphones, you’ll know the technology behind the magical flow of songs through the airwaves.

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Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Shreyas Sen is the Founder and CTO of Quasistatics, Inc. (dba Ixana), which develops Wi-R, a wireless body-area communication technology. He owns shares in the company.

– ref. What is Bluetooth and how does it work? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-bluetooth-and-how-does-it-work-242892

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Justin Pelletier, Professor of Practice of Computing Security, Rochester Institute of Technology

When a coupon suddenly appears on your phone as you approach a store, you might find it convenient and even helpful. But the same AI systems that know where you are and try to influence your purchases can be used to infer what you fear, what you trust and which stories you are likely to believe. AI-fueled marketing algorithms are becoming increasingly good at influencing human behavior.

That raises concern about what various governments might do with these tools to influence citizens’ views about warfare. A clear-eyed look at how administrations are exploiting these systems may help people and their nations navigate an uncertain future.

I am a security researcher who studies ways to explore and characterize the risk technology poses to individuals and society. The rise of AI-mediated influence has raised questions about the erosion of people’s capacity to exercise free will and, by extension, society’s ability to distinguish a just war from an unjust war.

AI-powered marketing

The integration of AI with location-based services is pushing the marketing frontier. Location-based services use geographic data from indoor sensors, cellphone towers and satellites to promote goods and services that are tailored to your location, a capability called geofencing.

When marketing firms couple massive amounts of data about individuals’ behaviors – including information that people voluntarily or unknowingly share through mobile device applications – the firms can group, or segment, potential customers based on what they like, what they do and what they say.

Once an AI-powered marketing system knows where a user is and can make an informed guess about that person’s likes and dislikes, it can design targeted coupons and advertisements to influence the behavior of each person in a group, and possibly the group as a whole. This combination of AI with geofencing and segmentation makes hyperpersonalized marketing content possible at an unprecedented scale.

Real-time propaganda

What might this advance have to do with warfare? The use of psychology to win battles or obviate the need for war is as old as armed conflict itself. Sun Tzu, the Chinese military general and philosopher who died in 496 B.C., wrote: “Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy’s troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.”

From Sun Tzu’s era until today, skilled practitioners of military strategy have sought to reduce the risk in fighting through reflexive control: getting opponents to willingly perform actions that are best for the strategist’s empire or nation.

Today’s strategists increasingly rely on paid social media advertisements, influencers, AI-generated content and even fake social media accounts to sway popular opinion toward their goals. This power, and controversy surrounding it, has been implicated in recent national elections, domestic unrest and negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine.

Unlike propaganda during the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, modern influencers don’t rely on a single message broadcast to the masses. Strategists test and deploy thousands of narrative variations simultaneously, monitor how different groups respond and refine their approach in near-real time. The purveyors don’t need to convince everyone. They just need to nudge enough people at the right moment to change election outcomes, pressure domestic policies or even trigger ethnic violence.

How much deception is tolerable?

As online influence becomes more automated and personalized, it is harder to determine where persuasion ends and coercion begins. If groups of people, or even a nation’s citizenry, can be guided toward certain beliefs or behaviors without overt force, democratic societies face a new problem: how to distinguish traditional attempts at influence from manipulation – especially during conflict.

Recent studies show that Americans trust local news sources more than national ones, although trust in both local and national news media has declined across all age groups in the U.S. Ironically, this trust deficit is being exploited by unscrupulous media in various ways, such as AI-generated, pink-slime news – online news stories that only appear to be from authentic local news outlets. The stories are often technically accurate but presented with veiled political bias.

AI-driven propaganda directly challenges how people typically evaluate claims that their nation has been wronged – that it is the “good guy” standing up for what is right. Just war theory assumes that citizens can reasonably consent to war. Legitimate political authority requires an informed public that can decide violence is both necessary and proportional to the offense. However, when influence operations sway people’s views without them being aware of it, these systems threaten to undermine the moral preconditions that make war just.

The question citizens have to answer is how they will allow their information environments to evolve. Do they assume that deception is ubiquitous and therefore governments must control information and even preempt the truth by weaponizing AI-driven narratives? Or should the public accept the risk of AI-generated influence as a regrettable but necessary part of openness, pluralism and the belief that truth emerges through transparent debate and not under tight controls?

The same systems that decide which coupon reaches your phone are starting to shape which narratives reach you, your community and a nation’s entire population during a crisis. Recognizing this connection is the first step toward deciding how much influence people are willing to accept from such algorithms and the propagandists who control them.

Justin Pelletier is affiliated with the United States Army Reserve. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Army, Department of War, or the U.S. Government.

– ref. Algorithms that customize marketing to your phone could also influence your views on warfare – https://theconversation.com/algorithms-that-customize-marketing-to-your-phone-could-also-influence-your-views-on-warfare-274817

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin, Frank and Bethine Church Endowed Chair of Public Affairs, Boise State University

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is reportedly issuing administrative subpoenas to identify anonymous social media accounts that criticize U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Google, Meta and Reddit have complied with at least some of those requests, according to The New York Times.

These subpoenas appear alongside other recent steps by the Trump administration aimed at clamping down on its critics.

In Minneapolis and Chicago, ICE agents told protesters their faces were being recorded and identified using facial recognition technology. Tom Homan, the White House border czar, has also spoken publicly about creating a database of people arrested during protests against immigration enforcement operations.

One way to understand these government moves is by focusing on law enforcement and compliance. Some people may wonder about what legal authority DHS is using to demand identities and compile lists, how many accounts are involved, and whether prosecutions will follow. Those questions matter.

But they are not the most important ones.

To me, a professor of public service and vice chair of the National Communication Association’s Communication and Law Division, the more revealing question is why the government wants the names of critics in the first place, and what that choice signals about how dissent is being understood.

Legality is wrong measure

The DHS subpoenas that target social media accounts may be perfectly legal.

Administrative subpoenas are authorized by statute and do not require a judge’s approval before issuance. The government’s use of facial recognition technology has survived constitutional challenge in certain investigative contexts. A president’s executive memoranda routinely set enforcement priorities.

But constitutionality does not turn on whether a tool exists. It turns on how that tool is used.

Power can be lawful in the abstract and antidemocratic in its application. The fundamental question in a democracy isn’t whether the government possesses investigative authority. Instead, the question to ask is what happens when that authority begins to focus on critics of a particular policy.

National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, issued in September 2025, makes the stakes even more stark. It directs agencies to prioritize efforts to counter what it calls “domestic terrorism” and organized political violence. It emphasizes threat assessment and intelligence sharing across departments. It frames certain forms of political conflict in security terms.

When protest and online criticism are characterized using a national security vocabulary, they begin to look less like disagreement and more like destabilization. And once dissent is understood as a potential threat, the gathering of names and data can feel ordinary rather than exceptional.

Same rules for everyone

The First Amendment draws its strongest protections around speech that challenges the state. Criticism of immigration enforcement concerns federal authority, borders and human rights. It is core political speech.

Viewpoint discrimination is among the borders the Supreme Court has guarded most carefully. A viewpoint-neutral law is one that applies to everyone, regardless of opinion. Racists have the same right to speech as do Catholic nuns.

Government may regulate conduct, and it may punish true threats and incitement. It may even enforce neutral laws that incidentally restrict speech.

What government may not do is single out one side of a political debate because officials disapprove of its perspective.

If opposition to immigration enforcement triggers subpoenas by the government to businesses to provide the identity of dissenters, that is a problem for the Constitution. The government would need to demonstrate a compelling and viewpoint-neutral justification for the requests. Broad appeals to public safety are rarely sufficient when the speech at issue lies at the center of public debate.

Anonymous speech makes the stakes clearer

In the 1958 case NAACP v. Alabama, the Supreme Court refused to allow the state to compel disclosure of civil rights membership lists because exposure invited retaliation. In McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, in 1995, the court protected anonymous pamphleteering.

The reasoning in both cases was grounded in experience rather than theory. People speak differently when they believe their names may be recorded and stored by the state.

The risk in the present moment to the kind of dissent democracy needs and the Constitution protects may not lie in mass arrests. It may lie in narrowing – a narrowing of who feels safe criticizing federal policy. A narrowing of how sharply people speak. A narrowing of what feels worth the risk.

The First Amendment guards the right to express unpopular views. Chilling speech does not require prosecution. It requires uncertainty and asymmetry – a power imbalance. A person who believes online criticism could land them in a federal database may decide silence is the rational choice.

Supporters of the subpoenas will point to genuine safety concerns. Sharing agents’ locations can create real danger. True threats and incitement fall outside constitutional protection. Under the Supreme Court’s Brandenburg standard, advocacy loses protection when it is directed at and likely to produce imminent lawless action.

The Constitution leaves room to address such genuine danger. The harder question is what happens when tools designed for protecting against tangible harm migrate into ordinary political conflict.

American history offers reminders of how this unfolds. During the Red Scare, loyalty investigations reached into universities and civic organizations. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, surveillance authorities expanded under the Patriot Act. Early provisions allowed the government to seek library borrowing records. Even limited use or constraints on how government could apply its powers for obtaining information may have chilled inquiry. The harm did not depend on mass prosecutions. It depended on normalization.

Measuring what is lost

It is easy to identify the harms that speech can cause. Hate speech can silence its targets. Dishonest rhetoric from public officials can erode trust in institutions. Marketing campaigns can deceive elderly citizens into surrendering their savings. We can see those injuries. We can name their harm. We can point to the damage.

The benefits of free speech are harder to make tangible.

It is difficult to measure what is lost when an opinion is never voiced. It is impossible to catalog the arguments that never quite form because a speaker calculates the risk and decides silence is safer. There is no headline announcing that a citizen chose not to post, not to protest, not to dissent.

Yet the Supreme Court has long understood that the value of free speech lies precisely in that unseen space.

In New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964, the court wrote that “the theory of our Constitution is that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” That theory assumes something demanding. It assumes that criticism of government will be sharp, uncomfortable and, at times, unfair. It assumes that the cure for bad speech is more speech, not surveillance.

When the government begins collecting the names of its critics, even through tools that are lawful in isolation, the question is not simply whether a statute permits it. The question is whether the conditions for uninhibited and robust debate are quietly narrowing.

Free speech rarely disappears in a dramatic moment. It erodes at the margins. It shrinks in the spaces where people decide the risk feels too high.

And by the time someone tries to measure what has been lost, the silence may already feel normal.

Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How Homeland Security’s subpoenas and databases of protesters threaten the ‘uninhibited, robust, and wide-open’ free speech protected by Supreme Court precedent – https://theconversation.com/how-homeland-securitys-subpoenas-and-databases-of-protesters-threaten-the-uninhibited-robust-and-wide-open-free-speech-protected-by-supreme-court-precedent-276151

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Vicki Baker, Professor of Economics and Management, Albion College

What happens to a college education when a chatbot can draft an essay, summarize a reading and generate computer code in seconds? The arrival of artificial intelligence in college classrooms has been swift and, for many schools, disorienting.

As professors of economics and business management and biology at liberal arts colleges, we are confronting a question that now cuts across all colleges and universities: What is the purpose of a college education, as AI is rapidly reshaping how students think, learn and prepare for careers?

While much of the public debate has focused on plagiarism and credit for student work, the deeper issue extends beyond rule-setting.

Across higher education, most schools have issued guidance on how students should use AI, rather than adopted sweeping mandates.

Liberal arts colleges, like the University of Richmond, Bard College and Trinity College, tend to emphasize the importance of students using AI ethically and responsibly, and typically allow students to use AI when they cite it and their instructor permits it. These schools also allow professors to individually determine their own AI policies.

A 2024 study of 116 research universities found similar patterns, with instructors largely determining course policies and few campus-wide bans.

What’s unsettled is not whether students can use AI, but how institutions want students to use it. In our view, unless colleges clearly shape AI’s role in teaching and learning, fast-moving technologies may begin to redefine education by default. The risk isn’t more AI, but a gradual shift in what counts as learning.

Students may spend less time asking hard questions, making their own judgments and building real expertise. In that case, college risks becoming less about understanding and more about producing papers and other content quickly.

Letting AI into the classroom

When generative AI tools first became widely available in late 2022 and early 2023, most professors focused on finding and preventing it in student work. They looked for signs of AI use, including generic phrasing, fake citations, sudden shifts in tone or unusually polished writing that didn’t match a student’s prior work. Some faculty also used AI-detection software to identify computer-generated text.

But it is often difficult to tell when someone has used AI, in part because the detection software is unreliable. As a result, many faculty have shifted from bans to more structured guidance.

Some faculty, as a result, allow students to use AI for specific tasks, such as brainstorming, outlining or debugging code.

The rationale is practical: AI is everywhere and already embedded in professional settings. College graduates are likely to use AI in the workplace.

Accepting AI is here to stay

More recently, college faculty at a range of schools have shifted the focus from whether students are using AI at all to whether students using AI can still analyze, question and justify their own research and conclusions.

At the University of Michigan, for example, some faculty are redesigning assessments to include live debates and oral presentations.

And across the U.S., professors are reviving oral exams, since live questioning makes it harder for students to rely solely on AI. Students must then verbally explain their reasoning and defend their work.

Different academic fields, though, are approaching AI in various ways.

Many business programs, like the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, have moved quickly to bring AI into coursework and degree programs, often framing them as workforce preparation.

Recent analysis of more than 31,000 syllabuses at a large research university in Texas showed a growing number of faculty in the fall of 2025 allowed students to use AI. Business courses allowed the greatest use of AI, while humanities courses allowed it the least. The physical and life sciences fell in between.

Across disciplines, AI was most often allowed at this school for editing, study support and coding. It was most commonly restricted for drafting, revising and reasoning or problem-solving.

AI’s role in higher education is not settled. Instead, it is evolving, dependent on different academic cultures.

Different schools, different approaches

Colleges’ and universities’ overall responses and approaches to AI are varied, as well.

Research universities like Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University are expanding on their long-standing investments in AI, moving quickly to develop new research centers, hiring faculty with AI expertise and creating new degree or certificate programs.

Liberal arts colleges are moving too, but often with a different emphasis.

The Davis Institute for AI at Colby College supports AI work across disciplines through new courses, faculty development and entrepreneurship. At the University of Richmond, a new center links AI to critical thinking and human values, so students can study AI’s impacts and help shape it intentionally.

All of these schools are determining AI policy course by course. But these plans are not part of a comprehensive, school-wide strategy.

Few schools have articulated coordinated, institution-wide plans on AI. Arizona State University is one example of a broader AI integration strategy, which spans academics and campus operations.

Comprehensive AI strategies are expensive. Meaningful integration may require campus licenses for AI services, upgraded computing systems and faculty training. These investments are difficult at a time when many colleges face enrollment declines and financial strain.

Public trust in higher education is another concern that makes enacting broad change difficult. Gallup surveys in 2023 and 2024 found that only 36% of Americans had high confidence in colleges and universities.

Against this backdrop, AI is raising questions about how colleges prepare students for their careers. Employers still prize critical thinking and communication. Yet generative AI can mimic the appearance of thinking even when real understanding is absent.

The tension is clear: If AI does the writing, coding or analysis, where do students do the thinking?

Rethinking learning

Rising use of AI is forcing colleges and universities to revisit what students should learn, how to measure this and the enduring value of a college degree.

That shift moves the conversation beyond course-by-course changes to a shared strategy on what forms of knowledge and thinking are developed in college. Colleges may redesign assignments, expand oral and project-based assessments, and integrate AI literacy across disciplines. They may also clarify learning outcomes, invest in faculty development and find new ways to document students’ judgment and problem-solving in an AI-assisted world.

The question is no longer whether AI belongs in higher education. The real question is whether colleges and universities will shape its role – or allow AI to quietly reshape them.

Linda M. Boland receives funding from the American Physiological Society.

Vicki Baker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Colleges face a choice: Try to shape AI’s impact on learning, or be redefined by it – https://theconversation.com/colleges-face-a-choice-try-to-shape-ais-impact-on-learning-or-be-redefined-by-it-275653

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Abigail Leigh Phillips, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Florida has ranked No. 1 in the United States when it comes to banning books for the past three years, with 2,300 books removed or restricted from public school libraries.

What’s driving these numbers are small, grassroots organizations made up of vocal, media-savvy members. Moms for Liberty is one of the best known to school and public librarians.

Moms for Liberty has chapters in every state, with a particularly active Florida chapter that has been aided by legislation easing restrictions on banning books under Governor Ron DeSantis. Moms for Liberty created and regularly updates a document it calls the Book of Books, with a content-based rating system the organization created. The document is meant to serve as a template that parents can use to make complaints about a book to school boards and school district administrators.

In some cases, book challenges have gone beyond heated public debates, escalating to harassment and even death threats against school librarians.

That kind of escalation hits home for me because I’m a former public librarian. I spent my career in libraries serving small, rural communities in southwestern Georgia – the same libraries I grew up in. Now, as an information science professor in Wisconsin, I educate students on how to build and maintain physical and digital collections as librarians, archivists and museum curators.

One thing I emphasize to my students is that creating a collection involves building in processes for the community to give feedback – even by challenging books.

The purpose of school libraries

School libraries have long served as sanctuaries and supportive spaces for vulnerable students. They are meant to serve as access points to diverse, unique and insightful materials that help students connect with learning in a new way. A school library collection is intended to offer students both a mirror that reflects their own experience of the world and a window that allows them to see that there’s a bigger world out there.

School librarians help teachers with instructional technology in their classrooms, teach students how to use databases and online resources, and build the school community’s information literacy skills. They help schools meet district instructional goals, state education standards and national school library standards.

The required qualifications to work as a school librarian vary state by state. In Florida, school librarians must have a bachelor’s degree, a minimum of two years of professional library experience and demonstrated successful professional work experience as a full-time library staffer.

School libraries and politics

But beyond their qualifications and functions in the classroom, a school librarian’s role also requires leading and engaging the community as an advocate for the importance of the library.

Unlike public libraries, which have elected or appointed boards, school libraries are governed by district policies decided by school boards and school administrators. This means local funding, changes among school board members and local politics have significant implications for school libraries.

Still, school librarians are not without some power to affect policies in their districts. Every state and even every school district has its own unique ways of operating, but typically, school librarians are tasked with writing or at least consulting on the policies the school board approves. A school librarian has to know their local policies and procedures and build collaborative relationships with the decision-makers in their district.

And of course, librarians excel at knowing and taking advantage of resources at their disposal. These include the American Association of School Librarians’ collection of position statements covering a range of issues like selecting materials and appropriate staffing in school libraries. The American Library Association also provides a free tool kit covering selection, maintaining the library’s collection and ways to encourage a student to check out new books. All of these policies serve to help protect school libraries when battling book banning.

Well-crafted policies and best practices

I emphasize several best practices with my students that serve as guideposts, regardless of their individual district’s characteristics. Well-crafted, transparent policies defend school librarians and their collections against arbitrary book challenges, restrictive protocols for readers and eroding intellectual freedom.

First of all, proactive communication ensures that everyone in the school and the community knows the library’s role, procedures and contacts. When policies are visible and accessible, they become tools for strengthening collaboration rather than afterthoughts.

A transparent collection development policy serves as a how-to manual for library staff on building and maintaining physical and digital collections. It also provides a basis for explaining their choices if part of that collection is challenged.

And finally, it’s best practice for every district to have a standing committee of parents, educators and district officials to oversee book challenges. A school librarian can brief them on the district’s collection policy so that they understand what criteria are considered when books are added to the school library’s collection. This gives them context in which to evaluate the books being challenged. A standing committee also ensures that challenges will be addressed in a timely fashion.

District officials often feel enormous pressure to respond to the loudest voices at a school board meeting, even if they don’t represent the majority of parents. A standing committee and clear procedure for challenges help to alleviate that pressure by providing a venue for those voices to be heard and weighed against the interests of other library users. This helps to safeguard the collection’s integrity against persistent minority voices.

For the love of reading

I don’t remember my first trip to a school library. But I still remember one of the first picture books I ever checked out: “A Chocolate Moose for Dinner” by Fred Gwynne. I fell in love with this delightful and cleverly written book, full of puns, word play and hilarious illustrations. And it’s that love of reading that all librarians want to nurture.

Collection development policies are not simply paperwork. They are the backbone of a school library’s integrity, supporting librarians as they curate collections that meet educational goals, nurture the school as a community and provide students with books they are excited to read.

Read more stories from The Conversation about Florida.

Abigail Phillips has received funding from IMLS, ALA, Library of Congress, and Internal Grants from UWM (her university/employer). Consistently applying for external and internal funding is integral to her position as a university faculty member to support her research.

– ref. How transparent policies can protect Florida school libraries amid efforts to ban books – https://theconversation.com/how-transparent-policies-can-protect-florida-school-libraries-amid-efforts-to-ban-books-269769

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Shelly Tygielski, Doctoral Student in Philanthropic Leadership, Indiana University

Have you ever received some money through a GoFundMe campaign or Venmo or CashApp transfers after a medical emergency, natural disaster or other crisis?

If so, you may have also gotten an unwelcome surprise: a federal tax form that treats what you got as a gift as if it were earned income. And receiving this form can also affect your state tax return.

We are researchers at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Together, we study how the tax system treats charitable crowdfunding – and sometimes harms people who get help that way.

A failure to make a needed distinction

Also known as monetary mutual aid, charitable crowdfunding refers to need-based gifts that one person gives another.

It may sound simple, but many practical issues arise when reporting rules designed for commercial transactions inadvertently treat these transfers as taxable income.

We have analyzed Internal Revenue Service reporting rules, federal case law and community-based mutual aid practices to better understand how tax policies can affect people who get money directly from others, given to them as charity.

In the cases we examined, recipients were not selling goods or services. Yet payment platforms frequently issued tax forms to the recipients without distinguishing between payments tied to earned income and money received as crisis-related support.

Mutual aid has grown

Through mutual aid, people can help meet the needs of others, typically outside formal nonprofit or government systems – meaning that such giving tends to bypass established charities. It tends to be community-driven and often emerges when institutional support is delayed, insufficient or inaccessible.

During the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent disasters, mutual aid surged. For example, studies indicate that at the start of the pandemic, approximately 50 documented mutual aid groups existed across the United States.

By May 2020, that number had grown to over 800, with networks established in nearly every U.S. state.

These groups provided food, rental assistance, medical supplies and direct cash support when formal systems, such as government programs and nonprofit agencies, faltered.

Research from the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy’s Women’s Philanthropy Institute found that during the first year of the pandemic, most Americans who gave money did not donate primarily to official charities. Instead, they gave directly to people in need or to informal groups using crowdfunding platforms, such as GoFundMe, and money-transfer apps like Venmo and CashApp.

Tax law hasn’t kept up

We’ve found that the tax code has not kept pace with the rapid growth of digitally mediated, peer-to-peer giving on a large scale.

Crowdfunding platforms now facilitate billions of dollars in transfers each year, and peer-to-peer payment apps process hundreds of billions more in transactions. Unfortunately, reporting rules originally designed to detect business income are increasingly applied to individuals who receive crisis-related financial support.

Due to changes to federal tax reporting rules that Congress approved in 2021, payment platforms, including Venmo, CashApp, PayPal and any other platforms used for transacting funds, had to issue 1099-K forms to any Americans who received more than US$600 in payments. The 1099-K is a tax document that reports payments a person receives through third-party platforms to the IRS.

Lawmakers made this change to improve tax compliance in the gig economy – by making sure that Americans were paying taxes on the taxable income they earn by driving for Lyft, walking dogs and doing other kinds of side hustles.

Congress has since reversed course.

A provision in the large tax-reform-and-spending package that President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025, restored the federal 1099-K reporting threshold for payment apps like Venmo to the prior standard: over $20,000 in gross payments and more than 200 transactions.

An incomplete fix

While this change is likely to make a difference, especially since it’s retroactive to 2021, confusion persists.

For one thing, people can still receive tax forms in some states, including Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont and Virginia, that have continued to require that people getting less than $20,000 be issued 1099-K forms.

There are still cases where mutual aid recipients may have to document that the money they’ve gotten from people trying to help them was a gift, not earned income.

And when someone gets very ill or their house burns down, legitimate fundraising through mutal monetary aid can exceed $20,000.

For example, roughly 250,000 campaigns are created each year on GoFundMe for medical costs; studies have found that campaigns related to cancer seek $20,000 in gifts on average.

Following the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, the median amount that vetted, individual fundraisers raised through GoFundMe topped $25,000 , with several instances where they brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If someone receives a 1099-K for funds that were provided as gifts rather than payments, tax experts generally recommend keeping clear documentation of the transfers and consulting a tax professional about how to properly report the amount so it is not treated as taxable income.

IRS doesn’t get mutual aid

Mutual aid isn’t gig work, so the tax code shouldn’t treat them the same. Getting multiple $50 gifts through a GoFundMe campaign to help you contend with a crisis brought on by your husband’s stroke is not the same as earning the equivalent driving for Uber.

The Internal Revenue Code excludes gifts from your taxable income, although the person donating needs to pay taxes if they give someone more than a certain amount – currently $19,000 per year.

But U.S. courts have historically interpreted what constitutes a gift narrowly. In a 1960 U.S. Supreme Court case, an opinion from a seven-justice majority defined gifts as arising from “detached and disinterested generosity.”

That standard works when your uncle cuts you a birthday check. But it’s not a good fit for today’s collective, need-based giving that’s often coordinated through online platforms and often involves the transfer of funds among people who have never met.

Jeopardizing government benefits

Research shows that mutual aid disproportionately supports low-income households, undocumented families, people with disabilities and communities of color. These same groups are more likely to face heightened scrutiny from financial platforms and tax authorities, and are less likely to have access to tax or legal assistance.

In examining tax enforcement research alongside our findings, we found evidence that expanded reporting requirements may have amplified existing racial and economic inequities. And there could be serious consequences for the recipients of monetary mutual aid. Simply receiving a tax form can jeopardize their eligibility for some government benefits because it may suggest to the authorities that someone’s income is too high to need them.

Without clearer guidance, people who are already facing a crisis may be penalized for receiving help. Research on informal giving suggests that when reporting rules are unclear, individual donors may become more hesitant to send money directly to someone who needs it.

As charitable crowdfunding continues to grow, the issue is not only how platforms such as Venmo or GoFundMe report transactions. Clearer guidance from the IRS about how need-based, noncommercial transfers should be treated could reduce the risk that emergency support is mischaracterized as income.

Shelly Tygielski founded the Pandemic of Love mutual aid movement.

Shelly Tygielski is affiliated with Pandemic of Love, the global mutual aid organization. She is also an executive board member of Global Empowerment Mission, a global nonprofit humanitarian aid organization.

Pamala Wiepking receives funding from the Dutch Postcode Lotteries and her work is funded through a generous grant from the Stead Family.

– ref. Crowdfunded generosity isn’t taxable – but IRS regulations haven’t kept up with the growth of mutual aid – https://theconversation.com/crowdfunded-generosity-isnt-taxable-but-irs-regulations-havent-kept-up-with-the-growth-of-mutual-aid-274945