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Buffalo Teens Killed in Car Crash Connected to TikTok Trend + More
Buffalo Teens Killed in Car Crash Connected to TikTok Trend
The Kia Challenge is a concerning social media trend that sees participants attempting to hijack the namesake car using a USB cable. The edgy challenge has turned tragic as the aftermath of a failed attempt in Buffalo left four teenagers dead.
The Kia Challenge is/was a social media trend on the video-sharing app TikTok that instructed participants on how to steal a Kia using nothing more than a USB cable or phone charger. What could go wrong? Well, a car crash in upstate New York left four teenagers dead and one hospitalized may be tied to the viral trend.
According to reporting from Insider, six teens in Buffalo appear to have tried their hands at the Kia Challenge, where users are encouraged to hijack newer Kia models with a USB cable to start the ignition. The group of teens got into a car accident on Route 33 in Buffalo on October 24 that led to four deaths, one hospitalization and one relatively minor injury.
Buffalo Police commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said in a media briefing on Monday that this incident is connected to the Kia Challenge.
Italy to End Ban on Health Workers Not Vaccinated Against COVID
Italian doctors and nurses suspended from work because they are not vaccinated against COVID-19 will soon be reinstated, new Health Minister Orazio Schillaci said on Friday.
The move is motivated by a worrying shortage of medical personnel together with declining cases of COVID-19. The new government will also cancel fines imposed on all people aged over 50 who had not gotten vaccinated, he added.
Former prime minister Mario Draghi’s government made vaccination mandatory for teachers and health workers in 2021 and extended that to everyone over 50 in January this year.
A refusal resulted in a suspension from work without pay for public employees, while those aged over 50 faced fines of 100 euros ($99.5).
Justice Alito Discusses ‘Pretty Abysmal,’ ‘Disgraceful’ Free Speech Situation at Colleges, Law Schools
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito recently discussed the reality of free speech on college campuses and law schools, pointing to the disturbing culture surrounding the lack of free dialogue.
During a discussion at the Heritage Foundation, Alito was asked about the situation on college campuses, as well as law schools, regarding freedom of speech. He said it is “pretty abysmal,” “disgraceful” and “really dangerous for our future as a united, democratic country.”
“We depend on freedom of speech,” Alito said. “Colleges and universities should be setting the example, and law schools should be setting the example for the university because our adversary system is based on the principle that the best way to get at the truth is to have a strong presentation of opposing views. So, law schools should be free to speak their minds without worrying about the consequences, and they should have their ideas tested in rational debating.”
Amazon Quietly Gave $400,000 to Conservative Nonprofit That Opposed New Antitrust Legislation
Amazon quietly donated $400,000 to a conservative nonprofit last year as the group pushed back on antitrust bills being considered in Congress, according to documents reviewed by CNBC.
The Independent Women’s Forum received the six-figure contribution from the e-commerce giant in 2021, the same year the group wrote columns speaking out against bills that could strengthen antitrust enforcement.
Last February, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., introduced a bill that proposed to increase the budget of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission, both of which have looked into whether big technology companies compete fairly.
Days later, the Independent Women’s Forum published a column with the headline “Sen. Klobuchar’s New Bill: A Dangerous Signal for Big Tech.” In the article, a director at the group, Patrice Onwuka, name-checks Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon, and suggests the type of legislation could hurt consumers and raves about the tech giants. “Big Tech is tremendously beneficial to consumers, small businesses, students and voters,” Onwuka wrote.
‘No Plans’ to Mandate COVID Vaccine in Minnesota Schools
Minnesota’s health commissioner won’t seek to require COVID-19 vaccination for school attendance, even if federal authorities add it to the recommended pediatric immunization schedule.
A statement Thursday by the Minnesota Department of Health clarified the state’s position, following last week’s vote by the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the schedule. While the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has yet to sign off on the recommendation, several states had already announced their intentions.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul Calls on Parents to Remask Their Children
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday urged parents in the state to prepare for the colder weather months and remask their toddlers to protect them from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections.
“We’re not mandating this, but we’re saying, parents, you know, you got other kids, you got kids in school, preschool and you got a baby at home, you really might just want to take these extra precautions,” Hochul said at a news conference on Oct. 26.
The Democrat governor stated RSV “does hit younger children,” arguing the practice of wearing masks has been normalized by now and children are “socialized to the idea” anyway.
Hochul failed to mention that since the COVID-19 pandemic and the government’s enforcement of mask mandates, numerous medical professionals and studies have indicated that masking children does more harm than good.
Shanghai District Orders Mass COVID Testing, Lockdown
China’s largest city of Shanghai is ordering mass testing Friday of all 1.3 million residents of its downtown Yangpu district and confining them to their homes at least until the results are known.
The demand is an echo of measures ordered over the summer that led to a two-month lockdown of the entire city of 25 million that devastated its economy, prompting food shortages and rare confrontations between residents and the authorities.
At the start of the lockdown, authorities said it would last just days but then kept extending the deadline.
Strict measures have been imposed across the country, from Shanghai in the east to Tibet far to the west, where anti-lockdown protests have also been reported.
Elon Musk Now in Charge of Twitter, CEO and CFO Have Left, Sources Say
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is now in charge of Twitter, CNBC has learned.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and finance chief Ned Segal have left the company’s San Francisco headquarters and will not be returning, sources said. Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal policy, trust and safety, was also fired, The Washington Post reported.
The billionaire tweeted “the bird is freed” in an apparent reference to the takeover being completed.
Advocacy Group Calls on Regulators to Investigate ByteDance’s Plans to Use TikTok to Surveil U.S. Citizens
Public Citizen, a prominent progressive advocacy group, has sent a letter to 10 legislative leaders, the Federal Trade Commission and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to inquire about a Forbes report revealing that a team at TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, planned to monitor the physical location of specific U.S. citizens.
“Unauthorized location monitoring is one of the most invasive and insidious data practices imaginable,” wrote Public Citizen president Robert Weissman. “From this information, it can be determined where we live, where we work, where we pray, what type of healthcare we seek and much more.”
The Forbes report, which relied on internal TikTok and ByteDance materials, found that in at least two cases, ByteDance’s Internal Audit and Risk Control department had planned to collect TikTok data about the location of U.S. citizens who had never been employed by the company. It was not clear from the materials whether data about these citizens were ever actually collected.
Public Citizen is now asking the government entities to use their full investigatory authority to determine “[e]xactly what individually targeted surveillance practices ByteDance and/or TikTok have employed, considered employing or developed the capacity to undertake.”
Some TikTok Users Are Receiving $167 Checks Over Data Privacy Violations — and Google and Snapchat Could Be Next
This week, TikTok users across the country who created videos on the app before September 30, 2021, began receiving payments between $27.84 and $167.04 following a $92 million class-action data privacy settlement with the social media platform.
The largest checks went to short- and long-term residents of Illinois, where TikTok was sued for violating the state’s strict biometric data laws by collecting and implementing facial recognition data into its algorithms without user consent.
Not everyone who uses TikTok in the U.S. is getting a check because a comparable federal law doesn’t currently exist. But the lawsuit “asserted a variety of common law and other types of claims” in state and local courts to maximize the number of people who could get a payout, Katrina Carroll, a founding partner at Lynch Carpenter LLP and one of the case’s co-lead prosecutors, tells CNBC Make It.
Up to 89 million people qualified to submit a claim, according to the settlement.
This isn’t the first time TikTok has come under fire for exploiting user privacy: In 2019, it agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations of illegally collecting and storing the personal information of minors.
‘Media Literacy’ Advocates Push to Create Savvier Consumers of News and Information
The Instagram headline was pithy and alarming: “Head of Pfizer Research: COVID Vaccine is Female Sterilization.” And the report, from a murky source, could have had real-world consequences, coming in 2020, just as the U.S. rolled out the first vaccines to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
That made the story a perfect tool for an educator trying to teach high school students how to separate fact from fiction — a survival skill in a culture drowning in a tsunami of information.
Jamie Gregory told the 12th-graders in her seventh-period journalism class to examine the article. But, using lessons from a nonprofit called the News Literacy Project, they understood the best way to get to the truth was not to read deeply into the suspect story but to check it by shifting away to other sources.
Gregory is one of a growing number of teachers, librarians, counselors and other educators who are teaching students media literacy — skills like discerning advertising from unpaid content, recognizing the difference between news and commentary and separating unbiased sources from those with ties to industry or political groups.
TikTok Not Liable for Girl Who Died Trying Viral ‘Blackout Challenge,’ Court Finds + More
TikTok Not Liable for Philadelphia Girl, 10, Who Died Trying Viral ‘Blackout Challenge,’ Court Finds
TikTok is protected from a wrongful death lawsuit accusing the social media company of promoting a “blackout challenge” that led to the death of a 10-year-old Philadelphia girl, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Nylah Anderson died in December while attempting the “blackout challenge” on the social media app TikTok, the girl’s family has said. The family has claimed the challenge, which is to choke oneself long enough to lose consciousness, was spread through videos on the platform.
U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond in Philadelphia dismissed the lawsuit on Tuesday, ruling that TikTok was immune under a part of the federal Communications Decency Act, Reuters reported. The act protects entities that publish the work of others. “The wisdom of conferring such immunity is something properly taken up with Congress, not the courts,” Diamond wrote in his ruling, according to the report.
The family’s lawyer, Jeffrey Goodman, said in a statement obtained by the outlet that the family would “continue to fight to make social media safe so that no other child is killed by the reckless behavior of the social media industry.”
Scientists: COVID Restrictions Caused ‘Immunity Gap,’ Leading to Virus Uptick in Children
Cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and other viruses are rising across the nation, and scientists are now saying the uptick is due to measures put in place during the pandemic that restricted immune development.
The phenomenon is called an “immunity gap,” and essentially happened when restrictions and practices that were common during the pandemic limited the spread of viruses, leading to fewer people developing immunity to them. When people re-entered society, the viruses were back, too.
Babies often receive antibodies for RSV through their mother’s breast milk, but even the mothers often weren’t exposed to RSV during lockdowns.
Meta Faces $24.7 Million Fine for Campaign Finance Violations in Washington
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, was hit with a $24.7 million fine Wednesday after a Washington judge found the tech giant had intentionally violated the state’s campaign finance disclosure laws 822 times.
The big picture: The fine that King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North issued “represents the largest campaign finance penalty anywhere in the country — ever,” per a statement from Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson. A Meta spokesperson said the firm is assessing its options and declined to comment further.
Driving the news: North issued the maximum penalty for the violations of Washington’s Fair Campaign Practices Act. Each violation carried a $30,000 penalty.
The law “requires campaign advertisers, including entities such as Meta that host political ads, to make information about Washington political ads that run on their platforms available for public inspection in a timely manner,” per Ferguson’s office. “The state asserted that Meta violated the law repeatedly since December 2018 and committed hundreds of violations.”
Meet the EU Law That Could Reshape Online Speech in the U.S.
The First Amendment generally precludes the U.S. government from limiting private speakers’ and companies’ ideas or controlling how social media firms govern their spaces.
But other governments may soon fill that void, and regulate how American tech giants referee speech on their platforms. Earlier this month, the European Union approved legislation aimed at regulating social media platforms: the Digital Services Act.
The law will take effect in 2024, in time for the next U.S. presidential elections, and promises big shifts in how online speech is refereed not just in Europe, but also here at home. The law, among other requirements, places substantial content moderation expectations on large social media firms — many based in the U.S. — which include limiting false information, hate speech and extremism.
It’s not clear how social media firms will adapt to the law, but the fines they will face for failing to comply will be massive. Firms can be fined up to six percent of their annual revenue — that’s $11 billion for Google and $7 billion for Meta. Essentially, the EU has created a significant new legal incentive for firms to regulate expression on their platforms.
Navy COVID Vaccine Refusal Separations Nears 2,000
The Navy separated 180 active-duty sailors in the past month for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the sea service’s monthly update.
The Navy has separated a total of 1,544 active-duty sailors and 327 reservists for refusing to get the mandatory two-shot vaccine for COVID-19. Another 22 sailors were also released in their first 180 days of service, bringing the Navy’s total of separated sailors to 1,893.
The Navy has received 3,318 religious waiver requests from active-duty sailors and 859 from reservists. Under a court ruling, the Navy cannot separate anyone who has submitted a religious exemption request.
The case, which involves approximately 35 special warfare community members, is currently in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral testimony in the case is currently scheduled for the week of Feb. 6, 2023.
Hollywood’s Unions and Studios Extend COVID Protocols With Small Modifications
The Hollywood Reporter reported:
After a protracted round of negotiations, minor modifications have been made to Hollywood’s COVID-19 protocols as the industry continues to evolve in its approach to the pandemic.
Nearly a month after the latest agreement was temporarily extended to allow unions and studios more time to discuss, both sides agreed to change the deal to allow daily antigen tests for the cast and crew who work most closely with them during a surge in COVID cases, as opposed to requiring tests at least three times a week (one of them a PCR test) during a wave in COVID cases.
Another modification to the criteria for the agreement’s most stringent protocols to take effect: This threshold was raised from 10 or more new COVID cases per 100,000 people for seven straight days to 14 or more COVID hospital admissions per 100,000 people. The change in criteria from cases to hospitalizations means that even if there’s an uptick in cases in the next few months, the strictest protocols will only be implemented if those illnesses result in hospitalizations. The new deal also adds six days to workers’ bank of COVID sick days.
Still, employers can opt to institute stricter protocols for masking and testing on productions, and can continue to mandate vaccinations in “Zone A” of sets, the statement added.
U.K. Police Use of Live Facial Recognition Unlawful and Unethical, Report Finds
Police should be banned from using live facial recognition technology in all public spaces because they are breaking ethical standards and human rights laws, a study has concluded.
LFR involves linking cameras to databases containing photos of people. Images from the cameras can then be checked against those photos to see if they match.
British police have experimented with the technology, believing it can help combat crime and terrorism. But in some cases, courts have found against the way police have used LFR, and how they have dealt with infringements of the privacy rights of people walking in the streets where the technology has been used. There are also concerns about racial bias.
The report, from the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, at the University of Cambridge, says LFR should be banned from use in streets, airports and any public spaces — the very areas where police believe it would be most valuable.
Chinese Cities Double Down on Zero-COVID as Outbreaks Widen
Chinese cities from Wuhan in central China to Xining in the northwest are doubling down on COVID-19 curbs, sealing up buildings, locking down districts and throwing millions into distress in a scramble to halt widening outbreaks.
China on Thursday reported a third straight day of more than 1,000 new COVID cases nationwide, a modest tally compared with the tens of thousands per day that sent Shanghai into a full-blown lockdown earlier this year but enough to trigger more restrictions across the country.
As of Oct. 24, 28 cities were implementing varying degrees of lockdown measures, with around 207.7 million people affected in regions responsible for around 25.6 trillion yuan ($3.55 trillion) of China’s gross domestic product, according to Nomura.
Elon Musk, Nearing Twitter Deal, Says Site Will Continue to Police Hateful Content
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who appears set to acquire Twitter, said on Thursday that he plans to police some content on the platform that falls short of breaking the law, signaling that he will preserve more content moderation than he had previously indicated.
Musk, an avowed proponent of free speech, has faced questions from some analysts over the potential loss of users and advertisers if a more permissive approach to content allows hate speech and false information to proliferate on the platform.
In a letter directed at advertisers on Twitter, Musk explained the motivation behind his bid for the platform and his plans for content policing.
“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk said. “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be said without consequences!”
Meta Shares Plummet 20% in Pre-Market After Q3 Revenue Decline
Shares of Facebook’s parent firm Meta were down nearly 20% in pre-market trading, continuing a slide Thursday after the company’s third-quarter earnings released a day earlier fell short of expectations.
The social media giant reported quarterly revenue of $27.7 billion — down more than 4% year-on-year — its second consecutive quarter of revenue decline.
Meta’s Reality Labs division, which is leading the company’s pivot towards building a metaverse, reported a $3.7 billion loss in the third quarter, bringing its total losses so far this year to $9.4 billion.
Biden Touts Grocery Coupons for People Who Get Vaccinated Again + More
Biden Touts Grocery Coupons for People Who Get Vaccinated Again
The White House amplified multiple grocery stores and pharmacy chains’ offers to provide $20 vouchers for Americans who get another dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Officials are encouraging Americans to receive boosters before embarking upon holiday travel over the next two months. The White House said in a statement that President Joe Biden has called upon pharmacies to “double down” on efforts to increase vaccination rates, prompting the organizations to send “tens of millions of texts, calls and emails to customers, multimedia marketing campaigns,” while federal pharmacy partners are extending hours and accepting walk-in appointments.
Albertsons, a grocery store chain with most locations in the western part of the nation, will discount groceries by 10% for people who receive the vaccine in-store, with total benefits capped at $20. CVS Health is likewise offering $5 off any regular purchase of $20, while Rite Aid will offer coupons for $5 off a purchase of $25 or more. Southeastern Grocers will provide $20 vouchers when individuals receive their COVID vaccine and booster at the same time.
Beyond the companies offering discounts, Walgreens is spending millions to “encourage vaccinations across Black and Hispanic communities,” while Walmart and Sam’s Club will play a reminder over store loudspeakers three to four times each hour in the hopes that shoppers will opt to receive their vaccines.
Baker Offers to Reinstate Dozens of State Workers Fired Under Strict COVID Vaccine Mandate
The Boston Globe via MSN reported:
Massachusetts officials are offering to reinstate dozens of workers who lost their jobs after Governor Charlie Baker required that all executive branch employees be inoculated against COVID-19, a strict policy that, at its inception, was among the furthest-reaching in the nation.
State officials said Tuesday that about 50 employees have been offered their jobs back, a group that labor officials said appeared scattered across agencies and reportedly included the Department of Transportation. More than 1,000 were fired or quit after declining to get vaccinated against COVID-19, officials said in January.
Baker, speaking Tuesday, indicated the state made offers to those who previously sought a medical or religious exemption but had been denied. In February, state officials told WBUR that the administration had approved just 256 of more than 2,300 exemption requests, the majority of which were for religious beliefs.
Judge Tells NYC to Rehire Workers Fired for Refusing Vaccination
A group of sanitation workers who were fired for refusing to comply with New York City’s coronavirus vaccine mandate for government employees should be given back their jobs, as well as retroactive pay, a New York state judge ruled.
The city’s requirement for government workers to be vaccinated was “arbitrary and capricious,” state Supreme Court Justice Ralph Porzio, a Republican whose jurisdiction includes the conservative stronghold of Staten Island, wrote in an order filed Tuesday.
The city has appealed the decision; New York’s Supreme Court is a trial-level court and its decisions are subject to review by higher appellate courts.
Americans Don’t Need More Pills — They Need Sports
On Oct. 11, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommended all children ages eight and up be screened for anxiety, even if they have no symptoms. The justification? Anxiety is the most common mental illness among minors, and universal screening will allow America’s troubled youth to receive the therapy and medication they need to manage their symptoms.
Before COVID-19, only 11% of adults reported symptoms of anxiety or depression, compared to 40% during the pandemic, a number that had dropped only to 33% by June 2022. These rapid shifts raise a question: what has changed during the pandemic that still endures today?
Two important variables stand out: social isolation, wrought by lockdowns, remote work and crumbling social institutions; and declining physical activity resulting from not going outside, shutting down gyms and spending every waking moment in front of a screen. We know social isolation and lack of exercise are major factors behind anxiety, so why are we medicalizing what we know to be a social and technological problem that inaccessible therapy and popping pills can’t possibly fix?
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Signals Opposition to COVID Vaccine for Children
Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signaled opposition to mandating coronavirus vaccines for children to attend school during Michigan’s final gubernatorial debate before Election Day.
Whitmer was asked during Tuesday’s debate about new guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) urging children to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
“I do not support requiring the COVID vaccine for children,” said Whitmer, who proceeded to defend her record of battling the pandemic. “We made quick decisions to save lives and studies show we saved 1,000s. I am proud of that.”
Gov. Mills Won’t Rule out Future COVID Vaccine Mandate for Schools
It was a small moment with big implications. Last night during the second major gubernatorial debate, Maine Gov. Janet Mills said that she does not support imposing a vaccine mandate on Maine school children “at this time.”
Mills did not elaborate, nor did the moderator ask her to. But the implication is clear: Mills is leaving the door open to impose vaccine mandates on Maine schools after Election Day.
The comment follows last week’s vote by Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah in support of adding the controversial COVID-19 shots to the federal schedule of vaccinations. Shah, who is a member of the federal CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), joined the other 14 members of that committee in recommending the mRNA COVID-19 shots produced by Pfizer, Moderna and other major pharmaceutical companies for all American children and adolescents.
Oscar Winner Flames Actors’ Unions Over ‘Discriminatory’ COVID Vaccine Policies
Academy Award-winning actor Tim Robbins laid into two major actors’ unions on Tuesday, calling on them to put an end to their “discriminatory” COVID vaccine policies.
Robbins called out both SAG-AFTRA (The Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) and Actors Equity, and said that it was “way past time” for the unions to abandon vaccine mandates, citing the New York Supreme Court ruling that reinstated New York City workers whose jobs had been terminated when they did not comply with the city’s vaccine requirements.
Robbins continued with a quote from Staten Island Judge Ralph J. Porzio, who said in his ruling, “Being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting COVID-19. As of the day of this Decision, CDC guidelines regarding quarantine and isolation are the same for vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.”
China’s COVID Curbs Disrupt Production at World’s Biggest iPhone Factory
Hong Kong Free Press reported:
Millions of people in China were under tight COVID restrictions on Wednesday as sporadic outbreaks across the country prompted business closures and disruption at the world’s largest iPhone factory.
China is the last major economy welded to a zero-COVID strategy, persisting with snap lockdowns, mass testing and lengthy quarantines in a bid to keep infections to a minimum.
But fast-spreading virus variants have challenged that approach in recent months, with shutdowns and an ever-shifting patchwork of curbs sparking public exasperation and rare pockets of protest.
The world’s most populous nation recorded just 1,241 new local cases on Wednesday, the majority of which displayed no symptoms, according to the National Health Commission. But they include an outbreak at a factory in the central city of Zhengzhou that employs around 300,000 people and is known as the largest producer of iPhones in the world.
TikTok Won’t Stop Serving Me Horror and Death
TikTok’s all-powerful, all-knowing algorithm appears to have decided that I want to see some of the most depressing and disturbing content the platform has to offer. My timeline has become an endless doomscroll. Despite TikTok’s claims that its mission is to “bring joy,” I am not getting much joy at all.
What I am getting is a glimpse at just how aggressive TikTok is when it comes to deciding what content it thinks users want to see and pushing it on them. It’s a bummer for me, but potentially harmful to users whose timelines become filled with triggering or extremist content or misinformation.
This is a problem with pretty much every social media platform as well as YouTube. But with TikTok, it feels even worse. The platform’s algorithm-centric design sucks users into that content in ways its rivals simply don’t. And those users tend to skew younger and spend more time on TikTok than they do anywhere else.
Meta and Microsoft Can’t Self-Regulate Their Metaverses, U.K. Regulator Warns
The boss of the U.K. media regulator Ofcom warned that “metaverse” forays from tech giants like Meta and Microsoft will be subjected to incoming rules forcing platforms to protect users from online harm.
Speaking at an event in London hosted by policy consulting group Global Counsel on Tuesday, Ofcom Chief Executive Melanie Dawes said self-regulation of the metaverse, a hypothetical digital world touted by Meta and others, wouldn’t fly under U.K. online safety laws.
The Online Safety Bill is a set of legislation that seeks to curb harmful content from being widely shared on the internet. The rules would impose a duty of care on firms requiring them to have robust and proportionate measures to deal with harmful materials such as vaccine disinformation or posts promoting self-harm.
Violations of the law — once it is approved — could lead to fines of up to 10% of annual global revenues. Down the track, senior tech executives may also face criminal liability for more extreme breaches.
DHS Emails Confirm the Feds Are Monitoring Tweets
The Department of Homeland Security has its eyes online. Following the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade, the agency took to Twitter to monitor the public response, according to a report from Bloomberg that references internal DHS emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The notion of federal agents keeping tabs on social media shouldn’t be particularly surprising. After all, the FBI has been open about its interest in social media monitoring for years. Local police forces also surveil posts. And Homeland Security itself started collecting a wide array of online data (including social media activity) on immigrants back in 2017.
Lawsuit Claims Google Knew Its ‘Incognito Mode’ Doesn’t Protect Users’ Privacy + More
Lawsuit Claims Google Knew Its ‘Incognito Mode’ Doesn’t Protect Users’ Privacy
It can be hard to keep track of all the lawsuits against Google. The Department of Justice filed one in 2020 and might have another one coming soon. Texas has at least two. Arizona recently settled theirs with the search giant for $85 million. And Washington state and DC have lawsuits, too.
Here’s another one to add to the list. Right now, a California judge is deliberating on whether to allow a class-action lawsuit representing millions of Google users to go forward. A group of consumers is alleging the company misled people about what data it collected when they were using private browsing modes on both Google’s Chrome web browser and browsers built by other companies such as Apple and Mozilla.
Because essentially all internet users in the United States use a browser to surf the web, the potential fines should Google be found liable could be in the billions of dollars.
The lawyers spearheading the lawsuit have already amassed a trove of internal Google emails they say show how the company’s executives have known for years that what the company calls “Incognito mode” is anything but incognito. Private browsing modes usually block tracking cookies — little bits of code that follow people around the internet logging their activity.
Banks Shouldn’t Be Moral Arbiters — Even for Kanye
The rapper Ye West, formerly known as Kanye, has been the subject of public ire for the past few weeks after sporting a T-shirt with the words “White Lives Matter” emblazoned on it and tweeting that he was going to “go death con 3 on Jewish people.”
Public ire quickly turned to corporate punishment: JPMorgan Chase announced that it was kicking the rapper and his money out of their bank, and on Friday, the fashion brand Balenciaga followed suit, cutting ties with West.
Let me be clear: There is no place for antisemitic commentary in society. I hope we can all agree West’s words were harmful and deserving of condemnation. And yet, I also find it extremely troubling to witness the escalating trend of financial institutions and corporate entities choosing to dole out punishment and restrict access to vital services based on political and social perception.
This trend does not just impact rich celebrities who mouth off like Ye; it has also impacted activists, journalists and ordinary citizens who hold political views that contravene the ruling narrative. And it has the potential to impact any of us if our views don’t perfectly align with the edicts and agendas of governmental and corporate elites.
Biden Administration Amps up Efforts to Boost New COVID Shots
President Biden on Tuesday will announce a series of new efforts to boost the administration of the bivalent COVID-19 booster shots, including partnerships with several major companies and pharmacy chains.
To encourage more people to get boosted, the Department of Health and Human Services will also be launching a tour on Oct. 26 during which it will host vaccine pop-up events and distribute toolkits to families.
Medicare will also be sending out email reminders to about 16 million people in the next week informing them of how they can get the updated booster.
During his remarks on Tuesday, Biden will be joined by the leaders of major pharmacy chains including Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid and Albertsons. The White House’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci, COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy will also be joining him.
Texas Rejects New CDC Recommendation to Mandate the COVID Shot to School Children
The entity that determines the vaccination schedule for children in Texas was quick to adjust its website on Oct. 20, hours after advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a recommendation to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the children’s immunization schedule.
After a state representative expressed his concern, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) removed a line on its website that stated: “Children need all CDC-recommended vaccines” to attend school.
Many states unilaterally adopt the CDC vaccination recommendations without input from elected officials or parents.
The COVID-19 vaccines have proven increasingly ineffective against both infection and severe illness from newer virus variants. In addition, there is no evidence that vaccines protect against severe disease for children under 5.
First on CNN: Administration’s New COVID Vaccine Ads Target ‘High-Risk’ Communities
New ads promoting the COVID-19 vaccines are making their debut this week, targeting specific communities that have had a slow uptake of the updated shots.
Black audiences are encouraged to get vaccinated in the “On Point” video, released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Monday.
A Spanish-language ad titled “No te pierdas el juego” also started airing Monday, targeting Latino audiences. An English version of the ad, the title of which translates to “Don’t Miss the Game,” is scheduled for release next month during the FIFA World Cup.
The new ads, first reported on CNN, will run in 15 U.S. markets, according to HHS. Radio and print versions will run in 30 markets across the country.
Autism Services for Adults in Philly Area Still Haven’t Rebounded From COVID Shutdowns
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported:
When state officials approved Devon Geiger for the most comprehensive benefits Pennsylvania offers for adults with autism and intellectual disabilities, her mother, Deb Geiger, had peace of mind. She thought her daughter would get the services she needed.
Geiger and her daughter, who live in Horsham, are among the growing number of families who were approved for Pennsylvania’s most generous intellectual disability benefits under Medicaid but remain without services as agencies struggle to restart services that had to be shut down early in the pandemic.
“We have a lot of families sitting at home really struggling,” said Audrey “Dee” Coccia, cofounder of Vision for Equality, a Philadelphia nonprofit that advocates for individuals with intellectual disabilities and their families.
China Imposes COVID Curbs in Center of Factory Hub Guangzhou
China suspended in-person schooling and dining at restaurants in a district at the center of Guangzhou, stoking concerns about the potential for disruption in the southern Chinese manufacturing hub that is home to about 19 million people.
All primary and middle schools in Haizhu district, where about 10% of the city’s total population lives, halted in-person lessons from Monday.
The restrictions come more than a week after Huadu district shut entertainment venues and schools and, while a small number of neighborhoods were allowed to ease curbs on Sunday, most of the area remains subject to control measures.
A Tech Lobbying Group Is Trying to Terrify Parents
The opening is standard for political advertising. A husband and wife sit at a kitchen table. The woman laments that a child spent hundreds of dollars on “battleskins,” objects purchased within a game to create a different appearance. “It used to be that parents had to approve their kids’ in-app purchases. Then the government got involved.” Exasperated, “This is how you help me? By making it harder to control my kids’ in-app purchases? Do me a favor, Congress, leave my phone alone.” It ends: “Call your congressmen and tell them to vote no on S2710.”
S2710, the bill the ad is targeting, is the Open App Markets App. The advertisement preys on the familiar fear that government regulation will result in consumers getting worse service, losing control of their data and even being hit with massive bills when their kid goes on a spending binge. But the premise of the ad is a lie. The bill doesn’t impact consumers at all; the bill only puts controls on big tech companies (Apple and Google) to stop them from engaging in a series of predatory practices which exploit smaller tech companies (like startup app developers independent of the big tech companies).
Basically, the ad is trying to outrage consumers so that they will call their representatives on behalf of Apple and Google, by misleading those consumers about what the bill does.
The ad was made by NetChoice, which is a group that wants to “make the Internet safe for free enterprise and free expression.” NetChoice is a lobbying group and trade association; Google, Meta, TikTok and many other major tech companies are members. The earlier version of the video, on NetChoice’s YouTube page, is identical except for targeting a similar bill, S2992, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act.
School Seeking Access to Personal Devices Sparks Outrage Online: ‘Hard No’
Members of a popular online forum were eager to speak out after one student revealed how their school is gaining access to personal devices.
In a viral Reddit post published on r/mildlyinfuriating, Redditor u/DevontePlayz (otherwise referred to as the original poster, or OP) shared a screenshot of a message they received from the academic institution, requesting they create a new profile on their cell phone in order to use Google‘s classroom software.
“Installing this profile will allow the administrator…to remotely manage your iPhone,” the message reads. “The administrator may collect personal data, add/remove accounts and restrictions, install, manage, and list apps and remotely erase data on your iPhone,” it continues.
Captioned, “My school wants us to allow this on our personal devices, just to use Google Classroom,” the post has received nearly 60,000 upvotes and 4,000 comments since Oct. 19.
The Clock Is Ticking for Elon Musk to Buy Twitter — and He’s Running out of Time
The pressure is on Elon Musk and his army of lawyers. The billionaire has only four days to close his deal with Twitter or face a trial — which experts say he is likely to lose.
Earlier this month, the Delaware judge overseeing the court case gave the two parties until 5 p.m. ET on Oct. 28 to agree to a new deal or the case will resume in a five-day trial in November.
But, experts say Musk is likely to reach a deal before the deadline expires on Friday.
Meta Investor Urges Company to Slash Headcount, Slow Metaverse Spending
Meta Platforms investor Altimeter Capital sent an open letter calling on CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the tech giant‘s board of directors to cut back on the company’s headcount and spending on its metaverse ambitions.
Like many other companies in a zero-rate world — Meta has drifted into the land of excess — too many people, too many ideas and too little urgency. This lack of focus and fitness is obscured when growth is easy but deadly when growth slows and technology changes,” Altimeter CEO Brad Gerstner wrote Monday. “At the same time that Meta ramped up spending, you lost the confidence of investors.”
The firm claims that Facebook hit a wall in its core business last fall, prompting it to “hastily” change its name and pivot its focus to the metaverse, an immersive online space where users can interact with each other as avatars in a computer-generated environment.
The letter notes that, in the past 18 months, Meta’s stock has tumbled 55%, compared to the average 19% of its big-tech peers. As of the time of publication, Meta is down approximately 63% year to date.