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School Districts Can’t Require COVID Vaccines, California Supreme Court Affirms + More
School Districts Can’t Require COVID Vaccines, California Supreme Court Affirms
San Francisco Chronicle via MSN reported:
The state Supreme Court rejected a challenge Wednesday to a ruling that said school districts in California cannot require their students to be vaccinated against COVID-19 because only the state government can issue such a mandate.
While public health agencies have recommended the vaccinations for children as young as six months old, legislation calling for vaccine mandates in schools has stalled in Sacramento. Gov. Gavin Newsom initially proposed requiring students to be vaccinated last July but has put his order on hold. And courts have stopped local school districts from acting on their own.
Wednesday’s case involved the San Diego Unified School District, the state’s second-largest with more than 121,000 students. The district first proposed in September 2021 to require students 16 and older to be vaccinated against the coronavirus to attend classes, sports and other in-person events. Its order would have allowed exemptions for medical reasons but not for religious or personal objections.
The district later said it would postpone its order until July 2023, but by then it was already being challenged in court. And in November the state’s Fourth District Court of Appeal, the first appellate court to rule on the issue, said school districts had no authority to order vaccinations on their own.
Lawmakers Should Give Parents Control Over Kids’ Social Media
Big Tech and America’s parents want different things for our kids. A new report co-released last week by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) and the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) — titled “Five Pro-Family Priorities for the 118th Congress and Beyond” — makes that indisputably clear.
In a survey by YouGov of more than 2,500 American adults on a host of family policy preferences, EPPC fellow Patrick T. Brown found that 80% of parents support requiring parental permission before a minor opens a social media account. That’s a huge number, but only a touch larger than the 77% who support giving parents administrator-level access to what their kids are seeing and doing online.
Even setting aside the popularity of these proposals, lawmakers must act for the sake of America’s children, to shield them from the unprecedented access that massive tech corporations have to their brains — access that has fostered little other than disaster. America’s teens are suffering, and, as this report reveals, their parents are crying out for help.
Parental consent and a private right of action are good steps, but, on balance, without more robust preventative provisions, this is a win for Big Tech. Their business model is built upon getting access to kids while they’re young and addicting them so they can be molded into ready consumers, to be bombarded with ads ad infinitum. These companies are in a race to the bottom.
The Push to Ban TikTok in the U.S. Isn’t About Privacy
Fresh off their successful effort to ban TikTok on government devices last year, China hawks in the U.S. Congress are looking to expand that ban further, even as lawmakers continue allowing U.S. companies to scoop up Americans’ data and share or sell it with third parties — potentially including China’s government.
The irony is largely lost on many in Congress. Lawmakers are renewing their calls for a nationwide TikTok ban and pushing the Biden administration to force a breakup of the Chinese-owned tech company. Meanwhile, efforts to pass a national privacy law, which failed last year, have largely evaporated.
While e-isolationism is now en vogue when it comes to the CCP, U.S. tech companies continue to write their own rules. The internet is built on the premise that data is currency, which is why Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and others have invested countless millions on lobbyists in recent years. The status quo is a windfall for these tech giants.
Whether the fears are warranted or ungrounded, Congress isn’t even having the right debate, according to Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon. “Banning TikTok would be a godsend for sleazy rip-off data brokers,” the Oregon Democrat says. “TikTok is one piece of the puzzle, but don’t miss the overall challenge — because until you reign in these data brokers … you’re going to have all kinds of people’s personal data in America still on its way to China and hostile powers.”
‘Dangerous Surveillance’: Republican Lawmaker Wants to Ban Federal Reserve From Issuing Digital Currency
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) has introduced legislation that seeks to prevent the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) while insisting that a digital equivalent to the dollar must uphold privacy and sovereignty.
“Any digital version of the dollar must uphold our American values of privacy, individual sovereignty, and free market competitiveness. Anything less opens the door to the development of a dangerous surveillance tool,” Emmer stated in a tweet on Feb. 22.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) extended his support for the bill, saying that he is “proud to co-sponsor” the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act.
“On the awful idea for central bank digital currency: We have enough problems with abusive government surveillance. The Fed should not have means to monitor individual account holders or their transactions,” he said in a tweet on Feb. 22.
Facebook, Twitter, Minecraft Report Inconsistent Policies in Google Play About How They Use Your Data, Study Finds
The majority of the most downloaded apps from Google Play Store have provided inconsistent answers about how safe user data is on their platforms, according to a report released by Mozilla on Thursday.
Mozilla, the not-for-profit organization behind the Firefox browser, looked at the 20 most popular paid and free apps in the popular Google Play app store for its report.
It found that nearly 80% of the 40 apps reviewed had “some discrepancies” between the app’s privacy policies and the information the app reported on Google’s data safety form.
That form requires that apps declare how they collect and handle user data for apps available in the Google Play Store. The report then ranked those 40 apps on how transparently they disclosed their use of personal data.
DOJ Reportedly Probes Google Maps, Adding to Sprawling Antitrust Concerns
The Department of Justice has renewed its focus on Google Maps, adding to its already-sprawling antitrust investigation into the company, Politico and Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
The DOJ is homing in on whether Google illegally bundles its mapping and search products by making app developers use them together, the outlets reported, citing unnamed sources. Politico also reported that the DOJ is looking into how Google packages its maps, app store and voice assistant for automakers through Google Automotive Services.
A lawsuit could come as soon as this year, Politico reported, though sources told the outlet no decision has been made on whether to file a case.
DOJ has already filed two antitrust lawsuits against Google: One in 2020 targeting Google’s distribution of its search product, and one last month focused on its online advertising business.
Tony Blair Launches New Push for Biometric Digital ID for All Citizens
Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair is again promoting a controversial plan to give every British citizen a digital ID. This would entail the utilization of new biometric technology to store a person’s passport, driving license, tax records, qualifications and right-to-work status. Sir Tony had previously attempted to introduce ID cards during his time as Prime Minister.
Tony Blair and former Conservative lawmaker William Hague have stated that a major transformation of the government with regard to technology is necessary in order to keep up with the ever-changing world.
However, there was backlash from their demands with Sir Jake Berry calling it a “creepy state plan to track you from the cradle to the grave.”
Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo said: “A sprawling digital identity system of the type described by Sir Tony and Lord Hague is utterly retrograde and would be one of the biggest assaults on privacy ever seen in the U.K. The public has consistently opposed mandatory ID systems and there is absolutely nothing to suggest the public would want or support such a digital ID system now.”
Beijing Pulls the Plug on ChatGPT Over Fears It Could Help Spread U.S. ‘Disinformation,’ Reports Say
Beijing has started to clamp down on access to ChatGPT in China, according to reports.
OpenAI’s chatbot is not officially available in China, but some people have reportedly found ways to access it via VPNs or “mini programs” released by third-party developers.
Beijing uses its “Great Firewall” to block many foreign websites and applications, including the full version of Google Search.
European Commission Bans TikTok From Official Devices
The European Commission has banned TikTok from official devices because of concerns about cybersecurity, a move sharply criticized by the company in its latest run-in with Western governments over how it handles user data.
Commission staff has until March 15 to delete the short-form video app, owned by China’s ByteDance, from work devices and any personal devices that use Commission apps and services.
European Commission spokesperson Sonya Gospodinova told reporters that the ban was “temporary” and “under constant review and possible reassessment.”
The measure piles further pressure on TikTok, already banned from U.S. federal government devices and from official devices in some U.S. states due to fears that the app’s user data could wind up in the hands of the Chinese government.
Novak Djokovic Asks U.S. for COVID Vaccine Exemption to Play Upcoming Tournaments + More
Novak Djokovic Asks U.S. for COVID Vaccine Exemption to Play Upcoming Tournaments
Top-ranked men’s tennis player Novak Djokovic said Wednesday he hopes to secure an exemption to the U.S. policy requiring foreign travelers to present proof of vaccination against COVID-19 to participate in a pair of American events later this spring, as Djokovic’s unwavering objection to the jab continues to cost him millions of dollars.
The 35-year-old, who maintains he won’t receive the vaccine, is apparently once again seeking an exemption to vaccine requirements a year after Australian authorities famously deported Djokovic ahead of the 2022 Australian Open after rejecting Djokovic’s medical exemption to the country’s own vaccine mandate for non-residents.
The U.S. requires any travelers who are not citizens, permanent residents or immigrant visa holders to show proof of COVID vaccination upon entering the country.
The State Department lists a handful of groups who are exempt to the policy, none of which Djokovic is known to belong to: children, participants in COVID vaccine trials, military members and individuals with “rare medical contraindications to the vaccines” are among those spared from the policy.
Most Americans Are Uncomfortable With Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare, Survey Finds
Most Americans feel “significant discomfort” about the idea of their doctors using artificial intelligence to help manage their health, a new survey finds, but they generally acknowledge AI’s potential to reduce medical mistakes and to eliminate some of the problems doctors may have with racial bias.
Sixty percent of Americans who took part in a new survey by the Pew Research Center said that they would be uncomfortable with a healthcare provider who relied on artificial intelligence to do something like diagnose their disease or recommend a treatment. About 57% said that the use of artificial intelligence would make their relationship with their provider worse.
Only 38% felt that using AI to diagnose disease or recommend treatment would lead to better health outcomes; 33% said it would lead to worse outcomes; and 27% said it wouldn’t make much of a difference.
About 6 in 10 Americans said they would not want AI-driven robots to perform parts of their surgery. Nor do they like the idea of a chatbot working with them on their mental health; 79% said they wouldn’t want AI involved in their mental healthcare. There’s also concern about security when it comes to AI and healthcare records.
Takeaways From the Supreme Court’s Hearing on Twitter’s Liability for Terrorist Use of Its Platform
After back-to-back oral arguments this week, the Supreme Court appears reluctant to hand down the kind of sweeping ruling about liability for terrorist content on social media that some feared would upend the internet.
On Wednesday, the justices struggled with claims that Twitter contributed to a 2017 ISIS attack in Istanbul by hosting content unrelated to the specific incident. Arguments in that case, Twitter v. Taamneh, came a day after the court considered whether YouTube can be sued for recommending videos created by ISIS to its users.
The closely watched cases carry significant stakes for the wider internet. An expansion of apps and websites’ legal risk for hosting or promoting content could lead to major changes at sites including Facebook, Wikipedia and YouTube, to name a few.
For nearly three hours of oral argument, the justices asked attorneys for Twitter, the U.S. government and the family of Nawras Alassaf — a Jordanian citizen killed in the 2017 attack — how to weigh several factors that might determine Twitter’s level of legal responsibility, if any. But while the justices quickly identified what the relevant factors were, they seemed divided on how to analyze them.
The Raucous Battle Over Americans’ Online Privacy Is Landing on States
Tech privacy advocates frustrated by failures on Capitol Hill are looking to mine state capitals for legislative victories.
A broad bipartisan federal privacy bill that died in Congress last year has quickly become the template for a statehouse-by-statehouse campaign to enact tough new restrictions on how Americans’ personal data can be mined and shared.
Lawmakers in Massachusetts and Illinois are already proposing privacy measures modeled on the federal bill, and Democrats in Indiana are using it as inspiration to strengthen legislation that’s already been proposed. Four other states have already passed their own data-privacy laws in the past two years — raising anxiety levels among tech companies about a national “patchwork” of hard-to-navigate data rules — but encouraging advocates who see an appetite for broader consumer protections.
The new statehouse focus by privacy advocates isn’t necessarily designed to sweep across all 50 states but rather tighten regulations just enough in just enough places to force the industry into a de facto national standard.
NSA’s ‘State Secrets’ Defense Kills Lawsuit Challenging Internet Surveillance
The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday denied a petition to review a case involving the National Security Agency’s surveillance of Internet traffic, leaving in place a lower-court ruling that invoked “state secrets privilege” to dismiss the lawsuit.
The NSA surveillance was challenged by the Wikimedia Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. The Supreme Court’s denial of Wikimedia’s petition for review (formally known as “certoriari”) was confirmed in a long list of decisions released yesterday.
“As a final development in our case, Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA, the United States Supreme Court denied our petition asking for a review of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) mass surveillance of Internet communications and activities. This denial represents a big hit to both privacy and freedom of expression,” the Wikimedia Foundation said yesterday.
For Tech Giants, AI Like Bing and Bard Poses Billion-Dollar Search Problem
As Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL.O) looks past a chatbot flub that helped erase $100 billion from its market value, another challenge is emerging from its efforts to add generative artificial intelligence to its popular Google Search: the cost.
In an interview, Alphabet’s Chairman John Hennessy told Reuters that having an exchange with AI known as a large language model likely cost 10 times more than a standard keyword search, though fine-tuning will help reduce the expense quickly.
Even with revenue from potential chat-based search ads, the technology could chip into the bottom line of Mountain View, Calif.-based Alphabet with several billion dollars of extra costs, analysts said. Its net income was nearly $60 billion in 2022.
Morgan Stanley estimated that Google’s 3.3 trillion search queries last year cost roughly a fifth of a cent each, a number that would increase depending on how much text AI must generate. Google, for instance, could face a $6-billion hike in expenses by 2024 if ChatGPT-like AI were to handle half the queries it receives with 50-word answers, analysts projected. Google is unlikely to need a chatbot to handle navigational searches for sites like Wikipedia.
Joe Biden Can’t Be Trusted on Chinese Spy Balloons, Americans Say
Around half of Americans believe that the U.S. government can’t be trusted to tell the truth about the alleged Chinese spy balloon and other high-altitude flying objects shot down in recent weeks, polling for Newsweek shows.
A majority of Americans surveyed by the U.K.-based global consulting firm Redfield & Wilton Strategies on behalf of Newsweek said they believe that the balloon shot down on February 4 was sent from China and was spying on the U.S. — and that the U.S. did well to destroy it.
On the other hand, they don’t think that the government is telling them the whole truth about what was going on with the balloon — and the other three unidentified objects shot down over northern Canada, Alaska and Lake Huron after that.
Only 13% of respondents were not concerned at all about the presence of unidentified flying objects above American airspace. Some 32% were extremely concerned, 34% were fairly concerned and 21% were slightly concerned.
I Didn’t Take a COVID Vaccine. I Shouldn’t Lose My Job at San Diego City College.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported:
As a pregnant woman with a high-risk pregnancy, I am facing a new challenge. The San Diego Community College District is threatening me with termination unless I receive the COVID-19 vaccine, which is in stark contrast to many other institutions of higher education that have accommodated their employees’ legal, religious and medical exemptions. Last year, after a decline in enrollment, the San Diego Community College District dropped the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for students,but it has not been dropped for faculty and staff.
On Jan. 19, the San Diego Community College Board of Trustees terminated three employees for noncompliance with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. On March 2, the Board of Trustees plans to terminate me and five of my colleagues. At the board meeting, I will have only five minutes to defend my life’s work and my livelihood. Why is the San Diego Community College District denying its employees the same civil rights and accommodations it affords its students?
The answer from Chancellor Carlos Cortez is, “We prioritize the health and safety of our employees. We have no intention of changing this policy moving forward.”
It’s time for the district to live up to its commitment to diversity, inclusion and equity. By accommodating its employees’ legal religious and deeply held beliefs, the district can create a workplace that truly values and respects all its employees. We should not have to choose between our beliefs and our livelihoods.
Bill Proposed to Reinstate Federal Employees After Vaccine Mandate
On Friday, Congressman Matt Gaetz proposed a bill called the “COVID-19 Federal Employee Reinstatement Act.” This legislation, if passed, is supposed to provide financial compensation or full reinstatement for federal employees that resigned from their careers between Sep. 9, 2021 and Jan. 24, 2022 due to the vaccination mandate.
Gaetz introduced a similar amendment last year, stating service members should be reinstated with their full rank and pay.
“Forcing public servants to choose between destroying their livelihood or complying with immoral demands from the federal government is sickening. The Biden administration should have never forced federal employees to resign due to the vaccine mandate. Reinstating and compensating these individuals is the first step toward reconciliation. Vaccine mandates have no place in a free country,” said Congressman Gaetz.
FTC Won’t Challenge Amazon’s One Medical Deal
The Federal Trade Commission has decided it won’t challenge Amazon’s $3.9 billion deal for primary care provider One Medical, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
The time period in which the FTC can sue to block the deal prior to its closing expires today, the person said. The decision paves the way for the deal to close later this week. The deal, announced in July, had been undergoing an in-depth review at the FTC for the past eight months.
However, while the companies are free to close the deal, the FTC is not ruling out a challenge in the future, and is warning the companies it will continue to investigate. Any FTC challenge, though, would focus on unwinding the deal, a more difficult proposition than preventing it from closing.
“The FTC’s investigation of Amazon’s acquisition of One Medical continues,” said FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar. “The commission will continue to look at possible harms to competition created by this merger as well as possible harms to consumers that may result from Amazon’s control and use of sensitive consumer health information held by One Medical.”
Microsoft Cofounder Bill Gates Says the Rise of AI Poses a Threat to Google’s Search Engine Profit
Bill Gates — the cofounder of tech giant Microsoft — said Google‘s profits from its search engine are likely to fall in the future because the company he cofounded has been able to move rapidly on artificial intelligence.
Gates was speaking on a Monday episode of “In Good Company,” a podcast hosted by Norwegian sovereign wealth fund boss Nicolai Tangen, when he said: “Google has owned all of the search profits, so the search profits will be down, and their share of it may be down because Microsoft has been able to move fairly fast on that one.”
For context, Google posted $224 billion in advertising revenues in 2022 — far dwarfing Microsoft’s $18 billion in advertising revenues. Google has dominated search for the past two decades and according to web analytics service Statcounter, it accounts for about 93% of the global search-engine market, while Bing accounts for about 3%.
While Gates said on the podcast he was “not sure” there’ll be a winner from the AI race, at least one prominent analyst — Wedbush’s Dan Ives — said Microsoft is “leading the pack” in the AI race right now.
Takeaways From the Supreme Court’s Hearing in Blockbuster Internet Speech Case + More
Takeaways From the Supreme Court’s Hearing in Blockbuster Internet Speech Case
Supreme Court justices appeared broadly concerned Tuesday about the potential unintended consequences of allowing websites to be sued for their automatic recommendations of user content, highlighting the challenges facing attorneys who want to hold Google accountable for suggesting YouTube videos created by terrorist groups.
For nearly three hours on Tuesday, the nine justices peppered attorneys representing Google, the U.S. government and the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, an American student killed in a 2015 ISIS attack, with questions about how the court could design a ruling that exposes harmful content recommendations to liability while still protecting innocuous ones.
How — or if — the court draws that line could have significant implications for the way websites choose to rank, display and promote content to their users as they seek to avoid a litigation minefield. A big concern of the justices seems to be the waves of lawsuits that could happen if the court rules against Google. “Lawsuits will be nonstop,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said at one point.
As Justice Amy Coney Barrett mentioned, there’s another big tech case on the Supreme Court’s docket Wednesday. The case, Twitter v. Taamneh, is not about Section 230 directly. Instead, the justices are considering whether social media companies can be sued for aiding and abetting an act of international terrorism after hosting content that generally expressed support for ISIS but that did not refer to a specific act of terror.
Together, the two tech cases the justices are hearing this week have the potential to transform the landscape of the internet. The Supreme Court’s rulings in the cases are expected by early summer.
Healthcare Vaccine Mandate Remains as Some Push for an End
At Truman Lake Manor in rural Missouri, every day begins the same way for every employee entering the nursing home’s doors — with a swab up the nose, a swirl of testing solution and a brief wait to see whether a thin red line appears indicating a positive COVID-19 case. Only the healthy are allowed in to care for virus-free residents.
Despite those precautions, a coronavirus outbreak swept through the facility late last year. An inspector subsequently cited it for violating the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement for healthcare facilities.
One year after it began being enforced nationwide on Feb. 20, 2022, the vaccination requirement affecting an estimated 10 million healthcare workers is the last remaining major mandate from President Joe Biden’s sweeping attempt to boost national vaccination rates. Similar requirements for large employers, military members and federal contractors all have been struck down, repealed or partially blocked.
The healthcare vaccination mandate is scheduled to run until November 2024. But some contend it’s time to stop now, citing fewer severe COVID-19 cases, healthcare staffing shortages and the impending May 11 expiration of a national public health emergency that has been in place since January 2020.
AI Is Going to Ruin Humanity — Just Not in the Way You Might Expect
If AI keeps seeping into every aspect of our lives, and we start to rely on it more and more, the dangers it poses to human intelligence should not be understated.
I’m not going to immediately disregard the potential benefits of AI for human society. There are plenty of tasks that are already carried out by computers (or low-paid human workers) that could be better automated via the use of specialized machine-learning tools. We’ve already seen the advantages of ‘virtual assistants’ such as Siri and Cortana; AI could provide huge advancements for these programs.
But I’d like you to think about the generations of children — most of them probably not even born yet — who will grow up in a world of AI-assisted software. I don’t want to sound like some tech-averse parent who thinks Fortnite is going to turn their kids into killing machines, but we can’t disregard the impacts of technology on human growth and development.
There have been plenty of studies examining the consequences of tech use on brain health, and while there isn’t a scientific consensus on the subject, there’s at least some evidence to suggest that heavy tech use isn’t good for our minds and bodies.
This particular study from the University of California took a wide-angled look at the possible effects, considering the impacts that digital technology use could have on sleep, attention span, emotional intelligence and cognitive development. All of these were found to be areas where heavy tech use could cause severe issues for the affected individuals, and the study also examined technology addiction as a resultant effect.
White Castle Could Face Multibillion-Dollar Judgement in Illinois Privacy Lawsuit
Illinois’ highest court on Friday said companies violate the state’s unique biometric privacy law each time they misuse a person’s private information, not just the first time, a ruling that could expose businesses to billions of dollars in penalties.
The Illinois Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision said fast food chain White Castle System Inc must face claims that it repeatedly scanned the fingerprints of nearly 9,500 employees without their consent, which the company says could cost it more than $17 billion.
The Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) imposes penalties of $1,000 per violation and $5,000 for reckless or intentional violations. The law requires companies to obtain permission before collecting fingerprints, retinal scans and other biometric information from workers and consumers.
Washington State Lawmakers Push to Rehire Government Workers Fired Over Vaccine Mandate
Two lawmakers in Washington state want the state and local governments to bring back employees who were fired because they didn’t comply with COVID-19 pandemic vaccine mandates.
King County Council member Reagan Dunn introduced a motion that would prioritize the rehiring of county workers that were dismissed.
At the state level, Yakima Republican Rep. Chris Corry introduced a House bill that would create hiring preferences for bringing back state workers that were fired, and give those workers a chance to catch up on contributions to the state retirement plan.
It’s unclear just how much support these efforts will have from Gov. Jay Inslee, who strongly backed vaccine mandates for government workers.
Evangeline Lilly Reveals Disney & Marvel Supported Her Over Controversial Vaccine Mandate Views
“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” actress Evangeline Lilly claimed that Disney supported her after the backlash she received for taking part in vaccine mandate protests.
The “Lost” and “Hobbit” star appeared on the “Happy, Sad, Confused” podcast on Thursday to discuss her latest movie when the topic shifted to her outspoken position against COVID-19 vaccine mandates in Canada. After Lilly, who is Canadian, revealed that she took part in protests against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, many predicted the actress would soon be “canceled” like many actors before her.
However, Lilly informed host Josh Horowitz that Disney and Marvel actually notified her that they would continue to support her despite her views.
In Jan. 2022, Lilly penned a lengthy Instagram post showing herself among several other protesters voicing support for the Canadian truckers opposing Trudeau’s vaccine mandate.
Kroger Knows Every Purchase You’ve Ever Made — and Says It Could Make Millions of Dollars Selling Your Data
Major grocers aren’t just moving produce or TV dinners anymore: Many are also selling detailed information about customers’ purchasing habits.
The data is valuable to big food brands, which advertise to consumers and don’t have detailed information about who is buying their products once they make it to supermarkets, according to a story that nonprofit technology newsroom The Markup published on Thursday.
Supermarket chains are filling that void by selling those brands the information that they collect from customers, including when shoppers place a delivery order online or use a loyalty card at a checkout in-store, The Markup reported.
For the grocers, the rewards are potentially significant: Kroger, one of the U.S.’s largest grocery chains, has said that data is one of a few “alternative profit” businesses that could add $1 billion in profit to the company. Right now, those businesses generate about $150 million in profit, The Markup reported. Kroger operates grocery stores under several names, including Mariano’s and Ralph’s.
Chatbots Trigger Next Misinformation Nightmare
New generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft‘s BingGPT and Google‘s Bard that have stoked a tech-industry frenzy are also capable of releasing a vast flood of online misinformation.
Why it matters: Regulators and technologists were slow to address the dangers of misinformation spread on social media and are still playing catch-up with imperfect and incomplete policy and product solutions.
Now, experts are sounding the alarm faster as real-life examples of inaccurate or erratic responses from generative AI bots circulate.
The big picture: Generative AI programs like ChatGPT don’t have a clear sense of the boundary between fact and fiction. They’re also prone to making things up as they try to satisfy human users’ inquiries.
Judge Rules Against NYC in COVID Vaccine Case After Mandate Lifted + More
Judge Rules Against NYC in COVID Vaccine Case After Mandate Lifted
The city’s bid to toss an NYPD sergeant’s vaccine mandate lawsuit was shot down by a Manhattan judge — in what could be the first such ruling since Mayor Eric Adams lifted the COVID-era rule requiring Big Apple workers to get the jab.
Attorney James Mermigis — dubbed the “Anti-shutdown” lawyer for his pandemic-related litigation — told The Post that the city has sought to get roughly 50 of his cases tossed out as moot since the mandate was lifted on Feb. 9.
On Tuesday, in what could be a first-of-its-kind ruling, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Erika Edwards rejected the city’s argument in one such lawsuit — filed by NYPD Sgt. Patrick Agugliaro after his request for a COVID-19 vaccine exemption on religious grounds was denied.
Mermigis, who represents roughly 100 city workers in such lawsuits — the majority of which are NYPD cops, but also include firefighters and teachers — noted that when Adams announced the mandate lift, he left the door open to reinstating it again in the future.
N.Y. Court System Nixes COVID Vaccine Mandate for Employees
The New York state court system has withdrawn a requirement that judges and employees receive COVID-19 vaccines, according to a filing made on Thursday in a judge’s lawsuit claiming he should have been granted a religious exemption.
Lawyers for Frank Mora, a city court judge in Poughkeepsie, New York, said in the filing that the state Unified Court System issued a memo to employees on Wednesday announcing that the mandate adopted last year would be discontinued.
As a result, Mora’s request for a preliminary injunction seeking to have his full job duties restored is moot, but the underlying lawsuit should proceed, his lawyers wrote.
The court system last April fired 103 employees who did not comply with the vaccine requirement and required Mora and three other judges to work remotely.
U.S. Navy Will No Longer Require COVID Vaccines for Deployment
The U.S. Navy is rolling back requirements for COVID-19 vaccines, axing the consideration of vaccination status when making decisions about the deployment of sailors.
The decision by the Navy reverses a policy that was in place for more than a year, mandating that vaccination status be considered when determining deployment.
Congress nixed the military’s vaccination requirements as part of the annual National Defense Authorization Act at the end of 2022.
The new guidelines did not offer directives on how to handle personnel that were separated from the Navy because of their vaccination status when the mandate was still in place.
If AT&T Can Silence Newsmax, Who Is Next?
AT&T’s recent de-platforming of Newsmax, one of America’s most influential cable news channels, should alarm everyone, including liberals. We are all at risk when censorship occurs — when one is silenced based on his or her point of view.
The facts strongly suggest that partisan and ideological motives played a sizable role in AT&T and DirecTV’s decision to remove Newsmax on January 24, when some 13 million homes were deprived of the channel — including my own. After the recent State of the Union address, I turned to Newsmax for its coverage but was surprised to find it suddenly missing from my channel guide.
Newsmax has been quite familiar to me: For several years, I have been a legal analyst for the network. While the channel is center-right in its political orientation, my liberal positions are welcomed without any hesitation. In my book The Case Against the New Censorship, I studied the growing movement to silence dissenting views, of which Newsmax now appears to be a victim.
After Elon Musk‘s release of the “Twitter Files,” we know the FBI worked to censor private parties — a serious potential breach of constitutionally protected free speech rights. Did something similar happen when AT&T shut off OANN and Newsmax?
U.S. Launches Artificial Intelligence Military Use Initiative
The United States launched an initiative Thursday promoting international cooperation on the responsible use of artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons by militaries, seeking to impose order on an emerging technology that has the potential to change the way war is waged.
Bonnie Jenkins, the State Department’s undersecretary for arms control and international security, said the U.S. political declaration, which contains non-legally binding guidelines outlining best practices for the responsible military use of AI, “can be a focal point for international cooperation.”
Jenkins launched the declaration at the end of a two-day conference in The Hague that took on additional urgency as advances in drone technology amid Russia’s war in Ukraine have accelerated a trend that could soon bring the world’s first fully autonomous fighting robots to the battlefield.
The U.S. declaration has 12 points, including that military uses of AI are consistent with international law, and that states “maintain human control and involvement for all actions critical to informing and executing sovereign decisions concerning nuclear weapons employment.”
OpenAI Cofounder Elon Musk Said the Non-Profit He Helped Create Is Now Focused on ‘Maximum Profit,’ Which Is ‘Not What I Intended at All’
OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk took to Twitter to defend his early involvement in the company that created ChatCPT, saying it has become a “maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft,” which was not what he “intended at all.”
The billionaire was responding to a tweet questioning why he co-founded OpenAI when he considers artificial intelligence “one of the biggest risks” to civilization and needs further regulation.
Musk wrote in response: “OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it “Open” AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, the maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft. Not what I intended at all.”
It was initially a non-profit dedicated to developing digital intelligence “in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole,” it wrote on its website in 2015, Insider’s Grace Kay recently reported. But it shed its non-profit status in 2019 and became a “capped-profit” company to “raise investment capital and attract employees,” the company announced in a blog post.
The company announced a partnership with Microsoft the same year and welcomed a $1 billion investment from the tech giant.
TikTok, Twitter, Facebook Set to Face EU Crackdown on Toxic Content
TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have now confirmed they will face the strictest rules under the EU’s content-moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Online platforms have until Friday at midnight to reveal how many Europeans use their services under the DSA. Platforms and search engines with over 45 million EU users will have to adhere to sweeping requirements starting in the summer of 2023 including swiftly taking down illegal content, limiting disinformation and better protecting kids and teenagers under the supervision of the European Commission.
The European Commission could slap fines of up to 6% of companies’ annual global revenue if their investigations find such very large online platforms (VLOPs) at fault. Large companies will also be audited by external companies to check they are doing enough to ensure their algorithms and platforms don’t pose major risks to society, and researchers will have access to some crucial internal data.
Several big social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok have been under scrutiny for spreading disinformation and pushing users down rabbit holes of increasingly extreme content. Instagram has also faced widespread criticism for reportedly harming teenage girls’ mental health.
EU Countries Agree to Scrap COVID Tests for Travelers From China
EU countries have agreed to phase out two of the recommended travel-related measures agreed upon in the wake of China’s scrapping of its zero-COVID policy, the Swedish Presidency said in a statement on Thursday.
Countries agreed to lift the requirement for a negative pre-departure COVID-19 test for people traveling to the EU from China by the end of February and put an end to randomly testing travelers arriving from China by mid-March.
Already, Sweden’s Public Health Agency has announced the country will be lifting all entry requirements for travelers from China starting February 19.
Fears that China’s lifting of its zero-COVID policy could result in fresh coronavirus variants have not yet materialized.