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Mask Mandate for Planes, Trains Overturned by Federal Judge + More
Mask Mandate for Planes, Trains Overturned by Federal Judge
A federal judge in Florida overturned the U.S. government mask mandate on public transportation, dealing a blow to the Biden administration as fights continue nationwide over policies tied to the COVID-19 pandemic.
U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa vacated the mask mandate nationwide and directed the CDC to reverse the policy. The suit was filed by the Health Freedom Defense Fund.
Florida and other Republican-led states in March filed a similar lawsuit seeking to overturn the mask mandate, a fight that pitted President Joe Biden against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a fierce critic of pandemic mandates. The states accused the administration of ignoring “loss after loss” in court and having “outright disdain” for the limits of its power.
Fired NYC Teachers Are Rejected by Supreme Court in COVID Vaccine Case
The U.S. Supreme Court turned away four public-school teachers who said New York City violated their constitutional rights by firing them or putting them on unpaid leave for refusing to get COVID-19 vaccinations.
The justices made no comment in rejecting the teachers’ appeal, which challenged the city’s vaccine mandate for its 148,000 employees. The same group of teachers failed last year to block the policy before it took effect.
The Supreme Court has permitted COVID vaccine mandates at the state and local level even as it has curbed federal authority to impose requirements. The justices blocked a Biden administration rule that would have required shots or regular tests for more than 80 million employees while allowing a more targeted vaccine mandate for some healthcare workers.
Brooklyn Net Kyrie Irving Backs MTA Worker’s Fight Against COVID Vaccine Mandates
A dissident MTA worker’s stance against vaccine mandates is a slam dunk with Brooklyn Nets superstar Kyrie Irving.
Tramell Thompson — a subway conductor who’s been on disability leave for nearly all of the pandemic — has since 2016 led a group called Progressive Action. It began as a splinter group within Transport Workers Union Local 100 critical of both the union and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Thompson has recently broadened his agenda to rail against COVID-19 vaccine mandates, netting the attention of Irving, one of the country’s most famous unvaccinated athletes.
The seven-time All-Star coyly plugged Thompson’s group during a March 26 press conference when he declared his support for unions that oppose vaccine mandates.
San Diego Unified Staying the Course With COVID Vaccine Mandate
The San Diego Unified School District is moving forward with its plan for a vaccine mandate despite the state’s decision to delay its mandate for schoolchildren until at least next summer.
Students aged 16 and older will be required to get the COVID vaccine as planned, beginning this summer. Board trustee Richard Barrera said this age group is the only age group with full FDA approval to get the COVID vaccine.
Barrera said about 80% of this age group has been vaccinated so far. The mandate takes effect in July for summer school, and Barrera hopes by the time regular school starts the number of students vaccinated will increase.
“In order to attend in-person, they must be vaccinated. If not, they’ll enroll in the online program Virtual Academy,” Barrera said. Those in sports and extra-curricular activities will not be able to participate, though he noted more than 90% of student-athletes are vaccinated.
Unvaccinated LAUSD Employees Demand Old Jobs Back
Los Angeles Daily News reported:
A group of parents and teachers opposed to the Los Angeles Unified School District’s COVID-19 staff vaccination requirement gathered outside district headquarters Friday, April 15, to demand that officials scrap the mandate and allow unvaccinated employees back onto campuses to help address staffing shortages.
The press conference came in response to LA School Report’s coverage of LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho’s plan to reassign 400 administrators or other district employees to classrooms to fill teacher vacancies.
Carvalho’s reported plan is particularly vexing to some former and current employees who refused to get COVID-19 shots earlier this school year and were fired, placed on leave or reassigned to teach in L.A. Unified’s online independent study program. At least 600 employees have been fired to date, though it’s unclear how many were classroom teachers.
Suit Seeks to Overturn Renewed Philadelphia Mask Mandate
Several businesses and residents have filed suit in state court in Pennsylvania seeking to overturn Philadelphia’s renewed indoor mask mandate scheduled to be enforced beginning Monday in an effort to halt a surge in COVID-19 infections.
The lawsuit, filed in Commonwealth Court on Saturday, said Philadelphia lacks the authority to impose such a mandate.
Philadelphia earlier this week became the first major U.S. city to reinstate its indoor mask mandate after reporting a sharp increase in coronavirus infections, with the city’s top health official saying she wanted to forestall a potential new wave driven by an Omicron subvariant.
Vaccine Mandate Prompts Officials to Eye Nursing Home Sale
Local officials are citing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers among reasons for selling a county-owned nursing home in southwestern Virginia.
County officials released a statement saying that with an increasingly regulatory environment surrounding nursing homes, industry experts who specialize in healthcare compliance, rather than local government officials with no such expertise, are in a better position to make decisions.
The statement also noted that the COVID-19 pandemic further prompted local officials to explore their options and that the vaccine mandate for healthcare employees is “contrary to the positions of all board members” and has complicated uniformity in how county employees are treated.
Texas AG: School Districts Likely Cannot Offer Special Treatment to Vaccinated Staff
Palestine Herald-Press reported:
In a 2021-22 school year policy, Houston Independent School District offered a maximum of 10 additional paid sick days for staffers who were fully vaccinated and those who had medical exemptions should they contract COVID-19, while unvaccinated staff must use their personal leave should they test positive.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in an opinion released Thursday that the policy was likely a violation of state law.
“A court would likely conclude that, by offering additional paid leave only to those employees showing proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a medical exemption, the Houston Independent School District’s COVID-19 paid leave policy violates Executive Order GA-39,” the opinion read.
In June, a law banning governmental entities from issuing vaccine passports, passes or other standardized documentation to certify vaccine status was solidified. Gov. Greg Abbott doubled down on the idea with an executive order signed in August that stated governmental entities cannot compel any individual to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
Twitter’s Board Could Find Itself in Court if Their Anti-Free Speech Stance Continues
Last week, Twitter‘s Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal sounded more like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in rallying his troops to defy the existential threat of billionaire Elon Musk while pledging that they will not be “held hostage.”
The threat, however, was not a private buyout but the threat that Twitter might be forced to respect free speech on the site. The problem for the company’s board of directors is that they could find themselves in court if their anti-free speech stance continues to stand in the way of shareholder profits.
The board responded to the Musk offer with what sounded like a suicide pact to swallow a “poison pill” to sell new shares to drive down share values. While a standard tactic to fend off hostile takeovers, Twitter made it clear that it would not be forced into free speech after making the company synonymous with censorship.
Intel Under Fire Over Its Face-Reading AI
A few weeks ago, Intel announced a partnership with Class Technologies, an e-learning startup working on artificial intelligence that can detect the emotions of students.
The tools from Class Technologies work with Intel-based CPUs and Zoom, the video calling service. The goal is to analyze the emotions of students and provide insights to teachers.
The pandemic caused almost all schooling across the world to move online, often facilitated by video calls, with varying degrees of success. An early concept of Class’s technology aims to see whether students are less engaged.
Central Bank Digital Currencies Are Doomed to Fail — and Here’s Why
As central banks including the Fed, the ECB and (of course) the PBOC (along with some 85 others) scramble to roll out their own digital currencies, some naive crypto bros might assume that the financial establishment and the government have completely embraced cryptocurrencies. But as we have pointed out before, this isn’t exactly true. The reality is that while they have spoken of ‘the financial revolution,’ they have only embraced some aspects of cryptocurrency.
For example, they have embraced the fact that all transactions on a digital blockchain can be carefully tracked and monitored, assuming they are the ones in control of the said blockchain. This deep level of vision and insight would allow centralized financial authorities (like the Fed) to exert unprecedented levels of control over Americans’ spending habits.
California Pauses Plans to Require COVID Vaccinations for Schoolchildren + More
California Pauses Plans to Require COVID Vaccinations for Schoolchildren
California will not require schoolchildren to be immunized for COVID-19 after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he is pausing a state mandate set to go into effect before the upcoming academic year while an influential Democratic lawmaker said he will drop his bill pushing even stricter inoculation rules.
Newsom made headlines in October when he announced California would be the first state to mandate the vaccine in schools once shots were fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for children ages 12 and older, with the requirement going into effect by July 1.
On Thursday, the California Department of Public Health announced that the timeline will be pushed back to at least July 1, 2023, since the FDA has not yet fully approved the vaccine for children and the state will need time afterward to initiate its rule-making process.
Fauci: ‘You Use Lockdowns to Get People Vaccinated’
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said this week that governments use lockdowns to “get people vaccinated.”
Fauci, who served on former President Donald Trump’s White House Coronavirus Task Force and is now President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser on COVID-19, discussed coronavirus lockdowns in China on Wednesday during an interview on MSNBC. Fauci said that China has a “number of problems,” noting that the country’s strict lockdowns would never be able to be implemented in the United States, “although that prevents the spread of infection.”
“But lockdown has its consequences,” he continued. “You use lockdowns to get people vaccinated so that when you open up, you won’t have a surge of infections, because you are dealing with an immunologically naive population, to the virus, because they’ve not really been exposed because of the lockdown.”
NYC Mayor Pushes for Gun Detection Tech After Brooklyn Subway Shooting
New York City Mayor Eric Adams may well believe that all those who aren’t as big as he is on surveillance tech don’t have nearly as much “swagger” as he does, but he’s pushing for what could potentially be the widest adoption of a gun surveillance system of any city in the world.
The mayor has already been a known proponent of facial recognition tech among other surveillance systems. Other cities like San Francisco have outright banned the technology, and studies have shown that similar policing systems can be unreliable and more than a little problematic, especially in regard to race.
Last month, Adams also mentioned that he wants to bring gun sensing technology into city schools as well.
Over Half of Americans Would Delete Themselves From the Internet if They Could
More than half of Americans (55%) surveyed in a new study from NordVPN say that they would choose to delete themselves from the internet if they could. To compile its study, the VPN maker commissioned the market research firm Propeller Insights to survey 1,002 U.S. consumers aged 18 and over in December of last year.
As to why respondents would choose to delete themselves from the internet if possible, 47% said they don’t trust the internet, another 46% said they have no reason to have their name on the internet and 42% said they fear that they will eventually be hacked. Surprisingly, 18% of those surveyed said they wish there wasn’t an internet while eight percent said that they don’t use the internet at all.
When it came to the kind of information about themselves that respondents wanted permanently deleted from the internet, 6 in 10 Americans said they wanted their personal financial information wiped from the web. However, other information Americans want deleted from the internet included embarrassing moments (26%), old dating or social media profiles (26%), unflattering photos and videos (24%) and their previous employment history (23%).
Broadway Adjusts COVID Vaccine Requirements, Extends Mask Policy
Many Broadway theaters will no longer require proof of vaccination against COVID-19 after this month, The Broadway League announced Friday.
The organization announced the shift in policy as it announced another extension of its rule that require patients to attend productions with a face covering. That rule will remain in place until at least May 31. Face masks have been the rule of thumb regardless of vaccination status since Broadway unveiled its revamped mask and vaccination policy last summer. They must be worn at all times except for while eating or drinking.
The league said up-to-date requirements for vaccine information will be provided by individual theaters and ticket sellers. Exceptions can also be made for ticket holders with a medical condition or “closely held religious belief that prevents vaccination.”
Ontario’s Top Doctor to Recommend Extending COVID Mask Mandate for Hospitals, Transit
Ontario’s chief medical officer of health will recommend that the province extend the remaining mask mandates — in settings such as hospitals, long-term care and public transit — as new COVID-19 modeling suggests a tenuous plateau in transmission.
Dr. Kieran Moore will be submitting that proposal to the government, for a four-week extension beyond the current expiry date of April 27, he told The Canadian Press in an interview Thursday.
Shanghai Residents Forced From Homes Clash With Police Over COVID Policy
Residents who have been locked down since late March have complained about food shortages and over-zealous officials forcing them into central quarantine facilities, as authorities rush to construct tens of thousands of beds to house patients with COVID. Daily infections are topping 20,000.
Late on Thursday, multiple videos circulated on social media showing residents outside a compound shouting at ranks of officials holding police shields as the officers tried to break through their line. In one clip, police appear to make several arrests as the residents accuse them of hitting people. Screaming and crying could also be heard in the background. Bystanders took out their phones to film the scene.
Thursday’s incident has provided a rare insight into public anger in China, a country where the authorities brook little dissent and censors routinely wipe information relating to protests from the internet as fast as it is uploaded.
Elon Musk Takes a Swipe at Mark Zuckerberg’s Ironclad Control of Meta, Says It’s Set up so Even ‘Mark Zuckerberg the 14th’ Will Be in Charge of Facebook and Instagram
Elon Musk dissed Mark Zuckerberg’s lasting control over Meta during an interview on Thursday. Musk was asked about his recent offer to buy Twitter during an interview at the TED conference in Vancouver. The interviewer, Chris Anderson, asked Musk whether his status as the richest man in the world and one of the platform‘s top influencers on the platform could pose a conflict of interest.
Musk took the opportunity to take a swipe at Zuckerberg and even appeared to compare the Facebook founder to King Louis XIV. “As for media sort of ownership, I mean, you’ve got Mark Zuckerberg owning Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, and with a share ownership structure that will have Mark Zuckerberg the 14th still controlling those entities,” Musk said.
The Tesla CEO was referencing Zuckerberg’s stronghold on Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The Facebook founder holds 55% of the company’s voting shares — meaning Zuckerberg essentially has complete veto power over other shareholders when it comes to the company’s future.
Debate Intensifies Over Use of Facial Recognition Technology in British Schools
For years, the UK has been using biometrics to identify school children, but now that facial recognition (FRT) software is becoming widely adopted, questions are being raised about ethical issues surrounding data and surveillance.
Companies say that the futuristic technology will radically improve productivity and efficiency during dinner times, but critics, including the UK’s snooping tsar, have come out strong against the use of facial recognition cameras in schools.
As independent Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner, Professor Fraser Sampson’s role is to encourage compliance with the surveillance camera code of practice. “There is not really a recognition that this is intrusive surveillance, and it’s increasingly intrusive surveillance,” he said. “If people think the use of facial recognition by the police is sensitive and controversial wait until schools start putting it in.
“Your starting point should be, ‘Where is the lawful purpose of introducing this clearly intrusive type of technology into a school?’” he said. “How does any of this fit with much wider government obligations on the U.N. convention on the rights of the child not to be subject to close scrutiny and have the freedom to sit in a classroom without being watched, let alone recorded?” said Sampson.
TikTok Under U.S. Government Investigation Over Child Sexual Abuse Material
TikTok is under investigation by U.S. government agencies over its handling of child sexual abuse material, as the burgeoning short-form video app struggles to moderate a flood of new content.
The Department of Justice is also reviewing how a specific privacy feature on TikTok is being exploited by predators, said one person with knowledge of the case. The DOJ has a longstanding policy of not confirming or denying the existence of ongoing investigations.
“It is a perfect place for predators to meet, groom and engage children,” said Erin Burke, unit chief of the child exploitation investigations unit at Homeland Security’s cybercrime division, calling it the “platform of choice” for the behavior.
The business is booming. A forecast from Insider Intelligence puts TikTok’s advertising revenue at $11.6 billion this year — up threefold from last year’s $3.9 billion.
Apple, Others Face Shipment Delays as China COVID Curbs Squeeze Suppliers
Shipments of some Apple products, as well as Dell and Lenovo laptops, are likely to face delays if China’s COVID-19 lockdowns persist, analysts said, as curbs force assemblers to shut down and closed-loop arrangements get harder to maintain.
China’s race to stop the spread of COVID-19 has jammed highways and ports, stranded workers and left countless factories awaiting government approval to reopen — disruptions that are rippling through global supply chains.
Why You Should Think Twice Before Sharing a COVID Diagnosis + More
Why You Should Think Twice Before Sharing a COVID Diagnosis
I know three people recovering from COVID at the moment. I know this because they told me. That might not seem like a big deal these days when a COVID diagnosis often slips off the tongue as easily as a mention of the common cold. But it matters a lot both to our collective right to privacy and an individual’s right to privacy, now and later.
In more modern times, we call the revelation of truthful private information “Publicity Given Private Life.” That tort makes it wrong to reveal another person’s private information: “sexual relations,” for example, “most intimate letters,” and, important here, “many unpleasant or humiliating illnesses.”
That’s why our new collective tradition of sharing COVID diagnoses has the potential to impact both law and individuals.
And based on the data that’s made available about any one of us — information from social media posts about our diagnoses or information from credit card companies about what we like to buy or information from geolocation data about where we like to go — data that could be shared with would-be employers and life insurance companies to name two, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that there are many who would be interested in such a diagnosis, perhaps now but maybe even especially later.
Board of Health Opts Against New School Vaccine Requirement
The Washington State Board of Health has decided that COVID-19 vaccines will not be required for students to attend K-12 schools this fall. The Board of Health made the decision in a unanimous vote Wednesday, The Seattle Times reported.
Last fall, the board created a separate technical advisory group tasked with researching whether a COVID vaccine would meet all the scientific criteria needed to be added to the list of required K-12 immunizations.
The advisory group in late February voted to recommend against adding a COVID-19 vaccine to the list of school-required immunizations, citing a lack of vaccine data for school-aged kids and potentially unpredictable social impacts of imposing a mandate.
Instagram Amplifies Pro-Eating Disorder Content ‘Bubble’: Report
Instagram amplifies pro-eating disorder content to users in a way that fosters a harmful interconnected community that includes teen and underaged users, according to a report released Thursday by advocacy group Fairplay.
Instagram’s algorithm and data profiling tactics create a pro-eating disorder “bubble” on the platform that includes more than 88,000 unique accounts and reaches 20 million unique followers, according to the report.
“[Instagram] collects all of the data that it needs to sort of profile you as someone who’s interested in sort of pro-eating disorder content, and then creates this sort of world around you where it recommends that you follow these people, recommends that these people follow you, it recommends this content, it fills your feed with this sort of content — and that actually you can almost become trapped inside sort of pro-eating disorder bubble, even if you didn’t intend on doing that,” said Rys Farthing, author of the report.
Farthing said the prevalence of the content and the recommendations to users is not accidental on Instagram’s part — it’s built into the business model. The report estimates that Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, derives $2 million in revenue a year from the bubble, and $227.9 million from all those who follow it.
Hundreds in Chicago Police Department Still Not Vaccinated, Despite Wednesday’s Deadline to Receive the Shots
As the latest deadline for Chicago police officers to get the COVID-19 vaccine came and went Wednesday, the remaining holdouts in the department found themselves once again facing off with the city over who would blink first.
Under a court-ordered arbitrator’s ruling in February, the approximately 12,000 employees of the Chicago Police Department had until Wednesday to get the second shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or the first shot of the Johnson & Johnson version.
As of Monday, 2,120 Police Department members remained unvaccinated; the city did not have more updated figures on Wednesday. But not all unvaccinated cops face losing their police powers as a result of failing to comply, as 1,439 of them have approved religious and medical exemptions.
A much greater number of department employees have been denied their exemption request: 3,254. And 571 are still waiting on a response to their applications.
California Says Asymptomatic People Exposed to Coronavirus Don’t Need to Quarantine
California is no longer recommending a five-day quarantine period for people who are exposed to the coronavirus but remain asymptomatic, a move that could potentially result in a relaxation of similar rules in Los Angeles County.
Doing so, officials say, would relieve the burden for employers and institutions to keep otherwise healthy people at home following exposure. The move also reflects a new pandemic reality, according to state officials — that slowly but steadily increasing vaccination rates and the availability of anti-COVID drugs are reducing the overall risk of California’s hospitals being overwhelmed in potential future surges.
Individual counties can keep rules in place that are stricter than the state’s if local health officials believe it’s necessary. Currently, L.A. County requires those exposed to the coronavirus who are either unvaccinated or not up-to-date with their first booster shot to quarantine for at least five days following their last exposure to an infected person.
Ex-FDA Chief: These Are the 2 Most Important Times to Mask up on a Plane
Yesterday’s decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to extend the federal mask mandate by two weeks was understandable, according to one of the nation’s most prominent health experts.
“At this point, I think we can lift the mandate,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday. “But I’m not surprised we extended it out a couple of weeks in a setting of a surge of BA.2 infections.” For at least the past two weeks, the highly contagious BA.2 subvariant of Omicron has been dominant in the United States.
“I think the bigger question is what do they do after the two weeks,” said Gottlieb. “There is some scuttlebutt that [the CDC] won’t lift the mask mandate entirely, but they’ll require passengers to wear masks when they come on to planes and when they come off the planes.”
For months, the mask mandate has been a bone of contention between the CDC and airlines. Last month, the chief executives of the seven U.S. airlines — Alaska, American, Delta, Hawaiian, JetBlue, United and Southwest — asked President Biden to end the mask mandate and drop the pre-departure testing requirement for international travelers coming to the U.S.
Italian in Shanghai Quarantine Shows Bleak Reality of Having COVID in China
An Italian ex-pat living in Shanghai has shared his experience of getting COVID in China, with a video showing him being collected by authorities and taken to a quarantine center, where he has been since April 10.
Alessandro Pavanello was visited by authorities on April 9, with his video showing people in hazmat suits shouting at him to come downstairs and placing him on a bus. Quarantine centers have been set up in stadiums, convention centers and hotels. Footage and images shared on social media show chaotic scenes with cramped, sometimes unhygienic conditions.
“I’d say there must be around 1,000 people here,” Pavanello told Newsweek. “So far it’s been quite an unpleasant and stressful experience. The hygiene conditions are quite low — bathrooms that are quite dirty, close contact with people, no showers.”
Elon Musk Offers to Buy ‘100%’ of Twitter — Site ‘Needs to Be Transformed’
Billionaire Elon Musk has issued an ultimatum to Twitter‘s chairman as he made a surprise offer to buy 100% of Twitter shares in a deal that values the social media company at around $43 billion.
The offer, which comes after the Tesla CEO bought a 9.2% stake in Twitter but decided not to take a seat on the board, sent Twitter shares surging by as much as 10% in pre-market trade. Musk’s decision not to take a boardroom seat gave him the flexibility to acquire more shares of the social media platform.
Musk, the world’s richest man, told Twitter’s chairman, Bret Taylor, that he believes under his leadership the social media platform’s potential could be unlocked.
“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk wrote in a letter made public by the SEC.
House Lawmakers Launch Investigation of Face-Scan Contractor ID.me
House lawmakers on Thursday launched an investigation into the efficacy and security of the identity verification contractor ID.me, after government agencies’ use of the software to identify people accessing tax records and unemployment assistance led to a rapid expansion of facial recognition in everyday American life.
In a sweeping ten-page letter addressed to ID.me chief executive Blake Hall, lawmakers requested that the company turn over detailed records about its contracts with federal, state and local governments, as well as answer questions about how it investigates potential inaccuracies in its systems.
Lawmakers write that they have “serious concerns” about ten federal agencies and 30 state governments contracting with ID.me, given questions about the accuracy of the facial recognition service and reports of long delays in using the service to access pandemic assistance.
Project Veritas Founder Says DOJ Secretly Forced Apple, Google to Provide Data
The Department of Justice forced both Apple and Google to provide data belonging to Project Veritas and its associates as part of its probe into the whereabouts of Ashley Biden‘s missing diary, founder James O’Keefe said.
O’Keefe announced that both tech giants came forward revealing they were hit with “nine secret subpoenas” to monitor “professional and private accounts” including the group’s security detail after it was previously revealed that Microsoft also received such orders from the feds. O’Keefe stressed that the data being collected by the DOJ includes “everything” from texts and emails to private photos as well as “information of our sources.”
Robert Reich: Former Trilateral Commission Member Goes Full Anti-Free Speech
We recently discussed the gathering of Democratic politicians and media figures at the University of Chicago to discuss how to better shape news, combat “disinformation” and reeducate those with conservative views. The political and media elite shared ideas on how to expand censorship and control what people read or viewed in the news. The same figures are now alarmed that Elon Musk could gain greater influence over Twitter and, perish the thought, restore free speech protections to the site.
The latest is former labor secretary under President Clinton, Robert Reich, who wrote a perfectly Orwellian column in the Guardian titled “Elon Musk’s vision for the internet is dangerous nonsense.” However, the column offers an insight into the anti-free speech mentality that has taken hold of the Democratic party and the mainstream media.
Musk is an advocate for free speech on the Internet. Like some of us, he is an Internet originalist. That makes him an existential threat for those who have long used “disinformation” as an excuse to silence dissenting views in the media and on social media.
Instagram and Snapchat Addiction Allegedly Led to 17-Year-Old Boy’s Suicide + More
Instagram and Snapchat Addiction Allegedly Led to 17-Year-Old Boy’s Suicide
Snapchat and Meta “knowingly and purposely” created harmful, addictive products that led to a 17-year-old boy’s tragic suicide, a new lawsuit alleges.
The suit, shared with Gizmodo and filed on behalf of Wisconsin teen Christopher J. Dawley by the Social Media Victim Law Center, seeks to hold the two companies accountable for contributing to what it describes as a“burgeoning mental health crisis” in children and teenagers in the U.S.
The suit claims Dawley’s January 2015 death by suicide was caused, in part, by his addiction to the “unreasonably dangerous and defective social media products” created by Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, and Snap Inc., owner of Snapchat.
Mask Mandate Extended for Air Travel and Public Transit Through May 3
Masks will continue to be required until at least May 3 when flying commercially and in other transportation settings, including on buses, ferries and subways, while health officials monitor an uptick in coronavirus cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.
“In order to assess the potential impact the rise of cases has on severe disease, including hospitalizations and deaths, and healthcare system capacity, the CDC Order will remain in place at this time,” the agency said in a statement.
The decision comes at a time when case counts have begun to rise in the Northeast as the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron takes hold and local mask mandates have been rolled back.
But the administration is also facing growing pressure to lift the mask requirement.
Delta Ends $200 Monthly Health Insurance Surcharge on Unvaccinated Employees After COVID Cases Drop
Delta Air Lines this month will end its $200 monthly surcharge on unvaccinated employees’ company health insurance, ending a pandemic policy designed to encourage staff to get inoculated against COVID-19.
CEO Ed Bastian announced the policy shift on a Wednesday call following the company’s quarterly earnings release.
Now Is Not the Time to Reinstate Mask Mandates
The city of Philadelphia reinstated its indoor mask mandate on Monday, citing an increase in daily COVID-19 cases driven by the highly contagious BA.2 Omicron subvariant. Though the uptick in cases is important to keep an eye on, I believe it was premature for the local government to reimpose a mask requirement. Other cities should not follow suit.
Less than two months ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention laid out new masking recommendations that changed the primary measurement from cases to hospitalizations and hospital capacity. To allow for more tailored guidance, the CDC also released an interactive map for people to look up the COVID-19 risk level where they live.
Philadelphia is still solidly in the low-risk zone. City officials, in explaining why they are not following CDC guidelines, have said that they want to get ahead of a potential surge. While acting out of abundance of caution is generally an admirable principle, there are three problems with this decision.
VTA’s Vaccine Mandate Looms. Hundreds May Lose Their Jobs.
For months, the Valley Transportation Authority lacked a COVID vaccination requirement, even as the virus surged and every other Bay Area transit agency cracked down. But now that cases have plummeted, it is about to implement a tough policy that could lead to the firing of hundreds of unvaccinated employees.
The latest tally provided by the VTA listed 379 employees — nearly 20% of the total workforce — without a single dose of the vaccine. Of these employees, 59 have received exemptions on medical and religious grounds. While some are expected to submit vaccination records this month, the rest face the possibility of losing their jobs in the coming weeks, a move that would exacerbate staffing shortages and could lead to cuts in light rail and bus service in Santa Clara County.
Bill Would Block COVID Vaccine Requirements in Louisiana
A key step the city of New Orleans took to prevent the spread of COVID-19 at the height of the pandemic would be prohibited under legislation approved Tuesday by a House committee.
The bill by Rep. Thomas Pressly, a Shreveport Republican, would prohibit state and local governments from requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination as a condition for entry into public places or private businesses. It was approved 12-5 by the Health and Welfare Committee. It goes next to the full House.
The committee also approved a resolution that would repeal a state health department rule that added the COVID-19 vaccine to the list of required vaccinations. The resolution, which goes next to the full House, would not be subject to veto.
FLASHBACK: Florida AG Slammed ‘Unsettling’ COVID Mandate Flip-Flops: ‘We Always Stood for Freedom’
After Philadelphia announced the city would reimpose an indoor mask mandate, NBC News’ senior medical correspondent Dr. John Torres praised the measure, noting that the decision indicated the “right amount of caution” to get coronavirus “under control.”
But, back in February, many major liberal media outlets, including NBC, rallied behind Democratic policies to drop mask mandates across the country and embrace a return to pre-pandemic life, despite previous criticism of Republican states promoting freedom from COVID-19 restrictions. Florida was one of the prime targets for Democrats and the media given the state’s pushback on mandates throughout the duration of the pandemic, which critics claimed endangered the lives of Floridians.
“The statements that some of these leaders have been saying. It’s time to give people their lives back. You never had the right to take them away in the first place. In Florida, we understood that,” Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said. The AG added that the government has no right to curtail people’s lives and inject themselves too deep into the free market, whether it be through lockdowns, business closures or other restrictive measures.
China Accuses U.S. of ‘Weaponizing’ Extended Shanghai Lockdown
China has lashed out at the United States for ordering its consulate staff to leave the locked-down city of Shanghai, accusing officials of “weaponizing” the financial hub’s failing attempt to contain the spread of COVID-19.
On Monday, the U.S. State Department “ordered” the departure of non-emergency employees and their families from the city of 25 million “due to a surge in COVID-19 cases and the impact of restrictions related to (China’s) response,” according to a statement on its website.
China’s most populous city has been laboring under a chaotic and uncompromising citywide lockdown for weeks, with many residents unable to access basic goods including food and medical care.
“We express strong dissatisfaction with the politicization and weaponization of evacuations by the U.S.,” China Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said, adding that the U.S. was “smearing China.”
Greece to Lift Most Remaining Coronavirus Measures
Greece’s health minister announced Wednesday that most remaining coronavirus measures will be lifted over the next couple of months until the end of August, including the use of vaccine certificates for access to certain services and the mandatory use of masks indoors.
Health Minister Thanos Plevris said the need for vaccine certificates or negative COVID-19 tests will be lifted from May 1 to Aug. 31 and would be re-evaluated on Sept. 1. The use of masks indoors will no longer be mandatory as of June 1, he said, adding that some exceptions will remain, with details to be announced.
The requirement for regular self-tests for students and teachers to attend schools will also be lifted on May 1, while any remaining restrictions on the number of people allowed into indoor areas will be lifted on the same day.
‘Something That’s Frightening’: Robert Epstein Warns Against Big Tech Manipulation
Robert Epstein has been researching and looking at how the biggest tech companies influence human behavior, and conducting extensive monitoring projects of bias in these companies’ products, with a particular focus on Google.
Epstein, a senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology in California, called his findings “frightening” because of the tech companies’ ability to manipulate and change people’s behavior on a global scale.
After conducting rigorous studies, spanning almost a decade, and managing to document ephemeral experiences of manipulation on Google and other companies’ platforms, Epstein said ephemeral experiences, such as a flashing newsfeed, a search result or a suggested video are the ideal form of manipulation because they aren’t recorded and are hard to document.
TikTok Will Rake in More Cash This Year Than Snap and Twitter Combined: Report
TikTok — the short video app that serves you everything from strange crate-based challenges to faked videos of the war in Ukraine — is quickly becoming a cash cow, according to a new report.
The platform’s global ad revenue is expected to triple by the end of this year, netting the company a projected $11.6 billion, outpacing Twitter — $5.58 billion and Snap Inc—$4.86 billion. A majority of the earnings — a whopping $6 billion — is will come from U.S. advertisers alone, the analysis from the analytics firm Insider Intelligence predicted.
On one hand, it makes perfect sense that advertisers would be pouring the big bucks into TikTok. In 2022, every major brand wants a piece of the multi-billion dollar Gen-Z market; and when those teens and tweens are hanging out on a certain platform — like, say, TikTok — advertisers are going to pump their money and messaging into that platform, ethical issues be damned.
What these new ad numbers say, in a way, is that advertisers have largely agreed to look past the dangerous viral challenges that run rampant on the platform, its potential national security risks, and any other scandal that’s rocked TikTok in recent memory — all for the sake of cornering the teenage market.
The Facebook Whistleblower Takes on the Metaverse
Frances Haugen sparked outrage last year when she released thousands of documents that exposed Facebook’s failure to act when confronted with its users’ harmful behavior. Now, the former Facebook product manager says she’s worried about how those values will translate into the so-called metaverse, which the company, rebranded as Meta, hopes to have a central role in building.
“They’ve made very grandiose promises about how there’s safety-by-design in the metaverse,” Haugen told me in an interview. “But if they don’t commit to transparency and access and other accountability measures, I can imagine just seeing a repeat of all the harms you currently see on Facebook.”
Sure, the metaverse is heavily hyped and little understood. But whatever this hybrid offline-virtual reality world eventually looks like, it’s going to rely on a whole lot of our personal data and a willingness to give some of the world’s largest tech companies access to the most intimate parts of our daily lives.