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Censorship or Free Speech? Supreme Court Likely to Decide on ‘Momentous’ Question + More
Censorship or Free Speech? Supreme Court Likely to Decide on ‘Momentous’ Question
Social media companies have been pilloried by Republicans for taking down content, suspending accounts or simply for restricting the spread of some information.
But the Supreme Court is set to hear a pair of cases in its next term — NetChoice v. Moody and NetChoice v. Paxton — that could undercut the GOP’s complaints.
Despite its conservative majority, the Supreme Court could find that social media companies have free speech rights, too. If so, it would rule that when the platforms restrict, fact-check or take down content, this is constitutionally protected speech and the government cannot interfere, which is the view of many legal experts.
“The ruling will be momentous,” wrote Clay Calvert, a First Amendment expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
This issue has been winding its way toward the Supreme Court for a few years, after Republican-controlled state legislatures in Florida and Texas tried to crack down on social media companies in 2021, following the suspension of then-President Donald Trump from Facebook and Twitter in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
COVID: Alberta Restaurant Owner Acquitted on Charges Linked to Public Health Restrictions
The lawyer for an Alberta restaurant owner says his client has been acquitted on all charges he faced under the Public Health Act in connection with accusations made against him during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the spring of 2021, Alberta Health Services said it received hundreds of complaints about the Whistle Stop Café in Mirror, Alta., with people telling the health authority it had not been complying with pandemic health restrictions.
When health officials closed owner Christopher Scott’s diner, an anti-lockdown rally was held in support of the business owner, attracting hundreds of people.
The acquittal came less than four weeks after a Court of King’s Bench of Alberta ruling found that provincial cabinet and government committees making final decisions about orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, instead of the chief medical officer of health herself, violated the Public Health Act.
Artificial Intelligence May Influence Whether You Can Get Pain Medication
Tools like Narx Scores are used to help medical providers review controlled substance prescriptions. They influence and can limit, the prescribing of painkillers, similar to a credit score influencing the terms of a loan.
Narx Scores and an algorithm-generated overdose risk rating are produced by healthcare technology company Bamboo Health (formerly Appriss Health) in its NarxCare platform.
Such systems are designed to fight the nation’s opioid epidemic, which has led to an alarming number of overdose deaths. The platforms draw on data about prescriptions for controlled substances that states collect to identify patterns of potential problems involving patients and physicians. State and federal health agencies, law enforcement officials, and healthcare providers have enlisted these tools, but the mechanics behind the formulas used are generally not shared with the public.
Artificial intelligence is working its way into more parts of American life. As AI spreads within the healthcare landscape, it brings familiar concerns of bias and accuracy and whether government regulation can keep up with rapidly advancing technology.
ChatGPT-Maker OpenAI Accused of String of Data Protection Breaches in GDPR Complaint Filed by Privacy Researcher
Questions about ChatGPT-maker OpenAI’s ability to comply with European privacy rules are in the frame again after a detailed complaint was filed with the Polish data protection authority yesterday.
The complaint, which TechCrunch has reviewed, alleges the U.S.-based AI giant is in breach of the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — across a sweep of dimensions: Lawful basis, transparency, fairness, data access rights, and privacy by design are all areas it argues OpenAI is infringing EU privacy rules. (Aka, Articles 5(1)(a), 12, 15, 16 and 25(1) of the GDPR).
This is not the first GDPR concern lobbed in ChatGPT’s direction, of course. Italy’s privacy watchdog, the Garante, generated headlines earlier this year after it ordered OpenAI to stop processing data locally — directing the U.S.-based company to tackle a preliminary list of problems it identified in areas including lawful basis, information disclosures, user controls and child safety.
Less Than 1/3rd of Canadians Have ‘High Trust’ in Their Government
Trust in the government in Canada, and the government’s handling of public health, is waning, according to a new piece of in-house research conducted by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).
The report was called “Use Of Public Health Measures, Advice And Risk Assessment Survey” and it was conducted by seeking out the opinions of 6,200 people across Canada and nine Federal focus groups.
The new report says that: “Trust, particularly in the government and healthcare sector, is central to the effectiveness of public health measures.” It adds: “While respondents have a lot of trust in hospitals and healthcare workers, trust in the federal government (e.g., the Public Health Agency) is much lower.”
The research asked Canadians to express their trust level in institutions and entities using a 1 to 10 scale, with 10 being the highest. Responding to a question about the Federal Government, just 32% of Canadians said they had “high trust.”
Twitter Allows U.S. Political Candidates and Parties to Advertise in Policy Switch
The social media company formerly known as Twitter said on Tuesday it would now allow political advertising in the U.S. from candidates and political parties, reversing previous policies and raising concerns over misinformation and hate speech ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
In a blog post on Tuesday, X said it would grow its teams to combat content manipulation and “emerging threats.”
The company said it would create a global advertising transparency center, which would let users see what political ads were being promoted on X, and added it would continue to prohibit political ads that spread false information or seek to undermine public confidence in an election. This is in keeping with the company’s goal of “seeking to preserve free and open political discourse”, the blog post said.
Meta Drops University-Based Fact-Checking Group After Bias Exposed
From Down Under comes a rare triumph for victims of manipulative social media “fact-checking.”
Facebook parent Meta has suspended the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) from its fact-checking operation after investigative reporters exposed its leftist bias and the expiration of its fact-checking certification from the entity that coordinates Meta’s policing of speech.
“Considering both the nature of the allegations against RMIT and the upcoming referendum, we have decided to suspend RMIT from our fact-checking program,” a Meta spokesman told Sky News.
In a lengthy August 23 exposé, Sky News uncovered multiple conflicts of interest and fact-checking policy violations by RMIT’s so-called “FactLab.” Facebook’s deputized RMIT thought police had frequently blocked and suppressed anti-voice journalism on Facebook, including that of Sky News. Sky found that, between May 3 and June 23, every one of RMIT’s fact-checks about the Voice scrutinized content that bolstered the case for voting ‘no’ on the measure.
Babies Need People, Not Devices. Stop Giving Them Screen Time. + More
Babies Need People, Not Devices. Stop Giving Them Screen Time.
We know a great deal about what babies and toddlers need to thrive: food, shelter, safety, love and medical care. In addition to those basics, they also require, and actively seek, repeated, positive, real-life interaction with their caregivers — fulfilling an inborn need for relationships that our increasingly online world threatens to disrupt.
Smartphones, tablets and other digital distractions draw the attention of babies and caregivers away from one another to whatever beckons from a screen.
It’s hopeful news that government officials are calling for regulations on tech companies’ marketing to children and adolescents. But the public discourse often leaves out products aimed at babies and toddlers, despite a growing body of research demonstrating that, for children younger than 2, hours of screen time can harm their physical, social, emotional and cognitive development.
The World Health Organization and pediatric associations worldwide recommend avoiding screen time for babies and toddlers. Yet in the United States, almost half of children under age 2 have daily screen time, and about one-third spend more than an hour each day with devices. Eleven percent spend more than two hours per day with screens, and of these, 7% spend more than four hours. Moreover, studies have shown that the more time children spend with screens as babies, the more time they’re likely to spend with devices when they’re older.
Anne Arundel County Schools Files Lawsuit Against Social Media Companies for Role in Youth Mental Health Crisis
Anne Arundel County Public Schools filed a lawsuit against social media companies Meta, Google, ByteDance, and Snap Inc. for their roles in the youth mental health crisis.
The district alleges that its social media platforms increase the mental health crisis for its 85,000 students and place an increasingly large burden on the school system to provide essential mental health resources.
Anne Arundel County, and other districts across the country, say students have been significantly impacted by intense feelings of depression, anxiety, and body image issues, among others.
Anne Arundel joins school districts across the country, including Harford County and Howard County in Maryland, in alleging that increased social media use and addiction is leading to a worsening mental health crisis in the student population.
MSNBC Host Defends School Lockdowns for COVID, Attacks ‘Dangerous Myths’ of Learning Loss
MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan spent a segment of his show on Friday defending school shutdowns during the pandemic and attacked conservatives for spreading “dangerous myths” of learning loss.
Calling it “one of the most important deep dives” he’s ever done, Hasan tackled the “thorny and very emotive issue of kids, schools and COVID” as well as what he considered “a blatant and bad faith rewriting of history on this issue, from a lot of people who should know better.”
“Because the myths about children and COVID, that kids aren’t really harmed by it, that school closures were a massive and avoidable mistake, that they caused learning loss and mental health issues, those myths, and they are myths, dangerous myths have endured for so long, become so ingrained, so pervasive,” Hasan said.
Hasan continued by insisting that the suggestion kids had “immunity” to COVID-19 “wasn’t true then” and is “not true now.” However, a study published by the JAMA Network of medical journals in February found that kids were 100 times less likely to die from COVID-19 than adults.
Pittsburgh Regional Transit Dropping COVID Vaccine Requirements for Employees
Pittsburgh Regional Transit is dropping its COVID-19 vaccine requirement for employees, saying the 84 people fired over it will be given the opportunity to come back to work.
PRT said it achieved 98% compliance. There were 84 people fired, including 43 operators. The agency said they’ll all have the opportunity to return to work. The requirement ends effective Aug. 31.
Meta Says It Disrupted ‘Largest Known Cross-Platform’ China-Linked Disinformation Campaign
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said Tuesday it disrupted the “largest known cross-platform covert influence operation in the world” and found links to Chinese law enforcement.
The social media company took down 7,704 Facebook accounts, 954 Pages, 15 Groups and 15 Instagram accounts tied to the operation, according to Meta’s second-quarter Adversarial Threat Report.
The cross-platform activity used in the operation, known as “Spamouflage,” targeted more than 50 platforms and forums, according to the report. In addition to Facebook and Instagram, the disinformation campaign’s targets included X — the platform formerly known as Twitter — YouTube, TikTok, Reddit and Pinterest.
Despite efforts to conceal their identities, Meta said in the report it found “links to individuals associated with Chinese law enforcement.”
ChatGPT Plays Doctor With 72% Success
As AI capabilities advance in complex medical scenarios that doctors face on a daily basis, the technology remains controversial in medical communities.
The big picture: Doctors are grappling with questions about what counts as an acceptable success rate for AI-supported diagnosis and whether AI’s reliability under controlled research conditions will hold up in the real world.
Driving the news: A new study from Mass General Brigham researchers testing ChatGPT’s performance on textbook-drawn case studies found the AI bot achieved 72% accuracy in overall clinical decision-making, ranging from identifying possible diagnoses to making final diagnoses and care decisions.
What’s next: To allow ChatGPT or comparable AI models to be deployed in hospitals, Succi said that more benchmark research and regulatory guidance are needed, and diagnostic success rates need to rise to between 80% and 90%.
Judge Reinstates Fired Roswell Park Nurse Who Refused Vaccine: A ‘Victim’ of COVID Excesses + More
Judge Reinstates Fired Roswell Park Nurse Who Refused Vaccine: A ‘Victim’ of COVID Excesses
A judge has reinstated a Roswell Park Comprehensive Care Center nurse who was fired for refusing to be vaccinated for COVID-19, and in so doing cast a disapproving look at how public officials handled the pandemic.
An arbitrator’s January decision upholding Wendy Cooper’s firing was “irrational, violative of public policy and contrary to the interests of justice,” State Supreme Court Justice Emilio Colaiacovo ruled. The judge directed Roswell Park to negotiate over her retroactive pay and benefits.
Colaiacovo called the issue before him narrow: Did the arbitrator rationally decide Cooper’s case? But his written decision offered a wider criticism of how some public officials overstepped their bounds while others ceded their powers to others amid the pandemic.
Roswell Park declined to comment but confirmed it will appeal Colaiacovo’s decision.
Nearly 36,800 healthcare employees in New York — about 3.5% of the state’s healthcare workforce — lost their jobs, resigned, retired or were furloughed due to being unvaccinated against COVID-19, according to data released by the state in late April 2022, the most recent figures available. That included several hundred, if not thousands, of employees across Western New York.
School Districts in Kentucky, Texas Cancel Classes Amid ‘Surge’ of Illnesses Including COVID
Just weeks into the new school year, districts in multiple states are canceling in-person classes for several weeks due to respiratory viruses, including COVID-19, among students and staff.
Two school districts in Kentucky — Lee County School District and Magoffin County Schools — said they were closing due to “widespread illness.”
In Texas, Runge Independent School District — located in Karnes County, 50 miles southeast of San Antonio — told parents in a letter that it would be closing from Aug. 22 through Aug. 29 and canceling all extracurricular activities due to COVID cases, according to ABC affiliate KSAT.
The district did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment. On the district’s website, the COVID tracker shows 10 active cases in Runge ISD as of Aug. 21, all among staff.
Citing Rising COVID Cases, These U.S. Hospital Systems Have Now Reinstated Mask Mandates
Amid rising COVID cases and hospitalizations throughout the country, several hospital systems or hospitals have reinstated mask-wearing requirements for patients and staff, as reported by Becker’s Hospital Review.
These announcements come as COVID-related hospitalizations have risen 21.6% in the most recent week and deaths have risen 21.4%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The numbers, however, are still far below the levels that were seen during the pandemic.
As of Aug. 25, the following hospitals and health systems are now requiring masks, as confirmed by Fox News Digital. United Health Services in New York reinstated masking policies at its facilities on Aug. 23.
Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center, California, has reinstated the mask mandate amid a rise in positive COVID tests as of Aug. 22. Auburn Community Hospital, New York, is again requiring masks — just one month after ending the mandate, as reported on Aug. 19. As of Aug. 17, University Hospital in Syracuse, NY, has reinstated its masking requirement.
In April 2023, a group of healthcare epidemiologists and infectious diseases experts from across the country published a paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine, in which they called for an end to universal masking in hospitals and other healthcare settings.
After COVID, Tennessee Kindergarten Vaccination Rates Are Dropping Fast. What to Know
A new report from the Tennessee Department of Health shows that the state’s Kindergartner vaccination rates continued to plummet last year, helped by sharply rising rates of religious exemptions that coincided with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Davidson County, home to Nashville, had a vaccination rate of 92.5% last year — below the state goal rate of 95%. Thirty-two schools in Davidson County had rates below 90%, which experts say is a rate that could lead to breakthrough diseases, such as measles.
The statewide rate for public school students was 93.5%, the lowest rate in at least five years, according to the report. In 2020, the statewide average was 95.4%. Private school student rates increased slightly from 89.4% to 91.1%.
Religious exemptions from required immunizations in Tennessee jumped from 1.8% in 2020 to 3% in 2022. Again, this is the highest rate in at least five years, according to the Department of Health.
AI Could Choke on Its Own Exhaust as It Fills the Web
The internet is beginning to fill up with more and more content generated by artificial intelligence rather than human beings, posing weird new dangers both to human society and to the AI programs themselves.
What’s happening: Experts estimate that AI-generated content could account for as much as 90% of information on the internet in a few years’ time, as ChatGPT, Dall-E and similar programs spill torrents of verbiage and images into online spaces.
That’s happening in a world that hasn’t yet figured out how to reliably label AI-generated output and differentiate it from human-created content.
The danger to human society is the now-familiar problem of information overload and degradation.
AI Humanoid Pilot Might be Able to Solve Pilot Shortage
Our readers know there’s yet to be a quick solution to the U.S. pilot shortage, which may linger until 2032. Current data shows a staggering 17,000-pilot gap. This shortfall can be attributed to several factors: Early retirements spurred by the pandemic, the unyielding retirement age of 65, a dwindling number of pilots from the military, and the unappealing prospect for civilians to embark on a pilot career.
Airlines can only train 1,500 to 1,800 pilots a year. The deficit has triggered all sorts of flight disruptions, with the latest from American Airlines. However, South Korean researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST) developed “Pibot,” a life-sized humanoid robot that can fly planes and understand complex flight controls.
While it’s clear a robo-pilot is not something the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration would clear anytime soon — it might catch the agency’s attention amid the worst pilot shortage ever.
U.S. airlines have been quietly lobbying Congress to allow them to use just one pilot in the cockpit instead of two. But with an increasing number of pilot deaths — some even in mid-air — one has to wonder: Is the FAA open to considering a mix between human and robot pilots in the cockpit?
China Won’t Require COVID Tests for Incoming Travelers in a Milestone in Its Reopening
China will no longer require a negative COVID-19 test result for incoming travelers starting Wednesday, a milestone in its reopening to the rest of the world after a three-year isolation that began with the country’s borders closing in March 2020.
China in January ended quarantine requirements for its own citizens traveling from abroad, and over the past few months has gradually expanded the list of countries that Chinese people can travel to and increased the number of international flights.
Beijing ended its tough domestic “zero-COVID” policy only in December, after years of draconian curbs that at times included full-city lockdowns and lengthy quarantines for people who were infected.
Jamie Lee Curtis Bashed for Face Mask ‘Propaganda’ Amid COVID Spike + More
Jamie Lee Curtis Bashed for Face Mask ‘Propaganda’ Amid COVID Spike
Jamie Lee Curtis has been blasted for urging her fans to mask up amid a dramatic spike in COVID-19 cases.
The “Halloween” star, 64, took to Instagram Wednesday to share a selfie that showed her wearing a Michael Myers mask over her mouth, before offering up a public service announcement in a caption beneath the snap.
“And we’re BAAAAACCCCKKKK,” the actress wrote. “No, not Michael Myers but masking will be. COVID is on the rise. SO MANY friends now are really sick. BE MINDFUL. WEAR A MASK if required or even if you feel unwell and are out in public spaces.”
However, Curtis was immediately blasted by many of her 5 million followers, with some accusing her of “pushing political propaganda.”
House Judiciary GOP Grill Mayorkas on ‘Inconsistent’ Testimony About Biden Admin’s ‘Censorship Activities’
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee are quizzing Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over what they say are apparent contradictions in his testimony over the Department of Homeland Security’s “censorship” efforts.
Chairman Jim Jordan, along with Reps. Mike Johnson, R-La., Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Dan Bishop, R-N.C., wrote to Mayorkas about his testimony to the committee in July regarding the operation and scope of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and asking if he wishes to amend his testimony to the committee.
Specifically, they highlighted a claim by Mayorkas that CISA, a cyber defense agency, “does not censor speech.” Republicans on the committee have alleged that the CISA has expanded its mission to “surveil Americans’s speech on social media, colluded with Big Tech and government-funded third parties to censor by proxy, and tried to hide its plainly unconstitutional activities from the public.”
They have also released a number of tranches of documents they say are “smoking gun” evidence that the Biden administration and Big Tech companies ran afoul of the First Amendment on issues including COVID-19.
Following Elon Musk’s Lead, Big Tech Is Surrendering to Disinformation
Social media companies are receding from their role as watchdogs against political misinformation, abandoning their most aggressive efforts to police online falsehoods in a trend expected to profoundly affect the 2024 presidential election.
An array of circumstances is fueling the retreat: Mass layoffs at Meta and other major tech companies have gutted teams dedicated to promoting accurate information online. An aggressive legal battle over claims that the Biden administration pressured social media platforms to silence certain speech has blocked a key path to detecting election interference.
And X CEO Elon Musk has reset industry standards, rolling back strict rules against misinformation on the site formerly known as Twitter. In a sign of Musk’s influence, Meta briefly considered a plan last year to ban all political advertising on Facebook. The company shelved it after Musk announced plans to transform rival Twitter into a haven for free speech, according to two people familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive matters.
Djokovic Faces Müller on U.S. Open Return While Gauff Could Lie in Wait for Swiatek
Novak Djokovic will mark his return to the U.S. Open by facing Alexandre Müller, a Frenchman ranked No. 85 in the world, in the first round. After his incredible three-set win over Carlos Alcaraz to land the Cincinnati Masters 1000 title last week moved him closer to regaining the top ranking, a first-round victory for Djokovic would ensure that he will leapfrog Alcaraz in the ATP rankings and celebrate a record-extending 390th week at No 1 after the U.S. Open.
The ATP’s race for No. 1 is likely to be defined by their contrasting fortunes last year. Only 20 points separate Alcaraz and Djokovic in the ATP rankings but while Djokovic is defending zero points after not being allowed to enter the United States last year due to his refusal to take a COVID vaccine, Alcaraz is the defending champion so he can only defend the 2,000 points he earned last year.
NYU Launched Private ChatGPT for Its Health Data, and Set Its Staff Loose to Experiment
A fourth-year medical student, a music therapist, a child psychiatrist, and a physician-researcher stared at their laptops, puzzling over the combination of words that would make a supposedly intelligent system — NYU Langone’s customized version of ChatGPT — think about healthcare problems in a way that was useful to them.
As part of a “prompt-a-thon” in August at the medical center’s science building, the group had been charged with analyzing a patient record around the theme of equity using NYU’s HIPAA-compliant implementation of the buzzy OpenAI technology that can interpret language and generate text based on queries.
After a morning of mini-lectures, participants broke off into assigned groups and dove into NYU Langone’s newly launched prompting interface. Representatives from Microsoft, which makes the artificial intelligence tool accessible through its cloud services, were on hand to ensure everything ran smoothly as about 70 workshop participants from across the academic medical center put prompts into the system around themes including research, clinical applications, and patient education.
How the EU Digital Services Act Affects Facebook, Google and Others
Unprecedented regulation forcing more than 40 online giants including Facebook, X, Google and TikTok to better police the content they deliver within the EU is due to come into force on August 25. So what is the legislation and how will regulators enforce it?
The DSA is a groundbreaking law that will apply to any digital operation serving the EU, forcing them to be legally accountable for everything from fake news to manipulation of shoppers, Russian propaganda and criminal activity including child abuse.
It will apply to large and small operators, but the rules are tiered, with the toughest obligations applying to 17 companies including Facebook and Amazon that have been designated as “very large online platforms”, and two “very large online search engines”: Google and Bing.
Those that do not comply face sanctions including large fines — which could run into hundreds of millions of euros — and an EU-wide ban.