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Murthy Wounds, but Doesn’t Kill, Free Speech on Social Media + More
Murthy Wounds, but Doesn’t Kill, Free Speech on Social Media
The Wall Street Journal reported:
The Supreme Court’s Wednesday ruling in Murthy v. Missouri is being touted as a vindication of the Biden administration’s highly successful efforts to induce social media platforms to censor disfavored speech. The ruling is no such thing. The court’s opinion was based solely on standing, leaving the door wide open for other parties, with firmer standing, to continue the fight.
And the three justices who reached the merits found that the First Amendment had very likely been violated.
In Murthy, two states and five individuals sued the federal government for pressuring and colluding with Facebook, YouTube and other giant social media platforms to suppress protected speech. Discovery in the case, together with independent investigations such as the Twitter Files, revealed a yearslong multiagency federal effort to induce the platforms to censor specific individuals, facts and opinions the government didn’t want people to hear.
While the censored content was invariably described as “misinformation,” it included wholly accurate reporting as well as legitimate opinions, such as the original Hunter Biden laptop story and assertions that COVID might have originated in a Chinese lab.
House Hearing Exposes Biden FDA ‘Politicization,’ Fallout of Rushed COVID Vaccine Approval for Kids, Military
A House Judiciary subcommittee hearing Wednesday addressing the “politicization” of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during the pandemic exposed how the Biden administration allegedly pressured medical professionals to expedite the COVID-19 vaccine for children before enough testing was completed to confirm or deny its safety.
At the onset of the subcommittee hearing, “Follow the Science?: Oversight of the Biden COVID-19 Administrative State Response,” Chairman Thomas Massie, R-Ky., read from past testimony of Dr. Marion Gruber, the former director of the FDA’s vaccine office, regarding conversations she had with Dr. Peter Marks, the agency’s top vaccine regulator, about the efficacy of the COVID vaccine in children. Massie said Gruber expressed a need for more trial testing in the pediatric population, specifically among males ages 12 to 17, but Marks allegedly pushed to further compress the schedule to license the vaccines so they could be mandated.
“Right when they were getting the warnings that myocarditis and pericarditis are real and serious side effects to the vaccine, the top scientists at FDA had already agreed to compress the schedule as much as possible, right when they got the message that there were serious side effects,” Massie said. “And Peter Marks, instead of telling them, ‘We’re going to give you more time to study this,’ he told them to compress the schedule even more.
“And when they said that compressing the schedule was not possible, he fired them. He took them off the job, he assigned them to other duties. The top vaccine officials who had been there for 30 years, taken off the job because they wanted more time to study the effects of the vaccines. And they were told they needed to do this quickly because they needed to be mandated.
“The Biden administration was mandating the vaccine on the military and young people going to school despite a lack of testing and data, despite growing reports of vaccine injuries. This kind of decision made by the administrative state is concerning. The FDA should not have approved a vaccine for children, EOA or otherwise, without proper testing. Injury from COVID vaccination is real.”
As Mind-Reading Technology Improves, Colorado Passes First-in-Nation Law to Protect Privacy of Our Thoughts
If you think telepathy or mind control is the stuff of science fiction, think again. Advances in artificial intelligence are leading to medical breakthroughs once thought impossible, including devices that can actually read minds and alter our brains.
Dr. Sean Pauzauskie, a Neurologist at UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital, says there are now about 30 neurotechnology devices for sale on the internet, including Emotiv, which he says is the first commercial-grade brain-to-computer interface, “Anything you want to do, you can move your computer with your mind, and you can control it with your mind using this device.”
The commercial devices are marketed for wellness, so they’re not regulated by the FDA, but Pauzauskie says the ones he’s tested do what they say they do. If the at-home technology is impressive, the devices being used in the lab are even more so. Elon Musk has developed an implantable chip that also allows a person to move a computer cursor with their thoughts. Apple, Meta, and Open-AI are also working on neurotechnology devices.
While medical research facilities are subject to privacy laws, private companies — that are amassing large caches of brain data — are not. Based on a study by The Neurorights Foundation, two-thirds of them are already sharing or selling the data with third parties. The vast majority of them also don’t disclose where the data is stored, how long they keep it, who has access to it, and what happens if there’s a security breach.
This is why Pauzauskie, Medical Director of The Neurorights Foundation, led the passage of a first-in-the-nation law in Colorado. It includes biological or brain data in the State Privacy Act, similar to fingerprints if the data is being used to identify people.
Advocates Blast House for Holding Kids Online Safety Act ‘Hostage’
Advocates pushing for social media regulations to keep kids safe online blasted the House for canceling a Thursday markup of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) amid opposition to a separate data privacy bill also slated to be considered. A House Energy and Commerce Committee markup of 11 bills, including KOSA and the American Privacy Rights Act, was canceled Thursday shortly before it was scheduled to begin after House Republican leaders strongly resisted the privacy bill.
Child online safety advocates slammed the decision to cancel the markup and said Congress should take action on KOSA separate from other tech bills, including the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA).
The bill would require companies to limit access or allow minors to opt out of certain features, like automatic video playing and algorithmic recommendations, and also legally obligate the platforms to prevent the promotion of content about certain topics, such as suicide, eating disorders and self-harm.
Danny Weiss, chief advocacy officer for the advocacy group Common Sense Media, also slammed the House committee for holding KOSA “hostage” over their failure to pass a data privacy bill and urged Congress to act on the bill without consideration of other legislation.
‘Like Dealing With Big Tobacco in the 70s’: Meta Denies Teen Problems
The Sydney Morning Herald reported:
Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has denied that teenagers’ use of social media has contributed to steep rises in mental health and body image disorders.
In tense questioning at a parliamentary hearing, global Meta executives confirmed reports in this masthead that the company was considering taking news links off its platforms if the federal government used its laws to force Meta to pay for Australian journalism.
Coalition MP Andrew Wallace, a long-time advocate for social media controls, said he had been dealing with Meta executives for nearly a decade and their behavior was similar to “dealing with Big Tobacco in the 1970s.”
North Carolina’s Restrictions on Public Mask-Wearing Are Now Law After Some Key Revisions
North Carolina’s contentious restrictions on public mask-wearing became law on Thursday after GOP lawmakers successfully overrode a veto by the state’s Democratic governor. The Senate gave its final stamp of approval in a 30-14 override vote along party lines. The state House initiated the process Wednesday when it voted to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto during a lengthy session that lasted well into the night.
The ban joins a list of more than 20 gubernatorial vetoes the GOP-dominated North Carolina General Assembly has overridden in the past year. Republicans hold narrow supermajorities in both chambers.
The law, most of which goes into effect immediately, contains different language from the bill that lawmakers first introduced this session. The original proposal had removed a 2020 bipartisan regulation put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic that allowed masking for health reasons, prompting pushback from the public and some Democratic legislators. The lawmakers restored a medical exemption.
The law allows people to wear medical or surgical-grade masks in public to prevent the spread of illness. Law enforcement and property owners can ask people to temporarily remove those masks to verify their identity.
Mall of America Arms Itself With Facial Recognition Tech, Sparking Fears Over Surveillance
In an effort to boost its security, the Mall of America has partnered with Corsight AI, which provides facial recognition systems to detect trespassers, threats, and missing persons.
The shopping mall installed surveillance cameras capable of scanning people’s faces in real-time and matching them with the database of persons of interest (POI) — individuals deemed by law enforcement as dangerous or missing or banned by the mall itself.
Facial recognition technology in public spaces is a controversial issue as it is known to be more biased toward people of color. The technology has mistakenly identified people as shoplifters and even led to wrongful arrests. And that’s just on top of the fact that they erode privacy and normalize surveillance.
In a statement to the press, the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Minnesota, emphasized that facial recognition algorithms might have “much higher rates of false positives for black men than white men.”
“Thousands of Minnesotans and Americans visit MOA [Mall of America] and this technology could lead to greater data harvesting where your image could be added to unknown databases. Remember that in order to catch the “bad guys” with facial recognition, you need to surveil everyone. This wholesale search and tracking without probable cause or consent poses a threat to some of our most fundamental civil liberties,” they said.
Google Is Testing Facial Recognition Technology for Campus Security, Starting at Site Near Seattle
Google is testing facial recognition technology for office security “to help prevent unauthorized individuals from gaining access to our campuses,” according to a description of the program that was viewed by CNBC.
At the Kirkland testing site, people entering the building will not be able to opt out of the facial screening. However, the document says the data is “strictly for immediate use and not stored,” and that employees can opt out of having their ID images stored by filling out a form. Google told CNBC that while ID badge photos were part of the test, they won’t be used going forward.
The Kirkland test lands at a sensitive moment for Google, which is at the center of the artificial intelligence boom and is rapidly adding AI across its portfolio of products and services. Facial recognition technology is particularly controversial because of the privacy concerns around surveillance.
How the Pentagon Can Avoid Stumbling on the Digital Battlefield — Again
As disinformation and misinformation become major tools of global conflict, democracies need to decide when and how they should influence populations abroad. Influence campaigns are undoubtedly necessary, but how to conduct them according to democratic values is less obvious.
The Pentagon has offered a good lesson in what not to do. A clandestine disinformation campaign against Chinese coronavirus vaccines in 2020 and 2021, a program just revealed in an investigation by Reuters, was a grave error.
Reuters journalists Chris Bing and Joel Schectman reported on June 14 that the Defense Department operation was targeted at the Philippines and “aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other lifesaving aid that was being supplied by China.” They found the Pentagon, through a contractor, General Dynamics IT, created some 300 phony social media accounts. Impersonating Filipinos, Reuters said, the accounts were used to criticize China and the quality of “face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines — China’s Sinovac inoculation.”
Psychological warfare has been a tool of foreign influence for many decades; the digital revolution has accelerated the use of disinformation and misinformation. Reuters reports that in 2019, then-Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper signed a secret order that allowed commanders to sidestep the State Department when carrying out psyops against Russia and China.
Here’s Why COVID Measures Like Masking and New Ones Like Safety Goggles Could Return if Bird Flu Pandemic Is Declared + More
Here’s Why COVID Measures Like Masking and New Ones Like Safety Goggles Could Return if a Bird Flu Pandemic Is Declared
An ongoing bird flu outbreak among U.S. dairy cows has led to three confirmed human cases in dairy workers, and although there aren’t any confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission, experts warn safety measures like masks, vaccines and safety goggles will be needed if a pandemic is declared due to the virus’s deadly nature.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Forbes it’s monitoring human and animal exposure to H5N1 bird flu and watching the situation carefully, though “the current public health risk is low.”
The virus may spread from animals to humans through airborne transmission and through contact with infected surfaces, Dr. Jessica Justman, an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist at Columbia University, told Forbes, though the exact transmission process isn’t fully understood.
Experts have cautioned that if a bird flu pandemic is declared, safety measures will need to be put in place to mitigate the spread. Dr. Donal Bisanzio, a senior epidemiologist with the nonprofit research institute RTI International, told Forbes methods like masking and social distancing should be the first implemented. “Those are all the kinds of interventions we need to put in place to buy time for the vaccine,” Bisanzio said.
Justman told Forbes new methods like protective eyewear may be effective safety measures, especially among farm workers who have daily contact with potentially infectious animals.
Supreme Court Rules on Challenge to Biden Admin’s Effort to Influence Social Media
The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled in favor of the Biden administration in a challenge to its alleged coordination with social media companies, saying that the states who sued the administration lacked standing.
The case, Murthy v. Missouri, stems from a lawsuit brought by state attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana that accused high-ranking government officials of working with giant social media companies “under the guise of combating misinformation” that ultimately led to censoring speech on topics that included Hunter Biden’s laptop, COVID-19 origins and the efficacy of face masks.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the majority, said the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring their challenge. “This Court’s standing doctrine prevents us from “exercis[ing such] general legal oversight” of the other branches of Government. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Fifth Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion,” she said.
The vote was 6-3, with Justice Samuel Alito dissenting, joined by Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.
GOP Senators Invoke Statute to Force HHS Answers on COVID Origins: ‘Full-Fledged Cover-Up’
Republican senators are invoking a statute to force Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra to provide answers to several outstanding inquiries about COVID-19‘s origins and vaccine safety.
“We write regarding the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) complete disregard for transparency, Congressional oversight, and the public’s right to know,” wrote Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., in a letter on Tuesday also signed by Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Roger Marshall, R-Kan.
The lawmakers announced they were invoking a federal statute which requires executive agencies to “submit any information requested of it relating to any matter within the jurisdiction of the committee” when prompted by five members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (HSGAC).
Eleven specific outstanding requests are highlighted by Johnson, which he noted HHS should prioritize. Each relates to either the origins of the COVID-19 virus or the safety of its vaccines. The outstanding requests date back as far as 2020. Responses to the prioritized requests are expected by the senators from Becerra by July 12.
Julian Assange Returns Home as Free Man to Australia, After Plea Deal With U.S.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has landed back home in Australia, a free man for the first time in 12 years, after a U.S. judge signed off on his unexpected plea deal on Wednesday morning.
Cheers erupted from supporters gathered at Canberra Airport in the Australian capital as Assange disembarked the aircraft. He waved to the crowds as he walked across the tarmac.
Earlier Wednesday, Assange walked out of the courtroom in Saipan, on the Northern Mariana Islands, a remote U.S. Pacific territory, raising one hand to a gaggle of the world’s press before departing by car for the airport to journey on to Australia. Speaking outside the court, Assange’s U.S. lawyer Barry Pollack said he had “suffered tremendously in his fight for free speech and freedom of the press.”
“The prosecution of Julian Assange is unprecedented in the 100 years of the Espionage Act,” Pollack told reporters. “Mr. Assange revealed truthful, newsworthy information … We firmly believe that Mr. Assange never should have been charged under the Espionage Act and engaged in (an) exercise that journalists engage in every day.”
‘It’s Not Enough:’ Experts Question Whether Social Media Warning Labels Can Protect Teens
The surgeon general’s call for warning labels on social media platforms has largely been met with ambivalence as experts tout the idea as a step in the right direction but question the effectiveness of labels without more concrete action.
In an op-ed in The New York Times last week, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for warning labels on platforms advising users that social media is associated with significant mental health risks for teens.
These tobaccolike warning labels would remind parents and teens that social media “has not been proved safe,” Murthy said.
Murthy acknowledged the limitations of his proposed warning labels in last week’s op-ed, noting that additional measures by policymakers, platforms and the public “remain the priority.”
“To be clear, a warning label would not, on its own, make social media safe for young people,” he wrote.
Mastercard to Expand Digital Biometric ID and ‘Behavioral Biometrics’
When it comes to privacy and overall security of some of people’s most sensitive (financial, but also, “behavioral”) biometric data, massive global banks and payment processors, and burgeoning biometric surveillance was always going to be that perfect “match made in hell.”
And that reality is gradually taking shape. Not only is biometric tech and its ubiquitousness increasing (still in most countries without proper legal protections or proper “disclosure” of how and why it is being) — but behemoths like Mastercard and Visa are realizing they have access to massive amounts of highly monetizable people’s data.
The nature of the personal information that the likes of Mastercard get with every transaction you make is not only the number but also the location, the content of a purchase … and then behavioral patterns start emerging. But it doesn’t stop there.
Meanwhile, the goal (often, but not always) openly talked about is the lucrative business of “sharing” that data for targeted advertising. But in a possible future Orwellian society — it really would be very useful to the surveillance state in so many different ways.
Ed Helms’s Podcast Explores a Washington Post Scoop That Rocked America
When Ed Helms received a book from his aunt as a Christmas gift in 2014, it didn’t just sit on his shelf. The actor, writer and comedian was captivated by the book, “The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI,” by former Washington Post reporter Betty Medsger, who was friends with Helms’s aunt.
That moment, a heist in Media, Pa., on the night of March 8, 1971, was executed by eight members of the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI — a group of antiwar activists who stole documents from an FBI building. The documents revealed the extent of the FBI’s surveillance on citizens and exposed COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program) to Americans.
More than half a century after the heist, the revelations of the FBI’s surveillance of Americans remain relevant, Helms said. In April, Congress reauthorized the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which grants U.S. spy agencies the ability to collect, without a warrant, the communications of noncitizens abroad who are suspected of threatening national security. Helms also cited the rise of artificial intelligence and how Big Tech sites collect data to market to users, regardless of whether they want their information sold.
“We wouldn’t know about COINTELPRO if not for this burglary,” Helms said. “To the extent that there is oversight of our surveillance institutions, a lot of it can be traced back to this moment.”
New Hampshire Sues TikTok, Saying Platform Hurts Kids’ Mental Health
New Hampshire is the latest state to sue TikTok, saying that the social media platform is intentionally designed to get kids addicted, which seriously harms their mental health.
“All the evidence shows that the longer kids spend on these platforms, the more risk there is to their mental health. We want to have more effective parental controls, because right now, parents don’t really have a good ability to limit their kids’ exposure to these platforms. They don’t have a good ability to turn the platforms on and off, to turn access to the platforms on and off,” said New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella.
The complaint also alleges that TikTok lied to parents about the safety of the platform and knowingly promoted ineffective safety measures. The state also says TikTok collected personal data from users younger than 13 without parental consent.
Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Connecticut Law That Eliminated Religious Vaccination Exemption + More
Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Connecticut Law That Eliminated Religious Vaccination Exemption
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge to a 2021 Connecticut law that eliminated the state’s longstanding religious exemption from childhood immunization requirements for schools, colleges and daycare facilities.
The justices did not comment in leaving in place a federal appeals court ruling that upheld the contentious law. A lower court judge had earlier dismissed the lawsuit challenging the law, which drew protests at the state Capitol. The change allowed current students in K-12 who already had a religious exemption to keep it.
Brian Festa, vice president and co-founder for the group We The Patriots USA Inc., a lead plaintiff in the case, called the decision “disappointing” but said it’s “not the end of the road for us in our fight to win back religious exemptions for schoolchildren.”
The group — which has challenged other vaccination laws, including for COVID-19 — had argued along with several parents that Connecticut violated religious freedom protections by removing the exemption. The new law shows a hostility to religious believers and jeopardizes their rights to medical freedom and child rearing, they said in court papers.
Years After the End of COVID, NYC Remains Trapped in ‘Long Lockdown’
Four years to the day since Big Apple restaurants were finally allowed to serve food outdoors again as part of COVID-19 “Phase II” reopening, we are still locked down. Not physically but emotionally and psychologically.
The miserable three months of government-mandated “sheltering in place” that began on March 20 of 2020 not only shattered the economy that’s yet to fully recover, it indelibly altered our brain chemistry. The Times Square “Ghost Town” is history. But it’s the stubborn squatter in our psyches that can’t be evicted.
If there’s such a thing as Long COVID, there’s Long Lockdown. Lockdown’s lingering effects haunt our waking and sleeping hours — not just when I see physical vestiges like a “maintain six feet of social distance” sign, a number which Dr. Anthony Fauci recently admitted was made up out of thin air.
The lockdowns were hypocritical and politically motivated as well. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio did nothing to curb Black Lives Matter protests where thousands of un-masked demonstrators breathed and shouted in each other’s faces.
But I hope our elected leaders who profess to “follow the science,” as then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo loved to repeat, will follow common sense should another viral nightmare ever befall us — and heed the damage of lockdowns that almost broke New York City.
How Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Failed Children on Safety, States Say
The New York Times via The Seattle Times reported:
In April 2019, David Ginsberg, a Meta executive, emailed his boss, Mark Zuckerberg, with a proposal to research and reduce loneliness and compulsive use on Instagram and Facebook.
In the email, Ginsberg noted that the company faced scrutiny for its products’ impacts “especially around areas of problematic use/addiction and teens.” He asked Zuckerberg for 24 engineers, researchers and other staff, saying Instagram had a “deficit” on such issues.
A week later, Susan Li, now the company’s chief financial officer, informed Ginsberg that the project was “not funded” because of staffing constraints. Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s head, ultimately declined to finance the project, too.
The email exchanges are just one slice of evidence cited among more than a dozen lawsuits filed since last year by the attorneys general of 45 states and the District of Columbia. The states accuse Meta of unfairly ensnaring teenagers and children on Instagram and Facebook while deceiving the public about the hazards. Using a coordinated legal approach reminiscent of the government’s pursuit of Big Tobacco in the 1990s, the attorneys general seek to compel Meta to bolster protections for minors.
A New York Times analysis of the states’ court filings — including roughly 1,400 pages of company documents and correspondence filed as evidence by the state of Tennessee — shows how Zuckerberg and other Meta leaders repeatedly promoted the safety of the company’s platforms, playing down risks to young people, even as they rejected employee pleas to bolster youth guardrails and hire additional staff.
Masks Are Going From Mandated to Criminalized in Some States
State legislators and law enforcement are reinstating dormant laws that criminalize mask-wearing to penalize pro-Palestinian protesters who conceal their faces, raising concerns among COVID-cautious Americans.
Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are poised to overturn Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) recent veto of legislation to criminalize masking. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said earlier this month she supports legislative efforts to ban masks on the subway, citing an incident where masked protesters on a train shouted, “Raise your hands if you’re a Zionist. This is your chance to get out.” Student protesters in Ohio, Texas and Florida have been threatened with arrest for covering their faces.
Lawmakers eager to reinstate pre-pandemic mask restrictions say legislation would not target medically vulnerable people and others trying to avoid respiratory viruses. But critics say such an approach would be impractical and sets mask wearers up for further ostracization and harassment by police and fellow citizens.
In a statement accompanying his veto, Cooper said the legislation “removes protections and threatens criminal charges for people who want to protect their health by wearing a mask.” Opponents of mask restrictions question how a health exception could work if protesters wearing medical grade masks say they’re trying to stay healthy in a crowd.
Ticker: Facial Recognition Startup Clearview AI Settles Privacy Suit
Facial recognition startup Clearview AI has reached a settlement in a lawsuit alleging its massive photographic collection of faces violated the subjects’ privacy rights. Attorneys estimate the deal could be worth more than $50 million. Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman, of the Northern District of Illinois, gave preliminary approval to the agreement Friday.
But the unique agreement gives plaintiffs in the case a share of the company’s potential value, rather than a traditional payout. Clearview does not admit any fault as part of the agreement. An attorney for the company says it is pleased to have reached an agreement.
UN Chief Tells Consumer Tech Firms: Own the Harm Your Products Cause
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday demanded that big consumer technology firms take responsibility and “acknowledge the damage your products are inflicting on people and communities.”
Taking aim at the companies, which he did not name, and their social media platforms, he said: “You have the power to mitigate harm to people and societies around the world. You have the power to change business models that profit from disinformation and hate.”
Guterres was speaking at a news conference to launch a set of U.N. global principles for information integrity, which he called a starting point to combat misinformation, disinformation and hate speech.
Guterres also told governments to: “Ensure regulations uphold human rights. Refrain from drastic measures, including blanket internet shutdowns. Respect the right to freedom of opinion and expression.”
TikTok Says U.S. Ban Is Inevitable Without a Court Order Blocking Law
TikTok and Chinese parent ByteDance on Thursday urged a U.S. court to strike down a law they say will ban the popular short video app in the United States on Jan. 19, saying the U.S. government refused to engage in any serious settlement talks after 2022.
Legislation signed in April by President Joe Biden gives ByteDance until Jan. 19 next year to divest TikTok’s U.S. assets or face a ban on the app used by 170 million Americans. ByteDance says a divestiture is “not possible technologically, commercially, or legally.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hold oral arguments on lawsuits filed by TikTok and ByteDance along with TikTok users on Sept. 16. TikTok’s future in the United States may rest on the outcome of the case which could impact how the U.S. government uses its new authority to clamp down on foreign-owned apps.
Fauci Admits Closing Schools for Months During Pandemic Was a ‘Mistake’ + More
Fauci Admits Closing Schools for Months During Pandemic Was a ‘Mistake’
Dr. Anthony Fauci acknowledged on Tuesday that shuttering schools for months during the COVID-19 pandemic was a “mistake,” a reversal for the former presidential chief medical advisor who became influential in the nation’s response to the malady.
Fauci made the admission during an interview on CBS Mornings, saying that while the initial school closures were the right decision, keeping kids out of the classroom for so long was a mistake. Fauci said that “shutting down everything immediately … even schools was the right thing.”
“How long you kept it was the problem because there was a disparity throughout the country,” he said.
Previously, Fauci had warned that school shutdowns may be necessary, even ones that would last for months. School lockdowns caused massive learning loss across the country among K-12 students in public schools.
Surgeon General Murthy Advocates for Digital ID to Combat Online ‘Misinformation’ and Protect Youth
This time, the New York Times and U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy got together, with Murthy’s own slant on what opponents might see as another push to muzzle social media ahead of the November vote, under any pretext.
A pretext is, as per Murthy: new legislation that would “shield young people from online harassment, abuse and exploitation,” and there’s disinformation and such, of course.
Coming from Murthy, this is inevitably branded as “health disinformation.” But the way digital rights group EFF sees it — requiring “a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents” — is just unconstitutional.
Critics think this is no more than a thinly veiled campaign to unmask internet users under what the authorities believe is the platitude that cannot be argued against — “thinking of the children.”
‘We’re Flying Blind’: CDC Has 1 Million Bird Flu Tests Ready, but Experts See Repeat of COVID Missteps
It’s been nearly three months since the U.S. government announced an outbreak of the bird flu virus on dairy farms. The World Health Organization considers the virus a public health concern because of its potential to cause a pandemic, yet the U.S. has tested only about 45 people across the country.
“We’re flying blind,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the pandemic center at the Brown University School of Public Health. With so few tests run, she said, it’s impossible to know how many farmworkers have been infected, or how serious the disease is. A lack of testing means the country might not notice if the virus begins to spread between people — the gateway to another pandemic.
“We’d like to be doing more testing. There’s no doubt about that,” said Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC’s bird flu test is the only one the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized for use right now.
Shah said the agency has distributed these tests to about 100 public health labs in states. “We’ve got roughly a million available now,” he said, “and expect 1.2 million more in the next two months.”
But Nuzzo and other researchers are concerned because the CDC and public health labs aren’t generally where doctors order tests from. That job tends to be done by major clinical laboratories run by companies and universities, which lack authorization for bird flu testing.
As the outbreak grows — with at least 114 herds infected in 12 states as of June 18 — researchers said the CDC and FDA are not moving fast enough to remove barriers that block clinical labs from testing. In one case, the diagnostics company Neelyx Labs was on hold with a query for more than a month.
The Supreme Court Can Stop Social Media Censorship
Soon, the U.S. Supreme Court will release an opinion in NetChoice v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice, two controversial — and consequential — social media cases involving laws in Texas and Florida.
It is extremely important for the Court to get this case right. Social media operates as the modern public square. Social media platforms hold themselves out to be a public service, neutral in their administration of their policies. But this simply isn’t the case. They routinely engage in censorship of individuals and organizations that hold to ideologies they do not like.
Social media companies have often targeted conservative users, organizations and religious messages for censorship. By labeling the messages as “hate” or “misinformation,” social media companies silence conservative voices and stunt the free flow of information.
These platforms, under the guise of “standards” or “policies,” have repeatedly censored, deplatformed, and shadow-banned conservative viewpoints through selective application of ever-changing rules.
One of the pivotal questions the Court will have to address in NetChoice is what standards should govern social media companies. Are they purely private companies or are they a “common carrier”?
In other words, do social media companies have their own free speech protections, or are they obligated to respect the free speech rights of their subscribers?
It is important that the Supreme Court get this right. Not just for today, but for generations to come. Truth — and our freedom — is at stake.
Los Angeles School Board Votes to Ban Smartphones
The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education on Tuesday voted to ban smartphones for its 429,000 students in an attempt to insulate kids from distractions and social media that undermine learning and hurt mental health.
The board of the second-largest U.S. school district voted 5-2, approving a resolution to develop within 120 days a policy prohibiting student use of cellphones and social media platforms. The policy would be in place by January 2025.
“I think we’re going to be on the vanguard here, and students and this entire city and country are going to benefit as a result,” said board member Nick Melvoin, who proposed the resolution.
On Monday, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for a warning label on social media platforms, akin to those on cigarette packages, citing what he considers a mental health emergency.
Los Angeles joins a number of smaller school districts to ban access to phones or social media. Florida, with some 2.8 million public school students, last year passed a law requiring school districts to prevent student access to social media. Several other states have introduced similar legislation.
Child Privacy Complaint Against TikTok Referred to U.S. Justice Dept
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday it had referred a complaint against the social media platform TikTok and its parent company ByteDance over potential violations of children’s privacy to the U.S. Department of Justice.
In March, a source told Reuters the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could resolve a probe into TikTok over allegedly faulty privacy and data security practices by either filing suit or reaching a settlement.
Reuters in 2020 first reported the FTC and the Justice Department were looking into allegations the popular social media app failed to live up to a 2019 agreement aimed at protecting children’s privacy.
Lawfare Comes to Canada as the Coutts Four Get Their Day in Court
A trial is currently underway in Canada, and the rights of every Canadian citizen are at stake.
Tony Olienick and Chris Carbert are facing farcical charges stemming from their participation in a peaceful protest against Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau‘s COVID-19 response.
It turns out, the U.S. is not the only country where the ruling political establishment is using lawfare to test the limits of the freedoms we all once took for granted.
Olienick and Carbert may be average working-class men, but their trial is comparable to that of President Trump’s many legal battles; as in the U.S., the Canadian court system has been turned into a crucible upon which elite warfare is being waged against the masses — or their duly elected representatives.
Olienick and Carbert are the remaining two of a group of political prisoners arrested in Canada and held without bail since the Freedom Convoy in 2022. The Freedom Convoy was a populist revolt against Trudeau’s authoritarian approach to COVID-19 in the form of a mass act of civil protest led by truck drivers.
To combat this peaceful protest, the largest of its kind in Canadian history, Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act to suspend civil liberties across Canada, freezing bank accounts and laying numerous spurious charges against hundreds of peaceful protesters.