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New Jersey School District Blasted for Reinstating Mask Mandate for Staff, Students: ‘Plain Cruel’
A New Jersey school district was blasted for reinstating its mask mandate starting Wednesday due to rising COVID-19 cases.
Passaic Public Schools Superintendent Sandra Montanez-Diodonet sent out a letter to parents and staff on Tuesday stating that masks are required effective Wednesday for “all employees, Pre-K through grade 12 students, and visitors are required to wear face coverings in all district facilities, school grounds and buses.”
The backlash against the mask reinstatement came in droves under the post’s Twitter thread. “Two weeks to slow the spread has turned into 2.75 years to flatten a generation,” American Federation for Children Senior Fellow Corey DeAngelis replied to the tweet.
“This is anti-science, anti-child & just plain cruel. #Shame on ‘educators’ who impose restrictions on children’s learning, socialization & joy just because they can,” Twitter user Maud Maron, a Democrat who ran for Congress, replied on the thread.
New Bill Will Force Twitter, TikTok and Other Social Media Platforms to Increase Transparency by Sharing Internal Data
A bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill on Wednesday aimed at increasing transparency for Twitter, Facebook and other social media companies as lawmakers debate whether to ban TikTok.
The Platform Accountability and Transparency Act is intended to make the companies’ internal data more accessible to the public by requiring the submission of necessary data to independent researchers.
Under the proposal, social media companies would be compelled to provide internal, privacy-protected data to researchers who’ve been approved by the National Science Foundation, an independent agency. The bill protects researchers from legal liabilities associated with automatic data collection if certain privacy safeguards are followed.
In a statement, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, said the bill will address a “dangerous lack of transparency about how these platforms impact our children, families, society or national security” and help to answer questions about threats to national security and possibly harmful content.
Ex-Google Boss Helps Fund Dozens of Jobs in Biden’s Administration
Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google who has long sought influence over White House science policy, is helping to fund the salaries of more than two dozen officials in the Biden administration under the auspices of an outside group, the Federation of American Scientists.
The revelation of Schmidt’s role in funding the jobs, the extent of which has not been previously reported, adds to a picture of the tech mogul’s growing influence in the White House science office and in the administration — at a time when the federal government is looking closely at future technologies and potential regulations of Artificial Intelligence.
Schmidt has become one of the United States’ most influential advocates for federal research and investment in AI, even as privacy advocates call for greater regulation.
“Schmidt is clearly trying to influence AI policy to a disproportionate degree of any person I can think of,” said Alex Engler, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who specializes in AI policy. “We’ve seen a dramatic increase in investment toward advancing AI capacity in government and not much in limiting its harmful use.”
After Loosening COVID Restrictions, China Mandates Hospitals to Take Regular Virus Samples to Monitor Mutations
All of a sudden China seems content in trying to live with COVID and re-opening the country … it’s funny what happens when your citizens have had enough and decide they are no longer going to put up with it. The softer stance on the virus is coming just weeks after protests rocked major cities in China.
As part of China’s “new” policy on how it is dealing with the virus, it is setting up “a nationwide network of hospitals to monitor mutations of the virus,” according to a new report from the South China Morning Post.
The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has now assigned one hospital in each city (with three cities in each province) responsible for collecting “samples from 15 patients in the outpatients and emergency room, 10 from patients with severe illnesses, and all fatalities.”
Xu Wenbo, director of the China CDC’s National Institute for Viral Disease Control said this week: “This will allow us to monitor in real-time the dynamics of the transmission of Omicron in China and the proportion of its various sub-lineages and new strains with potentially altered biological characteristics, including their clinical manifestations, transmissibility and pathogenicity.”
Washington Moved Fast to Crack Down on TikTok but Has Made Little Progress With Big Tech
In a matter of days, the United States is expected to ban federal employees from downloading or using TikTok on government-issued phones or tablets, marking the country’s broadest crackdown on the short-form video app to date.
The looming ban is the result of a bill that’s moved through Congress in the final days of the year with lightning-fast speed and bipartisan support. It’s gone from being just another proposal from a Republican lawmaker to being unanimously adopted in the Senate, backed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and added to a massive year-end congressional spending package. The proposed ban has support from the White House, which already blocks TikTok on its devices.
The TikTok measure, while limited in its impact on the app’s wider U.S. user base, highlights how quickly lawmakers can act when a combination of national security fears, bipartisan anti-China suspicions and more targeted proposals cause the legislative stars to align.
Exclusive: TikTok Steps up Efforts to Clinch U.S. Security Deal
Popular short-video app TikTok is offering to operate more of its business at arm’s length and subject it to outside scrutiny as it tries to convince the U.S. government to allow it to remain under the ownership of Chinese technology company ByteDance, according to people familiar with the matter.
TikTok has been seeking to assure U.S. government departments and agencies for the last three years that the personal data of U.S. citizens cannot be accessed and its content cannot be manipulated by China’s Communist Party or any other entity under the influence of that country’s government.
Some government officials, including at the U.S. Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, remain opposed to a security deal, according to the sources. These officials argue that TikTok’s users would continue to be vulnerable because the app would still rely for its technology on ByteDance, which also operates Chinese short-video app Douyin.
U.S. officials involved in the talks have indicated that many of the voluntary measures TikTok is implementing to bolster its security may be part of any agreement to allow ByteDance to retain its ownership, one of the sources said. However, it is unclear whether Biden‘s administration will eventually sign off on a security deal with TikTok.
Some Universities Are Now Restricting TikTok Access on Campus
A small but growing number of universities are now blocking access to TikTok on school-owned devices or WiFi networks, in the latest sign of a widening crackdown on the popular short-form video app.
The University of Oklahoma and Auburn University in Alabama have each said they will restrict student and faculty access to TikTok, in order to comply with recent moves from the governors in their respective states to ban TikTok on government-issued devices. The 26 universities and colleges in the University System of Georgia are also reportedly taking a similar step.
TikTok has been negotiating for years with the U.S. government on a potential deal that addresses national security concerns and lets the app continue serving U.S. customers. It has also taken steps to isolate U.S. user data from other parts of its business.
In addition, TikTok faces scrutiny over its powerful algorithm which may lead users, and especially its youngest users, down concerning rabbit holes, including directing them to potentially harmful subject matter such as content around suicide and eating disorders.
India to Randomly Test 2% of International Travelers for COVID
India will start randomly testing 2% of international passengers arriving at its airports for COVID-19, Mansukh Mandaviya, the country’s health minister, told parliament on Thursday, as the country steps up surveillance for new coronavirus variants.
India’s iconic Taj Mahal, which attracts thousands of tourists every day will now require visitors to undergo a COVID-19 test before they enter, Reuters partner ANI reported.
The government earlier this week asked India’s states to keep a lookout for any new variants of the coronavirus and urged people to wear masks in crowded areas, citing an increase in COVID-19 cases in China and other parts of the globe.
