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Court Narrows Hold on COVID Vaccine Mandate for Contractors + More
Court Narrows Hold on COVID Vaccine Mandate for Contractors
More than 1 million construction workers across the U.S. won’t have to comply with a federal COVID-19 vaccination requirement, but an appeals court cleared the way for President Joe Biden’s administration to potentially enforce the mandate on some federal contractors.
Biden’s Office of Management and Budget said Monday that federal attorneys were still reviewing the ruling issued Friday and that no immediate steps have been taken to implement it. The vaccine requirement for employees of federal contractors has been on hold nationwide since a U.S. district judge in Georgia issued an order in December barring its enforcement.
A split ruling by a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta lifted that nationwide injunction but continues to bar enforcement of the vaccine mandate against seven states that sued — Georgia, Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia. It also bars enforcement against members of Associated Builders and Contractors — which joined the lawsuit — or any of their subcontractors on federal projects.
The association, which has about 21,000 member companies employing more than 1 million workers, called the ruling a “huge victory” even though it narrows the scope of the previous injunction.
U.S. Supreme Court’s Sotomayor Keeps New York City COVID Vaccine Mandate
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Monday declined to block New York City from enforcing its mandate that all municipal workers be vaccinated against COVID-19, rebuffing a police detective who challenged the public health policy.
The liberal justice denied Detective Anthony Marciano’s request for a stay of the vaccination requirement while an appeal over his claims continue in a lower court. A federal judge threw out Marciano’s case in March.
Marciano argued that neither state nor federal law allows government officials to impose vaccines on adults without “informed consent,” telling the justices in a legal filing that “he cannot and will not assume the health risks associated with an illegal, experimental” vaccine that he “does not need.”
Marciano remains on active duty while he appeals the denial of his vaccine exemption request. The city’s health department ordered the mandate in October 2021. In February of this year, 1,430 municipal workers were fired for failing to comply.
California Advances Medical Misinformation Bill
A California bill designed to combat disinformation and misinformation on COVID-19 by medical professionals passed in the state Senate on Monday evening.
Why it matters: The bill could see doctors and other medical professionals who spread COVID misinformation or disinformation face disciplinary action for “unprofessional conduct” from the Medical Board of California or the Osteopathic Medical Board of California, which could include having their state license suspended or revoked.
If Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) were to sign the bill into law, California would be the first state to take legal action against medical practitioners in response to the spread of false COVID information, per the New York Times.
Newsom has three weeks to sign the bill, but he’s yet to take a public position on it, per the NYT.
Ph.D. Candidate Renounces Studies in Protest of Western University’s COVID Vaccine Policy
Jason Falbo said he has made the difficult decision to withdraw from his doctorate program at Western University after nearly seven years of study after the university announced a COVID-19 vaccine policy that mandates three shots for all staff and students.
On Aug. 22, the London, Ontario, university released its latest COVID-19 vaccine policy, requiring all individuals who come on campus to have received a complete primary series of a COVID-19 vaccine as well as a booster dose by Oct. 1, 2022. A primary series typically means two doses of a Health Canada-approved COVID-19 vaccine. The policy is set to remain in place until Aug. 22, 2023.
Falbo, who has been studying electronics and communications engineering at Western University since 2015, said he found the policy “completely unacceptable” and decided to take action to protest against it. He said he would have graduated after submitting and defending his final thesis, but by dropping out of the doctorate program, he hopes to raise awareness of the difficult position that the policy has put students in.
‘One of the Fittest People on the Planet’: Journalist Blasts U.S. for Barring Novak Djokovic From Open
An Australian journalist is coming to the defense of tennis great Novak Djokovic, who’s been barred from competing in the U.S. Open for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID.
A rule from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) bars the Serbian star from entering the U.S. without proof of vaccination.
“It is embarrassing and it defies logic and science,” journalist and sports host Ben Fordham slammed the U.S. rule, Sportskeeda reported. “He is one of the fittest people on the planet,” the journalist said of Djokovic. “He doesn’t drink, he travels with his own personal doctor and nutritionist.”
Fordham noted that the athlete has already recovered from having COVID, meaning his body has produced antibodies.
West Virginia’s AG Comes out in Support of COVID Vaccine Exemptions for Navy Personnel
West Virginia’s Attorney General was one of 22 attorneys general who came out in support Monday of Navy personnel seeking religious exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for servicemembers.
The 22 attorneys general filed an amicus brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, where an injunction against the vaccine mandate is currently under appeal, according to a press release from West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s Office.
That release also cites U.S. Department of Defense data showing that of 105,277 reported COVID cases within the U.S. Navy, only 17 deaths and 1 hospitalization have occurred; 47 religious accommodation requests have been approved and 4,251 are still pending.
Vaccine Mandate Created ‘Acute’ Staffing Issues in Transportation Industry: Declassified Document
The COVID-19 vaccine mandates for federally regulated workforces caused severe staffing and operational challenges for the transportation sector, according to a secret briefing delivered to the cabinet in June before the mandates were suspended.
“Operators are reporting acute challenges in staffing critical operating positions across sectors, citing current vaccination mandate as a key factor,” says a now declassified and heavily-redacted document meant to brief government ministers on policy considerations for the mandates.
“In air, operators are losing some pilots to jurisdictions like the U.S. who don’t require vaccines and ground crew to other sectors that do not have mandates,” says the briefing marked “Secret — Confidence of the Queen’s Privy Council.”
‘It Felt Like My Insides Were Crying’: China COVID Curbs Hit Youth Mental Health
Zhang Meng had a breakdown last December. The 20-year-old found herself sobbing on the stairs of her dorm, driven to despair by repeated COVID lockdowns of her university campus in Beijing.
The lockdowns had meant she was mostly confined to her room and unable to meet up with friends. There were also strict curbs on when she could visit the canteen or take a shower. Describing herself as someone who craves in-person social interaction, Zhang said the restrictions had “removed the safety net that was holding me up and I felt like my whole being was falling down”.
China has employed some of the world’s harshest and most frequent lockdown measures in its determination to stamp out every COVID outbreak, arguing it saves lives and pointing to its low pandemic death toll of around 5,200 to date.
It’s an effort it has shown little sign of abandoning, but the policy’s impact on mental health alarms medical experts and as Zhang’s and Yao’s experiences have shown, it is already taking its toll.
Chinese Think Tank Makes Rare Public Call for Beijing to Ease Zero-COVID Policy
A Chinese think tank has issued a rare public disagreement with the ruling Communist party’s severe “zero-COVID” policy, saying curbs that shut down cities and disrupt trade, travel and industry must change to prevent an “economic stall.”
The Anbound Research Center gave no details of possible changes but said on Monday that Xi Jinping’s government needed to focus on shoring up sinking growth. It noted the U.S., Europe and Japan were recovering economically after easing anti-disease curbs.
“Preventing the risk of an economic stall should be the priority task,” the think tank said in a report titled: It’s Time for China to Adjust Its Virus Control and Prevention Policies.
FTC Accuses Data Broker of Letting Anyone Track Millions of Americans for Free
The Federal Trade Commission announced a lawsuit Monday against a major data broker, accusing it of offering services that allow for the tracking of Americans at sensitive locations, such as addiction clinics or domestic violence shelters.
Commissioners voted 4-1 this week to bring a suit against Kochava, Inc., which calls itself the “industry leader for mobile app attribution” and sells mobile geo-location data on hundreds of millions of people.
The suit accuses the company of violating the FTC Act, and the agency warns that the company’s business practices could easily be used to unmask the locations of vulnerable individuals — including visitors to reproductive health clinics, homeless and domestic violence shelters, places of worship and addiction recovery centers.
Elon Musk Files Another Notice to Cancel Twitter Takeover, Citing Whistleblower’s Data Privacy Concerns
Tesla CEO Elon Musk filed another notice Monday of his intent to cancel his purchase of social media platform Twitter, citing a whistleblower’s recent claims.
Musk‘s latest attempt to backpedal out of the deal cites revelations found in the “Zatko complaint” — a memo released by a former security chief for Twitter that alleged the platform has misused user data and lacks control of the site’s core systems.
Musk’s camp filed the notice despite claiming it was legally unnecessary due to a previous motion to cancel the purchase. The Aug. 29 filing is intended to ensure the deal is terminated even in the event Musk’s previous complaints fail to hold in court.
In the Musk vs. Twitter Trial, Americans Are the Winners
The Depp-Heard lawsuit is behind us, and we’re onto the next celebrity trial: Musk v. Twitter. This Page Six-style trial has everything: public confrontations, billions of dollars at stake, the future of Internet speech and even a high-profile affair. And the story keeps getting juicer with billionaire businessman Elon Musk recently subpoenaing his friend and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.
Twitter is suing to force Musk to go through with an acquisition he no longer wants and a marriage that Twitter itself never wanted in the first place — like an industrial shotgun wedding. And just like the Depp-Heard trial, this one is being played out in both the courts of justice and public opinion.
Regardless of legal verdict, the American people have already won. In the 6 months since the made-for-TV acquisition began, we’ve seen the platform expand free speech in response to public scrutiny.
Since Musk’s announced acquisition, Twitter has changed what content it allows and removes. Twitter lifted a “lifetime ban” on reporter and author Alex Berenson and is more aggressively removing bots. It changed the way users see their timelines. And it’s reviewing long-held policies on what is and is not allowed on the platform.
1,300 NYC School Staffers Must Now Get COVID Vaccine — or Will Be Let Go + More
1,300 NYC School Staffers Must Now Get COVID Vaccine — or Will Be Let Go
Time is running out for some 1,300 City Department of Education (DOE) employees on unpaid leave for a year since the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Under an agreement they signed a year ago, the staffers must show proof of at least one jab by Sept. 5, before the new school year starts.
If they do so, “they will return to their original school,” officials said. If not, they will be “deemed to have voluntarily resigned.”
“I’m very stressed. I’m praying to the last minute that something will change,” said an unvaccinated teacher who worked more than 20 years at a Queens elementary school.
The unpaid employees — including hundreds of teachers — have been getting health coverage since skipping the city’s deadline to get vaccinated last Oct. 4. Another roughly 1,100 unvaccinated DOE employees who rejected the unpaid-leave deal have already been fired, the DOE said.
DC Schools Extend Deadlines for COVID, Routine Vaccination Mandate
Students in DC public and charter schools will have more time to comply with vaccination requirements this school year, the city’s deputy mayor for education said Friday.
The city’s top education official notified school leaders Friday about the change, designed to reduce the number of children who could be barred from school, as well as align the District’s charter systems and public school district under a single enforcement timeline. The change comes a few days before the start of school and amid some concern that the mandate could keep students out of class, particularly Black students who lag behind their white classmates in routine and coronavirus vaccination rates.
Officials previously said schools should not allow students to come to class for more than 20 days without their routine vaccinations, against illnesses including measles and polio, or their coronavirus shots. But because schools across the district have different start dates — DC public schools reopen Monday and many charter school students have already returned — officials designed a timeline that would put everyone on the same page.
NFL’s Aaron Rodgers Says Joe Rogan Helped Him Develop COVID ‘Game Plan’
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said podcaster Joe Rogan helped him develop a game ahead of his COVID-19 diagnosis last year, which ultimately revealed that he had misled the public about his vaccination status.
Rodgers and Rogan have been prominent COVID-19 vaccine skeptics. The four-time NFL MVP claimed ahead of last season that he had been “immunized” against COVID-19, which was interpreted as confirmation that he was vaccinated until he contracted COVID-19 and was forced to miss a game due to being unvaccinated.
During an appearance on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, Rodgers thanked Rogan for his advice on treating COVID-19, also noting that he appreciated hearing previous guests on the show discuss “their own ideas about COVID.”
“And you know, you helped me with…a game plan to be ready in case I did get COVID. And I followed it to a tee and when I got COVID, you know within 36 hours I was, you know, symptom-free and feeling amazing,” Rodgers said.
COVID: California’s Marin County Lifts First Responder Mandate
Marin Independent Journal reported:
Marin County Public Health has rescinded an order that law enforcement officers, firefighters, probation officers and emergency medical personnel be fully vaccinated and boosted to work in Marin County’s higher-risk settings.
The mandate, lifted Tuesday, is being dropped now because the Omicron subvariant BA.5 has become dominant in Marin, said Dr. Lisa Santora, Marin County’s deputy public health officer.
“With the BA.5 variant circulating, we are seeing that the original, primary vaccination series and one booster don’t offer the same protection that they did with the BA.1 and BA.2 variant,” Santora said.
Justin Swift, president of the Marin County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, said, “It’s about time. It never should have happened. We lost a lot of good staff over the vaccine mandate.”
Flicking the Kill Switch: Governments Embrace Internet Shutdowns as a Form of Control
On Feb. 1, 2021, reporter Ko Zin Lin Htet received a panicked phone call from a source in Yangon, Myanmar’s most populous city. The caller said the military had seized power and was arresting opposition politicians, then hung up. Ko Zin Lin Htet remembered what he did next: “I checked my phone and my internet connection. There was nothing there.”
From Ukraine to Myanmar, government-run internet outages are picking up pace around the world. In 2021, there were 182 shutdowns in 34 countries, according to Access Now, a non-government organization that tracks connectivity around the world. Countries across Africa and Asia have turned to shutdowns in a bid to control behavior, while India, largely in the conflict-ridden region of Jammu and Kashmir, plunged into digital darkness more times than any other last year.
The increasing use of the kill switch underlines a deepening global trend towards digital authoritarianism, as governments use access to the internet as a weapon against their own people. Internet shutdowns have also become a modern canary in the coal mine.
Google Employees Frustrated After Office COVID Outbreaks, Some Call to Modify Vaccine Policy
Google employees are receiving regular notifications from management of COVID-19 infections, causing some to question the company’s return-to-office mandates.
The employees, who spoke with CNBC on the condition of anonymity, said since they have been asked to return to offices, infections notifications pop up in their email inboxes regularly. Employees are reacting with frustration and memes.
Last December, Google told employees that they must comply with vaccine policies or they’d face losing pay and then losing their job. Then in February, ahead of asking employees to come back, it relaxed rules around vaccines being a requirement for employment, as well as other rules around testing, social distancing and masks. But it continued to require COVID-19 vaccination to enter physical offices.
Now, some Google employees are asking the company to drop the vaccine mandate, arguing COVID-19 outbreaks keep happening anyway in the offices where employees are fully vaccinated. While it still provides a level of protection, the vaccines aren’t as strong against the highly transmissible BA.5 variant, the fastest-spreading variant of COVID-19 to date, the group argues in a manifesto called “No Vaccine Mandate,” which was posted this month and viewed by CNBC.
Infectious Disease Experts Aren’t All on the Same Page About COVID Booster Mandates
As Western University imposes a booster mandate for all incoming staff and students — an effort, it says, to lessen the risk of COVID-19 transmission on campus this fall — not all infectious disease experts are on the same page about the benefits of such mandates.
Dr. Martha Fulford, an infectious disease expert with McMaster University, says she sees the overall medical value of vaccines but doesn’t agree that booster shots should be mandated for public health. Instead, she told CTV National News, that booster shots should be considered at the individual level.
“It has become clear that COVID vaccines are not stopping onward transmission,” she said, referring to the spread of variants such as Omicron and sub-variants.
“If you’re going to mandate something, regardless of whether you agree with that person’s individual decision, there has to be a very compelling public health or medical rationale for that. It’s just not there anymore for the COVID vaccines and certainly not for boosters.”
Anti-COVID Vaccine Mandate Protest at Western University Sees Hundreds
Hundreds in London, Ontario, protested against the University of Western Ontario‘s COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Demonstrators marched around the southwestern Ontario campus and listened to speakers denounce the school’s decision to mandate booster doses of the vaccine for staff, students and some visitors.
Organizer Kendra Hancock says she hopes the demonstration will lead to public negotiations and more student consultation over the university’s rules, which also include mandatory masking in classrooms.
Western is the only university in Canada to mandate booster shots for all staff and students on campus.
Facebook to Settle Cambridge Analytica Privacy Suit
Facebook parent company Meta Platforms has reached a tentative settlement in a lawsuit seeking damages for allowing third parties, including British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, access to user data.
According to a document filed in a San Francisco court on Friday, Meta agreed to a “draft agreement in principle” and requested 60 days’ stay of the action for its finalization. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
In 2018, it came to light that Cambridge Analytica had paid a Facebook app developer for access to the personal data of tens of millions of Facebook users. The data was used to target voters during Donald Trump’s victorious 2016 campaign for the U.S. presidency.
The lawsuit maintains that the breach of privacy shows that Facebook is a “data broker and surveillance firm” and not just a social network.
Amazon’s Empire of Surveillance: Through Recent Billion-Dollar Acquisitions of Healthcare Services and Smart Home Devices, the Tech Giant Is Leveraging Its Monopoly Power to Track ‘Every Aspect’ of Our Lives
Amazon‘s recent multi-billion dollar purchases of One Medical and iRobot have spurred concerns from legislators, antitrust advocates and privacy experts, but the company’s sprawling business model — and reputation of surveilling consumers and competition alike — makes the company almost unstoppable. It’s “like the mythical Hydra, where you cut off one head and two more grow in its place,” one data privacy expert told Insider.
Every step of the way, from its beginnings as an alternative to brick and mortar bookstores to snatching up over half of the online retail market, Amazon has relied on surveillance to dominate the competition, according to Evan Greer, director of the nonprofit advocacy group Fight for the Future.
“People tend to think of Amazon as an online marketplace, but really, Amazon is a surveillance company,” Greer told Insider. “[E]very aspect of their profit is derived from their ability to amass and leverage data.”
Apple Faces Growing Likelihood of DOJ Antitrust Suit
Justice Department lawyers are in the early stages of drafting a potential antitrust complaint against Apple, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter — a sign that a long-running investigation may be nearing a decision point and a suit could be coming soon.
Various groups of prosecutors inside the DOJ are assembling the pieces for a potential lawsuit, the individual said, adding that the department’s antitrust division hopes to file suit by the end of the year.
The suit would be the latest major legal problem besetting the country’s biggest tech companies two years after federal regulators and multiple states filed antitrust cases against Google and Facebook. And it would be the DOJ’s first antitrust suit against one of the tech titans during President Joe Biden’s administration.
The Justice Department has been investigating Apple since 2019 over allegations that it abused its market power to stifle smaller tech companies, including app developers and competing hardware makers. As the investigation has progressed, a suit has become increasingly likely, but the move to drafting sections of the suit is a significant step forward in the process.
DC School Districts Impose COVID Vaccine Mandates, Unvaccinated Will Be Barred From Attendance + More
Just a Few School Districts Are Imposing Coronavirus Vaccine Mandates
DC Public Schools is mandating middle school and high school students be vaccinated against the coronavirus to return to the classroom next week. The District’s back-to-school plans set it at odds with most of the rest of the country, where youth vaccine mandates have so far failed to gain traction.
Schools have overwhelmingly declined to impose such requirements on kids, whose coronavirus vaccine uptake nationwide remains low; about 30% of children aged 5-11 and 60% of adolescents aged 12-17 are fully vaccinated.
The new law applies to all DC students for whom there is a federally, fully approved coronavirus vaccine. Students over the age of 12 will have 20 days from the first day of school, Aug. 29, to be in compliance with the policy before they are barred from attendance. However, students can seek religious or medical exemptions that are reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
After the 20 school day grace period, unvaccinated students will be removed from class and their attendance will be recorded as unexcused absences. Should intervention attempts by school officials fail to bring the student into compliance, prolonged absences could trigger truancy, educational neglect and referrals to Child and Family Services and the Office of the Attorney General as a final resort.
DC Vaccine Mandate for Government Workers Is Unlawful, Judge Says
A DC Superior Court judge on Thursday said the vaccination mandate Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) imposed on city government workers earlier this year was unlawful in response to opposition from the DC police union.
The order from Judge Maurice A. Ross comes in response to a lawsuit filed in February by the DC Police Union and other police groups that opposed the mandate, which was first imposed by Bowser last year.
The August 2021 mayor’s order instructed DC government employees to submit proof that they had received the coronavirus vaccination, although workers could also apply for religious or medical exemptions or opt for weekly testing instead.
Ross’s order says Bowser is “permanently enjoined from implementing, imposing and/or enforcing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate … against the plaintiffs,” and that all disciplinary actions related to the mandate “shall immediately cease and be dismissed with full reimbursement to be provided to all [Fraternal Order of Police] members for any loss of benefits, pay, or rights and all related disciplinary proceedings to be expunged from their records.”
NYPD Detective Asks Supreme Court to Block Vaccine Mandate
A New York City police detective has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the city from firing him and other workers for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Lawyers for Detective Anthony Marciano, a 10-year police veteran, asked the court on Thursday for an emergency injunction that would block the city from enforcing a rule requiring all municipal employees to get vaccinated.
More than 1,000 New York City employees have been fired for refusing the vaccines, and others are waiting to find out whether their requests for exemptions will be approved.
Legal challenges to the rules have largely failed, but Marciano’s case is still pending in a federal appeals court. In a petition to the Supreme Court, Marciano’s lawyer asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor to block the city from enforcing its rule until that appeal is resolved.
Joe Rogan Points out How Anyone Can Abuse Mark Zuckerberg’s Glasses to Film Anyone Without Consent in a Matter of Seconds
On a new three-hour episode of The Joe Rogan Experience published on Thursday, guest Mark Zuckerberg took on a lot of topics, ranging from the metaverse to Meta’s ethical responsibilities to remote work.
Early on, the two discussed the current state of augmented and virtual reality and the technological innovations that Meta is working on in that sphere. Zuckerberg used it as an opportunity to discuss the Ray-Ban Stories, a Meta collaboration with the maker of the popular Wayfarer glasses model. The product launched last year and currently retails for $299.
Rogan pointed out the ways that a small, obscured camera might be abused. “Does that bring about privacy concerns if people can just start filming things?” he asked, to which Zuckerberg drew attention to a built-in light that signals when the camera is on — an interaction Twitter users have zeroed in on.
“Could you put a piece of tape over the light?” asked Rogan. “I guess in theory” was Zuckerberg’s response.
It’s a familiar type of question to be asked of Meta products and services, which critics frequently argue are open to misuse and manipulation, even harkening back to the birth of “The Facebook” when Zuckerberg was at Harvard.
Religious Shield Against Vaccine Mandate Gets 5th Circuit Review
A federal appeals court in New Orleans can extend anti-discrimination law’s reach into the workplace in a case involving a religious challenge to a healthcare company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit will hear oral argument Monday in a bid by former workers at Caris Life Sciences Inc. and Caris MPI Inc. to block the company’s vaccination requirement. A district court in Texas denied the workers’ request for a preliminary injunction in 2021.
The workers rely on the Fifth Circuit’s February decision that allowed two United Airlines Inc. employees to seek a court order under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to halt the airline’s COVID-19 shot policy, which put unvaccinated employees on unpaid leave.
The Fifth Circuit’s consideration of the Caris case gives it the chance to codify its groundbreaking decision in Sambrano v. United Airlines — which was unpublished, meaning it’s not binding precedent and applies only to the dispute at hand — by adopting its reasoning in a published opinion. The facts of the Caris case also open the door for the court to build on Sambrano to broaden when a worker can get a preliminary injunction to halt alleged discrimination.
Frontline Workers Form New Political Coalition, Call on Biden to End the COVID Public Health Emergency
Big cities and hospitals that mandated vaccines for frontline workers during the pandemic have unwittingly become the impetus for a new opposition force. A group of leaders from police and fire departments, EMS, and other related healthcare professions, created a new coalition to empower frontline workers to fight back against public policies that hurt their livelihoods.
The National Coalition of Frontline Workers (NCFW) launched in Washington, DC, on Thursday with representatives from the first responders’ professions. Its first official agenda was to call on President Joe Biden to end the COVID-19 public health emergency that has been in effect and been repeatedly extended since January 2020.
Vaccine mandates by large city governments during the pandemic have resulted in frontline workers getting fired across the country, even as the shots have proven ineffective at stopping the spread of the Omicron variant. There are an estimated 24 million frontline workers in the United States, according to the group.
The launch event of the coalition was held at the Hay Adams Hotel across from the White House. Collins said the group wanted to hold the event at the National Press Club but were told they were not allowed into the building without being vaccinated.
U.S. Suspends Chinese Airline Flights in COVID Dispute
The U.S. government is suspending 26 flights by Chinese airlines from the United States to China in a dispute over anti-virus controls after Beijing suspended flights by American carriers.
The Department of Transportation on Thursday complained Beijing violated an air travel agreement and treated airlines unfairly under a system that requires them to suspend flights if passengers test positive for COVID-19.
U.S. regulators suspended seven flights by Air China Ltd. from New York City and a total of 19 flights from Los Angeles by Air China, China Eastern Airlines Ltd., China Southern Airlines Ltd. and Xiamen Airlines Ltd., according to the Department of Transportation.
It said that was equal to the number of flights United Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines were required to cancel under Beijing’s “circuit-breaker” system.
Microsoft and ByteDance Are Collaborating on a Big AI Project, Even as U.S.-China Rivalry Heats up
The high-stakes battle between the U.S. and China for supremacy in artificial intelligence has domestic lawmakers growing increasingly concerned over what losing out could mean for national security, the economy and American prosperity.
But as the world’s two largest economies pour resources into the race for dominance in the field, there’s also collaboration afoot. Indeed, some AI experts even say that cross-border cooperation is key to getting the most out of advancements in computing.
The Microsoft-ByteDance collaboration is notable because of the brewing rivalry between the U.S. and China with respect to AI and intellectual property, and concerns over how technological advancements could be used for surveillance and privacy intrusion.
Microsoft has been investing heavily in AI along with competitors like Amazon, Google parent Alphabet, Facebook parent Meta and Apple. Like Google once did, Microsoft maintains an AI research lab in China, helping it tap into the country’s academic talent.
Judge Orders Twitter to Turn Over to Elon Musk Data From 2021 Users Audit
Elon Musk may get access to Twitter data used in a 2021 audit of active users but other information the billionaire seeks in a bid to end his $44 billion deal to buy the company was rejected as “absurdly broad,” a judge said on Thursday.
Twitter must turn over data from the 9,000 accounts sampled in the fourth quarter as part of its process to estimate the number of spam accounts.
Twitter had said that data did not exist and it would be burdensome to collect it. Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick gave the company two weeks to produce the data.
YouTube Quietly Drops Some COVID Censorship Policies but Banned Channels Haven’t Returned
Over the last few months, YouTube has quietly removed or changed many of its COVID censorship rules which resulted in numerous videos and creators being censored throughout 2020 and 2021.
Collectively, these changes to YouTube’s “COVID-19 medical misinformation” mean that users are now allowed to question or dispute whether the vaccines reduce the risk of contracting or spreading COVID-19, question or dispute the effectiveness of masks and social distancing, say that the symptoms and contagiousness of COVID-19 are equal to or less severe than the common cold or seasonal flu and declare that the pandemic is over.
All prohibitions on statements about masks, social distancing, and self-isolation have been removed from YouTube’s “COVID-19 medical misinformation” policy. Additionally, one ban on statements about vaccines has been removed from the policy and several of the rules related to vaccines have been changed.
Before making these changes, YouTube removed more than a million videos for breaking its COVID-19 misinformation rules. Many high-profile figures, including Senator Rand Paul and Congressman Thomas Massie, were censored after questioning the effectiveness of masks or vaccines.
Instagram Now Defaults New Users Under 16 to Most Restrictive Content Setting, Adds Prompts for Existing Teens
In December, just ahead of Instagram head Adam Mosseri’s testimony before the U.S. Senate over the impacts of its app on teen users, the company announced plans to roll out a series of safety features and parental controls.
Instagram is updating a critical set of these features, which will now default users under the age of 16 to the app’s most restrictive content setting. It will also prompt existing teens to do the same and will introduce a new “Settings check-up” feature that guides teens to update their safety and privacy settings.
The changes are rolling out to global users across platforms amid increased regulatory pressure over social media apps and their accompanying minor safety issues.
Unvaccinated Novak Djokovic Officially out of U.S. Open + More
Unvaccinated Novak Djokovic Officially out of U.S. Open
Tennis star Novak Djokovic’s refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine continues to stand in the way of his pursuit of the all-time Grand Slam record, as he said in a tweet Thursday he won’t be able to enter the U.S. for next week’s U.S. Open.
Djokovic’s exclusion from the event was long expected, as U.S. rules require foreign nationals entering the U.S. to be vaccinated against COVID, though a loosening of restrictions for unvaccinated Americans announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this month inspired a brief moment of hope for Djokovic’s U.S. Open prospects.
TikTok Is Like Crack Cocaine, According to a Wall Street Research Firm. A Top Market Analyst Explains How the Chinese App Has Displaced Giants Across Big Tech.
TikTok’s dominance is getting noticed on Wall Street. With over 1 billion users logging on to the app per month, every major U.S. social media brand is trying to replicate the success of the Chinese video platform.
It’s proven so popular that Bernstein analysts published a note this week arguing that TikTok exhibits some of the same attributes as a drug, specifically likening the app to crack cocaine.
“The algorithm pushed the most viral content directly to the user delivering endorphin hit after hit with each swipe,” the authors wrote.
Though shares of TikTok parent ByteDance are not public, its meteoric rise is in stark comparison to the sagging fortunes of its competitors. Shares of Meta have dropped more than 50% so far this year, and Snap has seen a 76% decline.
DHS Officially Shuts Down Disinformation Board After Longtime Pause
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is shutting down the Disinformation Governance Board more than three months after announcing a pause on the Board’s work. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas made the announcement in a statement on Wednesday.
The Department welcomes the recommendations of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, which has concluded that countering disinformation that threatens the homeland, and providing the public with accurate information in response, is critical to fulfilling the Department’s missions,” the DHS said in the statement.
The Board’s work was paused in May after Republican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares sent a letter co-signed by 20 GOP attorneys general to Mayorkas threatening legal action against the “un-American” Disinformation Governance Board.
Many Americans expressed concerns over the government’s increased role to censor stories in coordination with Big Tech in an attack on free speech.
Group Urges Los Angeles to End Indoor Masking for Kids Playing Sports at City Facilities
The grassroots organization LA Uprising launched a campaign this week asking Los Angeles city officials to end an ongoing indoor mask mandate for youth sports at city facilities.
Group organizer Ross Novie, a father of two Los Angeles public school students, said he started the effort after visiting Mar Vista Recreation Center last weekend and found children masked up while playing basketball.
The city’s Department of Recreation and Parks continues to mandate indoor masking and proof of COVID-19 vaccinations for its parks, sports facilities and recreation centers after the requirement was dropped by public schools, entertainment venues and workplaces.
“Now we’re just stuck with tens of thousands of kids playing sports inside with masks, even though at [the city’s K–12 schools], they’re not,” Novie said. “It makes no sense. I feel like people are just asleep at the wheel, and as usual, no one cares about the kids.”
Chinese City ‘Stretched to the Limit’ as Millions Wait in Line for COVID Tests in Extreme Heat
The Chinese metropolis of Chongqing has rolled out mass COVID testing in its central area amid a record heat wave, leaving millions of residents standing under the sun for hours as they struggle with extreme temperatures and power shortages.
Stringent zero-COVID measures enacted by the southwestern mega-city to contain an emerging outbreak are the latest hardship for residents already reeling from a crippling heat wave, a severe drought and blazing wildfires.
Whistleblowing Is Broken
When the hacker turned corporate-cybersecurity specialist Peiter Zatko went to work for Twitter in 2020, he thought he could help the company improve its practices after some embarrassing breaches. But either he couldn’t help Twitter, or Twitter didn’t want his aid — less than two years later the company fired him.
Last month he issued a massive complaint against it to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, alleging widespread malfeasance and fraud at the social network.
Tech companies are so big and so powerful and do so many bad things without consequence, it’s understandable that people may feel they have no option other than blowing the whistle on these companies, the way a civil servant might on a government. But it’s an imperfect system for meting out justice.
The problem lies less with Zatko and his specific accusations — many of which look pretty bad for Twitter — and more with the erosion of the whistleblower as a concept in contemporary life.
Senator Slams Amazon’s ‘Ring Nation’ as Surveillance-State TV
The Hollywood Reporter reported:
Amazon’s synergistic plan for a lighthearted show based on footage culled from Ring, its controversial digital doorbell, is being denounced as surveillance-state TV in the tech press, activist circles and Congress. Amazon subsidiary MGM Television produces Ring Nation, slated to launch Sept. 26, which hopes to capitalize on both the long genre history of Candid Camera-style reality programming as well as today’s social media swirl.
The show’s premise was criticized in the tech press — including Popular Science, The Verge, Ars Technica, Input and PC Magazine — as “dystopian.”
U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Commerce Committee, who’s investigated Ring’s privacy policies and civil rights protections, as well as pushed Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos for more clarity on its data security practices, tells The Hollywood Reporter:
“The Ring platform has too often made over-policing and over-surveillance a real and pressing problem for America’s neighborhoods and attempts to normalize these problems are no laughing matter. Amazon must focus instead on making strong safety and accountability commitments to Ring users and ensure that neighbors aren’t robbed of their privacy and civil liberties.”
Amazon Bought Whole Foods Five Years Ago for $13.7 Billion. Here’s What’s Changed at the High-End Grocer
Five years ago, Amazon closed its $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods, by far the biggest acquisition ever for the e-commerce and cloud computing giant. Since then, Amazon has made a lot of changes to the specialty grocer, from lowering prices to embedding checkout technology in its 500-plus U.S. stores.
For shoppers, the most visible change to stores is the technology inside the doors. Customers can now enroll their palm print with Amazon One to pay without a card or phone. A device scans your palm, triggering a charge to your Amazon account. It’s available at more than 20 Whole Foods locations, with 65 more stores in California coming onboard soon.
Privacy advocates are speaking up.
Amazon is also selling the palm-scanning tech to other retailers and event venues. But in March, one customer — Denver’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre — backed out of a deal after activist groups and musicians like Rage Against the Machine voiced concerns that Amazon would share palm prints with government agencies.
Amazon to Shut Down Its Telehealth Offering
Amazon will shutter Amazon Care, the virtual and in-home health service it initially created for its employees, by the end of this year — a surprising move given the company’s recent investment in the healthcare space.
People who work at Amazon Care learned the news in a meeting on Wednesday, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they signed nondisclosure agreements.
Workers were told the service was shutting down because those customers did not see the value in the service, one of the people said. Dozens of employees will lose their jobs, with some departing as soon as October, according to the people.
Facebook and Twitter Remove Accounts Pushing ‘Pro-Western Narratives’
Facebook and Twitter took down two overlapping sets of accounts over the past two months for promoting “pro-Western narratives” in the Middle East and Central Asia, according to a report released Wednesday.
The social media analytics firm Graphika reported that Twitter and Meta, the company that owns Facebook, took down the accounts over a “series of covert campaigns” over a period of five years.
A joint investigation revealed that an interconnected web of accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and five other social media platforms used “deceptive” strategies to back Western narratives in the regions.
The accounts promoted the interests of the United States and its allies while opposing those of countries such as Russia, China and Iran. They more recently criticized Russia for the deaths of civilians in Ukraine and the actions that Russian soldiers have taken as the war has continued.