Login
Big Brother News Watch
Head Start Educator Says She Went ‘Through Hell’ Fighting to Keep Job Due to State, Federal Vax Mandates + More
Head Start Educator Says She Went ‘Through Hell’ Fighting to Keep Job Due to State, Federal Vax Mandates
The administrator of a Head Start program in Washington state said she went “through hell” fighting to keep her job in the face of state and federal vaccine mandates for program staffers — which still remain even as the rest of the country rolls back pandemic restrictions.
Sarah Werling, a Head Start center manager in Friday Harbor, Washington, told Fox News Digital that due to state regulations, she was barred from the classroom until this fall when Gov. Jay Inslee lifted the state’s coronavirus emergency.
Last October, she was initially granted a religious exemption by her program but was told she would need to be reassigned from her job. Werling said she pushed back against that decision before being allowed to keep her job, with an accommodation that barred her from coming into contact with “children, families and staff” — essentially exiling her from the classroom.
However, even now with Washington’s regulations lifted, Werling says she is forced to get tested for COVID-19 once per week and must wear a mask when in the classroom, due to Head Start’s rules for religious exemptions. The testing requirement is consistent with guidelines laid out in the HHS interim final rule for religious exemptions.
Doctors Sue California Over Law That Restricts Their COVID Advice to Patients
The Washington Times reported:
Two California doctors have filed a federal lawsuit to overturn a new state law restricting the advice they can give patients about COVID-19.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed Assembly Bill 2098 into law on Friday. It authorizes the Medical Board of California to levy professional sanctions against and revoke the licenses of doctors who share with patients “misinformation” that challenges the scientific consensus about COVID-19.
Filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the lawsuit claims the law violates doctors’ freedom of speech and the spirit of scientific inquiry. It names the 12 members of the state medical board and state Attorney General Robert Bonta, a Democrat, as defendants.
“AB 2098 intrudes into the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship, replacing the medical judgment of the government for that of the licensed professional, and chilling the speech of those who dissent from the official view,” the complaint states.
‘Our Hands Are Tied’: Bend-La Pine School Board Fires Three Teachers Who Defied State’s COVID Vaccine Mandate
Before a crowd, some holding signs like “Rehire Don’t Fire” and “Jobs Not Jabs,” the Bend-La Pine School Board unanimously accepted Superintendent Steve Cook’s recommendations and fired three teachers Tuesday evening for failing to meet a state requirement to receive a COVID-19 vaccination or sign a religious or medical exception form.
Supporters of the three teachers rallied outside the school district Administration Building during the board’s closed-door executive session just before the hearings.
Supporter Adin Hess explained why he came out to support the teachers. “They were mandated in order to have a job,” he said. “So it’s unfair, and we see that there needs to be justice for them. We’re here in support of them.”
Former Mountain View High teacher and freshman football coach Mark Schulz, a 25-year member of the Cougars coaching staff, along with La Pine Middle School teacher Zachary Webb and Ensworth Elementary kindergarten teacher Kelly Lundy, each gave statements to explain why, from their moral and religious perspectives, the school district and board had a choice — and was making the wrong one.
Challenges to Vaccine Mandate at CU Medical Campus Narrowed
A federal judge has taken a sprawling lawsuit from 17 anonymous staff and students at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus and pared down the number of legal claims that may go forward challenging the school’s COVID-19 vaccination policy.
U.S. District Court Judge Raymond P. Moore previously declined to block the medical campus’ vaccine mandate, indicating it did not appear to burden the plaintiffs’ religious exercise in an unconstitutional manner. Now, Moore has again reiterated the university acted reasonably by requiring COVID-19 vaccinations but nevertheless permitted some plaintiffs’ allegations to proceed against only some CU defendants.
The primary allegations of the unnamed staff and students remain intact — that the school’s September 2021 policy for obtaining religious exemptions to vaccination violates the religious freedom provisions of the state and federal constitutions.
The case is in an unusual stage, as Moore has refused to pause the proceedings while the Denver-based federal appeals court reviews his previous rulings denying the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit heard arguments in late September about that issue. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said a decision from the appellate court could affect Moore’s dismissal order.
How a British Teen’s Death Changed Social Media
Last week, the senior coroner for north London, Andrew Walker, concluded that it was not right to say the British teenager Molly Russell died by suicide and said that posts on Instagram and Pinterest contributed to her death. “She died from an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content,” Walker said.
More children than Molly are exposed to disturbing content online. Almost two-thirds of British children aged 3-15 use social media, and one-third of online children aged 8-15 have seen worrying or upsetting content online in the past 12 months, according to a 2022 report by British media regulator Ofcom. Child protection campaigners say posts showing self-harm are still available, even if they are now harder to find than in 2017.
But Molly’s case is believed to be the first time social media companies have been required to take part in legal proceedings that linked their services to the death of a child. The platforms were found to have hosted content that glamorized self-harm and promoted keeping feelings about depression secret, says Merry Varney, solicitor at Leigh Day, the law firm representing the Russell family. Those findings “captured all the elements of why this material is so harmful,” she adds.
Pinterest and Instagram have tweaked the way their platforms work since Molly’s death, but child safety campaigners hope that looming U.K. regulation will bring more radical change. The inquest has renewed pressure on the new British government to introduce the long-awaited Online Safety Bill, which culture minister Michelle Donelan promised to bring back to Parliament before Christmas this year. “We need the bill to be brought forward as quickly as possible now,” says Hannah Rüschen, senior policy and public affairs officer at British child protection charity, NSPCC.
Elon Musk’s Plans for Twitter May Take Inspiration From Chinese Super Apps
Elon Musk’s revived $44 billion deal to buy Twitter sparked fresh debate over what the billionaire will do with the service if he eventually owns it. On Tuesday, Musk tweeted that buying Twitter is an “accelerant to creating X, the everything app.” He did not provide further details.
Musk may be hinting toward so-called “super apps” which are popular in China and other parts of Asia and pioneered by the likes of Chinese technology giant Tencent.
Super apps is a term to describe an app that often acts as a one-stop shop for all your mobile needs. For example, you might order a taxi or food via the app and at the same time do payments and messaging. This eliminates the need to have multiple apps for different functions.
Chinese app WeChat, run by Tencent, is the biggest super app in the world, with over a billion users.
Kansas City Police Look to Amazon Alexa for Clues Into Double Homicide
Kansas City police are seeking access to an Amazon Alexa they hope can help their investigation into the slayings of two medical researchers found dead over the weekend.
Detectives with the police department filed a search warrant in Jackson County for access to the device’s cloud storage, according to a report obtained by KSHB.
The investigators hope the Alexa contains clues as to who fatally shot researchers Camila Behrensen, 24, and Pablo Guzman-Palma, 25, before setting fire to the apartment they were found in Saturday morning.
The Alexa may have captured conversations between the killer and the victims before the shooting, the filing says.
The News Media’s Credibility Is at an All-Time Low: Why Businesses Should Care
The credibility of the news media in the U.S. is just above its all-time low. In fact, of U.S. adult respondents to a Gallup poll, 29% said they had little trust in news media reporting and 34% had “none at all.” This should alarm everyone — but especially businesses.
We’ve certainly witnessed more news media outlets across the board become less neutral and more slanted in their reporting in recent years, which isn’t helping the cause. At times, modern news stories are nearly indistinguishable from opinion and commentary pieces.
What’s more, Americans have different opinions on which outlets are misrepresenting facts or fabricating information based on their political biases and worldviews. Some believe that the mainstream media is fake news and the alternative media is telling the truth, whereas others believe that alternative news is fake news and the mainstream media is telling the truth.
As a result, many are trying to fight fake news through increased censorship measures designed to combat disinformation by flagging potential “fake” stories and making it easier for users to report them. Although these may seem like quick solutions, they could actually further damage the credibility of the media among those who already fear the mainstream media is biased or fake.
China Bans Residents From Leaving Xinjiang, Just Weeks After Its Last COVID Lockdown
China has banned residents from leaving Xinjiang over a COVID-19 outbreak — just weeks after the far-western region began relaxing restrictions from a stringent extended lockdown, fueling public frustration among those scarred by food shortages and plunging incomes.
On Tuesday, the region — home to 22 million people, many belonging to ethnic minorities — reported 38 new asymptomatic COVID cases.
It was enough to alarm officials, with Xinjiang’s Vice Chairman Liu Sushe vowing to “strengthen the control of cross-regional personnel and insist that people do not leave the region unless it is necessary.”
Liu added that Xinjiang will strengthen control measures in airports, train stations and checkpoints to prevent the virus from spreading to other parts of the country. All outbound trains, inter-provincial buses and most flights will be suspended until further notice.
To Prevent Unnecessary Biopsies, Scientists Train an AI Model to Predict Breast Cancer Risk From MRI Scans
A biopsy that turns out to have benign results can be a relief. But in some cases, it could also mean a patient whose risk of cancer was low from the start has gone through an unnecessarily invasive procedure.
By and large, radiologists recommend that patients whose breast MRI scans raise suspicion of a cancerous growth get a biopsy done. But MRIs often pick up on benign lesions that other mammograms and ultrasounds may not. This leads to some patients having their lesions falsely classified as higher risk than they are, and undergoing a biopsy.
In a new paper published recently in Science Translational Medicine, Jan Witowski, a postdoctoral research fellow at New York University Langone Health, and his colleagues at NYU and Jagiellonian University in Poland present an artificial intelligence tool that can predict the probability of breast cancer in MRI scans as well as a panel of board-certified radiologists.
In a retrospective analysis, it was also capable of reducing unnecessary biopsies by up to 20% for patients whose MRIs show suspicious lesions that might warrant a biopsy, officially known as BI-RADS category 4 lesions.
Spotify Acquires Content Moderation Tech Company Kinzen to Address Platform Safety Issues
Spotify this morning announced it’s acquiring Dublin, Ireland-based content moderation tech company Kinzen, which had been working in partnership with the streamer since 2020. Deal terms were not disclosed. At Spotify, Kinzen’s technology will be put to use to help the company better moderate podcasts and other audio using a combination of machine learning and human expertise — the latter of which includes analysis from local academics and journalists, the company says.
Founded in 2017 by Áine Kerr, Mark Little and Paul Watson, Kinzen’s mission has focused on protecting public conversations from “dangerous misinformation and harmful content,” according to its website. This is an area Spotify has had direct experience with due to the controversy over its top podcaster, Joe Rogan, who spread COVID-19 vaccine-related misinformation on his show, leading to a public backlash and PR nightmare for the company.
At one point, 270 physicians and scientists signed an open letter to Spotify demanding that it create misinformation policies to address the matter. The hashtag #deletespotify was trending, and high-profile artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pulled their music from the service in protest.
Spotify later revised its policies around COVID-19 and misinformation in early 2022, though critics and experts argued the actual changes fell short of making a sizable impact. This June, Spotify took another step toward getting a better handle on the content published to its platform with the creation of a “Safety Advisory Council,” whose job is to help guide Spotify’s future content moderation decisions.
Elon Musk Changes Course, Proposes Going Through With Twitter Deal at Original Price + More
Elon Musk Changes Course and Proposes Going Through With Twitter Deal at Original Price: Sources
Elon Musk has reversed course and is again proposing to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Twitter shares jumped 15% on Tuesday after Bloomberg first reported the Tesla CEO’s plans to go forth with his deal to acquire the company. The stock was halted after the report.
A few weeks after Musk agreed to the deal earlier this year, valuing Twitter at $44 billion, he quickly changed course and tried to back out of the agreement. Twitter sued Musk to force him to go through with the purchase. The two sides were scheduled to go to trial in Delaware Chancery Court on Oct. 17.
Zuckerberg’s Metaverse a Gateway to ‘Transhumanism,’ Gettr CEO Warns
Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse will encourage people to distance themselves from reality and devote more time to the virtual world, says Gettr CEO Jason Miller.
Miller, who founded Gettr in July 2021 in response to censorship from incumbent social media services, said Meta’s endeavors to create a virtual world is an attempt by the tech giant to capture more of the youth audience that it is losing to other platforms.
There have been questions over the positive or negative impact of a wide-scale Metaverse engaging billions of people with some experts pointing to already prevalent problems such as online bullying and addiction — an “opium for the masses.”
“It’s not real life, and I think there’s a certain point where you start getting into transhumanism and all kinds of weirdo stuff. It’s not that big of a leap,” Miller said.
Arizona AG Announces $85 Million Google Settlement Over Location Privacy Lawsuit
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich on Tuesday announced that his office had reached an $85 million settlement with Google over the state’s lawsuit targeting the Alphabet-owned tech giant’s efforts to track user’s locations.
Brnovich’s office said the settlement marks the end of one of the biggest consumer fraud lawsuits in the state’s history.
Brnovich’s office sued Google in May 2020, alleging that the tech giant used deceptive and unfair practices to track users’ location, even if they had opted out — and used that information to target users with ads that generated more than $130 billion in revenue in 2019.
Google later tweaked its privacy settings, but Brnovich’s office launched the lawsuit, alleging that Google acted deceptively, misleading consumers.
Another Court Mulls Biden Vaccine Mandate for U.S. Contractors
A federal appeals court in New Orleans on Monday became the latest to hear arguments on whether President Joe Biden overstepped his authority with an order that federal contractors require that their employees be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The contractor mandate has a complicated legal history. It is being challenged in more than a dozen federal court districts, and the mandate has been blocked or partially blocked in 25 states. At one time, enforcement was blocked nationwide under a ruling by a Georgia-based federal judge. But an appeals court in Atlanta narrowed the scope of that ruling to the seven states that had sued in that case.
A government website says the mandate isn’t being enforced while legal challenges play out in various jurisdictions around the country.
Biden administration lawyers defended the mandate Monday at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. They hope to vacate a ruling by a federal judge in western Louisiana who said the mandate couldn’t be enforced in contracts between Indiana, Louisiana or Mississippi and the federal government.
Biden’s AI Bill of Rights Is Toothless Against Big Tech
Last year, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) announced that the U.S. needed a bill of rights for the age of algorithms. Harms from artificial intelligence disproportionately impact marginalized communities, the office’s director and deputy director wrote in a WIRED op-ed, and so government guidance was needed to protect people against discriminatory or ineffective AI.
Today, the OSTP released the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, after gathering input from companies like Microsoft and Palantir as well as AI auditing startups, human rights groups and the general public. Its five principles state that people have a right to control how their data is used, to opt out of automated decision-making, to live free from ineffective or unsafe algorithms, to know when AI is making a decision about them and to not be discriminated against by unfair algorithms.
However, unlike the better-known U.S. Bill of Rights, which comprises the first 10 amendments to the constitution, the AI version will not have the force of law — it’s a nonbinding white paper.
The White House’s blueprint for AI rights is primarily aimed at the federal government. It will change how algorithms are used only if it steers how government agencies acquire and deploy AI technology, or helps parents, workers, policymakers or designers ask tough questions about AI systems. It has no power over the large tech companies that arguably have the most power in shaping the deployment of machine learning and AI technology.
Norwegian Cruise Line Drops All COVID Mask, Vaccine and Testing Rules
Norwegian Cruise Line will further ease its COVID-19 rules, dropping all mask, vaccination and testing requirements starting Tuesday.
Passengers will no longer need to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test result to board, though the changes are subject to local requirements at various destinations. The cruise line previously began welcoming all guests regardless of vaccination status on Sept. 3, but unvaccinated passengers had to take a test prior to embarkation.
The change comes as major cruise lines, including Carnival Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean International and Holland America Line, have dropped vaccine requirements for many sailings in recent weeks.
Spain Travel Rules: U.K. And EU Travelers Still Face Different Rules at the Border
Spain is the only European country that still has COVID restrictions in place for non-EU travelers this month. The popular destination dropped all entry rules for anyone arriving from the EU or Schengen area.
But the U.K., the U.S. and other tourists need to show proof of full vaccination, recovery from COVID-19, a negative antigen test result (taken in the 24 hours before departure) or a negative PCR test (taken in the 72 hours before departure).
Health screening is in place at all Spanish airports and ports to ensure passengers comply with these rules, which are set to stay until at least Nov. 15 .
Previously, if you did not have an EU Digital COVID Certificate (EUDCC), or another EU equivalent, you had to manually fill in Spain’s Health Control Form with these details, receiving a QR code to get through the airports. As of Sept. 20, 2022, this system has been abolished.
Victoria Closes $580 Million COVID Quarantine Facility That Housed 2,168 Guests
Victoria’s purpose-built Mickleham quarantine facility will close next week, having cost more than $500 million to build and after housing 2,168 guests.
The facility, in Melbourne’s outer north, was operated by the Victorian government but built and paid for by the commonwealth after COVID-19 leaked out of Victoria’s hotel quarantine program.
It was initially estimated to cost $200 million, but the federal government revised its estimate in February to $580 million.
With quarantine requirements for international arrivals lifted and cases falling, Victoria’s police minister, Anthony Carbines, said on Tuesday the quarantine hub had served its purpose.
Meta Settles Lawsuit for ‘Significant’ Sum Against Businesses Scraping Facebook and Instagram Data
Facebook parent Meta has settled a lawsuit in the U.S. against two companies that had engaged in data scraping operations, which had seen them gathering data from Facebook and Instagram users for marketing intelligence purposes, according to the original complaint filed in October 2020.
The companies named in the suit, Israeli-based BrandTotal Ltd. and Delaware-incorporated Unimania Inc., agreed to a permanent injunction banning them from scraping Facebook and Instagram data going forward or profiting from the data they collected. They also agreed to pay a “significant financial sum” as part of their settlement, Meta says.
Meta declined to disclose the sum paid, however, and court filings didn’t specify the amount.
U.S. Set to Impose More Trade Restrictions on Chinese AI and Supercomputer Companies
The White House is set to unveil rules that would further restrict access to advanced computing technology in China that could be used by its military, according to The New York Times. The new measures, which may be announced this week, reportedly aim to reduce Beijing’s ability to produce advanced weapons and surveillance systems.
The new rules would build on restrictions that block companies from selling U.S.-developed technologies to smartphone manufacturer Huawei, first introduced by the Trump administration in 2019. President Biden is expected to apply such restrictions to additional Chinese firms, government research labs and other entities, insiders told the NYT. Companies around the world would then be prohibited from selling any American-made tech to the targeted organizations.
While the U.S. has the most performance in the Top 500 supercomputer list, China leads in the number of systems. The new U.S. curbs, if enacted, would be the largest effort to combat China’s ability to build supercomputers and data centers.
The Problem With Mental Health Bots
Teresa Berkowitz’s experiences with therapists had been hit or miss. ”Some good, some helpful, some just a waste of time and money,” she says. When some childhood trauma was reactivated six years ago, instead of connecting with a flesh-and-blood human, Berkowitz — who’s in her fifties and lives in the U.S. state of Maine — downloaded Youper, a mental health app with a chatbot therapist function powered by artificial intelligence.
Once or twice a week Berkowitz does guided journaling using the Youper chatbot, during which the bot prompts her to spot and change negative thinking patterns as she writes down her thoughts. The app, she says, forces her to rethink what’s triggering her anxiety. “It’s available to you all the time,” she says. If she gets triggered, she doesn’t have to wait a week for a therapy appointment.
Unlike their living-and-breathing counterparts, AI therapists can lend a robotic ear any time, day or night. They’re cheap, if not free — a significant factor considering cost is often one of the biggest barriers to accessing help. Plus, some people feel more comfortable confessing their feelings to an insentient bot rather than a person, research has found.
TikTok Reports $1 Billion Turnover Across International Markets
TikTok has reported a five-fold surge in turnover to $1 billion (£875m) across its operations in international markets including the U.K. and Europe last year, as trend-setting teens and young adults continue to make the video-sharing platform the hottest social app of the moment.
Financial filings for Chinese-owned TikTok U.K., which also covers operations in countries such as Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Colombia, show that its popularity with the public is rapidly translating into an advertising and e-commerce boom.
The rise of TikTok, fuelled by uber-cool moments at the height of the pandemic — such as Idaho laborer Nathan Apodaca skateboarding along lip-syncing to Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams, which pushed the band’s Rumours album back into the Top 10, four decades after its release — has struck fear into the established Silicon Valley tech giants.
Meta-owned Facebook, which TikTok is beating in the battle for the most-coveted demographic of 18-to-25-year-old social media users, has launched a copycat product called Reels to defend its turf.
Supreme Court Turns Away Challenge to Biden’s COVID Vaccine Mandate for Health Workers + More
Supreme Court Turns Away Challenge to Biden’s COVID Vaccine Mandate for Health Workers
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge from 10 mostly conservative states that sued the Biden administration over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare facilities that receive federal funding.
Back in January, the Supreme Court halted enforcement of a Biden administration vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers. But the court permitted a vaccine mandate imposed by the Department of Health and Human Services on people employed at healthcare facilities that receive federal funding through Medicare and Medicaid. That measure affects about 10 million workers.
The mandate, the states alleged, is “now devastating small, rural and community-based healthcare facilities and systems throughout the states” because of worker shortages caused by employees who decline to receive the vaccine. The Biden administration countered that the states are relying on out-of-date information about staffing and that the department may set requirements for facilities that receive federal money.
The St. Louis-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit sided with the administration.
Amazon Is Always Watching
A TV that knows when you’re in and out of the room. A gadget that monitors your breathing pattern while you sleep. An enhanced voice assistant tool that highlights just how much it knows about your everyday life.
At an invite-only press event last week, Amazon unveiled a long list of product updates ahead of the holiday shopping season that appears designed to further insert its gadgets and services into every corner of our homes with the apparent goal of making everything a little easier. But the event was also another reminder of just how much Amazon’s many products are watching us.
During prior events, Amazon (AMZN) raised eyebrows with blatant examples of surveillance products, including drones and Astro, the dog-like robot that patrols the home. But this year, Amazon (AMZN)’s advancements in everyday tracking were a bit more subtle.
Newsom Signs Bill to Police California Doctors on COVID Misinformation
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that will subject doctors to discipline and possible suspension of their licenses to practice for spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic to patients, one of the most controversial pieces of pandemic legislation lawmakers sent to his desk.
AB 2098 by Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Campbell, was co-sponsored by the California Medical Association to tamp down COVID-19 misinformation, often spread through social media, promoting untested or ineffective treatments and cures and questioning the effectiveness of face masks and vaccines.
Vaccine skeptics and mandate critics were joined in opposition by a number of doctors, health officials and free speech advocates who argued the bill was counterproductive censorship that will further erode trust in health officials.
Once Known for Vaccine Skeptics, Marin Now Tells Them ‘You’re Not Welcome’
For more than a decade, few places in the nation were associated with anti-vaccine movements as much as Marin County, the bluff-lined peninsula of coastal redwoods and stunning views just north of San Francisco. But Marin is the anti-vaccine capital no more.
In the pandemic age, getting a COVID-19 shot has become the defining “vax” or “anti-vax” litmus test, and on that account, Marin County has embraced vaccines at rates that surpass the vast majority of communities in the nation. It comes after public health efforts to change parents’ opinions, as well as a strict state mandate that students get vaccinated for childhood diseases.
“It kind of became the cool thing to do to get vaccinated,” said Naveen Kumar, physician-in-chief for Kaiser Permanente San Rafael Medical Center.
Dr. Kumar said some Marin parents who were hesitant about the vaccines have been persuaded by their children’s enthusiasm, which he has witnessed among his teenage son and his friends. “I could hear him talking about, ‘Can you believe there’s this kid in my class and he’s not vaccinated?’ he said. “You almost become a little bit of an outcast if you’re not vaccinated.”
Among children 5 to 11, 80% in Marin County have both of their COVID shots, more than double the statewide or national rates. The rate among those under 5 is more than five times the nation’s.
LAUSD Agrees in Settlement to Not Appeal Ruling in Challenge to Student COVID Vaccine Mandate
Some two and a half months after a judge ruled in favor of the father of a 12-year-old who challenged the Los Angeles Unified School District’s student coronavirus vaccine mandate — finding that the resolution approving the directive clashes with state law — the parties have announced a settlement in which the district will not appeal the ruling.
On July 5, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff, who had taken the case under submission, reversed a tentative ruling he issued three months earlier in which he said he was initially inclined to find in favor of the LAUSD in the case brought by the father, who is identified in court papers only as G.F. and his son as D.F.
G.F. filed the case last Oct. 8 on behalf of himself and his son, a Science Academy STEM Magnet school student. G.F. maintained the state and not the LAUSD is authorized to issue vaccination mandates and that the district’s requirement that unvaccinated pupils 12 years old and over attend independent learning classes outside campus violates the state education code.
Beckloff wrote that while the Board of Education’s authority is “great,” it is not unlimited. He found that the student vaccine resolution approved on Sept. 9, 2021, conflicts with state law and clashes with the state Health and Safety Code by not allowing exemptions for personal beliefs.
Hackers Release 500 GB of Data Stolen in LA School District Ransomware Attack
The ransomware attack against the Los Angeles Unified School District just got worse. TechCrunch reports the group that took credit for the heist, Vice Society, has published a 500GB data cache from the early September breach. The collection includes extremely sensitive details like Social Security numbers, bank account info and health data that extends to students’ psychological profiles.
Vice Society had given LAUSD until October 4th to pay the ransom. It’s not clear what prompted the hackers to release the data a day early, but they alleged that the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) “wasted our time” and was “wrong” to tell the district to reject the extortion attempt.
CISA, the FBI and other agencies have historically told ransomware victims to refuse payment as it simply encourages hackers to look for more targets, and doesn’t guarantee the data will be restored.
The school district is still recovering and hopes to achieve “full operational stability” for key technology services. The data leak could still pose a serious risk to students and their families through potential fraud and other privacy violations.
New Hampshire Attorney General Files Brief Opposing U.S. Air Force’s COVID Vaccine Mandate
Attorneys general in several states, including New Hampshire, have filed a brief opposing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for members of the U.S. Air Force.
They argue that the Air Force violated the rights of 18 Air Force members by refusing to grant them religious exemptions.
The brief asks a U.S. Court of Appeals to uphold an injunction that prevents the Air Force from taking any disciplinary measures against the members.
Coast Guard Hero Praised by Biden for Saving Lives After Ian Facing Discharge Over COVID Jab Refusal
President Joe Biden personally thanked a Coast Guardsman for saving a 94-year-old woman in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, but the hero expects to be fired within days for rejecting the COVID vaccine.
Aviation Survival Technician Second Class Zach Loesch earned praise in a Friday phone call from the commander in chief for kicking in a wall to save a trapped, wheelchair-bound woman and her husband. The guardsman hoisted the woman in her wheelchair to a waiting helicopter, according to Breitbart, which interviewed him.
“I told him how proud of him I was and thanked him for all the work he and his Coasties are doing to save lives,” Biden said in a press release from the White House that thanked Loesch and Lieutenant Commander Christopher Hooper “for the heroic work that they and their Coast Guard colleagues have performed during search and rescue operations in response to Hurricane Ian.”
But the next time Loesch hears from a federal official, it could be to learn his career is over. Loesch told the news outlet he had applied for a religious exemption to avoid taking the COVID vaccine but does not expect it to be honored.
New York’s Private Schools Are Gaming Vaccine Exemptions in ‘Obvious’ Fraud
After moving to curb abuses of a school vaccine policy following an extraordinary measles outbreak in the New York City area, the state Legislature nixed religious and philosophical exemptions in 2019. It was a move that left a vocal group of parents and vaccine critics to seek the narrow carve-out for medical reasons.
And like clockwork, medical exemptions skyrocketed in 2020 at some private schools in what one lawmaker called “obvious” fraud.
When religious exemptions were allowed, few schools reported more than a fraction of a percent of students had obtained a special dispensation for medical concerns. A year after the religious considerations were scrapped, the rate of medical exemptions shot up to double digits at some schools. In one school, the figure climbed to more than 36%.
Leading the way in exemptions are religious and private schools, which have come under fresh scrutiny after a sweeping New York Times investigation into the quality of education provided at some Jewish religious schools.
Supreme Court Will Take up a Case Challenging Legal Immunity for Tech Sites Like Facebook, Twitter and Google
The Supreme Court on Monday announced it will take up a case challenging legal immunity for tech sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google.
The case — Gonzalez v. Google — seeks to hold Google legally liable for a deadly 2015 Paris terrorist attack, alleging the tech giant recommended ISIS videos to users and boosted the terrorist group’s recruitment.
In 1996, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act, which prevents people from knowingly distributing obscene content to minors under the age of 18. But they buried a small section within the law called Section 230. It effectively protects tech companies from being liable for third-party content that is reposted on their platforms.
The law essentially frees tech companies like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube from the responsibility for content posted on their platforms.
Court Finds Meta, Pinterest Culpable in Suicide of U.K. Teen Molly Russell
Meta, Pinterest and other social media platforms are legally to blame for the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell, according to the senior coroner at the coroner’s court of North London. The ruling concerning Russell, who died as a result of self-harm in November 2017, came on Friday, Sept. 30.
A British coroner is a figure with broad authority to investigate and determine a person’s cause of death. This was not a criminal or civil trial, and Pinterest and Meta do not face penalties as a result. Russell’s family pursued the case against the two tech giants to raise awareness of the dangers of social media content accessible to young people.
Mr. Russell went public with his daughter’s story in January 2019 in an interview with the BBC. Meta eventually agreed to provide more than 16,000 pages from Molly Russell’s Instagram, which took more than 1,000 hours for the family’s legal team to review before being presented in court. About 2,100 of those posts were related to suicide, self-harm and depression, according to data that Meta disclosed to her family. Many of those posts used hashtags that linked to other explicit content and encouraged hiding mental emotional distress.
The New York Times reports that the material was so disturbing that a courtroom worker left the room to avoid viewing a set of Instagram videos depicting suicide. A child psychologist who served as an expert witness said that reviewing the material that Russell viewed was so “disturbing” and “distressing” that he lost sleep for weeks.
The High Cost of Living Your Life Online
To be online is to be constantly exposed. While it may seem normal, it’s a level of exposure we’ve never dealt with before as human beings. We’re posting on Twitter, and people we’ve never met are responding with their thoughts and criticisms. People are looking at your latest Instagram selfie. They’re literally swiping on your face. Messages are piling up. It can sometimes feel like the whole world has its eyes on you.
Being observed by so many people appears to have significant psychological effects. There are, of course, good things about this ability to connect with others. It was crucial during the height of the pandemic when we couldn’t be close to our loved ones, for example. However, experts say there are also numerous downsides, and these may be more complex and persistent than we realize.
Studies have found that high levels of social media use are connected with an increased risk of symptoms of anxiety and depression. There appears to be substantial evidence connecting people’s mental health and online habits. Furthermore, many psychologists believe people may be dealing with psychological effects that are pervasive but not always obvious.
“What we’re finding is people are spending way more time on screens than previously reported or than they believe they are,” says Larry Rosen, professor emeritus of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills. “It’s become somewhat of an epidemic.”
Police Taking Photos and Fingerprints of Lone Children Arriving in U.K.
Thousands of unaccompanied children, including one aged two years old, have been subjected to police fingerprinting and photographing soon after arriving in the U.K. as part of a little-known immigration enforcement operation.
Operation Innerste is a multi-agency initiative that was rolled out in 2018 and is designed to protect children newly arrived in the U.K. from falling into the hands of traffickers.
However, child protection advocates say the Children Act already provides the powers to protect unaccompanied child asylum seekers and expressed concern about the early involvement of police rather than social workers.
Ahmed Aydeed, of Duncan Lewis solicitors, said: “Our clients have had their biometric data taken, without consenting and without an appropriate adult present. It’s a safeguarding operation that overreaches its authority, purpose and lacks safeguards.”
Facebook Scrambles to Escape Stock’s Death Spiral as Users Flee, Sales Drop + More
Facebook Scrambles to Escape Stock’s Death Spiral as Users Flee, Sales Drop
A year ago, before Facebook had turned Meta, the social media company was sporting a market cap of $1 trillion, putting it in the rarefied territory with a handful of U.S. technology giants.
Today the view looks much different. Meta has lost about two-thirds of its value since peaking in September 2021. The stock is trading at its lowest since January 2019 and is about to close out its third straight quarter of double-digit percentage losses. Only four stocks in the S&P 500 are having a worse year.
Facebook’s business was built on network effects — users brought their friends and family members, who told their colleagues, who invited their buddies. Suddenly everyone was convening in one place. Advertisers followed, and the company’s ensuing profits — and they were plentiful — provided the capital to recruit the best and brightest engineers to keep the cycle going.
But in 2022, the cycle has reversed. Users are jumping ship and advertisers are reducing their spending, leaving Meta poised to report its second straight drop in quarterly revenue. Businesses are removing Facebook’s once-ubiquitous social login button from their websites. Recruiting is an emerging challenge, especially as founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg spends much of his time proselytizing the metaverse, which may be the company’s future but accounts for virtually none of its near-term revenue and is costing billions of dollars a year to build.
Money, Good Info Can’t Undo Resistance to COVID Vaccine: Study
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Public health officials tried everything to convince Americans to get vaccinated against COVID, including giving away cash, but that wasn’t enough to change hesitant minds, a new study shows. Researchers were surprised by the findings.
There is literature and evidence from other vaccination campaigns like the flu, and even some childhood vaccinations, showing that financial incentives do move the needle. We were expecting similar results,” reasoned study co-author Mireille Jacobson. She’s an associate professor at the University of Southern California’s Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.
However, it looks like “people have much stronger beliefs and objections about COVID-19 vaccination,” Jacobson concluded in a university news release.
Public health messaging increased the number who said they would get a vaccine, but it didn’t increase the actual number of folks who followed through and did get a vaccine, nor did either of the other interventions. A 10% increase in vaccination intentions was associated with only a 1.5% increase in actual vaccinations, the researchers noted.
Big Tech Has Millions of Young People Drunk on ‘Digital Toxins’
Social media is a digital toxin. Like alcohol or other drugs, it’s incredibly addictive and harmful to one’s mental health. No one can quit, because nearly everyone is unbelievably attached.
This is outlined by Dr. Nicholas Kardaras in an article for the New York Post entitled, “How social media is literally making teens mentally ill.” I recently covered it on my podcast.
As Dr. Nicholas notes, the addiction is by Big Tech’s design. Social media is set up to make addicts of us and our children. They’re incentivized to. Who doesn’t want lifelong customers and sellable data to a big pool of marketers, corporations and political influencers? They intentionally encroach on the hallowed ground of independent thoughts because there is money to be made and power to be accrued.
Many people, because of their own addiction to it, ignore the malicious and catastrophic underbelly of social media; oftentimes because they don’t see a way out of their own addiction.
Colleges Must Drop Vaccine Mandates
A handful of colleges have recently announced they will require students to get the new COVID-19 bivalent booster shot.
For thousands of college students, this means they will be required to get a second booster dose that was approved without any human clinical trials to establish the safety and efficacy of the new formula and that was rushed through development “when we are at practically historic lows for deaths and ICU stays due to COVID.”
On Aug. 11, 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its COVID-19 guidance. Most notable is that the CDC stated that people with previous infections have some immunity from severe infections. Colleges that maintain “blanket mandates ignore critical data, such as the benefit of prior infection and the data on adverse events” per a study authored by academics from the Universities of Washington, Oxford, Toronto, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, UCSF and others.
Italy Drops COVID Face Mask Rule for Public Transport
Italians will no longer have to wear face masks on public transport, the health ministry said late on Thursday, in the latest easing of rules against the coronavirus pandemic.
The ministry said a decree requiring mask wearing on trains, buses and ferries, expiring on Friday, would not be renewed. The obligation was extended, however, for hospitals and care homes.
As Australia Calls End to COVID Emergency Response, Doctors Warn of Risk to Public
Australia will end the mandatory five-day home quarantine for COVID-infected people on Oct. 14, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday, even as some doctors warned the move would put the public at risk.
The decision to let COVID-infected Australians decide whether they need to isolate or not removes one of the country’s last remaining restrictions from the pandemic era, and comes about a month after the quarantine period was cut to five days from seven.
A Year After Bombshell Facebook Disclosure, Fight for Kids’ Online Safety Forges Ahead
Efforts to regulate how tech companies collect and use children’s data gained momentum in the U.S. in the past year — a push supporters credit to a former Facebook product manager who took Washington and Silicon Valley by storm a year ago when she released hundreds of internal documents that offered a peek inside how the social media behemoth operates.
In the year since Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen came forward, Congress, state legislatures and federal agencies have sought to crack down on how tech firms serve kids and teens.
The documents released by Haugen and her wide-ranging testimony to the U.S. and global lawmakers dealt with a range of topics, from the spread of misinformation to human exploitation. But her accusations about how the company, especially through Instagram, negatively impacted teen mental health made the most waves.
As the one-year anniversary of the release of the documents, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, approaches, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a prominent voice on kids’ online regulation, is leading three Democratic colleagues in a letter urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to use its authority to update the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) he helped author in 1998.
Amazon’s ‘Ambient Intelligence’ Is a Cozy Way to Say Home Surveillance
Back in my day, you turned devices off when you didn’t need to use them. But in the age of Amazon, your “smart” home and its ecosystem of gadgets will ideally always be turned on. That vision even has a cool-sounding name: ambient intelligence. It’s A.I. with a new spin and the promise of a (corporate) bear hug.
Amazon cut through all that tech jargon at a device announcement event on Wednesday with a bunch of practical examples of how ambient intelligence will play out.
It added a new bedside sleep tracker called Halo Rise (which is kind of a Google Nest ripoff) and an always-on TV to a long list of devices in the company’s roster of things you’re supposed to plug in, turn on, and… stop thinking about.
While no one would deny the usefulness of products like a Ring video doorbell or an Echo smart speaker, Amazon’s marketing speak for “ambient intelligence” sounds a whole lot like giving away the entire infrastructure of your life to one megacorporation with a long history of privacy issues.
Fears of Layoffs as Facebook Parent Meta Reportedly Announces Hiring Freeze
Meta employees have been warned of potential layoffs after the Facebook parent company announced on Thursday it would freeze hiring and “further restructure,” Bloomberg News has reported.
In company communication with employees, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg cited the uncertain macroeconomic environment for the changes. The announcement comes after several tech companies have been forced to slash headcount in recent months, as advertisers trim spending in anticipation of a recession.
Zuckerberg also said on Thursday that Meta would reduce budgets across most teams, and that individual teams will have to resolve how to handle headcount changes, the report added.
House Passes Antitrust Bills Targeting Tech Giants’ Power
The House on Thursday passed a package of antitrust bills aimed at boosting antitrust enforcers’ ability to take on powerful tech firms in a 242-184 vote that split both parties. Thirty-nine Republicans joined most Democrats in voting for the bills.
It is the first major antitrust reform package to pass on the House floor as part of a three-year process that started with a House Judiciary Committee investigation into the market power of Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook, now under the parent company name Meta.