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Anthony Fauci Says He Has ‘No Idea’ What Elon Musk’s Talking About After the Twitter Chief Threatened to Release the ‘Fauci Files’

Insider reported:

Anthony Fauci said he has “no idea” what Elon Musk is talking about after the Twitter chief threatened to release the “Fauci Files” last Sunday.

Fauci told the CBS News podcast “The Takeout”: “I have no idea what he’s talking about. I mean, there’s a lot of misinformation, conspiracy theories and disinformation going on.”

Last Sunday, Twitter CEO Musk teased the release of the “Fauci Files” following his previous criticism of the immunologist, who was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 until last year. “Hope you’re having a great day 1 2023!” Musk tweeted. “One thing’s for sure, it won’t be boring.”

Australian Open: Players Can Compete Even if They Have COVID — a Year After Government Deported Unvaccinated Djokovic

Forbes reported:

Tennis players competing at the Australian Open this month will still be able to take part if they test positive for COVID-19, tournament director Craig Tiley said on Monday, a major departure from the tournament’s stringent pandemic policies from the past two years that saw crowds banned from matches and nine-time champion Novak Djokovic be deported over his refusal to get vaccinated.

Australian Open players will not be required to take COVID-19 tests in order to compete in the tournament, Tiley told reporters, according to multiple news outlets. Athletes deciding to test will not need to disclose the results and can play even if they test positive for the virus, Tiley added.

The decision to allow untested, and even COVID-positive, players to compete in the Australian Open marks a major policy shift from the tournament’s strict requirements last year, when players needed to be vaccinated and undergo mandatory testing. The strict rules, which also saw fans locked out of matches to contain an outbreak, meant Novak Djokovic — then the returning champion and an open skeptic of COVID vaccines — was deported on public health grounds and unable to defend his title.

The shift also underscores Australia’s changing approach to the virus after years of implementing some of the toughest COVID curbs in the world. For two years, the country imposed strict lockdowns, severely limited internal movement and almost entirely closed its international borders, trapping tens of thousands of Australians abroad.

A Lawsuit Filed by Seattle’s Public Schools Accuses Meta, TikTok, Google and Snapchat of Creating a Youth Mental Health Crisis

Insider reported:

Giant social media companies are accused of “creating a mental health crisis among America’s youth” in a lawsuit filed Friday by the Seattle public schools district.

The suit, which Insider has reviewed, names Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, Google and their associated companies as defendants, and slams their business models, claiming they harm youths.

Seattle’s public school system said it had a responsibility to file the suit because children suffering from mental health problems perform worse in school and are less likely to attend at all, affecting the schools’ educational mission.

The lawsuit alleges that the apps “have successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of youth, hooking tens of millions of students across the country into positive feedback loops of excessive use and abuse of Defendants’ social media platforms.”

COVID-Related Tech Was Exploited for Mass Surveillance, Just as We Were Warned

RT World News reported:

New revelations show that the COVID pandemic has allowed governments and Big Tech to expand the surveillance-industrial complex that tightens the state’s grip on thought and movement.

A recent batch of Twitter internal documents released by Elon Musk via journalist David Zweig on the platform itself reveals that one of the first meetings that the Biden Administration requested with Twitter executives was on the topic of COVID vaccines and specific high-profile accounts that deviated from the official narrative.

“Twitter did suppress views — many from doctors and scientific experts — that conflicted with the official positions of the White House. As a result, legitimate findings and questions that would have expanded the public debate went missing,” Zweig wrote.

He added that “with COVID, this bias bent heavily toward establishment dogmas,” and cited examples of various experts, including prominent epidemiologists, whose views were censored as a result of being qualified by the non-scientists at Twitter as COVID “misinformation.”

House Republicans to Investigate Big Tech’s Communications With Biden Administration

CNBC reported:

House Republicans are planning to launch a new subcommittee this week that will investigate communications between Big Tech companies and the Biden administration, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CNBC.

The anticipated launch of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, reported earlier on Monday by Axios, represents one of the many nods newly elected Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., gave to the conservative faction of the GOP caucus in his long fight to win the gavel. The Wall Street Journal’s opinion section previously reported plans for the panel.

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who supported McCarthy in his bid for the speakership, is expected to lead the new subcommittee. The panel will investigate communications between the tech companies and the executive branch and search for signs of pressure leading to conservative censorship online.

The new subcommittee is also expected to look into other areas of potential influence and politicization in the government, including in the intelligence community and public health agencies.

U.S. Supreme Court Lets Meta’s WhatsApp Pursue ‘Pegasus’ Spyware Suit

Reuters reported:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let Meta Platforms Inc’s (META.O) WhatsApp pursue a lawsuit accusing Israel’s NSO Group of exploiting a bug in the WhatsApp messaging app to install spy software allowing the surveillance of 1,400 people, including journalists, human rights activists and dissidents.

​​The justices turned away NSO’s appeal of a lower court’s decision that the lawsuit could move forward. NSO had argued that it is immune from being sued because it was acting as an agent for unidentified foreign governments when it installed the “Pegasus” spyware.

WhatsApp in 2019 sued NSO seeking an injunction and damages, accusing it of accessing WhatsApp servers without permission six months earlier to install the Pegasus software on victims’ mobile devices.

New Jersey Schools to Teach Children How to Avoid ‘Disinformation’ in the Name of ‘Democracy,’ ‘Civic Discourse’

The Daily Wire reported:

Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed an “information literacy” law this week that mandates schools teach K-12 students how to identify “disinformation” in the name of protecting “democracy.”

The bill, signed by Murphy on Wednesday, was sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats in the legislature earlier this year.

Our democracy remains under sustained attack through the proliferation of disinformation that is eroding the role of truth in our political and civic discourse,” Murphy said in a statement. “It is our responsibility to ensure our nation’s future leaders are equipped with the tools necessary to identify fact from fiction.”

Facial Recognition’s Alarming Pitfalls

Axios reported:

The breakneck development and deployment of facial recognition technology are outstripping efforts to corral alarming pitfalls. Why it matters: Police, retail stores, airports and sports arenas are rapidly increasing biometric surveillance. But critics say the results are too often blindly trusted, without enough double-checking of matches.

Catch up quick: The latest face-recognition surveillance technology is designed to identify people seen on security cameras in real-time, or close to it. It aims to match security camera footage of someone with images tied to that person’s identity and kept in various databases or publicly available online, such as police mugshots or social media profiles. Facial recognition also lets you unlock smartphones and tablets without a password.

Facial recognition technology has led to at least three prior false arrests — all involving Black men, Wired reported last year. The technology has long been faulted for failures to accurately identify Black faces.

Expect surveillance-based facial recognition to proliferate despite efficacy and ethics concerns, especially in high-security areas. The Transportation Security Administration is testing the tech at major airports.

DoNotPay Offers Lawyers $1 Million to Let Its AI Argue Before the Supreme Court in Their Place

Gizmodo reported:

Can artificial intelligence go head-to-head with human lawyers in the highest court in the land?

On Sunday, DoNotPay CEO Joshua Browder made a wild proposition to any lawyer slated to argue an upcoming case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Let DoNotPay’s AI lawyer, which is built on OpenAI’s viral GPT-3 API, argue the case before the court, Browder said, in exchange for $1 million. All the human lawyer would need to do is wear AirPods and repeat to the court what DoNotPay’s robot lawyer argues.

As explained by Browder, DoNotPay is proposing this wacky — and possibly illegal — idea to prove that its robot lawyer can handle complex legal cases. Although DoNotPay’s robot lawyer is set to make its debut in a U.S. courtroom next month to help someone contest a parking ticket, Browder wants the robot to go before the Supreme Court to address hypothetical skepticism about its abilities.

China Suspends Social Media Accounts of COVID Policy Critics

Associated Press reported:

China has suspended or closed the social media accounts of more than 1,000 critics of the government’s policies on the COVID-19 outbreak, as the country moves to roll back harsh anti-virus restrictions.

The popular Sina Weibo social media platform said it had addressed 12,854 violations including attacks on experts, scholars and medical workers and issued temporary or permanent bans on 1,120 accounts.

China is forging ahead with a plan to end mandatory quarantines for people arriving from abroad beginning on Sunday.

Beijing also plans to drop a requirement for students at city schools to have a negative COVID-19 test to enter campus when classes resume on Feb. 13 after the holiday break. While schools will be allowed to move classes online in the event of new outbreaks, they must return to in-person instruction as soon as possible, the city education bureau said in a statement Friday.

Thailand Introduces New Entry Regulations as China Reopens Border

Reuters reported:

Thailand will require international travelers to show proof they are fully vaccinated for COVID before flying to Thailand, according to the country’s aviation regulator, as it prepares for more tourists after China reopened its border on Sunday.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) said in a statement on Saturday that starting early Monday, all foreign arrivals starting early on Monday must prove they are vaccinated or provide a letter certifying that they have recovered from COVID within six months.

Unvaccinated travelers must show a medical certificate explaining why they have not received the vaccine. CAAT said airlines would be responsible for checking documents before passengers board and has released a list of how many doses are required for various types of COVID-19 vaccines on its website.

The new measure will remain in effect at least until the end of January, CAAT said. The vaccination requirement was scrapped by Thailand last October but has been revived as China reopens its border following the easing of its zero-COVID policy.