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Joe Rogan Slams TikTok: ‘It Ends With China Having All Your Data’ + More
Joe Rogan Slams TikTok: ‘It Ends With China Having All of Your Data’
Joe Rogan expressed concerns Tuesday that TikTok, one of the most used social media apps in the world, poses a unique threat to Americans’ data privacy and safety.
TikTok is owned by Bytedance, a Chinese company. China’s Civil Military Fusion Policy and 2017 National Intelligence Law requires private businesses in China to share information and data at the request of the Chinese government.
“Listen to this, this is from TikTok’s privacy policy,” Rogan said. “It said, ‘We collect certain information about the device you use to access the platform, such as your IP address, user region.’ This is really crazy.”
“‘User agent, mobile carrier, time zone settings, identifiers for advertising purpose, model of your device, the device system, network type, device IDs, your screen resolution and operating system, app and file names and types,'” he continued. “So all your apps and all your file names, all the things you have filed away on your phone, they have access to that,” he said.
Appeals Court Upholds Texas Block on School Mask Mandates
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order that forbids school districts from imposing mask mandates on schools to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has been upheld by a divided federal appeals court panel.
The ruling from the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ended a lower federal court injunction allowing such mandates.
Families of seven children with disabilities — the court record listed Down syndrome, asthma, attention deficit hyperactivity, epilepsy, heart defects and cerebral palsy, among others — had sued, saying the children were vulnerable and that the lack of a masking requirement at their schools endangered their health.
House Republicans Slam Biden Admin for Still Mandating COVID Vaccines in Military: ‘No Scientific Reason’
Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., a medical doctor, is joined by Republican Rep. Hudson of North Carolina in leading 19 other Republicans in a formal protest of the Biden administration regarding compulsory vaccination within the military in light of Dr. Fauci’s recent comments on the efficacy of vaccines, saying there is “no scientific reason.”
In response to these comments, the letter reads “With the waning efficacy and durability of vaccine-induced immunity, forcing service members who are by and large a healthy and not an ‘at risk’ population, to be inoculated with no certainty of preventing infection or spread, while concurrently sowing seeds of division and discord, is absolutely wrong.”
“The Biden Administration has willfully and systematically degraded our nation’s readiness with their harmful, politicized, and completely unnecessary federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate,” says Representative Murphy.
“Forcing these patriots to get a vaccine — which even Dr. Fauci has conceded does not protect well against infection and can have potentially serious side effects — is morally wrong and inconsistent with the science and the purpose of vaccination.”
Medical Expert Slams LA County Health Director Over Mask Mandate Push
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya called out Los Angeles health officials who are trying to push another mask mandate, saying they have this “illusion of control” on Tuesday’s “The Ingraham Angle.”
“I just can’t fathom that a public health professional looking at the data on mask mandates in the past, completely making no dent on case rates, then concluding that we need another mask mandate.
“I mean, the case rates are coming down in L.A. County without a mask mandate. What does she think causes case rates to go up and down? They have this illusion of control over the spread of the virus that they cannot let go.”
NBA Won’t Have COVID Vaccine Mandate for 2022-23 Season, per Report
While the NBA still strongly suggests that all players, coaches and staff members receive the COVID-19 vaccine, the league will not introduce a vaccine mandate for next season, according to Yahoo!Sports. Unvaccinated players may be subject to periodic testing, however, pending discussions with the National Basketball Players Association.
This is in line with the NBA‘s health and safety policies from last season when vaccine requirements were left up to local cities and states. Players did not have to get the vaccine, but they did have to follow local guidelines and unvaccinated players were subject to more stringent testing and restrictions.
Philadelphia 76ers wing Matisse Thybulle was unable to play in Games 3, 4 and 6 of the team’s first-round playoff series against the Toronto Raptors because he was unvaccinated and thus unable to enter Canada.
And of course, there was Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving. His refusal to get the vaccine resulted in the Nets sending him home for the first half of the season, and he did not play at all until Jan. 5 when the team changed course. Even then, he was only eligible to play road games and appeared sporadically until March 27 when he finally made his home debut after New York lifted certain local mandates.
China’s Wuhan Shuts Down District of 1 Million People Over 4 Asymptomatic COVID Cases
The Chinese metropolis of Wuhan has shut down a district of almost a million people after detecting four asymptomatic COVID cases, as the original epicenter of the pandemic takes no chances in preventing another outbreak under China’s stringent zero-COVID policy.
Authorities in Wuhan’s Jiangxia district, home to more than 970,000 people, announced Wednesday its main urban areas would enforce three days of “temporary control measures.”
All public transport, from buses to subway services, was suspended, and residents were urged not to leave the district unless absolutely necessary.
Authorities also identified four high-risk neighborhoods where residents are banned from leaving their homes. A further four neighborhoods were designated as medium-risk, meaning residents cannot leave their compounds.
Inside TikTok’s Attempts to ‘Downplay the China Association’
Leaked documents from within TikTok reveal how the company games out responses to tricky questions — and highlight what the company thinks its biggest public perception problems are. Chief among them: China.
The PR documents, which Gizmodo obtained from within the company, are titled “TikTok Master Messaging” and “TikTok Key Messages.” Both are explanations of press talking points in English and include a version translated into a European language. (Gizmodo is not naming the language to protect the sourcing of the document.)
The larger of the two, the 53-page TikTok Master Messaging document, outlines key messages the company wants to present to the public. The dossier’s version history shows it was last updated in August 2021 but had been consistently altered since it was created in March 2020.
Right near the top of the list? “Downplay the parent company ByteDance, downplay the China association, downplay AI.”
Google, Like Amazon, Will Let Police See Your Video Without a Warrant
Arlo, Apple, Wyze and Anker, owner of Eufy, all confirmed to CNET that they won’t give authorities access to your smart home camera’s footage unless they’re shown a warrant or court order.
If you’re wondering why they’re specifying that, it’s because we’ve now learned Google and Amazon are doing just the opposite: they allow police to get this data without a warrant if police claim there’s been an emergency.
Earlier this month, Amazon disclosed that it had already fulfilled 11 such requests this year. Google’s transparency report doesn’t seem to include information specifically about emergency requests, and the company didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment on how many it’s fulfilled.
Russia Fines Google $34 Million for Breaching Competition Rules
Russia’s competition watchdog fined Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O) 2 billion roubles ($34.2 million) on Tuesday for abusing its dominant position in the video hosting market, the regulator said in a statement.
The decision is the latest multi-million dollar fine as part of Moscow’s increasingly assertive campaign against foreign tech companies.
“We will study the text of the official decision to define our next steps,” Google said in a statement to Reuters.
Google must pay the fine within two months of it entering into force, The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) said.
Facebook Considering Ending Restrictions on COVID Misinformation + More
Facebook Considering Ending Restrictions on COVID Misinformation
Facebook is turning to its “supreme court” to decide whether to end restrictions on COVID misinformation, more than two years after the company first started to take special action on posts promoting falsehoods about the disease.
The social network is considering changing the way it deals with such misinformation by, for example, labeling it as false or demoting it in algorithmic ranking, rather than simply removing it from the site. It wants to make the change now, according to the head of global affairs, Nick Clegg, “as many, though not all, countries around the world seek to return to more normal life.”
But in order to avoid making the wrong choice when “resolving the inherent tensions between free expression and safety,” Facebook will turn to its oversight board, the arms-length self-regulator set up in May 2020, to decide on what the future moderation policy should be.
Fauci: We Should Have Had ‘Much, Much More Stringent Restrictions’ for Asymptomatic COVID at Start of Pandemic
Dr. Anthony Fauci argued on The Hill’s “Rising” show that there should have been “more stringent restrictions” for asymptomatic people in 2020.
On Monday, Fauci appeared on the program to discuss the approach to the BA.5 subvariant of the coronavirus. The conversation quickly turned to the past approaches to COVID-19 and whether he would have acted differently. Among other things, he also said that there should have been further restrictions and mask requirements to counter the coronavirus in 2020.
“We know now, two and a half years later, that anywhere from 50 to 60% of the transmission occurs from someone without symptoms, either someone who never will get symptoms or someone who is in the pre-symptomatic stage,” Fauci said.
He later insisted that data has proven that masking prevents the transmission of COVID-19, despite conflicting statements in the past.
Instagram Lawsuits Claim Platform Fuels Eating Disorders, Mental Health Issues for Young Users
The families of two girls who suffered from eating disorders are suing Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc., the owner of Instagram, accusing the social media website of fueling such behavior and other mental health problems in teenage users.
The lawsuits were filed by the families, both of which are represented by Laura Marquez-Garrett of the Social Media Victims Law Center, in San Francisco on Monday.
The lawsuit alleges Instagram, a platform where users post pictures and videos, caused the girls to become addicted to the service and develop depression, anxiety and anorexia, Reuters reported.
Both girls attempted suicide and were hospitalized several times, the lawsuit said. One had to have a feeding tube after she refused to eat.
More Cities May Bring Back Mask Mandates as COVID Cases Rise
Cities and counties throughout the United States are considering reinstating mask mandates as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to rise.
“We are not closing anything down. We are not asking people not to gather with the people they love,” Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said.
“We’re asking you to take a sensible step, when there’s this much transmission with a highly transmissible variant, to go ahead and put back on a well-fitting high-filtration mask when you’re indoors around others.”
Lockdown Drinking Increase Could Cause 25,000 Excess Deaths in England
Up to 25,000 more people than usual could die over the next 20 years in England as a result of heavy drinking habits that began during the COVID lockdowns, two studies have found. They could also result in almost one million more hospital admissions and cost the NHS more than £5bn.
People who already drank moderately when the U.K. went into its first lockdown in March 2020 generally reduced their intake of alcohol while government-ordered restrictions on social mixing were in place.
However, many of those who already drank heavily consumed even more at a time when pubs, restaurants and other places that sell alcohol were closed, leading to a sudden spike in deaths.
Austria Ends COVID Quarantine for Those With No Symptoms
People infected with COVID-19 will no longer have to quarantine themselves in Austria if they don’t exhibit any symptoms, the country’s health minister announced Tuesday.
The alpine country is scrapping mandatory quarantine for people who have tested positive but don’t feel ill, Austrian news agency APA reported. The new regulations will apply next month.
However, infected people still need to wear masks if they leave their homes unless they are outside or can keep a distance of at least two meters (six feet) from others. They are also not allowed to enter places catering to especially vulnerable people such as hospitals nursing homes or facilities for the disabled.
Eric Schmidt Thinks AI Is as Powerful as Nukes
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt compared artificial intelligence (AI) to nuclear weapons and called for a deterrence regime similar to the mutually-assured destruction that keeps the world’s most powerful countries from destroying each other.
Schmidt talked about the dangers of AI at the Aspen Security Forum at a panel on national security and artificial intelligence on July 22. While fielding a question about the value of morality in tech, Schmidt explained that he, himself, had been naive about the power of information in the early days of Google.
He then called for tech to be better in line with the ethics and morals of the people it serves and made a bizarre comparison between AI and nuclear weapons.
Schmidt imagined a near future where China and the U.S. needed to cement a treaty around AI.
Senate Panel Turns to Kids’ Online Safety
Two bills that would revamp how tech companies cater to and obtain data from young users will be in the spotlight Wednesday as a Senate panel debates how to update laws designed before the rise of social media.
The markup has been long awaited by critics who say the existing regulations are no longer adequate for a generation raised on the internet. Support for the issue has snowballed since a Facebook whistleblower leaked bombshell internal documents last year.
The Senate Commerce Committee is slated to discuss two bipartisan pieces of legislation that, taken together, would provide stricter regulations for how online platforms operate for children and teens. In part, the proposals would bring the U.S. closer to the standards put in place by other countries.
The bills before the committee are the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, also known as COPPA 2.0, and the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).
T-Mobile to Pay $500M for One of the Largest Data Breaches in U.S. History
When T-Mobile compromised the sensitive personal information of more than 76 million current, former and prospective customers in 2021, plaintiffs involved in a class action lawsuit complained that the company continued profiting off their data while attempting to cover up “one of the largest and most consequential data breaches in U.S. history.”
Now, T-Mobile has admitted no guilt but has agreed to pay a $500 million settlement (pending a judge’s approval), out of which $350 million will go to the settlement fund and “at least $150 million” will go toward enhancing its data security measures through 2023.
‘Orwellian’ Facial Recognition Cameras in U.K. Stores Challenged by Rights Group
Shoppers at a supermarket chain in southern England are being tracked by facial recognition cameras, prompting a legal complaint by a privacy rights group.
Big Brother Watch said Southern Co-operative’s use of biometric scans in 35 stores across Portsmouth, Bournemouth, Bristol, Brighton and Hove, Chichester, Southampton and London was “Orwellian in the extreme” and urged Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to investigate whether it breaches data protection legislation.
The complaint outlines how the facial recognition system, sold by surveillance company Facewatch, creates a biometric profile of every visitor to stores where the cameras are installed, enabling Southern Co-operative to create a “blacklist” of customers. If a customer on the list enters the store, staff are alerted.
Company Called META That Claims Facebook Stole Its Name Is Suing for Infringement
Imagine waking up to find that the name of the business you created more than a decade ago has been suddenly hijacked by one of the most powerful companies in the world.
That’s what Justin Bolognino says happened to him when Facebook rebranded itself as Meta last year. His small business is called META — its full name is METAx LLC.
“This is not a scenario I ever wanted to have. This is not a scenario I would wish on my worst enemy,” said Bolognino, who’s now suing Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms, for trademark infringement and unfair competition. “When Facebook stole the Meta brand from us, it just completely decimated our business.”
Bolognino says he started his small business 12 years ago to create multi-sensory live experiences using virtual and augmented reality for events like Coachella. But business came to a screeching halt, Bolognino said, after Facebook’s announcement last year.
COVID Vaccine Mandates From Biden Admin May Cripple National Guard + More
COVID Vaccine Mandates From Biden Admin May Cripple National Guard
For decades, the National Guard has served as the backbone of saving Americans across the country in times of crisis. Whether it’s helping coordinate hurricane responses, training our allies abroad, responding to domestic civil unrest, fighting wildfires or establishing COVID-19 field hospitals and treating patients — they’ve been there for us.
When the next crisis comes to our shores, the U.S. will lack the number of Guardsmen and women to come to our rescue.
June 30 marked Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s arbitrary deadline for members of the National Guard and Reserves to receive the COVID-19 vaccine despite Congress’ mandate that the Department of Defense establish uniform procedures under which service members can be exempted.
Should Secretary Austin enforce this mandate on service members who have opted not to get vaccinated due to personal health reasons or religious exemptions, the National Guard will be crippled.
To date, approximately 60,000 National Guard and Reserves remain unvaccinated and the pending decision from the Biden administration could punish the very service members who have been on the front lines of fighting this pandemic.
NYC Employees Fired for Not Getting COVID Vaccine Grows to More Than 1,750
More than 1,750 city workers have been fired for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccination — or 200-plus more than previously revealed, the Mayor’s office confirmed Saturday.
In February, Adams fired 1,430 city employees, including 914 in the Department of Education and 36 in the NYPD, for refusing to get vaccinated. In March, the city fired another 101 workers, including 42 in the DOE, but none in the NYPD. There have been no updates since.
Last month, Adams offered most workers fired for going without a jab a brief period to get their jobs back — provided they got the first dose of a vaccine by June 30 and made arrangements for a second dose by Aug. 15.
More than 6,000 city workers who applied for medical or religious accommodations or exemptions from the vaccination requirement have yet to get a decision.
Cardinals’ Nolan Arenado, Paul Goldschmidt Explain Why They Didn’t Get COVID Vaccine
On Sunday it was revealed that Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado and first baseman Paul Goldschmidt will not be allowed to travel to Canada to play the Blue Jays because they’re not vaccinated against COVID-19. Both All-Stars explained why they haven’t gotten vaccinated against the virus.
“It’s just a personal choice, and I’m not trying to do a political stand here or be a spokesperson for this or that,” Arenado said, per MLB.com. “I’m just choosing to do what’s best for me and my family, and I mean no harm. But it’s unfortunate that I’ve got to miss two games.”
In order to enter Canada, a person must be fully vaccinated against the virus two weeks before traveling there or quarantine upon arrival. By missing the two-game series, Goldschmidt and Arenado will forfeit $285,714 and $384,615, respectively, according to MLB.com’s John Denton.
“It was not an easy decision, but over this year-plus that this has happened, I’ve tried to talk to as many doctors and professionals as I could, figured out as much as I could, and I decided the potential risks outweighed the potential benefits of doing it,” Goldschmidt said.
Pastor Jailed for Holding Church Service During Canada’s Lockdown Wins Legal Victory
A Canadian court has awarded a major legal win to Artur Pawlowski, the pastor who was arrested and jailed for holding a church service during Alberta’s lockdown.
Pawlowski, the minister of Calgary Street Church, was arrested by Calgary police in dramatic fashion in the middle of a busy highway on May 8 last year as he was driving home from church, where his congregation had gathered without masks in violation of public health orders.
On Friday, an Alberta appeals court panel ruled that the Alberta health agency’s order restraining “illegal public gatherings” was “not sufficiently clear and unambiguous” as to apply to the Pawlowski’s.
“The Pawlowskis’ appeals are allowed. The finding of contempt and the sanction order is set aside. The fines that have been paid by them are to be reimbursed,” the three-member panel wrote in their 16-page ruling. The court ordered Alberta Health Services, the province’s health agency, to reimburse Pawlowski for his legal costs, as well as the fines, levied against him.
Mask Wearing Required in Kentucky’s Largest School District
Kentucky’s largest school district will require universal masking on school property as Jefferson County moves into the highest level of COVID-19 community spread.
The change begins Monday and lasts until Jefferson County comes out of the red, media outlets reported. It comes a little more than two weeks before classes resume in Jefferson County Public Schools.
Everyone, regardless of vaccination status, will be required to wear a mask on district property or on school buses.
Uber Admits Covering up Massive 2016 Data Breach in Settlement With U.S. Prosecutors
Uber admitted to covering up a massive cybersecurity attack that took place in October 2016, exposing the confidential data of 57 million customers and drivers, as part of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice to avoid criminal prosecution.
In order to not be prosecuted for the cover-up, Uber “admits that its personnel failed to report the November 2016 data breach to the [Federal Trade Commission] despite a pending FTC investigation into data security at the company,” according to a press release from the DOJ.
Hackers used stolen credentials to access a private source code repository and obtain a proprietary access key, which they then used to access and copy large quantities of data associated with Uber’s users and drivers, including data pertaining to approximately 57 million user records with 600,000 driver’s license numbers.
We Can Regulate Social Media Without Censorship. Here’s How.
Is it wise to try to regulate social media platforms? Can it even be done? These questions are vexing lawmakers in almost every democracy. And finally — after years of debate — some answers are coming into view.
The basic case for legislative intervention is, in fact, non-partisan. It’s simply that, as more and more of our discourse migrates online, social media platforms are increasingly trusted to draw the borders of free expression. They order, filter and present the world’s information. They set rules about what may be said and who may say it. They approve, and ban, speakers and ideas. And when they do these things, they necessarily apply their own rules, principles, biases, and philosophies.
That’s not a criticism — sometimes the right will be aggrieved, sometimes the left — but it does mean that the choice is not between regulating speech and leaving it alone. Speech is already being regulated by platforms.
And they have potent powers of enforcement: to stifle a voice or an idea with a single click, to make an idea disappear or to go viral. The case for regulation does not depend on the (usually simplistic) claim that particular platforms are actually biased one way or another. The issue is rather that they increasingly have the power to influence democratic discourse without appropriate checks and balances.
Dozens of States Are Jumping on the Social Media Censorship Bandwagon
2022 may be remembered as a turning point for social media regulation, or maybe more aptly, failed social media regulation. Though Texas and Florida managed to dominate headlines recently for their constitutionally questionable deplatforming laws, they’re far from the only states trying to get creative with managing content on social media platforms.
A recent Politico analysis found 34 states, many conservative-leaning but not all, have proposed bills or passed laws vying to influence the way social media companies handle their users’ content.
In conservative-led states, the dominating trend here follows the Texas and Florida mold. States ranging from Ohio to Mississippi are trying to write laws that would prohibit companies from removing or moderating users’ content based on their political viewpoint.
On the other hand, legislators in Democratically led states like New York and California are attempting to forward legislation that would encourage social media companies to take a heavier-handed approach to moderating certain types of content deemed harmful.
Twitter Posts $270 Million Loss In First Earnings Report Since Elon Musk ‘Terminated’ $44 Billion Takeover Deal
Social media giant Twitter posted a worse-than-expected loss Friday morning in its first earnings report since billionaire Elon Musk backed out on a deal to buy the company, fueled in part by the massive uncertainty around the firm’s fate as it embarks on a potentially lengthy legal battle with the world’s richest person.
San Francisco-based Twitter reported revenue of $1.2 billion in the second quarter, falling short of average analyst estimates calling for $1.3 billion and slipping 1% from the same period last year.
The company also reported a worse-than-expected loss of $270 million, or 35 cents per share — compared to expectations for a loss of 7 cents per share and a profit of $66 million in the second quarter last year.
Some Schools Are Restricting Google Chrome Usage Over Security Concerns
Several schools and other educational organizations are having to restrict usage of Google‘s software, including its Chrome browser and Chrome OS offerings over security and privacy fears.
The Dutch Ministry of Education has ordered the country’s education industry to implement the changes following fears that Google’s software is in conflict with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other privacy-related regulations in the country.
According to reports, these changes include a number of things, such as implementing specific Group Policies, and disabling services such as automatic website translation, or spell checks.
Unvaccinated Fans Can Attend the U.S. Open. Why Can’t Novak Djokovic? + More
Unvaccinated Fans Can Attend the U.S. Open. Why Can’t Novak Djokovic?
Fresh off his historic victory at Wimbledon, Novak Djokovic is hoping to compete at the upcoming U.S. Open for his 22nd Grand Slam — which would tie him with Rafael Nadal for the most in history.
Unfortunately, the world’s greatest tennis player appears unlikely to make the trip. Although the Serbian star looked perfectly healthy in his four-set victory over Australian Nick Kyrgios in England, current COVID-19 protocols are likely to prevent Djokovic from playing. “I’m not vaccinated and I’m not planning to get vaccinated,” Djokovic said following his victory at Wimbledon.
First, it’s noteworthy that Djokovic had COVID-19 in December. Many sporting organizations — including the NCAA — recognize prior infection as a form of immunization, and rightly so. An abundance of scientific evidence shows that natural immunity offers as much protection as vaccination alone, if not more.
Second, it’s worth noting that spectators are allowed to attend the Open regardless of their vaccination status. In other words, fans can attend the U.S. Open even if they haven’t had the shot — but the world’s greatest tennis star will not be able to set foot in the country.
Amazon to Buy One Medical for $3.9 Billion as It Expands Healthcare Footprint
Amazon (AMZN) on Thursday said it has entered an agreement to acquire primary healthcare company One Medical in an all-cash deal valued at approximately $3.9 billion.
One Medical is a membership-based primary care service that promises customers “24/7 access to virtual care.” The company operates in a dozen major U.S. markets, according to its website, and works with over 8,000 companies to offer One Medical health benefits to their employees.
The acquisition is just the latest example of the tech giant expanding its footprint in the healthcare industry. Amazon acquired PillPack, an online pharmacy, in 2018 and later launched its own digital pharmacy in the United States.
Separately, Amazon partnered with JP Morgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway on an effort to provide better healthcare services and insurance at a lower cost to workers and families at the three companies, and possibly other businesses, too. That effort, called Haven, shut down last year.
Canadian Armed Forces Poised to End Vaccine Mandate
Canadian Forces members discharged from service because they disobeyed an order to get vaccinated against COVID-19 will have the opportunity to re-enroll, according to leaked details of the military’s revised vaccination policy.
That policy, expected to be unveiled later this summer, will put an end to the military’s vaccine mandate, which was introduced in October 2021.
Under the updated policy, service members will no longer have to attest to their vaccine status and new recruits will no longer have to be fully vaccinated to enroll in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Police Officers Grappling With Vaccine Mandates Weigh in on President Biden’s COVID Diagnosis
President Biden, who is fully vaccinated with two additional boosters, has contracted the coronavirus as officers in some big city police, fire, health and education departments are forced out of work for resisting vaccine mandates.
“When the pandemic hit, we had no supplies in New York City,” said John Macari, a former NYPD lieutenant who says he retired early in February at great financial cost rather than submit to the mandate. “There were no masks, there was nothing And I went to work every day to do my job like thousands of others — firemen, EMS workers, teachers, nurses. We were out there during the pandemic when everybody locked down.”
“Not only did we expose ourselves, but we exposed our families for the betterment of the city,” he said. “Now we’re being blamed for the ineffectiveness of the produce. We’re being blamed for the spread.”
“We’re approaching three years, what harm have the unvaccinated caused to America or the public that they’re being removed from society and employment?” Macari said.
Contemptible School Officials Re-Imposing COVID Mandates Are Defying Science: Dr. Nicole Saphier
More than two years after coronavirus first paralyzed the world the CDC, public health leaders and local officials are not following the science. They are defying it.
According to CDC guidance put in place in July 2021, when a community is experiencing ‘high’ transmission, indoor masking is encouraged. The guidance is not a mandate. But liberal parts of the country blindly follow these severe recommendations.
Don’t they realize how much has changed since July 2021? Many more Americans have been vaccinated against COVID-19 or have acquired natural immunity through infection. We now benefit from many more effective treatments. The dominant variants are far less lethal.
So when will America’s health leadership wrench their heads out of the sand and acknowledge their method of basing public policy recommendations on COVID case numbers is now obsolete? Don’t take my word for it — the evidence is clear.
Poll: RI Still Backs COVID Vaccine Requirement, but Support Is Dipping
The majority of Rhode Islanders still think everyone should be required to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but support for such a mandate has fallen below 60% for the first time.
A new survey from the COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States found that 58.8% of Rhode Island residents believe there should be a universal requirement to get the vaccine.
That’s down from a high in June 2021, when 73.8% of Rhode Islanders supported a vaccine mandate. In March, 63.8% said they support such a requirement.
The consortium includes researchers from Harvard, Northeastern, Rutgers and Northwestern, and has conducted 18 50-state surveys during the pandemic (nine have included questions about a vaccine mandate).
Nearly 60% of Americans Want TikTok Removed From App Stores: Poll
Almost 60% of Americans believe that the Chinese-owned short video app TikTok should be removed from app stores after revelations that U.S. user data have been repeatedly accessed in China, according to a new poll.
In a survey conducted by the Convention of States Action and Trafalgar Group, 58.6% of respondents said they supported “efforts to remove TikTok from app stores now that the company has revealed Americans’ user data can be accessed by TikTok employees in China.”
The results come less than a month after leaked recordings of internal company meetings obtained by BuzzFeed News allegedly show that from at least September 2021 to January, engineers in China had access to the app’s U.S. data.
TikTok employees, at times, had to turn to their colleagues in China to determine how U.S. data were flowing, as the U.S. staff wasn’t authorized to independently access that information, according to the report.
Meta Is Changing Facebook and Instagram to Look and Act More Like TikTok
Meta has tweaked both Facebook and Instagram‘s apps to more closely resemble its competitor TikTok. The changes appear to signal how much of an existential threat Meta perceives TikTok to be.
Instagram announced Thursday that from now on any video under 15 minutes will be converted into a Reel. If that video is posted by a public account, it will also be automatically fed into the company’s recommendation algorithms to show to other accounts.
For Facebook, the company is splitting its classic News Feed on its iOS and Android apps. Users will be immediately taken to a “Home” tab, where CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company’s “discovery engine” will promote content it thinks the user will be interested in.
Zuckerberg told Meta staff the company faces an “unprecedented level of competition” from Tiktok in February, Bloomberg reported.
Meta Commits Another $150 Million to Its Oversight Board
Meta has committed to keeping its Oversight Board running by providing ongoing financial support. The company has pledged to fund the board’s operations with a contribution of an additional $150 million. Meta previously earmarked $130 million for the board’s trust when it was set up in 2019.
The Oversight Board reviews certain content moderation decisions made by Facebook and Instagram and provides recommendations to Meta. Through the lens of human rights standards, it also assesses Meta’s policies and how it enforces them.
The board says it has received more than a million appeals from users against moderation decisions. To date, it has issued 25 binding decisions on cases and made 118 policy suggestions, while asking many questions about Meta’s practices.
Serving as a ‘Clinical Colleague,’ AI Shows Potential to Reduce Sepsis Deaths in Real-World Studies
Three studies published Thursday found that an artificial intelligence (AI) platform developed by Bayesian Health and Johns Hopkins University reduced deaths from sepsis by 18.2% in real-world use when physicians responded promptly to its alerts, a finding that suggests AI has the potential to become an important tool in battling a leading cause of deaths in hospitals.
The company and Hopkins researchers tested the platform at five hospitals in the Northeast — both academic and community-based — with more than 4,000 clinicians. The software, which was integrated into the hospitals’ electronic health records, monitors patient data and alerts clinicians when it spots early signs of potential sepsis.
It identified over 17,500 cases of sepsis from over 750,000 patient encounters among all adults who presented to the emergency department or were admitted to a medical or surgical unit over the course of one to two years.
ClassDojo Won Over Classrooms. Now It’s on a $125 Million Mission to Bring Kids to the Metaverse.
ClassDojo is the remote-based tech startup Liam Don co-founded with CEO Sam Chaudhary in 2011. The British friends spent the past decade building an app that won over teachers with feedback and lesson planning tools, and then parents with features to communicate and receive updates on their children’s progress at school.
Now, they’re pouring their efforts — and $125 million in previously undisclosed funding — into a software environment beyond the classroom.
After testing with tens of thousands of students since late last year, ClassDojo is now unveiling its big new act in time for the upcoming school year, with the goal, according to Chaudhary, of making the company’s virtual space available to at least half of the 51 million kids in active ClassDojo classrooms starting in August. (ClassDojo declined to share how many of those students are themselves monthly active users of its app.)