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The Rise of Techno-Authoritarianism
The new technocrats claim to embrace Enlightenment values, but in fact, they are leading an antidemocratic, illiberal movement.
To worship at the altar of mega-scale and to convince yourself that you should be the one making world-historic decisions on behalf of a global citizenry that did not elect you and may not share your values or lack thereof, you have to dispense with numerous inconveniences — humility and nuance among them.
Many titans of Silicon Valley have made these trade-offs repeatedly. YouTube (owned by Google), Instagram (owned by Meta), and Twitter (which Elon Musk insists on calling X) have been as damaging to individual rights, civil society, and global democracy as Facebook was and is. Considering the way that generative AI is now being developed throughout Silicon Valley, we should brace for that damage to be multiplied many times over in the years ahead.
The behavior of these companies and the people who run them is often hypocritical, greedy, and status-obsessed. But underlying these venalities is something more dangerous, a clear and coherent ideology that is seldom called out for what it is: authoritarian technocracy. As the most powerful companies in Silicon Valley have matured, this ideology has only grown stronger, more self-righteous, more delusional, and — in the face of rising criticism — more aggrieved.
Elon Musk’s Neuralink Implants Brain Chip in First Human
The first human patient received an implant from brain-chip startup Neuralink on Sunday and is recovering well, the company’s billionaire founder Elon Musk said. “Initial results show promising neuron spike detection,” Musk said in a post on the social media platform X on Monday.
Spikes are activity by neurons, which the National Institute of Health describes as cells that use electrical and chemical signals to send information around the brain and to the body.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had given the company clearance last year to conduct its first trial to test its implant on humans, a critical milestone in the startup’s ambitions to help patients overcome paralysis and a host of neurological conditions.
The study uses a robot to surgically place a brain-computer interface (BCI) implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move, Neuralink said previously, adding that its initial goal is to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone.
Parent Anger at Social Media Companies Boils Over Ahead of Tech CEO Hearing
The Senate is hauling in CEOs of social media companies to grill them over online harm to children Wednesday, but parents and advocates said the time for talking is over and Congress must act to protect children and teens.
Parents who became advocates after losing their children to harms they say were created by social media companies will be among the crowd at Thursday’s Judiciary Committee hearing. The hearing will feature testimony from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, X CEO Linda Yaccarino, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and Discord CEO Jason Citron.
The hearing is centered around the online sexual exploitation of children, but advocates said the harms extend to how social media companies amplify cyberbullying and the spread of harmful content that promotes eating disorders and self-harm.
A coalition of teens, parents and other advocates will attend the hearing to make a push for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a bipartisan bill that would add regulations for social media companies like the five in the hot seat Wednesday.
While advocates aren’t shying away from slamming tech companies as taking too little action to mitigate the risks posed by their services, they also place blame on lawmakers for failing to pass rules that would hold the companies accountable.
South Carolina Lawmaker Whose Son Died by Suicide After Sextortion Scam Files Lawsuit Against Meta
A South Carolina lawmaker who lost his son to suicide after the teenager fell victim to a sextortion scam is now suing Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. State Rep. Brandon Guffey is alleging that Meta engaged in deceitful practices to get users, particularly children, addicted to the company’s social media platforms, resulting in “pain and suffering” due to poor mental health.
“I’m bringing the suit because of my personal experience of the pain of a father who lost a son,” Guffey told Fox News Digital. “And I believe it’s due to… criminal negligence. I believe that they designed addictive algorithms that target children. They’ve concealed research on the harmful effects, and they’ve misled the public, about the correlation between their products and our current mental health crisis across the globe.”
“I equate it to… these digital companies are the tobacco companies of our kids’ generations,” Guffey said. “They are fully aware of the problems that they’re causing, and they care more about profits than they do about people.”
Since his son’s death, Guffey has made it his life’s mission to spread awareness about the dangers of sextortion and unsafe social media use in general. This lawsuit against Meta is part of that mission, he said.
To Protect Kids, California Might Require Chronological Feeds on Social Media
Social media companies design their feeds to be as gripping as possible, with complicated algorithms shuffling posts and ads into a never-ending stream of entertainment.
A new California law would require companies to shut off those algorithms by default for users under 18 and implement other mandated tweaks that lawmakers say would reduce the negative mental health effects of social media on children.
One of the act’s key provisions is making a chronological feed the default setting on platforms, which would show users posts from the people they follow in the order that they were uploaded, rather than arranging the content to maximize engagement.
The act would also require the default settings on social media apps to mute notifications between midnight and 6 a.m., cap use at one hour daily, and remove the visibility of “like” counts. Parents — and in practice, most likely, the children using these apps — would have the ability to change these default settings.
Meta Says Its Parental Controls Protect Kids. But Hardly Anyone Uses Them.
Amid scrutiny of social media’s impact on kids and teens, tools that let parents track their children’s online activities have become increasingly popular. Snapchat, TikTok, Google and Discord all have rolled out parental controls in recent years; last week, Meta said these features “make it simpler for parents to shape their teens’ online experiences.”
But inside Meta, kids safety experts have long raised red flags about relying on such features. And their use has been shockingly infrequent.
By the end of 2022, less than 10% of teens on Meta’s Instagram had enabled the parental supervision setting, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private company matters; of those who did, only a single-digit percentage of parents had adjusted their kids’ settings.
Internal research described extensive barriers for parents trying to supervise their kids’ online activities, including a lack of time and limited understanding of the technology. Child safety experts say these settings are an industry-wide weakness, allowing tech companies to absolve themselves while requiring parents to do the heavy lifting.
Could the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act Increase Mass Surveillance Systems?
The use of facial recognition technology could increase across the European Union despite efforts to regulate it under the bloc-wide Artificial Intelligence Act.
Last December, EU negotiators reached a preliminary agreement on the AI Act, a world-first attempt to regulate the emerging technology that includes new rules on the use of biometric identification systems such as facial recognition.
But civil society organizations fear there are loopholes in the planned law. “They have set very broad conditions for the police to use these systems. What we fear is that this will have a legitimizing effect,” said Ella Jakubowska of Reclaim Your Face, a coalition calling to ban biometric mass surveillance.
Jakubowska says that until now it had been “possible to challenge” these systems and argue that they were not wanted “in a democratic society.” She fears they will now be harder to reject, and more likely to be adopted by other countries worldwide under the impression they have received the EU seal of approval.
Some Hospitals Are Requiring Masks Again. Will Other Public Places Be Next?
If you’ve been to a hospital lately, you might have noticed: masks are back. The rising number of COVID-19 hospitalizations is prompting many healthcare systems — including those at the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, and all public health hospitals in New York City — to require them once again.
Does wearing a mask still matter — and do the new mandates mean that other restrictions are on the horizon? Here’s what experts say.
Hospitals aren’t the only places vulnerable people gather, so Dr. Robert Murphy, professor of medicine at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, suggests mask mandates could be extended to long-term care facilities and assisted living spaces.
He also believes mask requirements in these settings should become a regular feature every year during respiratory season. “It’s probably a very good idea, from a public health standpoint, to say that this is something that happens every winter from December to February,” he says. “It just makes common sense. If universal masking is never going to be accepted at this point, let’s protect the most vulnerable, and hospitals are places where there are a lot of vulnerable people.”
