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FCC Fines U.S. Wireless Carriers Over Illegal Location Data Sharing
The Federal Communications Commission on Monday fined the largest U.S. wireless carriers nearly $200 million for illegally sharing access to customers’ location information.
The FCC is finalizing fines first proposed in February 2020, including $80 million for T-Mobile (TMUS.O); $12 million for Sprint, which T-Mobile has since acquired; $57 million for AT&T (T.N), and nearly $47 million for Verizon Communications (VZ.N).
The carriers sold “real-time location information to data aggregators, allowing this highly sensitive data to wind up in the hands of bail-bond companies, bounty hunters, and other shady actors,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement.
Lawmakers in 2019 expressed outrage that aggregators were able to buy user data from wireless carriers and sell “location-based services to a wide variety of companies” and others, including bounty hunters.
If Social Media Is a ‘Digital Heroin’ for Today’s Youth, AI Will Be Their Fentanyl
A pre-teen girl sees an innocuous advertisement for a weight loss program on a social media platform. She’s intrigued. After all, she wants to look like all those slender influencers on her feed. Little does she know, the ad — generated with artificial intelligence (AI) technology — was carefully targeted to her based on her AI-analyzed browsing habits and “private” conversations.
Once she clicks on the ad, her feed becomes a relentless barrage of AI-curated content promoting harmful diet strategies — including deepfake videos from beloved influencers. Her online world morphs into a dangerous echo chamber, magnifying her insecurities and spiraling her into depression.
These scenarios are not merely hypothetical; many aspects of them are taken from real stories. But as AI explodes, already addictive social media platforms will become even more capable at hooking kids to their content. If social media is already a “digital heroin” for our youth, new and enhanced AI will become their fentanyl.
For years, predatory social media platforms have capitalized on human psychology by triggering dopamine rushes akin to those induced by narcotic substances. As a result, teenagers are ensnared in an average of five hours per day on these platforms. And a disturbingly young cohort, children aged 7-9, are increasingly exposed to their allure. By 10, children on average, have their first smartphone and their childhood starts to end.
UN Official Condemns Health ‘Misinformation,’ Advocates for ‘Digital Integrity Code’
The United Nations continues with an attempt to advance the agenda to get what the organization calls its Code of Conduct for Information Integrity on Digital Platforms implemented. This code is based on a previous policy brief that recommends censorship of whatever is deemed to be “disinformation, misinformation, hate” but that is only the big picture of the policy UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming is staunchly promoting.
In early April, Fleming gave a talk at Boston University, and here the focus was on AI, whose usefulness in various censorship ventures makes it seen as a tool that advances “resilience in global communication.”
“One of our biggest worries is the ease with which new technologies can help spread misinformation easier and cheaper, and that this content can be produced at scale and far more easily personalized and targeted,” she said.
Fleming said that with the pandemic, this “skyrocketed” around the issue of vaccines. But she didn’t address why that may be — other than, apparently, being simply a furious sudden proliferation of “misinformation” for its own sake.
ChatGPT Keeps Hallucinating — and That’s Bad for Your Privacy
After triggering a spike in VPN service downloads following a temporary ban about a year ago, OpenAI faces troubles in the European Union once again. The culprit this time? ChatGPT‘s hallucination problems.
The popular AI chatbot is infamous for making up false information about individuals—something that OpenAI is admittedly unable to fix or control, experts say. That’s why Austria-based digital rights group Noyb (stylized as noyb, short for “none of your business”) filed a complaint to the country’s data protection authority on April 29, 2024, for allegedly breaking GDPR rules.
The organization is now urging the Austrian privacy protection body to investigate how OpenAI verifies the accuracy of citizens’ personal data. Noyb also calls authorities to impose a fine to ensure GDPR compliance in the future.
We already discussed how ChatGPT and similar AI chatbots will probably never stop making stuff up. That’s quite worrying considering that “chatbots invent information at least three percent of the time — and as high as 27%,” the New York Times reported.
Facebook, Instagram in EU Crosshairs for Election Disinformation
Meta Platforms’ (META.O) Facebook and Instagram have failed to tackle disinformation and deceptive advertising in the run-up to European Parliament elections, the European Commission said on Tuesday as it opened an investigation into suspected breaches of EU online content rules.
The move by EU tech regulators came amid concerns about Russia, China and Iran as potential sources of disinformation, but also inside the EU, with some political parties and organizations seeking to attract voters with lies in the June 6-9 vote to select the next five-year parliament.
The Digital Services Act which kicked in last year requires Big Tech to do more to counter illegal and harmful content on their platforms or risk fines of as much as 6% of their global annual turnover.
China Threatens Retaliation for Taiwan, TikTok Law Signed by Biden
China on Monday is threatening to take “resolute and forceful steps” to defend itself after President Biden recently signed a bill that provides foreign aid to Taiwan and forces TikTok’s China-based owner to sell the app or be banned in the U.S.
The legislation approved by Biden last Wednesday offers $95 billion in assistance to Ukraine and Israel, including nearly $2 billion to replenish U.S. weapons provided to Taiwan and other regional allies, according to The Associated Press. It also gives ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok, as well as a possible three-month extension if a sale is in progress.
“If the United States clings obstinately to its course, China will take resolute and forceful steps to firmly defend its own security and development interests,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian reportedly added.
U.S. lawmakers have accused TikTok of being a risk to U.S. national security, collecting user data, and spreading propaganda. China has previously said it would oppose forcing the sale of TikTok. TikTok has long denied it is a security threat and is preparing a lawsuit to block the legislation.
France Must Curb Child, Teen Use of Smartphones, Social Media, Says Panel
France should limit smartphone and social media use for children and teenagers, an expert panel commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday, amid growing global concern about their negative impact on young minds.
Children under 11 should be barred from having a cellphone while the use of smartphones with internet access should be prohibited for anyone under 13 years old, they said in a report.
Social media apps should be forbidden for anyone under 15, they added, and minors over 15 should only have access to platforms deemed “ethical.” Lawmakers would be tasked with deciding what platforms could be considered as such, they said.
Last year the U.S. Surgeon General said social media could profoundly harm young people’s mental health and called on tech companies to safeguard children who are at critical stages of brain development.
