Login
Google to Start Running ‘Prebunk’ Ads and Quizzing YouTube Viewers to Fight So-Called ‘Misinformation’
Prebunking — until relatively recently it was just one of the fringe concepts in the relentless “war on misinformation industrial complex.” A short way to describe it is as a dystopian version of debunking false or incorrect information. But here the idea is to stop users’ (“help them identify”) unwanted content before they can even see it.
A short way to describe what’s wrong with the “war on misinformation” is that it all too easily turns into a smokescreen for plain censorship of lawful and factually correct speech.
And now, prebunking is moving from ideations pushed by murky “fact-checking” and similar outfits to the very top of the mainstream — Google.
The company that in effect controls the search market and some of the largest social platforms in the world (outside China) has announced that its latest anti-misinformation campaign will incorporate prebunking.
Your Brain Needs a Really Good Lawyer
If you take it for granted that nobody can listen in on your innermost thoughts, I regret to inform you that your brain may not be private much longer.
You may have heard that Elon Musk’s company Neuralink surgically implanted a brain chip in its first human. Dubbed “Telepathy,” the chip uses neurotechnology in a medical context: It aims to read signals from a paralyzed patient’s brain and transmit them to a computer, enabling the patient to control it with just their thoughts. In a medical context, neurotech is subject to federal regulations.
But researchers are also creating noninvasive neurotech. Already, there are AI-powered brain decoders that can translate into text the unspoken thoughts swirling through our minds, without the need for surgery — although this tech is not yet on the market. In the meantime, you can buy lots of devices off Amazon right now that would record your brain data (like the Muse headband, which uses EEG sensors to read patterns of activity in your brain, then cues you on how to improve your meditation). Since these aren’t marketed as medical devices, they’re not subject to federal regulations; companies can collect — and sell — your data.
With Meta developing a wristband that would read your brainwaves and Apple patenting a future version of AirPods that would scan your brain activity through your ears, we could soon live in a world where companies harvest our neural data just as 23andMe harvests our DNA data. These companies could conceivably build databases with tens of millions of brain scans, which can be used to find out if someone has a disease like epilepsy even when they don’t want that information disclosed — and could one day be used to identify individuals against their will.
COVID Vaccine Mandates May Have Had Unintended Consequences, Researchers Say
U.S. state COVID-19 vaccine mandates didn’t significantly change uptake, and states with mandates actually had lower COVID-19 booster and voluntary adult and child flu vaccine coverage than those that banned vaccine requirements, an analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data suggests.
Researchers from the University of Arizona at Tucson and Furman University in South Carolina parsed the data to identify changes in COVID-19 vaccination rates and COVID-19 boosters and seasonal flu vaccines in the 2 months before and after implementation of state-level mandates for targeted groups (eg, state employees). Baseline attitudes were collected before the vaccine rollout as part of the COVID States Project.
A series of multilevel models were tested to compare state-level differences in weekly COVID-19 booster uptake from rollout in November 2021 to May 2022 in mandate states and in the 22 states that outlawed such mandates. The results suggested that the percentage of eligible residents who received a booster was smaller in mandate states than in those that banned mandates. The difference was greater among states with lower vaccination levels.
“This research supports the notion that governmental restrictions in the form of vaccination mandates can have unintended negative consequences, not necessarily by reducing the uptake of the mandated vaccine, but by reducing adoption of other voluntary vaccines,” the study authors wrote. “More broadly, the results underscore the challenges of promoting public health through vaccination.”
Brash Tech Lobby Drives Social Media Battles to Supreme Court
After California passed a law forcing digital platforms to adopt privacy guardrails and safety standards for young users, Carl Szabo had a blunt warning for legislators attending the nation’s biggest conference for state policymakers: “The lawsuits are coming.”
Over the past decade, Szabo and his colleagues have transformed NetChoice, their small, right-leaning lobby known for its brash tactics, into Silicon Valley’s litigation powerhouse. With Meta Platforms Inc., TikTok Inc., and X Corp. among its members, the Washington-based trade association’s won injunctions against laws regulating social media in five states.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear challenges on Monday to the constitutionality of the Florida and Texas laws. Each was introduced by Republican legislators after social media platforms suspended accounts supporting the January 6 Capitol attack, and aimed to prevent companies from “censoring” posts.
The spotlight reflects NetChoice’s outsized role in a free-speech debate that’s drawn increasingly more political, legal, and governmental scrutiny, from state capitols to Congress. Critics paint the group as an attack dog willing to “weaponize” the First Amendment in a bid to stop any internet regulation — bringing cases in a way that shields its members from having to take a public stance. Some cite its successful challenges to laws governing how platforms treat underage users.
Ohio Continues Facial-Recognition Searches Using Controversial Photo-Collection Firm Clearview AI
State crime investigators’ use of facial recognition software, once put on hold because of civil liberties concerns, could now continue through at least 2025 with the help of a company that has faced multiple lawsuits over claims it stockpiles massive amounts of photos without permission.
Last September, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office signed a two-year contract with New York-based Clearview AI. The $38,780 contract allows up to 25 Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation officials to conduct facial-recognition searches using the company’s database, which includes billions of photos obtained from publicly available sources, such as news media, mugshots, and social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube.
Clearview AI, founded in 2017, has repeatedly been accused in court of amassing it huge database of photos from websites without the consent of the people portrayed in them.
Supreme Court Turns Away House GOP Lawmakers’ Appeal Over Mask Rule Violations
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to revive a lawsuit from three House Republicans after their pay was docked for not complying with a pandemic-era mask requirement on the chamber floor.
In a brief order without any noted dissents, the court let stand a lower ruling that tossed the constitutional challenge filed by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.).
The three conservative lawmakers were fined $500 in May 2021 after flouting the House floor mask mandate that was put in place amid the COVID-19 pandemic, kicking off a years-long attempt by the trio of lawmakers to get the penalties lifted.
House rules fined lawmakers $500 for their first infraction with the mask mandate and $2,500 for subsequent breaches to be withdrawn from their yearly pay. Greene racked up more than $100,000 in fines, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which the Georgia Republican referenced in a statement on Tuesday.
TikTok Facing Threat of EU Fines in Digital Content Clampdown
TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd. risks heavy European Union penalties under tough new content rules for Big Tech after regulators announced a formal investigation into its alleged failure to protect minors who use the video-sharing platform.
EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton announced Monday that TikTok will face a formal investigation under the bloc’s flagship Digital Services Act — which empowers regulators to levy fines of as much as 6% of annual sales or ban repeat offenders from the EU.
Breton said on X that the bloc’s probe will home in on TikTok’s addictive design and screen time limits, its privacy settings, and the social media platform’s age verification procedures. Bloomberg previously reported that the formal investigation was in the offing.
