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‘It’s Causing Them to Drop Out of Life’: How Phones Warped Gen Z + More
‘It’s Causing Them to Drop Out of Life’: How Phones Warped Gen Z
It’s hard to believe sometimes that smartphones and social media haven’t been around forever — but for one generation, they have. Gen Z doesn’t know a time when they weren’t ubiquitous. This cohort also happens to be the generation with the worst mental health in America. Is that a coincidence?
The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has reams of data to argue it’s not. And in his new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, he is launching a shot at what he hopes will become a full-scale war against social media and smartphone use by kids and teens.
Through his research, which he also highlights on his Substack, “After Babel,” Haidt found that teen mental health has dramatically worsened after iPhone usage became widespread and Instagram was created. While he blames Instagram for causing the most initial damage of the new era — particularly in fueling declining mental health for girls — he now sees a new, graver threat. “TikTok is arguably the worst consumer product ever invented,” says Haidt, who’s a strong supporter of legislation targeting TikTok in Congress.
Without action — from parents, lawmakers, schools and tech companies — the youth mental health crisis will continue unabated, he warns. And there could be some unexpected political fallout. As Haidt puts it, with a growing sense of anxiety and dislocation, people may become more open to an authoritarian leader who promises to stop the chaos.
How COVID Lockdowns Hit Mental Health of Teenage Boys Hardest
Teenage boys were hit hardest by the COVID lockdowns, with their mental health failing to recover despite the return to normality, according to the most comprehensive academic study of its kind. Early research into how lockdowns affected children indicated that girls had suffered more significant mental health problems than boys.
However, a new study carried out by academics from three U.K. universities, published in the journal European Child + Adolescent Psychiatry, found that over the long term, teenage boys’ mental health was more adversely affected.
The academics found that while both sexes had an immediate decline in their mental health, boys then did not experience the natural improvement in mental well-being that usually comes with maturation as they move through the teenage years.
For those who were moving between primary and secondary school during the pandemic years, lockdowns also disrupted integration into new social groups and the chance to form friendships. For older teenagers, universities and colleges switched to virtual lectures and seminars, leaving new students unable to form bonds with others.
X Pledges $300K to Pay Legal Fees for Canadian Doctor Who Bucked COVID Vaccination Mandates
A Canadian doctor with a fast-approaching deadline to pay a $300,000 court judgment in a legal battle over lockdowns and vaccine mandates, received some help from the social media platform X, which offered to cover the cost.
Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill is a physician in Ontario, Canada who specializes in pediatrics and immunology. In the summer of 2020, she spoke out against the harms of lockdowns and vaccination mandates during the pandemic, using social media.
As a result, Gill became the target of a smear campaign, according to a crowdfunding page seeking assistance for the doctor, and the public was encouraged to file complaints about her.
Gill attempted to clear her name through legal proceedings against the people responsible for the campaign, but she lost and was ordered to pay $1.2 million in October 2022. She appealed the decision and was ordered to pay about $300,000 late last month, which is due tomorrow.
On Sunday, X announced it was stepping up to help Gill. “X is proud to help defend Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill against the government-supported efforts to cancel her speech,” the social media platform wrote. The post continued to explain Gill’s situation, saying she spoke out publicly on Twitter (now X) in opposition to her government’s lockdown efforts and vaccination mandates.
U.S. House Funding Bill Passes After Anti-Censorship, Anti-CBDC Measures Are Removed
A $1.2 trillion spending bill just rushed through the House of Representatives in the U.S. has enabled the allocation of funding to what would have been prohibited recipients/policies. This includes earmarking money in support of censorship efforts, a U.S. CBDC (central bank digital currency), and vaccine mandates, among other things.
In a series of posts on X, Representative Andrew Clyde singled out examples from the 1,000+ page document, which was published early on Thursday giving members of the House less than 24 hours to decide on how to vote.
Clyde was one of the Republicans who held no punches in slamming the bill as a result of backroom deals, saying that what he referred to as “the Swamp” (i.e., Washington) is about to bankroll some “catastrophic policies” with huge amounts of money.
And last but not least, according to the congressman, the spending bill “surrendered a provision that would have prohibited the Treasury Department from establishing a U.S. CBDC or discontinuing paper currency.”
2024 May Be the Year Online Disinformation Finally Gets the Better of Us
2024 isn’t any old year for politics. It may well be the year for politics. And when the dust eventually settles after what will no doubt be a tumultuous year, we will look back and ask the question: How on earth did we get here? Yes, 2024 may be the year for politics, but in this newborn age of generative AI, it may also be the year online disinformation finally gets the better of us.
Whichever way the political winds blow this year, make no mistake — the outcomes of these elections will have a deep impact on the trajectory of not just each nation’s future but on the world’s.
And at this time when politics has never felt more precarious, the same can be said for technology. Never before have AI-powered tools been more sophisticated, widespread and accessible to the public.
Generative AI, in its broadest sense, refers to deep learning models that can generate sophisticated text, video, audio, images and other content based on the data they were trained on. And the recent introduction of these tools into the mainstream — including language models and image creators — has made the creation of fake or misleading content incredibly easy, even for those with the most basic tech skills.
Louisiana Debates Civil Liability Over COVID Vaccine Mandates, or the Lack Thereof
Three years after COVID-19 vaccines became widely available in the United States, Louisiana continues to debate policies related to inoculation mandates, including civil liabilities if a workplace mandates vaccines or not and a bill that would prohibit schools from requiring students to receive the vaccine.
The ongoing debates, which are often marred by anti-vaccination rhetoric, come on the cusp of relaxed guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and COVID-19 no longer being the public health menace it once was. This legislative session, Louisiana lawmakers’ conversations on COVID-19 vaccines have broadened to also apply to “experimental or emergency use vaccinations” for fear of future pandemics.
Louisiana’s GOP-controlled House passed a bill Wednesday that protects businesses from being sued because they don’t mandate “experimental or emergency use vaccines” including COVID-19 shots.
Lawmakers Discuss Bill to Outlaw COVID Vaccine Mandates
Over the past three years, millions of Kentuckians have received COVID-19 vaccinations. In some cases, it was to fulfill a requirement to attend school or work.
However, there is now a push to make those mandates a thing of the past.
“It is just unnecessary right now and the data is starting to show, very clearly, there’s no reason to require this vaccine,” said Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, R-Smithfield.
Sen. Tichenor says COVID-19 vaccination mandates led to some making a difficult decision that she said was unjust.
Ron DeSantis Signs Bill Requiring Parental Consent for Kids Under 16 to Hold Social Media Accounts
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) just signed into law HB 3, a bill that will give parents of teens under 16 more control over their kids’ access to social media and require age verification for many websites.
The bill requires social media platforms to prevent kids under 14 from creating accounts and delete existing ones. It also requires parent or guardian consent for 14- and 15-year-olds to create or maintain social media accounts and mandates that platforms delete social media accounts and personal information for this age group at the teen’s or parent’s request.
Companies that fail to promptly delete accounts belonging to 14- and 15-year-olds can be sued on behalf of those kids and may owe them up to $10,000 in damages each. A “knowing or reckless” violation could also be considered an unfair or deceptive trade practice, subject to up to $50,000 in civil penalties per violation.
The bill also requires many commercial apps and websites to verify their users’ ages — something that introduces a host of privacy concerns. But it does require websites to give users the option of “anonymous age verification,” which is defined as verification by a third party that cannot retain identifying information after the task is complete. The requirement kicks in when a commercial site contains a “substantial portion of material harmful to minors,” defined as more than a third of content on the site, which would clearly target porn sites in particular. Such sites must ensure users are 18 or older — though news sites are exempt from the requirement. Violations are also subject to an up to $50,000 civil penalty each.
Who Pays When AI Steers Your Doctor Wrong?
Doctors using new artificial intelligence tools to help them diagnose and treat their patients say they wish Congress would provide some clarity on a big unanswered question: Who pays if AI makes a mistake?
Advancements in AI promise to improve care, but only if doctors trust the systems and are protected from liability, according to the country’s leading physicians’ group, the American Medical Association.
At stake is more than just millions in medical malpractice payouts, over a dozen health, legal and tech leaders told POLITICO. Judges, lawmakers and regulators are shaping what a medical system infused with artificial intelligence owes patients, both in terms of quality care and the right to recompense if something goes wrong.
It won’t happen without a fight. Health tech companies and some hospitals say that doctors making the final call in care are ultimately responsible for their decisions.
Apple, Google and Meta Are Failing DMA Compliance, EU Suspects
Not even three weeks after the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) took effect, the European Commission (EC) announced Monday that it is already probing three out of six gatekeepers — Apple, Google and Meta — for suspected non-compliance.
Apple will need to prove that changes to its app store and existing user options to swap out default settings easily are sufficient to comply with the DMA.
Similarly, Google’s app store rules will be probed, as well as any potentially shady practices unfairly preferencing its own services — like Google Shopping and Hotels — in search results.
Finally, Meta’s “Subscription for No Ads” option — allowing Facebook and Instagram users to opt out of personalized ad targeting for a monthly fee—may not fly under the DMA. Even if Meta follows through on its recent offer to slash these fees by nearly 50%, the model could be deemed non-compliant.
In total, the EC announced five investigations: two against Apple, two against Google and one against Meta.
Newly Released Emails Show Biden White House Officials Met With and Communicated With Pro-Censorship Group + More
Newly Released Emails Show Biden White House Officials Met With and Communicated With Pro-Censorship Group
America First Legal (AFL) has published emails revealing more ties between the Biden White House and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) — a controversial group originally based in the U.K. that’s believed to be involved in censorship pressure around the world.
The emails originate in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of State and refer to using U.S. assets designed to counter domestic terrorism to work with CCDH, the non-profit has announced.
AFL — which positions itself as a counterpoint to ACLU — has filed several lawsuits concerning various government bodies’ involvement in collusion with private tech companies, aimed at promoting censorship.
AFL now notes that the Biden administration from the very beginning of the current president’s mandate “embraced” various initiatives leading to curtailing speech, and to censorship, and was not shy to enlist the national security apparatus, either.
Some of the Most Popular Websites Share Your Data With Over 1,500 Companies
Everywhere you go online, you’re being tracked. Almost every time you visit a website, trackers gather data about your browsing and funnel it back into targeted advertising systems, which build up detailed profiles about your interests and make big profits in the process. In some places, you’re tracked more than others.
In a little-noticed change at the end of last year, thousands of websites started being more transparent about how many companies your data is being shared with. In November, those infuriating cookie pop-ups — which ask your permission to collect and share data — began sharing how many advertising “partners” each website is working with, giving a further glimpse of the sprawling advertising ecosystem. For many sites, it’s not pretty.
A WIRED analysis of the top 10,000 most popular websites shows dozens of sites say they are sharing data with more than 1,000 companies, while thousands of other websites are sharing data with hundreds of firms. Quiz and puzzle website JetPunk tops the pile, listing 1,809 “partners” that may collect personal information, including “browsing behavior or unique IDs.”
Louisiana House Rejects Anti-Vax Bill After Business Lobby Opposes It
Louisiana Illuminator reported:
Louisiana lawmakers rejected a bill to open businesses and schools that require certain vaccines to civil liability after a powerful lobbying group came out against it.
House Bill 87, by Rep. Mike Echols, R-Monroe, would have allowed employees and students required to receive COVID-19 or other vaccines with emergency use authorization to sue if they are injured as a result of the vaccination. Echols’ bill failed on a narrow 51-50 vote, just two votes short of approval. Echols said he intends to bring the bill back for another vote this session.
His proposal was opposed by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI), a powerful lobbying organization that represents business interests.
Echols, who consistently voted with LABI in the previous term, said he didn’t believe the bill was anti-business. He is not opposed to vaccinations but said he didn’t believe people should be forced to get them.
House Passes Privacy Bill Banning Data Brokers From Selling Your Info to Russia and China
The U.S. House passed a bill that would ban third-party data brokers from selling the user data of Americans to geopolitical adversaries like China and Russia. And while it still needs to pass the Senate to become law, it’s a step in the right direction as recent headlines mostly focus on a potential ban on TikTok in the U.S.
The Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act, H.R. 7520, passed unanimously on Wednesday, 414-0, and would ban data brokers from selling or disclosing the private information of Americans to any foreign adversary or “any entity of a foreign adversary.”
However, the bill is narrowly targeted and only applies to third-party data brokers. The legislation doesn’t ban American tech companies like Meta, Apple, or X from doing almost anything they want with the data they collect on users. The ban is also on data brokers sharing “sensitive information,” which includes stuff like genetics info, precise geolocation data, and private communications like emails and texts.
As Politico notes, the fate of this new data privacy legislation is uncertain in the Senate, which also has to decide whether it will take up the bill to force ByteDance to divest itself of TikTok. The bill would force TikTok to shut down if the Chinese parent company couldn’t or wasn’t willing to sell. Notably, the new unanimous House bill passed on Wednesday with a much more united front than the so-called TikTok ban bill, which passed the House last week 352-65.
Majority Supports Banning Kids From Social Media and Using Smartphones in School: Poll
A clear majority of Americans support banning children from using social media until they are over 16 years old, according to a new poll.
The Wednesday poll from Grinnell College found that 55% of U.S. adults favor such a ban. Support for the move spiked to 65% among Americans who have children under 18 years old in the home.
Another 57% say they would support fully banning smartphones in schools, and 52% say parents should be allowed to sue social media companies for content that harmed their children.
Grinnell College conducted the poll alongside Selzer & Company, surveying 1,005 U.S. adults from March 11-17.
FBI Resumes Outreach to Social Media Companies Over Foreign Propaganda
The FBI has resumed some of its efforts to share information with some American tech companies about foreign propagandists using their platforms after it ceased contact for more than half a year, multiple people familiar with the matter told NBC News.
The program, established during the Trump administration, briefed tech giants like Microsoft, Google and Meta when the U.S. intelligence community found evidence of covert influence operations using their products to mislead Americans.
It was put on hold this summer in the wake of a lawsuit that accused the U.S. government of improperly pressuring tech companies about how to moderate their sites and an aggressive inquisition from the House Judiciary Committee and its chair, Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
The lawsuit, filed by the Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri, awaits a ruling from the Supreme Court. A majority of justices appeared skeptical of the suit when they heard its claims, and the court is scheduled to rule on the suit at the end of June.
The Supreme Court Can Dismantle the Censorship-Industrial Complex
As the modern marketplace of ideas, Big Tech platforms are ground zero for government-coerced suppression of political speech. This is why fair and free elections will be in danger if the Supreme Court does not immediately put a stop to self-interested government bureaucrats pressuring social media platforms to censor Americans’ speech online.
President Biden, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and the far left justify government participation in censorship by scaring people with nebulous and indefinite bogeymen. They cite “misinformation,” the supposed influence of foreign actors, conspiracy theories, a never-ending pandemic and the like.
They claim to be protecting democracy. But if the last few years have taught us anything, it is that they themselves are the primary threat from which we need protection, not ordinary people’s free expression of ideas.
Two cases — one that was argued before the Supreme Court on Mar. 18, and one that the court could choose to take up — could dictate just how far the government may go in “protecting” us at the expense of our fundamental right to decide for ourselves what information is worth believing. The court has a chance to make it clear that our freedoms cannot be so easily crushed by those in power.
Senate Probe Examines High-Risk Biotech Research
Senators are launching an investigation of national security threats posed by high-risk biological research amid intensifying concern over U.S.-China biotech competition and lingering questions about COVID‘s origins.
Why it matters: The probe by the top lawmakers on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee could help fuel a push for new restrictions on Chinese contract research firms like WuXi AppTec that critics say are tied to Beijing and pose a security risk.
But it’s also certain to reveal partisan divisions, with ranking Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky likely to highlight what he contends are Biden administration efforts to conceal information on the coronavirus.
Driving the news: Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Paul on Wednesday said they’d focus hearings and oversight on high-risk life science research, biodefense, synthetic biology, biosafety and biosecurity lapses.
Between the lines: Peters is emphasizing the need to minimize the risk that developments in the life sciences like CRISPR gene editing can be manipulated by bad actors.
The UN Adopts a Resolution Backing Efforts to Ensure Artificial Intelligence Is Safe
The General Assembly approved the first United Nations resolution on artificial intelligence Thursday, giving global support to an international effort to ensure the powerful new technology benefits all nations, respects human rights and is “safe, secure and trustworthy.”
The resolution, sponsored by the United States, was adopted by consensus with a bang of the gavel and without a vote, meaning it has the support of all 193 U.N. member nations.
U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said earlier this month that adoption of the resolution would be a “historic step forward” in fostering the safe use of AI.
The resolution recognizes the rapid acceleration of AI development and use and stresses “the urgency of achieving global consensus on safe, secure and trustworthy artificial intelligence systems.” It also recognizes that “the governance of artificial intelligence systems is an evolving area” that needs further discussions on possible governance approaches.
California Lawmakers Push Online ID Verification Bill That Would Require Platforms to ID ‘Users With Large Audiences’
The presidential election fever in the U.S. is rising, and from pretty much every corner its participants are trying to “stack the chips” in their (candidate’s) favor.
With that in mind, never discount California Democrats, and now Alejandro (Alex) Padilla is attempting to charge ahead with “election misinformation” legislation.
Despite what was implied (and by and large refuted) regarding Big Tech platforms’ role and influence in 2016, now the accent is on the suspected negative role of AI, presented as fact — and now Padilla and “partners” apparently want that to be written in law.
In particular, “users with large audiences or spreading large amounts of AI-generated content” would have to operate with user IDs, according to the line ID verification bill (SB 1228).
Overwhelming Majority of Americans Support Legislation That Would Force Chinese Divestment From TikTok, New Survey Finds
A new poll found that more than two-thirds of Americans, a whopping 68%, agree with legislation forcing ByteDance, which is controlled by the Chinese Communist government, to sell its stake in TikTok. That legislation has been passed by the GOP-controlled House and is waiting for Senate passage.
The poll, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and released by America 2100, also found that 73% of Republicans agreed with the legislation as well as 64% of Democrats and 65% of independents. Seventy-five percent of Trump voters and 67% of Biden voters also agree, and in a telling statistic, 56% of TikTok users echo the sentiment.
On March 13, the House passed a bill that could lead to a ban on TikTok unless ByteDance divested in the popular social media app.
Apple, Google to Be Hit by First Probes Under EU Digital Law
Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google are set to face full-blown European Union investigations into their compliance with a new law reining in the power of Big Tech, paving the way for potentially hefty fines.
The European Commission is gearing up to announce probes into the firms under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act in the coming days, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Feds Can Film Your Front Porch for 68 Days Without a Warrant, Says Court + More
The Feds Can Film Your Front Porch for 68 Days Without a Warrant, Says Court
Law enforcement in Kansas recorded the front of a man’s home for 68 days straight, 15 hours a day, and obtained evidence to prove him guilty on 16 charges. The officers did not have a search warrant, using a camera on a pole positioned across the street to capture Bruce Hay’s home. A federal court ruled on Tuesday that it was fine for law enforcement to do so, in what’s potentially a major reduction in privacy law.
“Mr. Hay had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a view of the front of his house,” said the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in its decision on U.S. vs Hay. “As video cameras proliferate throughout society, regrettably, the reasonable expectation of privacy from filming is diminished.”
The federal court’s decision says that video cameras have become “ubiquitous,” and have therefore diminished our expectations of privacy. Police officers wear body cameras now, cellphones have cameras, and many doorbells record your porch. The court isn’t wrong that cameras are everywhere.
U.S. vs Hay sets a precedent around how cameras can be used by law enforcement. It clearly defines what federal agents can record, and also what is considered a “reasonable expectation of privacy.” According to this case, the front of your home is not private at all.
U.S. Warns Hackers Are Carrying Out Attacks on Water Systems
The U.S. government is warning state governors that foreign hackers are carrying out disruptive cyberattacks against water and sewage systems throughout the country.
In a letter released Tuesday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan warned that “disabling cyberattacks are striking water and wastewater systems throughout the United States.”
“These attacks have the potential to disrupt the critical lifeline of clean and safe drinking water, as well as impose significant costs on affected communities,” the letter said.
The digital safety of water and sewage plants has long been a concern for cybersecurity professionals because the facilities provide a critical service and can often be lightly defended. Last year’s intrusion at a booster facility — which monitors and regulates water pressure — in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania drew particular attention, in part because the stricken controller was replaced with a message saying: “YOU HAVE BEEN HACKED.”
Judge Denies Apple’s Attempt to Dismiss a Class-Action Lawsuit Over AirTag Stalking
A judge has denied Apple‘s motion to dismiss a class-action lawsuit claiming that stalkers are using its AirTag devices to track victims — and that the tech giant hasn’t done enough to prevent them.
Apple’s $29 AirTags have become popular items since their 2021 release, helping users keep tabs on the location of anything from their lost keys to wallets and luggage. But stalkers have also taken advantage of AirTags and similar products to follow individuals without their consent.
In December 2022, Apple was sued by dozens of plaintiffs who said they were stalked by AirTag users. They alleged that Apple failed to mitigate such dangers and should have done more to protect victims — claiming AirTags ”revolutionized the scope, breadth, and ease of location-based stalking” and that current safety features are inadequate.
Biometric Ticketing to Start Opening Day for Phillies at All Stadium Entrances
The Philadelphia Phillies are promoting facial recognition ticketing to all of the main entrance gates at Citizens Bank Park following a successful debut as a pilot project last year.
Major League Baseball is introducing its Go-Ahead Entry program, a top prospect in biometric ticketing and access control, to all stadiums league-wide during the 2024 season.
Fans submit a selfie through the MLB Ballpark app and enter at gates where Go-Ahead Entry is implemented without showing a ticket or their phone. The service was first deployed to the first base gate at Citizens’ last year and expanded to the third base gate during the season.
In addition to the Phillies, the Houston Astros, the San Francisco Giants and one other team will have the biometric ticketing system in place by opening day. The Giants have deployed Go-Ahead Entry at the Lefty O’Doul and 2nd and King gates.
The Supreme Court Looks Unlikely to Overhaul Online Speech After All
In the past year, the Supreme Court has tackled four sets of cases that raised pivotal questions about online speech. Together, the cases once appeared to have the potential to dramatically reshape the legal landscape around social media and reinterpret the First Amendment for the digital age.
With Monday’s oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri, the court has now heard all four. Given that the court has yet to rule on two of them, it would be premature to draw firm conclusions. Still, close observers are starting to sense how the justices are thinking about social media in relation to the First Amendment. The Tech 202 talked with three legal experts who’ve been following the cases to get their takeaways.
When the court last year took up a pair of cases that appeared to threaten Section 230, the social media industry’s prized liability shield, many wondered if “they were going to come in with a sledgehammer” and rewrite the rules of the internet, said Evelyn Douek, a professor at Stanford Law School. But from early in those arguments, it became clear that a majority of the justices were wary of blundering into uncharted territory.
In those cases, Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google, the court ruled for the tech companies and sidestepped Section 230 altogether, largely maintaining the status quo. They’ve continued to tread carefully in the subsequent cases, Douek said, appearing “more interested in trying to find a scalpel and proceed more cautiously.”
French Competition Watchdog Hits Google With 250 Million Euro Fine
France’s competition watchdog on Wednesday said it fined Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O) 250 million euros ($271.73 million) for breaches linked to EU intellectual property rules in its relationship with media publishers, citing concerns about the company’s AI service.
The watchdog said Google’s AI-powered chatbot Bard — since rebranded under the name Gemini — was trained on content from publishers and news agencies, without notifying them.
Four Years on, COVID Damage Remains While Fauci & Co. Pay No Price + More
Four Years on, COVID Damage Remains While Fauci & Co. Pay No Price
We just passed the fourth anniversary of “15 Days to Slow the Spread,” the start of the COVID lockdowns that did damage from which we still haven’t recovered.
I’m embarrassed to admit I fell for it. I was a COVID hawk in the early days. It seemed right at the time. Sure, Anthony Fauci, Nancy Pelosi and Bill de Blasio were telling us not to worry, to take cruises and go visit Chinatown, but I lacked confidence in them. (Hey, I was right about that.) They reversed course like a week later.
It turned out, of course, that COVID’s mortality rate was significantly less than one-tenth of those early reports, and those deaths were mostly concentrated among the obese, the elderly and those with heart failure and diabetes. (And the deaths often resulted from too-aggressive use of ventilators, which are themselves quite dangerous.)
Neither the lockdowns nor the masking requirements did any good, though they caused a lot of trauma, inconvenience and colossal economic destruction.
Louisiana House Committee OKs Bill to Expand Liability for COVID Vaccine Mandates
Louisiana Illuminator reported:
The Louisiana House Committee on Civil Law and Procedure advanced a bill Monday that would allow businesses and public entities that require the COVID-19 vaccine to be sued.
House Bill 87, by Rep. Mike Echols, R-Monroe, would allow those required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to attend school or work to sue if they are injured as a result of the vaccination.
The language in Echols’s bill is extremely broad and could be used to seek financial remedy for a variety of harms. Echols said this was by design, as he hoped the bill would discourage vaccine mandates.
In presenting his bill, Echols made multiple references to the “tyrannical government” during the COVID-19 pandemic. “For the last three years, there has been no consequence for people to jam government down our throats,” Echols said.
Powerful New AI Can Predict People’s Attitudes to Vaccines
University of Cincinnati reported:
A powerful new tool in artificial intelligence is able to predict whether someone is willing to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The predictive system uses a small set of data from demographics and personal judgments such as aversion to risk or loss.
The findings frame a new technology that could have broad applications for predicting mental health and result in more effective public health campaigns.
A team led by researchers at the University of Cincinnati and Northwestern University created a predictive model using an integrated system of mathematical equations describing the lawful patterns in reward and aversion judgment with machine learning.
“COVID-19 is unlikely to be the last pandemic we see in the next decades,” said lead author Nicole Vike, a senior research associate in UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science. “Having a new form of AI for prediction in public health provides a valuable tool that could help prepare hospitals for predicting vaccination rates and consequential infection rates.”
The study was published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research Public Health and Surveillance.
EU Passes the AI Act — a Law Accused of Legalizing Biometric Mass Surveillance in Europe
The European Parliament (EP) has passed the AI Act, a piece of legislation that started to be drafted back in 2021 as a way to prevent mass surveillance based on biometrics — but has now in fact promoted this practice into law.
And it’s a law that will enter into force this May after receiving a “blessing” from the Council of the EU, to then be implemented starting in 2025.
The EU for its part announced the adoption of the AI Act as a “landmark” event, and touts it as providing safeguards regarding AI’s “general purpose,” as well as “limiting the use of identification systems by law enforcement.”
However, members of the EP (MEPs) from the Pirate parties could not disagree more and have voted against it.
They assert that the drafting of the AI Act was accompanied by trilogue negotiations (between the EP, the European Commission, and the Council of the EU) that were not transparent enough, and resulted in changes to the original idea that now “effectively allows law enforcement the introduction of error-prone facial surveillance and facial recognition camera software in public spaces,” as MEP Patrick Breyer stated on his blog.
Technocracy Is Constructing AI-Powered Control Grid to End Freedom
Leo Hohmann explores censorship, banking, and AI, but it is much bigger than that. Technocracy seeks to take over the entire planet. The late Rosa Koire saw it as “the blueprint, the comprehensive plan of action for the 21st century to inventory and control all land, all water, all plants, all minerals, all animals, all construction, all means of production, all energy, all law enforcement, all health care, all food, all education, all information, and all human beings in the world.”
I have clearly detailed every aspect of Technocracy and the Technocrat mind behind it. Why can’t people see this clear present danger? It is because of conditioning to look elsewhere and massive censorship of the truth. The result will see civilization cratering off the cliff like a herd of lemmings.
For more than five years now, journalists and citizen journalists alike have seen Big Tech censor and bury their work behind unfavorable algorithms. Some have even been banned or suspended from social media platforms.
But now the globalists are taking their war against the truth to a new level. They are going for the kill shots by having journalists and citizen truthtellers actually arrested and removed from society altogether.
New COVID-Like Outbreak ‘Matter of When, Not if,’ WHO Director Warns as Scientists Race to Prepare Using Artificial Intelligence
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus is sounding the alarm, warning that “the world is not prepared for a pandemic.” His argument that it’s a “matter of when not if” a new pandemic will strike sounds similar to billionaire Bill Gates’s recent public concerns that “we’re making the same mistakes again” by failing to adequately prepare.
No one can be sure what exactly the next pandemic will be caused by. “It may be caused by an influenza virus or a new coronavirus or a new pathogen we don’t even know about yet — what we call Disease X,” Ghebreyesus said.
While multiple companies were able to roll out vaccines at record speed during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers are using breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) to further speed up future vaccine developments against Disease X.
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations is providing up to $4.98 million to the Houston Methodist Research Institute to use AI to do just that. They aim to use AI to analyze the structures of potential viruses that may be the eventual Disease X and then identify specific parts of their proteins that cause an immune response. For now, their efforts focus on viruses such as Nipah and Lassa, but regardless, their goal is to get the time to develop a vaccine against a pandemic down to just 100 days.
Takeaways From the Supreme Court’s Oral Arguments Over Social Media Censorship
The Supreme Court on Monday appeared deeply skeptical of arguments by two conservative states that the First Amendment bars the government from pressuring social media platforms to remove online misinformation.
In more than 90 minutes of oral arguments that occasionally veered into the justices’ personal frustrations with the press, several conservative justices sided with the liberal wing in appearing to doubt claims by two states that the Biden administration violated the Constitution with the practice.
Louisiana and Missouri accused the Biden administration of a sweeping censorship campaign conducted through emails and other communications with social media platforms.
In the communications, government officials routinely used expletives and other strong language to flag posts related to COVID-19 and the 2020 election that they believed violated the platforms’ terms and demanded the posts be removed. In some cases, platforms complied with the takedown requests. Others were ignored.
North Carolina Labor Chief Rejects Infectious Disease Rule Petitions for Workplaces
North Carolina’s elected labor commissioner has declined to adopt rules sought by worker and civil rights groups that would have set safety and masking directives in workplaces for future infectious disease outbreaks like COVID-19.
Commissioner Josh Dobson, a Republican, announced Wednesday that his refusal came “after carefully reviewing the rulemaking petitions, the record, public comments, listening to both sides and considering the North Carolina Department of Labor’s statutory authority.”
The rules would have applied to any airborne infectious disease designated as presenting a public health emergency by the governor, General Assembly or other state or federal agencies. Rules would have required some North Carolina employers to create a written exposure control plan. Some exposure controls include requiring employees to maintain physical distance — following public health agency recommendations — or to wear a face mask if that was not possible.
Gensler’s Warning: Unchecked AI Could Spark Future Financial Meltdown
A growing dependence on artificial intelligence could pose a danger to the U.S. financial system, and regulators need to rethink their siloed approach to rulemaking to minimize the risk, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler said.
The SEC and other Washington regulators are grappling with the rise of powerful AI systems that can augment or replace human decision-making. But in the financial industry — where banks, brokers and investment firms oversee trillions of dollars — the potential for economic disaster is especially acute, Gensler said.
In an interview on the POLITICO Tech podcast, Gensler described a doomsday scenario in which many of the country’s big financial institutions rely on a small number of AI algorithms to make investment decisions — creating a vulnerability that regulators could miss by focusing on only a sliver of the sector.