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Incoming Senate Bill Would Set Age Limit for Kids on Social Media + More
Incoming Senate Bill Would Set Age Limit for Kids on Social Media
A soon-to-be-unveiled Senate bill would set an age minimum for kids on social media, marking one of the first major bipartisan federal efforts to restrict access to the platforms altogether for younger users.
The bill, led by Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), would also set restrictions for how companies use algorithms to serve minors, according to a Senate aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
The measure will add to a growing body of legislation seeking to expand protections for children online. The bill would bar children under 13 from accessing social media and require parental consent for those aged 13 to 17, the aide said.
It was not immediately clear how the proposal may verify users’ ages. The effort reflects mounting bipartisan concern from policymakers over the effect digital platforms may have on the mental health of kids and teens.
Cybersecurity Expert: Banning a Chinese App Like TikTok Is a Red Herring That Ignores a Greater Danger
Unfortunately, the current focus on TikTok as the symbolic representative of the risks to U.S. national security emanating from Chinese technology may be more dangerous than TikTok itself.
In my experience in cybersecurity, Chinese hardware — not software — poses, by far, the greatest risk to American national security. While software is certainly a concern, the reality is that, for multiple reasons, rogue hardware threatens to undermine security and inflict related damage in a far more dramatic fashion than software. All the while, problematic hardware is simultaneously far harder to detect, identify, and remove once deployed than is software.
Proposed bans of particular apps, as well as on the use of VPNs to circumvent government controls, are not only ineffective at addressing such risks but are clearly reminiscent of the reprehensible censorship and controls implemented by oppressive regimes. It was not that long ago, that we, the taxpayers of the United States, paid to create and distribute the anonymizing system known as Tor precisely to help people worldwide overcome such government oppression.
And, because preserving freedom of communication is so important, we left that system in place even as it was abused to distribute drugs, guns and stolen data. In the name of preserving our freedoms, we must not now open a Pandora’s box that not only fails to protect rights that we cherish but threatens to do the opposite.
Thousands of Fake Facebook Profiles Could Be Trying to Steal Your Data
Experts have warned of an ongoing cybercriminal campaign leveraging thousands of fake Facebook accounts and phishing pages in an attempt to obtain login data to financial service platform accounts belonging to public figures, celebrities, businesses and sports teams.
Cybersecurity researchers from Group-IB’s Digital Risk Protection (DRP) team claim to have identified more than 3,200 fake Facebook accounts, some of which are impersonating Facebook and its parent company, Meta.
Through these accounts, the attackers would target legitimate users of the social platform to try and get them to visit fraudulent Facebook login pages.
There, they’d get them to enter their login credentials, and effectively grant them access to their accounts. The premise is that many people use the same username/password combination across a wide variety of accounts and that their Facebook login credentials might work on more serious platforms, such as financial services.
Landmark Supreme Court Case Could Have ‘Far-Reaching Implications’ for Artificial Intelligence, Experts Say
An impending Supreme Court ruling focusing on whether legal protections given to Big Tech extend to their algorithms and recommendation features could have significant implications for future cases surrounding artificial intelligence, according to experts.
In late February, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments examining the extent of legal immunity given to tech companies that allow third-party users to publish content on their platforms. One of two cases, Gonzalez v. Google, focuses on recommendations and algorithms used by sites like YouTube, allowing accounts to arrange and promote content to users.
Marcus Fernandez, an attorney and co-owner of KFB Law, said the outcome of the case could have “far-reaching implications” for tech companies, noting it remains to be seen whether the decision will establish new legal protections for content or if it will open up more avenues for lawsuits against tech companies.
He added that it is important to remember that the ruling could determine the level of protection given to companies and how courts could interpret such protections when it comes to AI-generated content and algorithmic recommendations.
Chinese Censorship Is Quietly Rewriting the COVID Story
The New York Times via Yahoo!News reported:
Early in 2020, on the same day that a frightening new illness officially got the name COVID-19, a team of scientists from the United States and China released critical data showing how quickly the virus was spreading, and who was dying.
Within days, though, the researchers quietly withdrew the paper, which was replaced online by a message telling scientists not to cite it. A few observers took note of the peculiar move, but the whole episode quickly faded amid the frenzy of the coronavirus pandemic.
What is now clear is that the study was not removed because of faulty research. Instead, it was withdrawn at the direction of Chinese health officials amid a crackdown on science. That effort kicked up a cloud of dust around the dates of early COVID cases, like those reported in the study.
That the Chinese government muzzled scientists, hindered international investigations and censored online discussion of the pandemic is well documented. But Beijing’s stranglehold on information goes far deeper than even many pandemic researchers are aware of. Its censorship campaign has targeted international journals and scientific databases, shaking the foundations of shared scientific knowledge, a New York Times investigation found.
Under pressure from their government, Chinese scientists have withheld data, withdrawn genetic sequences from public databases and altered crucial details in journal submissions. Western journal editors enabled those efforts by agreeing to those edits or withdrawing papers for murky reasons, a review by the Times of over a dozen retracted papers found.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai Earned $226 Million Last Year, Making Him One of the World’s Best-Paid Bosses
Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai was paid a total of $226 million last year after he was awarded a big tranche of shares, making him one of America’s best-paid CEOs.
The chief executive of Google‘s owner was given more than $218 million, according to filings published on Friday. His base annual salary of $2 million hasn’t changed since 2020.
Alphabet also spent almost $6 million on personal security for Pichai, according to the filing.
Apple Cannot Ban Links to Outside App Store Payments, U.S. Appeals Court Says
A U.S. appeals court on Monday upheld a federal court’s order that could force Apple Inc. (AAPL.O) to change payment practices in its App Store. Apple said it may appeal the decision.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeal upheld a 2021 order in an antitrust case brought by “Fortnite” creator Epic Games that could require Apple to allow developers to provide links and buttons for third-party in-app payment options and avoid paying sales commissions to the iPhone maker.
EU Singles Out 19 Tech Giants for Online Content Rules
Five Alphabet (GOOGL.O) subsidiaries, two Meta Platforms (META.O) units, two Microsoft (MSFT.O) businesses, Twitter and Alibaba’s (9988.HK) AliExpress are among 19 companies subject to landmark EU online content rules, EU industry chief Thierry Breton said on Tuesday.
The rules known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) require the companies to do risk management, conduct external and independent auditing, share data with authorities and researchers and adopt a code of conduct by August.
The 19 companies include Alphabet’s Google Maps, Google Play, Google Search, Google Shopping and YouTube, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Amazon‘s (AMZN.O) Marketplace and Apple‘s App Store.
The others are Microsoft’s two units Linkedin and Bing, booking.com (BKNG.O), Pinterest (PINS.N), Snap Inc’s (SNAP.N) Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, Wikipedia, Zalando (ZALG.DE) and Alibaba’s (9988.HK) AliExpress.
The Creepy Secret Behind Online Therapy + More
The Creepy Secret Behind Online Therapy
How do you make money off people caught in a mental-health emergency? Loris, a startup that helps companies improve their customer-service conversations, found a way. Founded in 2018, Loris used data generated from text conversations with people in distress to make “empathetic” customer-service software. The source for the data? Crisis Text Line, a nonprofit suicide-prevention hotline and the parent company of Loris.
At the heart of the arrangement was what Crisis Text Line called the “largest mental health data set in the world” — 219 million messages from more than 6.7 million conversations over text, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.
Exploiting data for profit is par for the course in the modern technology business — search engines, social media platforms, and streaming apps all gather and monetize the data they gain from users. But commercializing the data from a crisis line is vastly different from mining data on the binge-watching or online-shopping habits of customers. The data used for Loris came from people who were at the lowest point of their lives, when they may not have been able to truly understand and consent to how it would then be used.
Despite being touted as the fix for the broken healthcare system, the mushrooming tech-based mental-health industry has a dark side. In the past year, a flurry of reports has found that some of the most recognizable names in the industry have repeatedly engaged in creepy and harmful data-sharing practices that treat people in need of help as prospective sources of profit instead of as patients.
Taken together, the reports reveal a dangerous cocktail of tech solutionism, abuse of consumer trust and regulatory failure that puts highly vulnerable people at risk. And they raise important questions about the future of mental health care and the role of technology in it.
RESTRICT Act Explained: Proposed TikTok Ban Is ‘a PATRIOT Act for the Digital Age,’ Some Lawmakers Say
Citing national security concerns over reports that the Chinese government could use the app to surveil American citizens or promote propaganda to its largely teenage user base, former President Trump and the current Biden administration have both supported legislation to ban TikTok.
Among the most sweeping proposals is a bill currently making its way through Congress. But the RESTRICT Act — touted as a way to ban TikTok nationwide — would do far more than prevent users from accessing an app known for its viral dance routines and conspiracy theory videos.
The bill, if passed, wouldn’t target TikTok specifically. Instead, it would authorize the Secretary of Commerce, under orders of the President, to restrict or ban digital products and services from countries it deems to be foreign adversaries: China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.
Should a U.S.-based person or company violate a restriction issued under the RESTRICT Act, they would be subject to civil penalties of up to $250,000 (or twice the value of the transaction that served as the basis of the order, whichever is greater) and criminal penalties of up to $1 million in fines and up to 20 years imprisonment.
Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law and co-director of the High Tech Law Institute, told Insider the goal of the RESTRICT Act is to allow the government to veto software that allows people to talk to each other and poses a major threat to Americans’ First Amendment rights.
China Makes Major Push in Its Ambitious Digital Yuan Project
Public sector workers in an eastern Chinese city are set to be paid fully in digital yuan, as the country makes a significant push to popularize the currency. Changshu, located in the province of Jiangsu, will start the new payment process in May, according to an official document widely posted on government websites. This is the biggest rollout of the currency, also known as the e-CNY, in China so far, according to state media.
Changshu, a city of 1.7 million residents, was already experimenting with the digital yuan, a form of money that exists only online and is managed and backed by China’s central bank. Like cryptocurrency, the digital yuan incorporates some elements of blockchain technology: Every transaction is recorded and traceable in a digital ledger.
China is already on the verge of becoming a cashless society, but the vast majority of electronic transactions happen on privately owned apps (Alipay and WeChat Pay), outside of the immediate purview of the state. An official yuan would change that, giving Beijing an unprecedented amount of information about what people are spending their money on and where.
The world’s second-largest economy has been trialing the digital yuan in Chinese cities since 2020, as it prepares for a national rollout that could put China ahead of Europe and the United States in the global race to develop a state-backed digital currency, which is also known as central bank digital currency (CBDC).
Artificial Intelligence — Coming to a Government Near You Soon?
The recent blizzard of warnings about artificial intelligence and how it is transforming learning, upending legal, financial and organizational functions, and reshaping social and cultural interaction, have mostly left out the role it is already playing in governance.
Governments in the U.S. at every level are attempting the transition from a programmatic model of service delivery to a citizen-focused model.
Los Angeles, the U.S.’s second-largest city, is a pioneer in the field, unveiling technologies to help streamline bureaucratic functions from police recruitment to paying parking tickets to filling potholes or locating resources at the library.
For now, AI advances are limited to automation. When ChatGPT was asked recently about how it might change how people deal with the government, it responded that “the next generation of AI, which includes ChatGPT, has the potential to revolutionize the way governments interact with their citizens.”
Mother of 7 Denied Kidney Transplant for Refusing COVID Shot in Georgia
On dialysis and potentially facing death, a 41-year-old homeschooling mother of seven young children has been rejected as a candidate for a life-saving kidney transplant by Emory Healthcare Inc. of Atlanta.
The reason? The woman, who has already had COVID-19, refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccine on religious and medical grounds. To protect her privacy, the patient will be referred to in this article as Jane Doe.
Affiliated with Emory University, Emory Healthcare is one of the leading organ transplant centers in the South. According to Liberty Counsel (LC), a national non-profit legal organization helping Doe, she was referred to Emory by her nephrologist after suddenly coming down with end-stage kidney disease.
Emory Healthcare is one of 35% of the nation’s transplant centers that are still requiring their patients to be vaccinated for COVID-19, according to a Liberty Counsel analysis. This is despite the fact that on April 11, President Joe Biden declared the national emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic officially over.
Zombie School Rules Prove COVID Alarmism Was Always a Cult
Want proof COVID alarmism is a cult, pure and simple? Look no further than the Elizabeth Anne Clune Montessori school in Ithaca. There, as chronicled by David Zweig at the Free Press, children must be masked, including outdoors, and are actually forbidden from speaking during lunch.
That’s right: In 2023, long after the pandemic has receded, years after the data have established both that there is a near-zero risk to kids from the disease and that interventions like masking (and monastic silences) are next to useless.
Still, one tiny private school is clinging to hygiene theater with insane vigilance. Long after the pandemic has receded, years after the data have established both that there is a near-zero risk to kids from the disease and that interventions like masking (and monastic silences) are next to useless.
Zweig reports that the enforced silence at lunch drove the school’s children — like political prisoners in a Soviet gulag — to contrive secret hand signals as a way of communicating. The school kept these restrictions in place after the end of New York’s mask mandate at the request of teachers.
Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities Should Drop Mask Requirements, Medical Experts Say
Even after mask mandates were dropped across the country amid dwindling COVID-19 cases and deaths, face coverings have still been required in many doctors’ offices, hospitals and other healthcare settings.
Now, a group of esteemed medical experts is calling for a change. In an April 18 journal entry in the Annals of Internal Medicine, an academic medical journal, several physicians — including infectious disease specialists — wrote that it’s time to remove masking requirements in healthcare.
“While critically important in the earlier phases of the pandemic, we’ve entered a more stable phase, with substantial population-level immunity, durable protection against severe disease, a series of less virulent variants, and other important and favorable changes,” said the corresponding author Erica S. Shenoy, M.D., Ph.D., in a press release. She is the medical director of infection control for Mass General Brigham and an infectious diseases physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Other contributing physicians came from Harvard Medical School, Washington University School of Medicine, University of Iowa College of Medicine, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine and Trinity Health Michigan.
Bay Area Hospital Reinstitutes Face Mask Mandate After COVID Outbreak
Guess what happened within a few weeks of Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center lifting its face mask requirements. The answer rhymes with headache, as in a COVID-19 outbreak. And now, the Medical Center has reinstituted face mask requirements for now.
A statement from Kaiser Permanente Northern California described the outbreak: “Recently at our Santa Rosa Hospital, more than a dozen out of our approximately 3,500 staff members and some patients have tested positive for COVID-19.”
The statement continued with, “In response, effective immediately, physicians and staff are required to mask in the Santa Rosa Hospital and Emergency Department while providing direct patient care. We are requiring all visitors to mask upon entrance to the hospital and throughout their visit.”
Amazon Has Been Trying to Break Into Healthcare for Years. Here’s a Look at Everything It’s Done.
Amazon has big plans to disrupt healthcare. Last year, the retail and tech giant made waves when it announced plans to acquire the primary-care company One Medical. In January, Amazon released a subscription program allowing users to get generic prescriptions for $5 a month. The fee covers all eligible prescriptions for Prime members, in a program that rivals other retailers offering low-price generic medications.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has called Amazon a “significant disruptor” of the medical-care field, according to leaked audio obtained by Insider’s Eugene Kim and Blake Dodge. Jassy in an April letter said Amazon sees a “unique opportunity” in healthcare in 2023.
It hasn’t been smooth sailing for every healthcare project. Haven, Amazon’s joint venture with JPMorgan and Berkshire Hathaway, shut down in early 2021 after three years of trying to improve care and lower healthcare costs for the three companies’ employees. In August, it shut down Amazon Care, a big homegrown primary-care bet.
Analysts think in 2023 Amazon will continue to build on its healthcare business through more acquisitions.
Big Tech Earnings Are on Deck This Week. Why That Matters
With Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta Platforms all slated to report earnings this coming week, investors are turning their attention away from bank earnings to Big Tech. That’s because just a handful of large-cap tech stocks powered the S&P 500’s gains during the first quarter despite banking turmoil, uncertainty about the Federal Reserve’s plan to stabilize prices and recession fears.
Companies including Facebook-parent Meta Platforms, Nvidia (NVDA), Microsoft (MSFT) and Google-parent Alphabet surged at the beginning of this year, with that trend accelerating last month when large-cap tech names became havens for investors. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is up over 15% this year.
Another major theme for tech earnings is the race toward artificial intelligence. The pressure on tech companies to develop their AI units has grown rapidly since ChatGPT entered the market in November. Since then, Meta, Alphabet and Microsoft have expressed their intent to strengthen their presence in the AI space. So have other tech firms like IBM, Amazon, Baidu and Tencent.
While some tech leaders, including Elon Musk, have warned of possible repercussions from AI, investments — including from the Tesla chief executive himself — have abounded.
Why Apple’s Partnership With Goldman Is the Future of Banking
Last week Apple effectively dropped the mic on the nation’s banking industry. While the average bank is paying less than half a percent on savings accounts, the $2.6 trillion technology company announced it would be offering 4.15% annual returns to savers — no minimums, no lockups and FDIC-insured. The new product rollout comes at a time when regional banks are scrambling in the wake of the Silicon Valley Bank crisis to maintain their deposit bases, and cash-starved fintech startups are likewise struggling.
Technically Apple doesn’t have a banking license. It is fronting for Goldman Sachs Bank USA, otherwise known as Marcus, which has a state charter and is FDIC-insured. In Fintech parlance, Apple is a neobank like Chime, Revolut and Monzo — except its brand strength is unparalleled given that there are more than two billion iPhones globally, now serving as Goldman’s branch network.
The new high-yield savings account is only available to customers with Apple’s credit card, Apple Card. These users can have an account set up in minutes and their spend rewards called daily cash, are automatically funneled into the high-yield account. The account will be displayed on a dashboard in Apple’s digital wallet where users can track their balance and interest earned. The product allows Apple to offer yet another sticky iPhone benefit by strengthening its built-in digital wallet.
Facial Recognition Is Expanding Its Watchful Eye but Suffers From Notable Fails + More
Facial Recognition Is Expanding Its Watchful Eye but Suffers From Notable Fails
The use of facial recognition technology, a form of biometric artificial intelligence, is growing across the U.S. as an efficient security system that can identify people based on measuring facial features but has been hit with some notable criticisms.
Today, machine learning algorithms — a subset of artificial intelligence that uses data and algorithms to mimic how humans learn — have fine-tuned the technology. The tech can measure and identify facial measurements in a photo or video, and cross-analyze whether two photos or videos show the same person, or even pick a person out in a crowd of people, Amazon Web Services explains.
The tech is being used to patrol for fraud, where some companies have users verify their identity with their face, to ATMs using the tech to authenticate customers or even for doctors accessing patient records. While a New York City supermarket rolled out the tech to patrol for shoplifters, and Madison Square Garden Entertainment has used the recognition software to identify and boot event-goers from venues such as Radio City or Madison Square Garden.
For police departments, the use of the tech is widespread, with the CEO of facial recognition firm Clearview AI telling the BBC last month that police departments in the U.S. have used its software nearly 1 million times. Facial recognition technology, however, has come under scrutiny by some local leaders and civil liberties groups with accusations it violates people’s privacy and civil liberties.
TikTok’s Algorithm Keeps Pushing Suicide to Vulnerable Kids
TikTok’s algorithm doesn’t know Chase Nasca is dead. More than a year after Nasca killed himself at age 16, his account remains active. Scroll through his For You feed, and you see an endless stream of clips about unrequited love, hopelessness, pain and what many posts glorify as the ultimate escape: suicide.
Two weeks after his death, his mother, Michelle, started searching his social media accounts, desperate for answers. When she opened the TikTok app on his iPad, she found a library of more than 3,000 videos her son had bookmarked, liked, saved or tagged as a favorite. She could see the terms he’d searched for: Batman, basketball, weightlifting, motivational speeches. And she could see what the algorithm had brought him: many videos about depression, hopelessness and death.
At a congressional hearing in March, a representative brought up Nasca’s death, showing TikTok Chief Executive Officer Shou Chew some of the clips the app had sent the boy and asking if Chew would let his own children watch such content. That same month, Nasca’s parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit in New York state court against TikTok, ByteDance and the railroad.
TikTok’s original recommendation algorithm was designed by a team of engineers in China, working for ByteDance. But while the app was made in China, it’s used most everywhere except China. It can’t even be downloaded in its homeland. TikTok says its algorithm is now maintained by engineers around the world, with teams based in North America, Europe and Asia contributing. But more than a dozen former employees from the company’s trust and safety team who were interviewed by Bloomberg Businessweek say executives and engineers in Beijing still hold the keys.
CDC Director Walensky Says Vaccines Don’t Stop Transmission. Why Does Maine Still Mandate the Shot for Healthcare Workers?
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky testified in Congress Wednesday that the mRNA injections marketed as COVID-19 vaccines do not stop the spread of the virus. Walensky’s comments contradict repeated claims during the pandemic that urged people to get the vaccines because doing so would reduce transmission of the virus.
On Wednesday, she claimed those previous statements were true at the time, but since then, there has been an “evolution of the science” and now the vaccine no longer stops transmission.
While there may have been an “evolution of the science,” there has not been an “evolution of the policy,” especially when it comes to the Mills Administration’s mandate that healthcare workers receive the vaccine. Whether or not the vaccines stop or slow the transmission of the virus is central to the controversial mandate policies.
In Maine, Gov. Janet Mills enacted one of the harshest vaccine mandates in the country against healthcare workers. The mandate does not include philosophical or religious exemptions. As a result of the mandate, thousands of healthcare workers have left the field — or the state — creating a worker shortage for hospitals and emergency service providers.
Yet Maine’s vaccine mandate for all healthcare workers remains in effect despite the highest-ranking official in American disease prevention admitting Wednesday that those mandates were enacted on false premises.
City Went Too Far in Worker Crackdown Over COVID Vaccines, Judge Rules
Unionized City of Chicago employees fired or disciplined for violating COVID-19 vaccination requirements must be reinstated and repaid for any loss of wages or benefits, a state hearing officer has ruled.
The decision in a case before the Illinois Labor Relations Board applies to city workers represented by trade unions or by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The unions banded together to challenge regulations Mayor Lori Lightfoot imposed starting in 2021.
Administrative Law Judge Anna Hamburg-Gal said the city violated the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act by not bargaining in good faith over vaccine requirements and changes in sick leave policies. Her ruling, issued Wednesday, requires the city to “make whole” workers who lost pay and benefits, plus 7% annual interest.
The ruling is a broad rebuke of Lightfoot’s get-tough policies on city workers who resisted vaccine mandates, but it’s not known how many employees were penalized. One source said a few dozen employees may be directly affected by the decision.
U.S. Homeland Security Chief Creating Artificial Intelligence Task Force
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Friday that the agency would create a task force to figure out how to use artificial intelligence to do everything from protecting critical infrastructure to screening cargo to ferreting out products made with slave labor.
While artificial intelligence isn’t new, the sudden popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in recent months has sent officials around the world scrambling to see how they can best use the technology for good and prevent it from turbocharging disinformation and criminal activity.
Mayorkas said the technology would “drastically alter the threat landscape,” adding: “Our department will lead in the responsible use of AI to secure the homeland and in defending against the malicious use of this transformational technology.”
Consumer Protection Bureau Staffer Sent 256,000 People’s Data to Personal Account
A former employee of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, also known as the CFPB, sent personal data for hundreds of thousands of people to a personal email account, the agency confirmed this week.
The since-dismissed staffer for the agency, which is responsible for protecting consumers in the financial sector, made an unauthorized transfer of records for 256,000 customers of an unnamed financial institution, as well as confidential information for 45 other institutions, an agency spokesperson confirmed with The Wall Street Journal. The spokesperson clarified that most of the records were linked to consumers at one institution, although personal data from consumers from seven other unnamed firms were implicated.
CFPB officials informed the House Financial Services Committee about the “major incident” on March 21, according to a letter that Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Bill Huizenga (R-MI) sent the agency. The lawmaker said the transfer, which occurred through 65 emails, contained attachments, names, and account numbers for the 256,000 individuals.
TikTok’s CEO Breaks Silence After Brutal Congressional Hearing
On Thursday, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew give his first interview since sparring with House lawmakers in a testy hearing back in March. Chew is one of dozens of business leaders speaking at the TED2023 “Possibility” conference held in Vancouver, Canada. In a softball discussion that saw the interviewer praising Chew and asking for a selfie, the embattled CEO reiterated the ways TikTok is addressing public criticisms and explained why his app is good for America and the world.
Chew’s brief interview marks his first major public appearance since a five-hour-long, mostly-bad-faith grilling from lawmakers sitting on the House Energy and Commerce Committee in March. When Chew could (occasionally) get a word in, he tried to paint a picture of TikTok as a safe, “sunny corner of the internet” used by some 150 million Americans, close to half of the country, according to the company.
Lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle were unconvinced. Instead, many railed against TikTok for allegedly catalyzing harmful misinformation and dangerous health trends while another more raucous cohort demanded Chew prove TikTok couldn’t be used by the Chinese government as a surveillance tool. Exasperated, Chew told one lawmaker he felt like he was being faced with the impossible task of proving a negative.
As Japan’s Population Drops, One City Is Turning to ChatGPT to Help Run the Government
In the five months since its launch, ChatGPT has been used to generate student essays, write wedding vows and compose rousing sermons for pastors and rabbis. Now, a Japanese city is turning to the AI chatbot for something else: helping to run the government.
Yokosuka City, in Japan’s central Kanagawa prefecture, announced this week that it will begin using ChatGPT to help with administrative tasks. A news release on the municipal government’s website said all employees could use the chatbot to “summarize sentences, check spelling errors and create ideas.”
With ChatGPT handling rote administrative tasks, “staff can focus on work that can only be done by people, pushing forward an approach that brings happiness for our citizens,” said the news release.
But not every government has been as welcoming to ChatGPT. There have been widespread data privacy concerns, prompting Italian regulators to issue a temporary ban on the chatbot last month as they investigate how its parent company uses data.
Biden’s COVID Vaccine Rule for Federal Contractors Was Valid, U.S. Court Rules + More
Biden’s COVID Vaccine Rule for Federal Contractors Was Valid, U.S. Court Rules
President Joe Biden had the power to require employees of federal contractors to receive COVID-19 vaccinations, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Wednesday, throwing out a judge’s ruling that had blocked the mandate in Arizona.
A panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the 2021 mandate that applied to millions of workers nationwide fell under the broad powers granted by the Federal Procurement Act, which enables the president to adopt rules that promote economy and efficiency in federal contracting.
The court reversed a federal judge in Phoenix who blocked the mandate in Arizona last year. The judge had said allowing the vaccine requirement would grant the president “a breathtaking amount of authority.”
The decision creates a split with three other appeals courts that have said Biden, a Democrat, likely exceeded his authority and blocked the vaccine mandate in 13 Republican-led states.
Department of Homeland Security’s COVID Censorship Problem
In 2002, Congress established the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in response to the 9/11 attacks to centralize and consolidate homeland security efforts to prevent terrorist attacks. In the 20 years since its creation, DHS has departed from its original mission and used its expansive authority and funding to impede on the rights of American citizens.
What should terrify every American is that the full extent of DHS’s abuse of its power against its own citizens is still largely unknown. The public is only recently learning the degree to which the Department’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was employed to surveil and censor American citizens’ social media for what it concluded to be “misinformation” and “disinformation.”
What was the result? Statements about COVID-19 that are now supported by evidence were flagged as disinformation. Statements including my own, that our government once labeled as “disinformation,” such as the efficacy of masks, naturally acquired immunity and the origins of COVID-19, are now supported by evidence.
In 2021, DHS even put out a video encouraging people “to report their own family members to Facebook for ‘disinformation’ if they challenge U.S. government narratives on COVID-19.” In reality, the most significant source of disinformation during the pandemic, with the most influence and greatest impact on people’s lives, was the U.S. government.
Judge: Mississippi Must Give Religious Exemption on Vaccines
Mississippi must join most other states in allowing religious exemptions from vaccinations that children are required to receive so they can attend school, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden handed down the decision Monday in a lawsuit filed last year by several parents who say their religious beliefs have led them to keep their children unvaccinated and out of Mississippi schools. According to the lawsuit, some of the plaintiffs are homeschooling their children, while others have family or work connections in Mississippi but live in other states that allow religious exemptions for childhood vaccinations.
Ozerden set a July 15 deadline for the Mississippi State Department of Health to allow religious exemptions. The state already allows people to apply for medical exemptions for a series of five vaccinations that are required for children to enroll in public or private schools. The immunizations are against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis; polio; hepatitis; measles, mumps and rubella; and chickenpox. Mississippi does not require COVID-19 vaccinations.
The only states without religious or personal belief exemptions for school immunization requirements are California, Connecticut, Maine, Mississippi, New York and West Virginia, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Employer COVID Vax Mandates: Still Legal, but for How Long?
While the clamor for vaccine mandates has subsided, many employers remain committed to having their employees fully up to date with their COVID-19 boosters. But will they be able to enforce such a policy? The answer is: It depends.
Employer authority to implement mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies never derived from federal or state public health emergency declarations, so the lifting of those declarations do not directly impact an employer’s ability to require vaccination. However, employers should remain mindful of individual state laws.
Generally speaking, private employers can continue to require COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment, except in states that have placed restrictions on employer vaccine mandates. Certain state bans allow healthcare employers to continue to require vaccination.
Still, other states require vaccination in limited circumstances, such as healthcare settings. Many states have outlawed public sector mandates altogether.
Oversight Board Urges Meta to Keep COVID Rules in Place, for Now
Meta’s oversight board is recommending that the social media giant “maintain” its current policies against COVID-19 misinformation as long as global health authorities deem it an international health emergency, according to an advisory opinion released Thursday.
But the board is also urging the Facebook and Instagram parent company to revisit which misleading claims it will remove going forward and to open that debate to a broader audience.
It marks the first time the group has directly weighed in on Meta’s rules governing pandemic-related content, which sparked heated debate in Washington over whether platforms were doing too much or too little to police harmful posts.
The board called on the company to launch a “transparent and inclusive review” of the list of 80 misleading or false claims it takes action against.
Alex Berenson Says Lawsuit Against Biden, Pfizer Could Reveal Internal Communications About COVID Vaccine
Journalist Alex Berenson believes his First Amendment rights were violated when he was banned from Twitter for expressing concerns about the COVID vaccine, and a lawsuit against President Biden, White House officials and Pfizer honchos who allegedly pushed for his removal could expose their internal communications about the polarizing jab.
“People may remember that in 2021, the White House was very, very vocal publicly about, you know, quote-unquote, disinformation. Anybody who raised questions about the vaccines, they were trying to get social media companies to take action broadly against them,” Berenson told Fox News Digital.
“What I didn’t know until last year [was] that they had specifically targeted me,” he continued. “So, this lawsuit basically aims to hold these people accountable for what they did for violating my First Amendment rights.”
Berenson believes his lawsuit might be the only opportunity for Americans to learn the truth about internal communications between vaccine makers and government officials. Did Pfizer executives express concern about the effectiveness of the jab? Did the White House look the other way? These questions can potentially be answered if Berenson’s suit reaches the discovery phase.
Because of this, Berenson assumes the White House and Pfizer will first try to get the suit dismissed. “They don’t want me to be able to do the same kind of discovery that I did with Twitter,” he said. “I have to believe that they’re not going to want that information to be public.”
Billionaire Li Ka-Shing Backs Biocomputing Startup That Takes On AI With Lab-Grown Brain Cells
Cortical Labs, an Australian startup developing a new type of artificial intelligence that combines lab-grown human brain cells with computer chips, has raised $10 million in a funding round led by Horizons Ventures, the private investment arm of Hong Kong’s richest person, Li Ka-shing.
Blackbird Ventures, Australia’s leading venture capital fund, has also taken part in the financing round, Cortical Labs said in a statement on Wednesday. Other investors include In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the Central Intelligence Agency, as well as U.S.-based LifeX Ventures and Australia-headquartered Radar Ventures, among others.
“The possibilities that a hybridized AI meets synthetic biology model can unlock are limitless, accelerating the possibilities of digital AI in a more powerful and more sustainable way,” Hon Weng Chong, founder and CEO of Cortical Labs, said in the statement. “Our technology will shape and drive the next frontier of AI.”
The startup said pharmaceutical companies are likely to be the first to adopt its biological computer chips for use in the testing of new drugs and therapies. However, such innovation might also raise ethical concerns, including whether it can develop consciousness.
George Santos Unveils MINAJ Act to Limit Vaccine Mandates
Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is giving a nod to Nicki Minaj’s famous COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, appearing to name a new bill after the rapper.
The “Medical Information Nuanced Accountability Judgement Act,” or MINAJ Act, H.R. 2631, introduced Tuesday by Santos, would prohibit the federal government from imposing “any mandate requiring an individual to receive a vaccine that has not been authorized for marketing for at least ten years unless a public health emergency is declared.”
In 2021, Minaj made headlines and was widely mocked after sharing on social media that her cousin’s account of his friend’s vaccination played a part in her decision not to receive a shot to protect herself against the coronavirus.
“I urge my colleagues to join me in this mission to block tyrannical and draconian measures from being utilized by the Federal Government,” Santos said.
How Facebook Users Can Apply for a Share of $725 Million Settlement
Five years after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, millions of Facebook users may be able to get money back from the social media company for their troubles.
Facebook, which is owned by Meta, reached a $725 million class-action settlement this week over claims it shared users’ data without their consent. Millions of people can fill out a claim form to get a slice of the settlement amount.
If you are a current or former Facebook user, here’s how to get started. Anyone who used Facebook between May 24, 2007, and Dec. 22, 2022, can submit a claim, even if you no longer have a Facebook account. Political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica was accused of improperly using a quiz app on the social media site to access the personal data of 87 million Facebook users without their consent.
The biggest payout from the settlement will go to legal fees for the lawyers behind it. They can claim up to 25% of the $725 million, or a little over $180 million. There are eight named plaintiffs in the case, and they could receive up to $15,000 each. The rest of the pool will be divided up between affected Facebook users.
Screen Time and Suicide: There Is a Connection, and We All Need to Be Concerned
The Dallas Morning News reported:
The rise of technology has brought many benefits, including improved communication, enhanced learning and entertainment. However, as we increasingly rely on screens in our daily lives, there is growing concern about the impact of screen time on mental health, particularly among children and adolescents. Recent studies have shown that excessive screen time is linked to an increase in suicidality, among other negative consequences.
A 2023 study published in Preventive Medicine found that there is a clear correlation between screen time and suicidality among young people. The study determined that each additional hour of daily screen time was associated with a 9% increase in the odds of suicidal behavior. This follows a recent rise in suicide ideation, which was observed in a 2020 study by Ivey-Stephenson and others. Likewise, an article of Michael A. Lindsey and others stated that suicide attempts among high school students increased from 6.3% in 2009 to 7.9% in 2019.
The link between screen time and suicidality is concerning, and parents and caregivers should take steps to set consistent limits on screen time, establish parental controls on devices, and have open and honest conversations with young people about the dangers of excessive screen time. By taking these steps, we can help their kids develop healthy habits around screen time and ensure their mental health and well-being.
The Rise of AI Will Only Make Big Tech More Powerful, NYU Researchers Warn
AI is expensive. The data models that underpin the whole affair are intensive to develop, requiring sophisticated and powerful calculations to be made useful.
The good news is that the tools, resources, and raw computing power to build those data models are readily available to pretty much anybody — leading to the recent explosion in AI tools, from OpenAI‘s famed ChatGPT to Runway‘s text to video editor.
The bad news, say some advocacy groups, is that the boom is just contributing to the power and influence of the relatively few companies with the infrastructure and capabilities to support those intensive AI applications. Just about every AI tool you can think of relies on clouds like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud, or some combination of the three.
In practical terms, it means that even the AI startups competing with those Big Tech giants are, in a very real way, simultaneously contributing to their respective bottom lines. And the more those startups use those major cloud platforms, the more they pay to their much larger competitors.
This dynamic shows that the rise of AI will only make Big Tech more powerful and entrenched in several industries, even as worries about their potential for monopolistic practices peak.