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Face Recognition Tech Gets Girl Scout Mom Booted From Rockettes Show — Due to Where She Works
A recent incident at Radio City Music Hall involving the mother of a Girl Scout is shedding light on the growing controversy of facial recognition, as critics claim it is being used to target perceived enemies — in this case, by one of the most famous companies in the country.
Kelly Conlon and her daughter came to New York City the weekend after Thanksgiving as part of a Girl Scout field trip to Radio City Music Hall to see the Christmas Spectacular show. But while her daughter, other members of the Girl Scout troop and their mothers got to go enjoy the show, Conlon wasn’t allowed to do so. That’s because to Madison Square Garden Entertainment, Conlon isn’t just any mom. They had identified and zeroed in on her, as security guards approached her right as she got into the lobby.
A sign says facial recognition is used as a security measure to ensure safety for guests and employees. Conlon says she posed no threat, but the guards still kicked her out with the explanation that they knew she was an attorney.
Conlon is an associate with the New Jersey based law firm, Davis, Saperstein and Solomon, which for years has been involved in personal injury litigation against a restaurant venue now under the umbrella of MSG Entertainment. “I don’t practice in New York. I’m not an attorney that works on any cases against MSG,” said Conlon. But MSG said she was banned nonetheless — along with fellow attorneys in that firm and others.
Data Brokers Raise Privacy Concerns — but Get Millions From the Federal Government
The site, Login.gov, launched in 2017 and got backing from the Biden administration in an executive order last December. As of this week, it’s connected to more than 20 government agencies, including the Small Business Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration and NASA.
But when citizens enter their personal information to register for the site, it’s not the federal government that validates it — it’s a group of private-sector data brokers, companies that are increasingly under scrutiny for collecting, storing and selling massive amounts of information on Americans without their knowledge.
As the data broker industry has come into Washington’s sights, it has been pushing back against a proposed law that would limit its ability to harvest millions of people’s information and give citizens a right to block all third parties from collecting it.
At the same time, Washington is also increasingly reliant on the industry. Thanks to a combination of a 50-year-old privacy law, growing need for anti-fraud measures and the difficulty of building its own in-house systems, Washington has become an enormous client for services that many consumer advocates would far rather curtail than support.
FBI and Twitter Formed a Censorship Alliance and They Can’t Be Allowed to Get Away With It
“They are probing & pushing everywhere.” That line sums up an increasingly alarming element in the seventh installment of the so-called “Twitter files.” “They” were the agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and they were pushing for the censorship of citizens in an array of stories.
Twitter has admitted that it made a mistake in blocking the Hunter laptop story. After roughly two years, even the media that pushed the false “Russian disinformation” claims have acknowledged that the laptop is authentic.
Yet, those same networks and newspapers are now imposing a new de facto blackout on covering the details of the Twitter files on the systemic blacklisting, shadow-banning and censorship carried out in conjunction with the government.
The Twitter files now substantiate the earlier allegations of “censorship for surrogate” or proxy. While the First Amendment applies to the government, it can also apply to agents of the government. Twitter itself now admits that it acted as an agent in these efforts.
Elon Musk on Twitter: I’ll Resign as CEO
Elon Musk plans to resign as CEO of Twitter, he tweeted late Tuesday, following a poll on the platform in which a majority of users said he should leave his post. “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!” Musk tweeted on Tuesday. “After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.”
Musk’s tweet on Tuesday night marks the first time he’d responded to a Sunday unscientific poll in which he asked whether he should step down as CEO. The results reflected that a majority of respondents (57.5%) said he should leave the top role of the company.
Musk’s words aren’t binding, and it’s not clear what the role of a CEO would be with a dominating personality like Musk still as owner of the company.
Despite the controversy Musk has stoked in lifting most of its existing rules against misinformation with his commitment to “free speech,” lawmakers remain on the site. Many say there isn’t another social media platform with the equivalent reach to reporters and Washington insiders.
Harris Says Social Media Companies Should ‘Cooperate and Work With Us’ on ‘Protecting Our Democracy’
Vice President Kamala Harris said on Monday that she expects and “would require” social media companies to work with the Biden administration to prevent so-called misinformation and disinformation, and to “protect democracy.”
During an interview with NPR that aired on Monday, Harris was asked for her thoughts regarding the changes made at Twitter since Elon Musk took over the platform. “I think about this issue a bit differently, which is my deep and profound concern about how misinformation and disinformation have infiltrated information streams in our country,” Harris said.
“So, what I would say about any social media site is this: I fully expect and would require that leaders in that sector cooperate and work with us who are concerned about national security, concerned about upholding and protecting our democracy, to do everything in their power to ensure that there is not a manipulation that is allowed or overlooked that is done with the intention of upending the security of our democracy and our nation.”
The vice president’s comments come amid reports of federal government collusion with Big Tech companies to censor users. White House officials have denied claims that the administration colluded with social media companies to censor free speech on multiple topics, including COVID-19.
Arbitration Hearing: State Police Union Bashes Baker Over Vaccine Mandate
The saga over Gov. Charlie Baker’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for Executive Department employees, which took effect in mid-October 2021, has spilled into the final days of the outgoing governor’s second term in office.
Seven State Police troopers who successfully proved their sincerely held religious belief but were not granted an exemption are still suspended without pay and state benefits in the lead-up to the winter holidays, the leader of the State Police Association of Massachusetts (SPAM) lamented in downtown Boston Wednesday morning ahead of the second day of a private arbitration hearing on the matter.
It comes after the Suffolk Superior Court this spring granted an injunction that blocked the SPAM members from being fired over Baker’s strict mandate, which omitted an alternative option for regular COVID testing in lieu of vaccination.
Thirteen state troopers were fired for failing to comply with Baker’s mandate, while a handful who sought medical exemptions are still currently working, SPAM President Patrick McNamara said. About 1,000 state workers overall were fired or terminated amid a wave of suspensions and disciplinary hearings, in which they were urged to get the shot.
Eric Adams Urges New Yorkers to Put Their Masks Back On
New York City Mayor Eric Adams urged New Yorkers to once again don their masks for the holiday season in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19 and other sicknesses.
Adams wore a mask himself during a Tuesday press conference at City Hall where he warned of a winter surge in COVID cases, according to the New York Times. Adams did not announce a mask mandate.
“With the holiday season in full swing and cases of COVID-19, flu and RSV rising, we are asking New Yorkers to protect themselves and their loved ones once again. Mask up, get tested, get treated if you’re eligible, and, if you haven’t gotten your flu shot or your COVID-19 booster, we encourage you to roll up your sleeve,” he added.
It is uncommon for Adams to wear a mask during events, as he did on Tuesday. The mayor removed the city’s mask mandate for schools in March, and he has announced no plans to reinstate any form of mandate this month.
Teen Social Media Screen Time Should Concern Parents
Smartphones have always posed a range of challenges for parents of teens. From social media apps and excessive screen time to explicit content and mental health problems, the digital world often seems as threatening as the physical. A new Pew Research study shows that when it comes to teens and their smartphone use, parents might be worried too much about certain problems, and not worried enough about others.
The study shows that about half (46%) of parents of teens are worried about their teen being exposed to explicit content online. This is a valid concern, of course. Adults know explicit content is ubiquitous online and can be damaging to see. But there are ways to mitigate the spread of explicit content, from changing the settings in their kids’ phone to preventing and monitoring such content with apps like Bark.
But just as alarming as the availability of explicit content to teens, if not more so, is that the amount of time teens spend on social media can lead to anxiety and depression. About 40 percent of parents polled were worried about teens and social media as it relates to productivity, and less than 30 percent of parents worried their child may struggle with anxiety or depression because of social media use. Almost half of parents surveyed said “they are only a little or not at all worried about social media causing anxiety or depression in their teens.”
Unfortunately, the time teens spend online consuming social media should be cause for alarm, particularly due to the adverse effect it has on their mental health.
Google Using Tech to Read Your Doctor’s Handwritten Prescriptions
Google is working on an artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning model that can identify and even highlight medicines on handwritten prescriptions from physicians.
Google Research India said in a Monday release that the system will act as an assistive technology for digitizing handwritten medical documents by augmenting the humans in the loop, such as pharmacists.
It said that the system is currently under development — later telling TechCrunch that the feature is in research prototype and that the company has not yet committed to launching it — and that Google India would share updates on its broader rollout in the future.
Google Research India also noted that the need to develop AI responsibly is “fundamental,” and that the search engine giant had invested $1 million in grants to the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, to establish the first-of-its-kind multidisciplinary center for Responsible AI.
Soon-to-Be Grandfather Bill Gates Is Betting on AI, Gene Therapy and Other New Technologies to Solve Global Problems
Despite all the problems facing the world now — Russia’s war in Ukraine, the COVID pandemic, extreme weather — Bill Gates is optimistic about the future. The main reason? The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is adopting and supporting new technology such as artificial intelligence and gene therapy to tackle global challenges like childhood mortality and diseases like HIV.
The renowned cofounder of Microsoft is currently the world’s sixth richest person, by Forbes’ count. He’d be worth at least $162 billion — and rank as No. 3 in the world — if he hadn’t given $59 billion over time to the Gates Foundation, mostly gifts of Microsoft stock. But his plan is that going forward, his rank among the world’s wealthiest will drop. Down the line, says Gates, he expects to fall off the list of billionaires altogether. The reason has everything to do with his commitment to give nearly all his fortune to the Gates Foundation, the largest charitable foundation in the U.S.
Gates points out that while childhood deaths have fallen by half since 2000, the number of babies who die in the first 30 days of their life — the neonatal period — is not dropping as much. In fact, 1.9 million newborns died in 2019. To try and reduce those deaths, the Gates Foundation, working with partners, has come up with a scaled-down ultrasound tool that could be used in the developing world: a probe that gets plugged into a mobile phone or a tablet.
The Gates Foundation worked to develop the AI software with Google as a partner and also Philips, which makes traditional ultrasound machines, Gates told me. The technology is being tested in Kenya and South Africa now; if it proves to make a positive difference, it would be another two to three years before it would be ready for wider use.
China Wants COVID Patients to Go to Work. The Public Isn’t so Sure
Just weeks ago, catching COVID in China meant being taken to government quarantine for an indeterminate stay and your entire residential building being locked down, trapping neighbors in their homes for days or weeks.
Now, as the country rapidly relaxes restrictions, millions of people have been told to keep going to work — even if they’re infected.
The cities of Wuhu, Chongqing and Guiyang, and the province of Zhejiang, collectively home to more than 100 million people, all recently issued directives to public sector employees indicating a shift from preventing infection to allowing the resumption of life and work.
Asymptomatic and mildly ill workers can “go to work normally after taking protective measures as necessary for their health status and job requirements,” said the Chongqing and Wuhu authorities in similar statements posted on their municipal government websites.
