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School Vaccine Mandates for COVID Are Not Happening + More
School Vaccine Mandates for COVID Are Not Happening
For the third summer in a row, school leaders are facing the question of what — if anything — they’re going to do to stop the spread of COVID-19 when students return to classrooms. One thing is clear: Almost none of them will be requiring vaccines.
Just 31% of children between 5 and 11 in the U.S. have been fully vaccinated, and 61% of 12- to 17-year-olds have been. (Only about 3% of children under 5 had received a first dose by July 20.)
Still, no state in the country is planning to require student vaccinations, a marked turnaround from where things seemed to be headed last winter when multiple states and school districts suggested vaccine mandates were coming soon. Only Washington, DC, has announced a mandatory school vaccine policy this fall, for students 12 and older.
Other mitigation measures — from masks to ventilation — may also be on their way out. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will likely soon recommend easing school testing, quarantine and social distancing requirements, CNN reported last week. (Many schools often disregarded CDC guidelines, but the update is a sign of how expectations have shifted.)
Colorado Mother Sues Facebook, Alleges Daughter’s Addiction to Platform Has Caused Mental Health Problems
A mother in Colorado is suing Facebook, alleging that the social media platform has contributed to her daughter’s mental health issues. Cecelia Tesch, the mother of 13-year-old R.P., whose full name isn’t revealed in court documents, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver, according to FOX 5.
Court documents describe R.P. as a heavy user of Facebook who began showing addictive behavior when she began using the platform at the age of 7.
Tesch is suing Facebook for negligence, fraud and liability, as well as intentionally inflicting emotional distress, as well as other reasons.
Attorneys for Tesch said that the 13-year-old daughter developed several health issues after becoming addicted to Facebook. The attorneys also claim that the social media giant has a design that allows “children and adolescents to use, become addicted to and abuse their product without the consent of the users’ parents, like Cecelia Tesch.”
Amazon Bought the Company That Makes the Roomba. Anti-Trust Researchers and Data-Privacy Experts Say It’s ‘the Most Dangerous, Threatening Acquisition in the Company’s History’
After Amazon on Friday acquired iRobot, the company that creates Roomba vacuums, data privacy experts and anti-trust researchers quickly raised alarms over the tech giant using the purchase to “vacuum up” personal information from inside users’ homes.
Advanced Roomba vacuums have internal mapping technology that learns the floor plan of users’ homes. The devices can also “adapt to and remember” up to 10 different floor plans “so users can carry their robot to another floor or a separate home, where the robot will recognize its location and clean as instructed,” according to press releases by iRobot. Some models have low-resolution cameras to avoid obstacles and aid in mapping.
“People tend to think of Amazon as an online seller company, but really Amazon is a surveillance company. That is the core of its business model, and that’s what drives its monopoly power and profit,” Evan Greer, director of the nonprofit digital rights organization Fight for the Future, told Wired.
“Amazon wants to have its hands everywhere, and acquiring a company that’s essentially built on mapping the inside of people’s homes seems like a natural extension of the surveillance reach that Amazon already has.”
Kicked off Their Cruises, COVID-Positive Tourists Are Going Home on Alaska Flights and Ferries
Anchorage Daily News reported:
COVID-positive travelers say they were not allowed to board their cruise ship in Skagway this week. Instead, they say that Holland America helped them book travel on a state ferry and then an Alaska Airlines flight out of Juneau — the day after their positive tests.
Diana and Larry Lehrer were supposed to set sail from Skagway on Holland America’s Koningsdam after a bus tour through the Interior and Canada. But they tested positive for COVID-19 when they reached Skagway on Tuesday.
You don’t have to test negative to board one of the state’s ferries or Alaska Airlines flights, but they both have a policy that you should not travel if you are sick.
Canada’s Airlines and Railways Exempted 1,700 Travelers From Vaccine Requirements
In the first five months that unvaccinated Canadians were banned by the federal government from boarding planes and trains, rail operators and airlines granted roughly 1,700 exemptions to allow the unvaccinated to travel.
The information is contained in a government affidavit, filed in response to two lawsuits against the federal government’s travel vaccination mandates, announced in the lead-up to the 2021 election and brought into effect on Oct. 30, 2021.
The lawsuit was launched by Karl Harrison and Shaun Rickard. It was joined with another suit launched by People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier, former Newfoundland premier Brian Peckford, and others. All challenge the constitutionality of the travel mandates, arguing they infringe upon charter rights to mobility, life, liberty and security of the person and equality rights.
Yet, when the travel mandate came into effect last October, the government ensured there were exemptions so that travelers could move around the country, including for those who live in remote communities.
Thousands Stranded in China Resort City Amid COVID Lockdown
Some 80,000 tourists are stranded in the southern Chinese beach resort of Sanya, after authorities declared it a COVID-19 hot spot and imposed a lockdown.
The restrictions came into force on Saturday morning, as authorities sought to stem the spread of COVID-19 in the city on tropical Hainan Island. There were 229 confirmed cases on Friday and an additional 129 on Saturday.
China’s ruling Communist Party sticks steadfastly to a “zero-COVID” approach that is increasingly at odds with the rest of the world. A recent outbreak in Shanghai spread so widely that authorities locked down the entire city, China’s largest, for two months, trapping millions of people and dealing a blow to the national economy.
Railway authorities banned all ticket sales in Sanya and all flights were also canceled on Saturday.
Hong Kong Cuts COVID Quarantine Stay for Incoming Travelers
Hong Kong will shorten the COVID-19 hotel quarantine period for all arrivals to three days from seven, taking another step to gradually unwind stringent pandemic rules that have isolated the Asian financial hub.
The measures will be effective from Friday, the city’s leader, John Lee, told a news conference on Monday.
Arrivals will need to self-monitor for a further four days, during which they will be forbidden to enter such premises as restaurants and bars. People in quarantine will be issued a red code on a government-mandated app. This will change to a yellow code once they leave quarantine, signifying they may not enter crowded premises.
Quarantine was formerly as long as three weeks. Currently, all arrivals must spend at least a week in hotel quarantine and comply with frequent testing orders, provide fecal samples for babies and fill out multiple forms.
‘End the CCP’: Twitter Co-Founder Jack Dorsey Calls for Fall of the Chinese Communist Party
Jack Dorsey isn’t a fan of the Chinese Communist Party. On Saturday, Twitter‘s co-founder and former CEO voiced his apparent support for the ending of the Chinese Communist Party after the nation implemented stricter COVID-19 policies.
Dorsey retweeted an early June post from a Beijing-based CNN reporter detailing China’s stringent measures that she had to follow, which include constant testing and a mandatory health app that authorities can track people through. In the video, the CNN reporter said that “this surveillance will stay long after COVID is gone.”
As CBS News reported, the health app decides where you can go and if you’re allowed to go there — a green light means a user is COVID-free and can enter public places. Yellow means there is a danger of infection and red indicates that a person needs to isolate or quarantine.
‘Risks Posed by AI Are Real’: EU Moves to Beat the Algorithms That Ruin Lives
Politicians in the European Union are now planning to introduce the first comprehensive global template for regulating artificial intelligence (AI), as institutions increasingly automate routine tasks in an attempt to boost efficiency and ultimately cut costs.
Depending on the EU’s final list of “high risk” uses, there is an impetus to introduce strict rules around how AI is used to filter job, university or welfare applications, or — in the case of lenders — assess the creditworthiness of potential borrowers.
EU officials hope that with extra oversight and restrictions on the type of AI models that can be used, the rules will curb the kind of machine-based discrimination that could influence life-altering decisions such as whether you can afford a home or a student loan.
But one of the biggest dangers is unintentional bias, in which algorithms end up denying loans or accounts to certain groups including women, migrants or people of color.
Your Secret Twitter Account May No Longer Be Secret
If you have a secret Twitter account, we’ve got some bad news for you. On Friday, Twitter disclosed information about a security vulnerability that allowed someone to find out whether a specific email address or phone number is tied to existing Twitter accounts.
The vulnerability was a result of Twitter’s code update in June 2021, and Twitter says it “immediately” investigated and fixed it. At the time, Twitter says it has no evidence to suggest someone had taken advantage of the vulnerability.
But a seven-month window in which the vulnerability was “live” appears to have been long enough for someone to figure it out and try to profit from it. Twitter says that, in July 2022, it “learned from a press report” that someone has gathered this info and was trying to sell it online. Twitter reviewed a sample of the data and realized that this person was indeed selling the real thing.
Facebook Says Cyber Spies Are Using Bogus WhatsApp and Signal Apps to Snoop on Thousands + More
Facebook Says Cyber Spies Are Using Bogus WhatsApp and Signal Apps to Snoop on Thousands
A cyber espionage group believed to be operating out of India and Pakistan has been spying on thousands of people by using malware that masquerades as popular secure-messaging apps, according to a new report from Facebook.
Dubbed “Dracarys,” a name found in the malware code and a possible reference to Game of Thrones, Facebook says the malware can siphon off all kinds of information from an Android device, including call logs, contacts, files, text messages and geolocation data. It can also access a device’s camera and microphone.
Dracarys has been propagated on Meta’s social media sites, Facebook and Instagram, by hackers posing as attractive young women, journalists or activists, who convince their targets to download the bogus app. Once they’ve done so, Dracarys abuses the accessibility features intended to assist users with disabilities to automatically click through and grant broad device permissions such as the ability to access the camera.
According to Facebook, that trick meant the malware could harvest data on the phone and appear to be legitimate, meaning anti-virus systems failed to detect it. “It shows that Bitter has managed to reimplement common malicious functionality in a way that went undetected by the security community for some time,” Facebook wrote in its report.
Your Amazon’s Ring Cameras Might Be Collecting Personal Information | Here’s What It Knows About You
Security cameras are almost everywhere since crimes are rampant in some places. You can see them anywhere: in your neighborhood, local coffee shop, bookstore, and other locations.
One of the most popular security cameras comes from Amazon. The Ring doorbell can be used for protection. If you feel someone might harm you, this surveillance is a good start to stay safe against intruders.
However, most people don’t know how these cameras collect data. Without you knowing, it might bypass your rights or privacy even as an owner. Almost all devices can now collect your personal information. For instance, Facebook relies on your choices’ algorithm and the pages you visit. The same case goes with Spotify when it uses your data so you can see different playlists depending on your streaming history.
Of course, Ring can gather some information about you. Before you grow alarmed with this, you will be informed that your details will be shared with Amazon. As such, you will be sharing your email, phone number, and even your bank account information once you connect your Ring account to your social media account.
The Tricky Math in Amazon’s Climate Report — Amazon Really, Really Wants You to Think It’s Trying on Climate
The company released its 2021 sustainability report this week, the third year in a row that it has logged its progress since committing to a net zero by 2040 goal in 2019. But hidden among the slick photos of wind turbines and electric delivery vans are two language tricks that show how Amazon may be dragging its feet on real progress.
They’re a valuable lesson in reading between the lines of corporate jargon.
At first glance, it might seem like everything is hunky dory in Bezosland. “Even as we scaled our business at an unprecedented pace to help meet the needs of our customers through the pandemic, we saw a 1.9% reduction in our carbon intensity in 2021,” the report’s summary reads.
But the tech giant’s overall emissions actually rose in 2021, and rose by quite a lot. Emissions from their direct operations shot up an enormous 26% between 2020 and 2021, while the company’s total carbon footprint — combining emissions from both direct operations, electricity produced, and indirect sources — rose 18%.
How, then, is the company able to brag about reductions of any kind?
Elon Musk Accuses Twitter of Fraud for Hiding Real Number of Fake Accounts
Elon Musk is accusing Twitter of fraud for hiding the real number of bots on its platform, according to The New York Times.
In the latest installment of the Twitter-vs-Musk saga, the Tesla chief’s team claimed in a legal filing that 10 percent of the social network’s daily active users who see ads are inauthentic accounts. If you’ll recall, Twitter has long maintained that bots represent less than five percent of its userbase, and Musk put his planned acquisition of the social network on hold in mid-July to confirm if that’s accurate.
The Tesla and SpaceX chief, who’s also a prolific Twitter user, launched an aggressive takeover of the social network in April after it became the company’s largest shareholder. While Twitter quickly accepted his offer, they butted heads over the number of fake accounts on the platform shortly after that — he also accused the company of not giving him access to enough information to verify the number of bots on the website. Twitter gave him full access to its internal data in response, but in the end, Musk told the Securities and Exchange Commission that he wanted to terminate the acquisition over “false and misleading representations” made by the social network.
Twitter sued its largest shareholder for trying to back out of its $44 billion buyout deal, telling the court that Musk is wrongfully breaking their agreement by doing so. The website accused him of backing out because Tesla’s and Twitter’s shares went down due to the economic downturn and the “deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests.”
TikTok Moderators Are Being Trained Using Graphic Images of Child Sexual Abuse
Nasser expected to be confronted with some disturbing material during his training to become a content moderator for TikTok. But he was shocked when he and others in his class were shown uncensored, sexually explicit images of children.
Nasser, who was working for a third-party company, Teleperformance, that moderates content for the social media giant, had been assigned to a special project: teaching TikTok’s AI to spot the worst of the worst posted in the app. Just a few days into onboarding, he and his colleagues were shown graphic images and videos of children involved in sexual acts — all material that had been removed from TikTok.
“I have a daughter, and I don’t think it’s right — just a bunch of strangers watching this,” Nasser, who left Teleperformance in 2020, told Forbes. “I don’t think they should use something like that for training.” (His last name, and some others in this story, have been omitted for privacy reasons.)
Whitney Turner, who worked for Teleperformance’s TikTok program in El Paso for over a year and departed in 2021, also recalled being shown sexually exploitative imagery of kids as part of her training. Whitney was given access to a shared spreadsheet that she and other former employees told Forbes is filled with material determined to be violative of TikTok’s community guidelines, including hundreds of images of children who were naked or being abused.
Former moderators said the document, called the “DRR,” short for Daily Required Reading, was widely accessible to employees at Teleperformance and TikTok as recently as this summer. While some moderators working in unrelated functions were restricted from viewing this material, sources told Forbes that hundreds of people across both companies had free access to the document. The DRR and other training materials were stored in Lark, internal workplace software developed by TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance.
Twitter Obliterates Elon Musk’s Excuses for Trying to Kill $44 Billion Deal in Blistering Court Filing
Back in April, Elon Musk made a $44 billion offer to buy Twitter before he decided in July that he wanted to cancel the deal. But that’s not how it works when you’ve already made a legally binding commitment. And a new court filing from Twitter pokes hole after hole in every complaint the Tesla CEO has made about the purchase agreement.
Twitter sued Musk last month, explaining that he was still on the hook to fork over all that cash. Musk countersued and submitted explanations for why he didn’t want the social media company anymore and Twitter has responded to those claims in a court filing in Delaware unsealed on Thursday.
Twitter didn’t pull any punches in the 127-page filing, walking right up to the line of calling Musk an idiotic liar without actually using those words. But they were damn close.
“The Counterclaims are a made-for-litigation tale that is contradicted by the evidence and common sense,” Twitter said in the new court filing. The company called his complaints “factually inaccurate, legally insufficient, and commercially irrelevant.”
Astronomers Could Soon Get Warnings When SpaceX Satellites Threaten Their View
A system built by researchers from the University of Arizona is designed to warn astronomers of particularly bright satellites, affording them time to avert their telescopic eyes. The team used its satellite tracking device — a small sensor fitted with a camera lens — to measure the brightness and positioning of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is building out a constellation of internet satellites in low Earth orbit, with plans to launch a total of 42,000 satellites. To date, over 2,600 Starlink satellites have been launched as part of the project, which provides broadband internet to paying customers. Astronomers have expressed great concern over this tremendous influx of satellites and how bright they are in the sky. The company has made some effort to decrease the brightness magnitude of its satellites, using a shade to block out some of the sunlight, thereby making the satellites 1.6 times fainter than they were originally.
At the same time, SpaceX is gearing up to launch Starlink 2.0 satellites, which astronomers fear will be a full magnitude brighter than their predecessors. With thousands of the Starlink satellites in space, and additional plans by other companies like Amazon to send over 3,000 satellites to low Earth orbit, it is not looking good for our future views of the cosmos.
Classic Internet Censorship + More
Classic Internet Censorship
I want us to consider the implications of this new reality: In three of the four most populous countries in the world, governments have now given themselves the power to order that the internet be wiped of citizens’ posts that the authorities don’t like.
In free societies, there has long been a tug of war over free speech and its limits. But one of the enduring questions of the online era is what governments, digital companies and citizens should do now that the internet and social media make it both easier for people to share their truth (or their lies) with the world and more appealing for national leaders to shut it all down.
What is happening in three of the world’s four largest countries — China, India and Indonesia; the U.S. is the 3rd largest — is simpler than that. It fits the classic definition of censorship. Governments are seeking to silence their external critics.
CDC Expected to Ease COVID Recommendations, Including for Schools, as Soon as This Week
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is expected to update its guidance for COVID-19 control in the community, including in schools, in the coming days, according to sources familiar with the plan.
A preview of the plans obtained by CNN shows that the updated recommendations are expected to ease quarantine recommendations for people exposed to the virus and de-emphasize 6 feet of social distancing.
The agency is also expected to de-emphasize regular screening testing for COVID-19 in schools as a way to monitor the spread of the virus, according to sources who were briefed on the agency’s plans but were not authorized to speak to a reporter. Instead, it says it may be more useful to base testing on COVID-19 community levels and whether settings are higher-risk, such as nursing homes or prisons.
The changes, which may be publicly released as early as this week, were previewed to educators and public health officials. They are still being deliberated and are not final.
Elon Musk’s Answer to Twitter Lawsuit to Be Made Public by Friday
Elon Musk’s response to Twitter’s lawsuit over the billionaire’s attempt to call off his $44 billion takeover of the social media company is coming before the end of the week.
It is expected to be made public by Friday evening at the latest, according to a judge’s ruling.
That’s a couple days later than Musk’s team wanted. Attorneys wanted to file a public version of their answer and counterclaims in Delaware court Wednesday.
Twitter attorneys complained that they needed more time to review and potentially redact Musk’s sealed filing, saying it refers “extensively” to internal Twitter information and data given to Musk.
Antitrust Law Should Continue to Prioritize Consumers Over Corporations | Opinion
For decades, American antitrust law has prioritized people over corporations. If consumers are getting more innovative products at cheaper prices, then the government shouldn’t intervene to protect competitor companies that are struggling to keep up.
But now, policymakers in Washington want to change that core principle of American law. According to a new study written by leading antitrust expert Koren W. Wong-Ervin, proposals in Congress “would protect inefficient companies from market forces — a development that could lead to higher prices for consumers.” There are numerous problems with this approach, with high risks of unintended consequences.
First, these bills would permit less efficient competitors to bring lawsuits against America’s most innovative companies, even if there’s scant evidence that consumers are being harmed. If these laws are passed, rival corporations and the government will have more power to dictate the tech products that end up in the hands of American consumers.
Not only will these bills make it harder for American tech companies to keep up the pace of innovation, but they’ll also put serious roadblocks in the way of our country gaining leadership on the strategic technologies of the future. Instead, foreign companies, particularly companies in China, could easily gain the upper hand. The impact on our national security could be devastating.
U.S. Attorneys General Will Take Legal Action Against Telecom Providers Enabling Robocalls
The Attorneys General (AG) of all 50 states have joined forces in hopes of giving teeth to the seemingly never-ending fight against robocalls. North Carolina AG Josh Stein, Indiana AG Todd Rokita and Ohio AG Dave Yost are leading the formation of the new Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force. In Stein’s announcement, he said the group will focus on taking legal action against telecoms, particularly gateway providers, allowing or turning a blind eye to foreign robocalls made to U.S. numbers.
He explained that gateway providers routing foreign phone calls into the U.S. telephone network have the responsibility under the law to ensure the traffic they’re bringing in is legal. Stein said that they mostly aren’t taking any action to keep robocalls out of the U.S. phone network, though, and they’re even intentionally allowing robocall traffic through in return for steady revenue in many cases.
The Attorney General referenced data from the National Consumer Law Center, which previously reported that American phone numbers get more than 33 million scam robocalls a day. Those include Social Security scams targeting seniors and gift card scams, wherein bad actors pretend they’re from the IRS. In that report, the center warned that consumers will keep on getting robocalls as long as phone providers are earning from them.
What Twitter’s Subpoenas to Elon Musk’s Inner Circle Could Yield
The Wall Street Journal reported:
Twitter is seeking records from several of Elon Musk’s circle of Silicon Valley investors, friends and financial backers as the company looks to build its case against the Tesla chief executive over his stalled $44 billion takeover.
Twitter wants any communication from those people related to the deal. The goal is likely to be to determine whether Mr. Musk had other concerns about completing his agreement to buy the company, beyond what he has said publicly, according to lawyers and academics not involved in the case.
It is standard in such merger disputes to seek information from financial institutions backing the stalled deal. But lawyers and academics say that because Mr. Musk was acquiring the company as an individual, those close to him, including friends and advisers, are fair game as potential sources of information about his intentions.
“A single email could be decisive, increasing the chances of winning,” said Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University School of Law.
The subpoenas requested information and documents, including face-to-face conversations, physical mail, emails, text messages, instant messages, social-media contacts, facsimiles and phone conversations, according to court documents.
Rights Groups Demand DOE Take a Stand on ‘Invasive’ Student Surveillance Software + More
Rights Groups Demand DOE Take a Stand on ‘Invasive’ Student Surveillance Software
More than a dozen rights groups and education organizations wrote a letter urgently calling on the Department of Education (DOE) to take a stance on controversial student monitoring software, which they say violates students’ privacy and threatens to undermine hard-fought civil rights gains.
Digital rights and privacy experts shared similar concerns with Gizmodo and claimed these technologies, often implemented in the name of safety, actually make schools less safe for students. The letter comes on the heels of newly-released research from The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) which claims a staggering 89% of U.S. teachers report using software capable of tracking their students’ online activity.
The organizations, which includes the CDT, American Civil Liberties Union, and American Association of School Librarians, claim these monitoring tools, which exploded in use during the pandemic and have gained favor as a means of safety following the horrific Uvalde, Texas school shooting, are “often used in ways that discriminate against protected groups of students.”
The groups cite the new CDT research, claiming the continued prevalence of monitoring software (often used even after normal school hours) can exacerbate disproportionately racial school disciplining, lead to increased student interactions with law enforcement for people of color, result in the “outing” of LGBTQ+ students, stifle speech, and exacerbate students’ mental health struggles. All of these factors, the groups argue, are more likely to affect low-income students and students of color, who previous research has shown are more likely to use school-provided technology.
Tesla Is the Latest Company to Be Drawn Into the Elon Musk-Twitter Legal Mess
Twitter wants all of Tesla’s documents and communications related to Elon Musk’s bid to take over the social media company, according to a new subpoena filed August 2nd. The electric car maker is the latest company to be drawn into the increasingly sticky mess that Musk created when he first proposed — and later attempted to abandon — a plan to buy Twitter.
Twitter is suing Musk in Delaware court to force him to go through with his $44 billion plan to buy the San Francisco-based company. Musk is attempting to abandon the deal, claiming Twitter violated their agreement by failing to disclose accurate information around spam accounts. Twitter argues that Musk signed a contract to buy the company, and is using spam accounts as a false pretense to worm his way out of the deal.
Twitter’s subpoena outlines a list of 27 requests for Tesla, including internal communications at Tesla about Musk’s takeover plan, all communications between Musk and Twitter and between Musk and his co-investors (like Larry Ellison), and all documents related to the roughly $8.4 billion worth of Tesla stock that Musk sold to finance the takeover bid.
Citing a Mental Health Crisis Among Young People, California Lawmakers Target Social Media
Karla Garcia said her son’s social media addiction started in fourth grade, when he got his own computer for virtual learning and logged on to YouTube. Now, two years later, the video-sharing site has replaced both schoolwork and the activities he used to love — like composing music or serenading his friends on the piano, she said.
Some California lawmakers want to help Garcia and other parents protect their children’s mental health by targeting website elements they say were designed to hook kids — such as personalized posts that grab and hold viewers on a specific page, frequent push notifications that pull users back to their devices, and autoplay functions that provide a continuous stream of video content.
Two complementary bills in the state legislature would require websites, social media platforms, or online products that children use — or could use — to eliminate features that can addict them, harvest their personal information, and promote harmful content. Those that don’t comply could face lawsuits and hefty fines. One of the measures would impose penalties of up to $7,500 per affected child in California — which could amount to millions of dollars.
Federal lawmakers are making a similar push with bills that would tighten children’s privacy protections and target features that foster addiction. One would require online platforms to provide tools to help parents track and control their children’s internet use. The measures were approved by a U.S. Senate committee July 27.
Pathogenic Bacteria and Fungi Found on Masks: Study
Several pathogenic microbes were identified and quantified on masks worn during the pandemic, according to a Japanese study that was published in Scientific Reports.
The study is one of the first to address the probable hygiene issues caused by bacterial and fungal growth on masks worn daily in the community.
“Since masks can be a direct source of infection to the respiratory tract, digestive tract, and skin, it is crucial to maintain their hygiene to prevent bacterial and fungal infections that can exacerbate COVID-19,” the authors wrote.
The study involved 109 participants aged 21 to 22 years who were asked about the type and duration of mask used and their lifestyle habits. Bacteria and fungi were collected from the three types of masks — gauze, polyurethane, and non-woven — worn between September and October 2020.
The researchers found that the face side of the masks had more bacteria, whereas the outer side of the masks contained more fungi.
Sensitive Data Ruling by Europe’s Top Court Could Force Broad Privacy Reboot
A ruling put out yesterday by the European Union’s top court could have major implications for online platforms that use background tracking and profiling to target users with behavioral ads or to feed recommender engines that are designed to surface so-called ‘personalized’ content.
The impacts could be even broader — with privacy law experts suggesting the judgement could dial up legal risk for a variety of other forms of online processing, from dating apps to location tracking and more. Although they suggest fresh legal referrals are also likely as operators seek to unpack what could be complex practical difficulties arising from the judgement.
The referral to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) relates to a Lithuanian case concerning national anti-corruption legislation. But the impact of the judgement is likely to be felt across the region as it crystalizes how the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which sets the legal framework for processing personal data, should be interpreted when it comes to data ops in which sensitive inferences can be made about individuals.
TikTok’s Ties to China Are Once Again Under Fire in Washington. Here’s Why
A growing number of U.S. lawmakers are calling for the Biden administration to take action against TikTok, citing apparent national security and data privacy concerns. The criticism stems from a Buzzfeed News report in June that said some U.S. user data has been repeatedly accessed from China. The reporting cited leaked audio recordings of dozens of internal TikTok meetings, including one where a TikTok employee allegedly said, “Everything is seen in China.”
In a response to the report, TikTok previously said it “has consistently maintained that our engineers in locations outside of the U.S., including China, can be granted access to U.S. user data on an as-needed basis under those strict controls.” A TikTok executive testified before a Senate panel last year that it doesn’t share information with the Chinese government and that a US-based security team decides who can access U.S. user data from China.
The renewed pressure on TikTok comes as the platform’s influence continues to grow in the United States.