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Amazon’s Creep Into Healthcare Has Some Experts Spooked
Amazon is making another push to get into healthcare. Yes, again. This time, it’s aiming for low-hanging fruit: telehealth, which exploded in popularity during the pandemic. On Nov. 15, Amazon announced the launch of its own telehealth platform, called Amazon Clinic. The service, to roll out in 32 U.S. states, will connect users to health providers to help treat over 20 common conditions, including allergies, acne and dandruff.
The concept is simple: The patient will select their condition, fill out a questionnaire, and Amazon will connect them with a doctor to get a treatment plan. The scheme does not accept insurance; the cost of seeing a doctor will be around that of the average copay for a doctor’s visit, the announcement says: “At Amazon, we want to make it dramatically easier for people to get and stay healthy.”
It’s also seemingly another move by the tech giant to know every last detail about your life — even down to whether you’re suffering from erectile dysfunction (one of the conditions that Amazon Clinic will cover). Yet given that Amazon doesn’t have the squeakiest track record when it comes to protecting data, handing the company the keys to people’s intimate health information raises red flags for privacy experts.
If this feels familiar, it’s because we’ve been here before. The launch of this new service comes hot on the heels of Amazon’s takeover of One Medical, a U.S. company described as a “Netflix-for-healthcare subscription” with around 800,000 members. The acquisition proved controversial due to concerns about patient data privacy mostly centered on the simple fact that Amazon would have access to the data. (When news of the $3.9 billion deal broke in July, it prompted protests outside One Medical’s headquarters in San Francisco.)
Teenage Brains Prematurely Aged by Pandemic, Stanford Study Finds
Adolescent brains have been prematurely aged as a result of the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study from Stanford University. Scans taken before and after the pandemic showed the sort of impact on the brain normally only seen in children who have experienced serious adversity, such as domestic violence or neglect.
Now scientists warn that their findings suggest the pandemic could have serious consequences for an entire generation of adolescents later in life. And the possibility of permanent brain damage comes on top of fears over the impact of the pandemic on adolescent mental health.
As well as disruption to their education and routines, many teenagers also experienced social isolation during lockdowns, when they were cut off from their friends at a time when friends are becoming increasingly important.
Scans revealed areas of the brain that control access to memories and regulate emotions — the hippocampus and amygdala respectively, were enlarged, and tissues in the cortex — involved in executive functioning — had become thinner. This made their brain structures appear several years older than the brains of comparable peers before the pandemic.
GOP Governors, Senators Take Aim at Pentagon COVID Vaccine Mandate
Nearly all Republican governors and 13 GOP Senate lawmakers are taking aim at the Biden administration’s military COVID-19 vaccine mandate, with the two groups on Wednesday urging congressional leadership to try to alter or altogether dismantle the ruling.
The 21 GOP governors, led by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, issued a joint letter to top lawmakers asking them to “take immediate action to remove and prohibit” the mandate.
The 13 Republican senators, meanwhile, hope to insert language in the annual defense authorization bill that would prohibit any service member from being removed from the ranks should they refuse the coronavirus vaccine, as well as reinstate those already discharged with back pay.
In a separate letter led by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the lawmakers oppose moving forward with the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act unless the Senate votes on an amendment that includes such stipulations.
Feds Pay Journalism Group $5 Million to Create Software to Turn People Into Anti-‘Misinformation’ Bots
The federal government has awarded $5 million to a group of journalists called Hacks/Hackers to develop software that will encourage regular Americans to confront their friends over “harmful” posts, and “correct misinformation” by replying with text suggested by the software.
The group is also organizing Wikipedia censors to determine who is a “credible source” on vaccines, and block anyone else from being cited in the online encyclopedia. Job ads for the project do not require that applicants have any expertise in medicine.
That list is already taking shape on Wikipedia, with liberal outlets such as The New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian and The Atlantic all marked “reliable.” Conservative sites, including The Daily Wire, Daily Mail, Epoch Times and The Federalist, are all classified as either “unreliable” or “conspiracy.”
The group led by Hacks/Hackers received $5 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop “the Analysis and Response Toolkit for Trust (ARTT), a suite of expert-informed resources that are intended to provide guidance and encouragement to individuals and communities as they address contentious or difficult topics online,” it said on Oct. 24.
Veterans Affairs Admits to Improperly Disclosing COVID Vaccine Data for 500,000 Staff
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has admitted that it failed to adequately protect COVID-19 vaccination status data for about 500,000 of its employees.
Following an internal investigation by the VA’s Data Breach Response Service, the agency removed a spreadsheet containing personal details including vaccination status, according to a notice sent to the agency’s bargaining unit employees that was obtained by FedScoop. Federal Times first reported about the data breach.
Approximately 500,000 employees’ vaccination records were disclosed last year without permission and were sent to various members of Veterans Health Administration (VHA) senior leadership, according to the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) union, which filed a grievance.
Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, regulated entities are prohibited from disclosing an individual’s protected health information, which includes COVID-19 vaccination status.
B.C. Civic Workers Fired for Refusing to Comply With COVID Vaccine Mandate Have Case Thrown out
A group of civic employees who were fired by the city of Quesnel for failing to comply with a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy has had a lawsuit they filed against the authorities thrown out of court.
In November 2021, the city announced that it was important to act in alignment with the provincial mandate that all B.C. public sector employees must be vaccinated to protect against the spread of the coronavirus.
Workers were warned that if they failed to comply with the policy by Jan. 3 they would be terminated on Jan. 28. The 10 employees who declined to get vaccinations were placed on an involuntary unpaid leave of absence on Jan. 10 and then terminated on Feb. 7.
They filed a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court alleging that the vaccination requirement was an infringement of bodily integrity contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They also claimed that the vaccines were neither necessary, safe, nor effective.
EU Threatens Musk With Twitter Ban Over Content Moderation
The EU has threatened to ban Twitter in Europe unless new owner Elon Musk adheres to its strict rules on content moderation.
The threat was made by Thierry Breton, the EU’s commissioner in charge of implementing the bloc’s digital rules, who said during a video meeting with Musk on Wednesday that Twitter must follow a checklist of rules, including ditching his “arbitrary” approach to reinstating banned users, the Financial Times reports, citing people with knowledge of the conversation.
The EU’s demands also include a requirement that Musk provide clear rules on which users are at risk of being banned. Users such as Kanye West and Andrew Tate, who were unbanned from Twitter — yet remain banned on rival platforms Facebook and Instagram, might be of concern to the EU.
Further, the EU wants Twitter to commit to an audit by the summer of 2023 when the company must hand over data on various metrics such as the number of active users and banned accounts.
Girl’s Surprise Reunion With Family After Years Away Has Internet in Tears
TikTok video of an Irish woman returning home to her family after being stuck in Australia due to COVID-19 restrictions has garnered over three million views and touched users’ hearts.
At one point she greets her father, who acts with considerable surprise, “Dad just couldn’t stop crying, no words” she says, while her mother can be heard saying, “Oh my God, oh my God my child!”
Australia only ended its mandatory COVID isolation requirements on October 14, 2022, as it ended the “emergency phase” of its response to the virus.
Australia imposed some of the harshest lockdown policies to reduce the spread of COVID and citizens spent 19 months in lockdown. In October 2021, Australia lifted its ban on citizens leaving the country. Previously citizens were only allowed to leave the country for reasons such as essential work or to visit a dying family member.
Japan Says Kids Can Speak During School Lunches in COVID Shift
Japanese schools are being asked to allow students to talk with classmates again during meals, as the country inches away from pandemic practices that have been a mainstay of daily life for nearly three years.
Many schools had enforced a strict silent lunch policy since the start of the pandemic, based on the national guidelines encouraging less chatting in close proximity to avoid spreading the virus. “Eat in silence as much as possible and wear a mask when conversing,” the old recommendations said.
Despite its success in keeping deaths low during the pandemic, Japan has lagged behind other developed nations in easing COVID restrictions, with a full border reopening to foreign tourists only happening last month. Many virus precautions like wearing masks — which are not mandatory outdoors — remain popular as the country sees another rise in infections.
Children may “talk to each other during lunch if there’s appropriate ventilation and seating arrangements,” the ministry said, adding it would ask schools to proactively get students to remove their masks where they are not necessary.
China Clamps Down on Internet as It Seeks to Stamp out COVID Protests
The Wall Street Journal reported:
China’s internet watchdog instructed tech companies to expand censorship of protests and moved to curb access to virtual private networks this week, as a government clampdown succeeds in keeping most protesters off the streets after nationwide demonstrations erupted over the weekend against the country’s strict COVID policies.
The Cyberspace Administration of China issued guidance to companies on Tuesday, including Tencent Holdings Ltd. and ByteDance Ltd., the Chinese owner of short video apps TikTok and Douyin, asking them to add more staff to internet censorship teams, according to people familiar with the matter.
The companies were also asked to pay more attention to content related to the protests, particularly any information being shared about demonstrations at Chinese universities and a fire in the western Xinjiang region that triggered the nationwide backlash over COVID policies.
Protesters took to the streets of Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities across China over the weekend calling for an end to the country’s zero-tolerance COVID policies, in a rare display of widespread defiance against the government.
Google to Introduce Behavioral ‘Interventions’
Google has presented its project dubbed “Info Interventions” based on what it says is a behavioral science that, if these “interventions” are used as directed, could “teach” users to the degree they will become resilient to online harms.
Another promise is that by “pre-bunking misinformation” users can be “immunized.”
How is this supposed to work? Google has put up a site that states the goal is to provide accuracy prompts that would refocus users’ attention toward whatever Google decides qualifies as accurate information.
This method of effectively training users to behave in a desired way is unsurprisingly attempting to draw from behavioral science research and Google says it has been validated by digital experiments.
The Big Problem With Spotify Wrapped
This year’s surprise Wrapped drop came on Wednesday. And, as they have for the past several years, Wrapped screenshots flooded Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.
It’s a social trend that rises each year and cuts through the noise, fueled by pride and/or self-deprecating humor, depending on who your top artists turned out to be. And it’s all built on user data, which Spotify packages in cool neon colors with cheeky commentary — a move that takes the edge off the creepiness of knowing Spotify is always listening.
And in return for entertaining its users for the day, Spotify gets its annual chance to drive a social media trend and reap the benefits of free advertising as millions share their Wrapped publicly.
As more companies come under fire for tracking users and storing data, Spotify manages to largely avoid such widespread criticism. Instead, many anticipate and welcome Wrapped’s arrival. But it’s also a nicely-packaged manifestation of the music streamer’s ability to capture every second people spent listening from January to October.
