Big Brother News Watch
Former Twitter CEO Takes Blame for ‘Government Control of Social Media’ + More
Jack Dorsey Takes the Blame for Even Building Twitter’s Moderation Tools
Twitter co-founder and ex-CEO Jack Dorsey has not had it easy the past few weeks. After being hounded on the internet by mobs of Elon Musk fans wanting his blood for what’s been presented in the so-called “Twitter Files,” Dorsey finally came out late Tuesday not to apologize for banning former President Donald Trump, but to apologize for ever even creating moderation tools in the first place.
In a blog post, Dorsey wrote “The biggest mistake I made was continuing to invest in building tools for us to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for the people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves.”
He also laid out three points that exemplify his social media philosophy: that social media should be kept out of any corporate or government control, that only an author should have the option to remove content they produce on a platform and that moderation is best implemented by “algorithmic choice,” which is essentially ranking content based on user preferences. It’s an idea that’s been championed by the Dorsey-fronted Bluesky social app.
Facebook Knew Instagram Was Pushing Girls to Dangerous Content: Internal Document
A previously unpublished internal document reveals Facebook, now known as Meta, knew Instagram was pushing girls to dangerous content.
In 2021, according to the document, an Instagram employee ran an internal investigation on eating disorders by opening a false account as a 13-year-old girl looking for diet tips. She was led to graphic content and recommendations to follow accounts titled “skinny binge” and “apple core anorexic.”
Other internal memos show Facebook employees raising concerns about company research that revealed Instagram made 1-in-3 teen girls feel worse about their bodies, and that teens who used the app felt higher rates of anxiety and depression.
Attorney Matt Bergman started the Social Media Victims Law Center after reading the so-called “Facebook Papers,” disclosed by whistleblower Frances Haugen last year. He’s now working with more than 1,200 families who are pursuing lawsuits against social media companies. Next year, Bergman and his team will start the discovery process for the consolidated federal cases against Meta and other companies in multimillion-dollar lawsuits that he says are more about changing policy than financial compensation.
Is Social-Media Censorship a Crime?
The Wall Street Journal reported:
Amid growing revelations about government involvement in social-media censorship, it’s no longer enough to talk simply about tech censorship. The problem should be understood as gov-tech censorship. The Biden White House has threatened tech companies and federal agencies have pressed them to censor disfavored opinions and users. So it’s time to ask about accountability.
Will there be legal consequences for government officials, for the companies, or for their personnel who cooperate in the gov-tech censorship of dissent on COVID-19, election irregularities or other matters? Cooperation between government officials and private parties to suppress speech could be considered a criminal conspiracy to violate civil rights. The current administration won’t entertain such a theory, but a future one might.
Such accountability is constitutionally desirable — not for reasons of retribution but because without accountability, censorship will persist. The platforms probably will reassure their directors, officers and censorship review board members that there’s little to worry about. That may turn out to be correct. Section 241 is sufficiently broad that prosecutors should hesitate to pursue it in marginal cases.
But there’s nothing marginal about the most massive system of censorship in the nation’s history. If the gov-tech partnership to suppress speech isn’t a conspiracy to interfere in the enjoyment of the freedom of speech, what is?
U.S. Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Ban TikTok Nationwide
As more and more states across the country pile on to ban TikTok from state-owned devices, Republican Senator Marco Rubio from Florida along with Republican Representative Mike Gallagher from Wisconsin and Democrat Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi from Illinois have taken the move to the next level by proposing a national ban of the platform.
The bill, titled “Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act” or, more succinctly, the ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act. If passed, the Act would then go to the President’s desk and if signed, would “block and prohibit all transactions in all property and interests in property of a social media company,” 30 days after passage.
The ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act defines the social media company of interest as those that are either headquartered in, use algorithms controlled by, or are influenced by a “country of concern,” while later specifying that the companies of interest are TikTok parent company ByteDance and any of its subsidiaries.
“The federal government has yet to take a single meaningful action to protect American users from the threat of TikTok. This isn’t about creative videos — this is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day,” Senator Rubio stated in a press release on his website. Representative Gallagher, meanwhile, referred to the platform as “digital fentanyl that’s addicting Americans, collecting troves of their data, and censoring their news” in a subsequent statement.
Dr. Fauci Says He Ignores Elon Musk and ‘Cesspool’ Twitter After ‘Bizarre’ Allegations
Elon who? Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday said he doesn’t know or care what billionaire Elon Musk has said about him and derided his Twitter as a “cesspool of misinformation.”
“[Musk] has a big megaphone, but [Twitter] has really gone berserk lately. It’s kind of become almost a cesspool of misinformation,” Fauci said in an interview with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC.
“I don’t have a Twitter account. I don’t tweet and I don’t listen to tweets,” the Brooklyn-bred pandemic doctor said. “So whatever he said, I’m not paying attention to it.”
Musk has in recent days called for Fauci, who is leaving government after six decades of public health service, to be charged with unspecified crimes related to his management of the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘Out of Control’: Dozens of Telehealth Startups Sent Sensitive Health Information to Big Tech Companies
Open the website of Workit Health, and the path to treatment starts with a simple intake form: Are you in danger of harming yourself or others? If not, what’s your current opioid and alcohol use? How much methadone do you use?
Within minutes, patients looking for online treatment for opioid use and other addictions can complete the assessment and book a video visit with a provider licensed to prescribe suboxone and other drugs. But what patients probably don’t know is that Workit was sending their delicate, even intimate, answers about drug use and self-harm to Facebook.
A joint investigation by STAT and The Markup of 50 direct-to-consumer telehealth companies like Workit found that quick, online access to medications often comes with a hidden cost for patients: Virtual care websites were leaking sensitive medical information they collect to the world’s largest advertising platforms.
On 13 of the 50 websites, STAT and The Markup documented at least one tracker — from Meta, Google, TikTok, Bing, Snap, Twitter, LinkedIn or Pinterest — that collected patients’ answers to medical intake questions. Trackers on 25 sites, including those run by industry leaders Hims & Hers, Ro, and Thirty Madison, told at least one big tech platform that the user had added an item like a prescription medication to their cart, or checked out with a subscription for a treatment plan.
YouTube Will Send a Notification to Users if Their Comment Is Abusive
Toxic and hateful comments on YouTube have been a constant headache for the company, creators and users. The company has previously attempted to curtail this by introducing features such as showing an alert to individuals at the time of posting so that they could be more considerate. Now, the streaming service is introducing a new feature that will more aggressively nudge such individuals of their abusive comments and take broader actions.
YouTube says it will send a notification to people whose abusive comments have been removed for violating the platform’s rules. If despite receiving the notification a user continues to post abusive comments, the service will ban them from posting any more comments for 24 hours. The company said it tested the feature before the rollout today and found that notifications and timeouts proved materially successful.
At the moment, hateful comment detection is available only for English-language comments, but the streaming service aims to include more languages in the future. Notably, the pre-posting warning is available for English and Spanish.
This Stalkerware Tracked Thousands of Android and iPhones
One of the most widely-used stalkerware apps is supposedly “riddled” with security flaws, and risks exposing its victim’s data to third parties, experts have warned.
Xnspy allows users to monitor the activities of their spouse, partner, or child after they covertly install it on their victim’s device, it then runs in the background secretly while sending data back to the installer.
An investigation by TechCrunch found that in addition to the already questionable more and legal issues that a tool like Xnspy presents, its underlying technology makes users extremely vulnerable to data security issues like identity theft.
According to the research, this app primarily targeted Android users — although it also reported that thousands of iPhones were compromised.
Police Detain 4 in Guangzhou After COVID Protests
Police in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou have detained at least four people for more than a week after they attended protests against COVID-19 restrictions in late November, according to activists, family members and friends of the detained.
While many who attended protests in cities across China last month were released after being held for 24 hours — the legal limit on detention before police must file charges — the four Guangzhou residents as of Wednesday have been held for a week and a half.
The detentions came a week after a burst of nationwide protests on the last weekend in November where people demanded freedom from China’s strict pandemic restrictions across several cities in a rare display of direct defiance against the central government. Protesters took to the streets despite great personal risk, knowing that surveillance cameras were pervasive and their social media would be tracked by police.
Now, what the protesters feared — that police would arrest them after the initial wave of action had passed — is happening in Guangzhou.
Dr. Robert Malone Reinstated on Twitter After Being Banned Over COVID Misinformation Policy + More
Vaccine Researcher Dr. Robert Malone Reinstated on Twitter After Being Banned Over COVID Misinformation Policy
Twitter on Monday unsuspended the account of Dr. Robert Malone, who was previously kicked off the platform for his posts on coronavirus vaccines.
Malone, an mRNA vaccine researcher, was removed from Twitter nearly a year ago for apparently violating the social media site’s policy on COVID-19 misinformation. He had repeatedly made claims regarding the effectiveness of the vaccines.
Around the same time as his Twitter ban, Malone’s appearance on Joe Rogan‘s podcast was censored by YouTube. In the interview with Rogan, Malone discussed vaccines and the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“What the media doesn’t understand is that you can’t suppress information,” he told host Laura Ingraham in January. “It’ll find a way to be free.”
We’ve Failed to Learn From Past Pandemics. Our Posterity Deserves Better
A headline from a Santa Barbara newspaper blared: “Mask is the Chief Ally of the [‘Disease’] Physicians Declare.” The subtitle ran: “Average person doesn’t know how to take care of a mask and it becomes a veritable bacteria incubator.” This wasn’t the work of some dissident group of “fringe epidemiologists” in 2020; it was published on November 16, 1918, as the Spanish Flu swept across the country.
The basic fact is that our current crop of “public health” experts, led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, has failed to learn the lessons of past pandemics. COVID-era lockdowns, mandates and other draconian mitigation measures fundamentally destroyed trust in our public health institutions. Historic accounts from 100 years ago convey a cautionary tale, warning against these excessive measures — but our so-called “experts” ignored them. We cannot afford to let the COVID era pass into history without uncovering what transpired and determining who should be held accountable. Our children deserve a maskless future.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has again issued guidance recommending universal masking. But universal mask mandates and other ultra-strict pandemic interventions have been tried before. As many scientific studies will attest: They failed then, as they did now. The forgotten history of stringent interventions is something we should have remembered at the onset of COVID.
U.K. Government Asked Twitter and Facebook to ‘Tweak’ Algorithms During COVID
Former United Kingdom Health Secretary Matt Hancock, self-styled as an official who was at the forefront of Britain’s battle against COVID, didn’t seem to feel like he had done enough in 2020 and 2021, so he felt compelled to milk the pandemic cow by writing a book about that “battle.”
But he wasn’t laboring alone, since he had a co-author, Isabel Oakeshott, who reports say is actually opposed to Hancock’s policies and is a lockdown skeptic.
And now, Oakeshott, who had access to official records and Hancock’s notes exchanged with “all the key players in Britain’s COVID-19 story” — as the book’s blurb states — has penned her own “story,” an article based on the collaboration published by the Spectator, whose content draws from the material used for the book.
Oakeshott writes about the “key lessons” that include revelations about the details of U.K.’s vaccine and mask policies, but also the mechanisms to deal with dissenters, particularly online.
Mexican State Brings Back Mask Mandate as COVID Numbers Rise
A northern Mexican state reintroduced the obligatory use of face masks in closed public spaces, officials said on Monday, in a bid to reduce rising COVID-19 infections, as well as the spread of other respiratory diseases.
The health minister of Nuevo Leon state, home to Mexico’s third-biggest city Monterrey, highlighted the updated guidelines in a news conference and said that the measure will go into effect immediately.
Giving Your Child a Screen May Hinder Emotional Regulation, Study Says. Here’s What to Do Instead
Researchers looked at 422 parent and caregiver responses to assess how likely they were to utilize devices for distraction and how dysregulated their 3- to 5-year-old child’s behavior was over a six-month period, according to the study published Monday in the JAMA Pediatrics.
Frequently using digital devices to distract from unpleasant and disruptive behavior like tantrums was associated with more emotional dysregulation in kids — particularly boys and children who were already struggling with emotional regulation, according to the study.
The study lines up with the current recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the World Health Organization that children ages 2 to 5 should have very limited screen time, said Dr. Joyce Harrison, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Instead of distraction, Dr. Jenny Radesky, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician and associate professor of behavioral sciences at the University of Michigan Medical School, recommends taking tantrums and emotional dysregulation as opportunities to teach children how to identify and respond to emotions in helpful ways.
Ex-NYT Columnist Swipes Media Downplaying Twitter Files: ‘Less Interesting’ Facebook Leaks Made Front Pages
Former New York Times media columnist Ben Smith took a swipe at the lack of coverage Elon Musk‘s “Twitter Files” have been receiving from the legacy press.
“Of course, the ‘Twitter files’ are a story,” Smith wrote in his newsletter on Sunday. “Elon Musk’s selective release of internal correspondence has shed some light on how Twitter clamped down on voices it deemed extreme and misleading, mostly on the right and far right. Less interesting leaks from Facebook made front pages for years.”
Ever since Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss began reporting on the “Twitter Files,” several members of the legacy media including from NBC News, CNN and The Washington Post have attempted to dismiss the findings as “nothing burgers.”
The three broadcast networks have virtually given zero coverage to each of the installments of the “Twitter Files” with CBS offering roughly 30 seconds about the first installment with ignoring the rest like ABC and NBC. CNN and MSNBC, meanwhile, have put less emphasis on the revelations from the tech giant and kept their ire on its new owner, Elon Musk.
Washington Regulator Aims for More Control of Microsoft and Meta
Lina Khan’s Federal Trade Commission has two headline-making cases underway right now: Its trial against Meta in a California courtroom, and a new suit to block a Microsoft megadeal.
But Khan’s long game appears to be even bigger. She wants to win unprecedented powers to review and potentially block any future deals by two of tech’s most acquisitive companies.
Buried in court filings for both cases — a lawsuit to block Microsoft’s takeover of video game company Activision Blizzard, and a trial against Meta’s takeover of Within, maker of the virtual reality fitness app Supernatural — Khan’s push for new authorities shows how much more aggressive the agency is under her watch.
If the FTC can score a victory in either proceeding — though there’s likely a long way to go before either reaches that point — Khan and her team would do more than just block these deals, they’d be arming themselves with broad investigative authority over future acquisitions at Meta and Microsoft. For two tech giants that have built some of their most successful enterprises around buying companies, it would be a radically new regulatory process compared to how they’ve done business in the past.
Musk’s Twitter Dissolves Trust and Safety Council That Advised Platform’s Content
Twitter, under the leadership of Elon Musk, dissolved an outside advisory council minutes before a scheduled meeting, according to reports.
The Trust and Safety Council comprised nearly 100 independent civil, human rights and other organizations that the company formed in 2016 to address hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm and other problems on the platform.
“Our work to make Twitter a safe, informative place will be moving faster and more aggressively than ever before and we will continue to welcome your ideas going forward about how to achieve this goal,” said an email provided to The Associated Press. It was signed “Twitter.”
‘Effective Immediately’: Utah Bans TikTok From State Devices
Utah Republican Governor Spencer Cox issued an executive order on Monday that bans TikTok from all state-owned devices, citing “security threats by China and China-based entities.”
“China’s access to data collected by TikTok presents a threat to our cybersecurity,” Cox said. “As a result, we’ve deleted our TikTok account and ordered the same on all state-owned devices. We must protect Utahns and make sure that the people of Utah can trust the state’s security systems.”
The decision adds Utah to a growing list of Republican-led states to recently enact similar policies. On Thursday, Oklahoma Republican Governor Kevin Stitt issued his executive order to ban TikTok from state devices. On Wednesday, Texas became the largest state to ban the app, with Republican Governor Greg Abbott denouncing TikTok.
HR Platform Sequoia Says Hackers Accessed Customer SSNs and COVID Data
Benefits and payroll management company Sequoia says hackers accessed sensitive customer information, including their Social Security numbers and COVID-19 test results.
According to Wired, which first broke the news of Sequoia’s breach last week, the incident impacted customers of Sequoia One, a professional employer organization (or PEO) that provides outsourced human resources and payroll services. The service is popular with U.S.-based startups and says it works with more than 500 venture-backed companies.
Now, in a data breach notice filed with the California attorney general’s office, Sequoia said it became aware that an “unauthorized party may have accessed a cloud storage system that contained personal information” over a two-week period between September 22 and October 6.
This breached cloud system stored an array of sensitive personal data, including names, home addresses, dates of birth, gender, marital status and employment status. It also included Social Security numbers, their salary wage related to benefits, government identity cards and COVID-19 test results and vaccine cards.
The Future of AI Is Finally Here — and a Lot of People Are Going to Be Out of a Job + More
The Future of AI Is Finally Here — and a Lot of People Are Going to Be Out of a Job
For years, folks have been talking about the coming AI revolution, about how it’s going to change everything and about how it is going to cost a lot of people their jobs. Well, the future is now — and if you are a business leader, you need to start dealing with it today.
Last week, marketeer Zain Kahn asked the AI to perform the same series of tasks that an employee at a marketing firm might be asked to undertake for a client: create an SEO strategy for a website, develop a list of target keywords, write a content strategy for the website, develop 10 blog ideas, then write one of those blogs itself. He even asked the AI to create metadata and simple code for the website to optimize it for bilingual search. Then he rated its performance.
“I’d rank it as a 5/10. The equivalent of an SEO marketer with 1-2 years of experience earning around $50k/year. Not excellent, but definitely more competent than an SEO intern,” Kahn wrote on Twitter. “All of this took me 5 minutes. In the real world, all of this would probably take at least 5-10 hours.”
Is it any wonder then that more than a million people signed up to use this experimental AI last week? Every leader should be asking themselves what this means for the future of their business.
Army Captain Separated From Service for Refusing Vaccine as House Passes Bill That Rescinds Military’s Vaccine Mandate
An Army captain was separated from the service for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine as the GOP attempts to roll back Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s military vaccine mandate.
Capt. Stephen Rogerson (a pseudonym) has served in the Army for 17 years, and on Dec. 6, a three-person administrative board voted to separate him from service. On the same day, the House passed an $858 billion defense funding bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2023, that included a provision to rescind the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
But soldiers like Rogerson are “falling through the cracks of a failed policy at precisely the wrong time,” according to R. Davis Younts, an Air Force Reserve Judge Advocate General (JAG) and civilian attorney.
In October 2021, Rogerson received a temporary medical exemption through his primary care manager. Within two hours of submitting his request for exemption to the vaccine to his command, it was denied.
Fauci Acknowledges Americans Have Mandate ‘Fatigue’: ‘People Don’t Like to Be Told What to Do’
Dr. Anthony Fauci acknowledged Friday that there is a “fatigue” about COVID-19 mandates as respiratory viruses surge across the U.S.
In an interview with Fox 5 New York, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert said that while he believes future decisions about implementing restrictions should be left up to the discretion of local health authorities, he knows that people “don’t like being told what to do.”
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director also told the station that he was concerned about what he called “not a very vigorous uptake” of the Omicron-specific booster.
Health officials in cities nationwide are encouraging residents to embrace mitigation measures — strongly recommending masking in New York and Los Angeles.
Musk Calls to Prosecute Fauci, Drawing Swift Backlash
Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Sunday called to prosecute Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Biden who has led the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic since it started during the Trump administration, and drew swift backlash for his comment.
“My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” Musk said on Twitter. He later shared a meme edited to show Fauci telling Biden, “Just one more lockdown, my king.”
Lawmakers and other officials jumped to Fauci’s defense online. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) said Musk “wants to criminalize Anthony Fauci because he disagrees with him” and hit at the Twitter CEO for hypocrisy in his free-speech claims.
“Fauci’s resignation should not prevent a full-throated investigation into the origins of the pandemic. He must be required to testify under oath regarding any discussions he participated in concerning the Wuhan lab leak. His policies destroyed lives,” wrote Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in response to Musk’s post.
Judge Rejects Vaccine Choice Law in Healthcare Settings
A person’s choice to decline vaccinations does not outweigh public health and safety requirements in medical settings, a federal judge ruled in a Montana case.
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy last week permanently blocked a section of law the state said was meant to prevent employers — including many healthcare facilities — from discriminating against workers by requiring them to be vaccinated against communicable diseases, including COVID-19.
The Montana law made it illegal for a person to be denied services, goods or employment based on their vaccine status. The law did not change vaccine requirements at schools or daycare facilities or eliminate a person’s right to seek a religious or medical exemption.
With New Twitter Files, Musk Forces a Free-Speech Reckoning for Politicians and Pundits
“We don’t make exceptions for jokes or satire.” That line from the third tranche of company documents released by Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, captures the social media giant’s censorship culture. Its humorless, officious tenor is all too common with state censors throughout history. Censorship creates an insatiable appetite for more censorship, where even jokes become intolerable.
These latest Twitter files shatter past denials of “shadow banning” and other suppression techniques targeting disfavored viewpoints. That includes denials by former CEO Jack Dorsey under oath before Congress and public denials by top corporate executives. The legal ramifications will become clearer as more information emerges. Yet, a far more significant problem already is confirmed in these files: the existential threat of corporate censors to free speech.
In the new material released late Friday, journalist Matt Taibbi confirmed that Twitter executives met weekly with FBI, Homeland Security and national intelligence officials to discuss “disinformation” they felt should be removed from the site. Those discussions apparently included the Hunter Biden laptop story.
You don’t need a state ministry of information if the media voluntarily maintains official narratives and suppresses dissenting views. And what emerges from these files is the notion of an effective state media in America — an alliance of media, business and political figures who act, not out of government compulsion, but out of personal conviction.
Judge Fast-Tracks Rumble’s Lawsuit Against New York’s Online Censorship Law
New York State lawmakers passed a law requiring online platforms to address “hateful” content posted by users.
Last week, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) teamed up with Rumble and filed a lawsuit challenging the law, which took effect on December 3. A federal judge has fast-tracked the briefing and set a teleconference for December 19.
Failure to comply with the law results in daily fines of up to $1,000 per day. The fine might not be much for Big Tech platforms like YouTube and Facebook. However, the law’s definition of “social media networks” is so broad that it covers a wide range of platforms, apps, sites and forums.
China Scraps Tracking App as Zero-COVID Policy Is Dismantled
China has announced plans to scrap its primary COVID tracking app in the latest rollback of pandemic control measures, just days after abruptly abandoning its long-running zero-COVID policy.
It came as health authorities warned of widespread infections on the horizon, and redeployed hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses to intensive care units in preparation for an Omicron surge through the population of 1.4 billion people.
On Tuesday, the government-run “communications itinerary card” will be retired, according to an official announcement on Monday. The app tracked people’s movements using mobile phone signals, identifying those who had been in high-risk areas in order to control their travel to other areas.
Some expressed concern about the vast amounts of personal data collected by the app and others like it. “I hope there will be mechanisms and measures to log out and delete this,” said one.
‘It’s Killing Our Babies’: 12-Year-Old Boy Dies Attempting TikTok Challenge, Family Says + More
‘It’s Killing Our Babies’: 12-Year-Old From Richmond Heights Dies Attempting TikTok Challenge, Family Says
A 12-year-old boy from Richmond Heights died Tuesday after trying a dangerous game from social media that has gone viral, his family says. Tristan Casson died attempting the “blackout challenge” on TikTok, one of the world’s most popular apps, the boy’s mother, Taylor Davis said. As part of it, participants are challenged to hold their breath or asphyxiate themselves until they pass out.
Davis said her son died by strangulation and does not think her son was suicidal, but rather a victim of a dangerous trend circulating online. She said he always tried new dances and trends that were popular on TikTok.
In November, Bloomberg News reported that the blackout challenge has been linked to the deaths of at least 15 children ages 12 or younger in the past 18 months.
“I just wish that TikTok would ban these types of challenges from going around,” said Tanisha Watson, a friend of the boy’s mother. “It is killing our babies.”
House Passes Defense Bill Scrapping Military COVID Vaccine Mandate
A bill to rescind the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for members of the U.S. military and provide nearly $858 billion for national defense passed the House on Thursday as lawmakers scratch off one of the final items on their yearly to-do list.
The bill provides for about $45 billion more for defense programs than President Joe Biden requested, the second consecutive year Congress significantly exceeded his request, as lawmakers seek to boost the nation’s military competitiveness with China and Russia.
The House passed the bill by a vote of 350-80. It now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to pass easily, then to the president to be signed into law.
To win bipartisan support for the bill, Democrats agreed to Republican demands to scrap the requirement for service members to get a COVID-19 vaccination. The bill directs Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to rescind his August 2021 memorandum imposing the mandate. Only days earlier he voiced support for keeping the mandate in effect.
New York City Officials Issue Health Advisory, Urge Mask Use as Flu, COVID and RSV Spread
New York City health officials are urging residents to wear masks indoors and in crowded settings due to the rise in RSV, flu and COVID-19 cases. Health officials are urging New Yorkers to get tested before and after gatherings and to wear a mask around people who are at increased risk of severe respiratory illness
Masks have been the center of plenty of debates since the start of the COVID pandemic. Now they may also be making a comeback in New York schools. The state is now recommending kids wear them again, with three respiratory viruses sweeping across the area.
Former NYT Columnist Bari Weiss Releases ‘Twitter Files Part Two’
Former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss released the second installment of the “Twitter Files” on Thursday night, sharing images of accounts that Twitter allegedly placed on various types of “blacklists.”
Weiss posted several images of what appears to be an internal Twitter system that marked certain accounts as being under various kinds of “blacklists,” in addition to flagging other information about the accounts.
Jay Bhattacharya, a health policy professor from Stanford University who opposed COVID-19 lockdowns, appeared to have been placed on a “Trends Blacklist,” as was the right-wing Libs of TikTok account, according to the photos.
Weiss’s Twitter thread is the second installment in what Twitter CEO Elon Musk has dubbed the “Twitter Files.” The first installment, released by independent journalist Matt Taibbi, appeared to show an internal debate at the social media company over how to handle a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.
Elton John Quits Twitter Over Change That ‘Allows Misinformation to Flourish’
Sir Elton John has said that he will no longer use Twitter after a change in its policy that he says will allow “misinformation to flourish unchecked.”
The 75-year-old musician’s comments come after Elon Musk, who bought the social media outlet for $44 billion (£35.9bn), said he was granting “general amnesty” for suspended accounts, which experts have said would lead to “superspreaders of hate” returning to the platform.
Musk was recently told by the EU’s commissioner for digital policy, Thierry Breton, that he needed to protect users to ensure Twitter avoided violating rules that threatened tech giants with big fines or even a ban in the European Union.
Several other celebrities, including Whoopi Goldberg, Gigi Hadid and Jim Carrey, have left Twitter since Musk’s takeover.
CommonSpirit Health Says Patient Data Was Stolen During Ransomware Attack
Chicago-based medical giant CommonSpirit Health has confirmed that an October ransomware attack exposed the personal data of more than 620,000 patients.
CommonSpirit Health, which operates more than 700 care sites and 142 hospitals in 21 states, first confirmed an “IT security issue” on October 5. At the time, the company declined to comment on the nature of the incident, which interrupted access to electronic health records and delayed patient care in multiple regions and refused to say whether patient information or health data was compromised.
In a December update, CommonSpirit confirmed that the incident was a ransomware attack. The organization said that threat actors gained access to portions of its network between September 16 and October 3 and, during that time, “may have gained access to certain files, including files that contained personal information” belonging to patients who received care or family members of those who received care at Franciscan Health, a 12-hospital affiliate of CommonSpirit Health.
‘We’ve Lost Our Humanity in This’: Widower Strives to See No Patient Left Alone Again
After his wife died in a Colorado hospital in 2020 with no family present, Steve Reiter strives to see that no patient is ever left alone again. He initiated the Never Alone Project to raise awareness about the dangers of isolating patients in hospitals and to influence legislation that would require hospitals to allow families to visit their loved ones while they are being treated.
In a National Institute for Health and Care Research study on home care residents during COVID-19, social isolation — which includes the social distancing measures taken in 2020 — contributes to adverse health outcomes stemming from loneliness such as mortality, cardiovascular disease, depression and dementia.
In June 2022, Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) and Andy Harris (R-Md.) introduced the No Patient Left Alone Act, which would guarantee a patient’s right to have visitors, and require hospitals to honor this right as a condition of their participation in Medicare.
Given what he’s seen over the last few years, Reiter concluded: “We’ve lost our humanity in this. And we need to find our way back.”
Federal Trade Commission Sues Microsoft to Block $69 Billion Activision Purchase
The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Microsoft on Thursday to block its $69 billion acquisition of video game giant Activision Blizzard, arguing the company could stifle competition, as Microsoft looks to compete with gaming giants Nintendo and Sony.
The FTC voted to file the suit blocking Microsoft’s biggest-ever acquisition in a 3-1 vote on Thursday, with the commission’s three Democrats forming the majority.
The commission alleges the acquisition would unfairly lure consumers to Microsoft, the maker of the video game console Xbox, allowing it to “suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing content and cloud-gaming business.”
In China’s Wuhan, a Shadow of Reserve and Resentment Even as COVID Lockdowns Ease
In the Chinese city of Wuhan, where coronavirus was first detected nearly three years ago and where thousands died, residents cautiously greeted a relaxation of lockdown measures by authorities this week. In the city center, few people were in shops and restaurants and the subway was only partially filled as many residents remained wary of a possible new flare-up of infections.
The teeming metropolis bore the brunt of the pandemic in its early stages in early 2020, when authorities ordered the entire city of 11 million to be sealed off in a military-style lockdown for more than two months — a traumatic chapter that has not been forgotten by some.
“We know the country is reopening but we ourselves haven’t let down our guard,” said one Wuhan corner shop owner. “We’re taking precautions, protecting ourselves because it (the virus) is spreading quickly.”
Two Wuhan pharmacies visited by Reuters had sold out of fever medication a day ago, while customers asked for vitamin C or cough medicine in vain with stocks depleted.
U.K., Japan and Italy Are Joining Forces to Build a New Next-Generation Fighter Jet That Can Fight With Artificial Intelligence
Britain, Italy and Japan are joining forces to build a next-generation fighter jet that can use artificial intelligence amid heightened security concerns in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region.
Leaders of the three countries announced the initiative, dubbed the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), in a joint statement on Friday and said the “ambitious” development of the aircraft has a target date of 2035.
Britain’s defense ministry said in a release that it hopes to develop the fighter jet with various advanced capabilities such as cutting-edge weapons, innovative data systems and advanced sensors. There is also hope that it could work with uncrewed aircraft.