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How the Supreme Court Could Soon Change Free Speech on the Internet

CNBC reported:

When Elon Musk announced his offer to buy Twitter for more than $40 billion, he told the public his vision for the social media site was to make sure it’s “an inclusive arena for free speech.”

This year, the U.S. justice system, including the Supreme Court, will take on cases that will help determine the bounds of free expression on the internet in ways that could force the hand of Musk and other platform owners who determine what messages get distributed widely.

“The question of free speech is always more complicated than it looks,” said David Brody, managing attorney of the Digital Justice Initiative at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law. “There’s a freedom to speak freely. But there’s also the freedom to be free from harassment, to be free from discrimination.”

Brody said whenever the parameters of content moderation get tweaked, people need to consider “whose speech gets silenced when that dial gets turned? Whose speech gets silenced because they are too fearful to speak out in the new environment that is created?”

Surgeon General: 13-Year-Olds Too Young to Join Social Media Platforms

Axios reported:

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said on “CNN Newsroom” on Saturday he believes 13-year-olds are too young to join social media and that being on those platforms does a “disservice” to children.

The big picture: Scientists have warned of a connection between heavy social media use and mental health issues in children, saying that the negatives outweigh the positives.

Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter all allow users ages 13 or older on their platforms. TikTok users in the United States who are younger than 13 can use the platform, albeit with a safety setting for children that limits the information collected from them, as well as prevents them from messaging other users or allowing others to see their user profile.

Why it matters: American teenagers are in the middle of a mental health crisis.

Department of Health and Human Services Is Sued After Ignoring Freedom of Information Request Over Censorship Demands

Reclaim the Net reported:

Activist group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for all records and communications between the Surgeon General’s office and social media companies about COVID-19 vaccines.

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the HHS refused to adequately respond to a FOIA request filed in March 2022.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has previously called for censorship of COVID misinformation. In 2021, he published a report titled “Confronting Health Misinformation,” which aimed to “slow the spread of health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.”

The report encouraged platforms to censor vaccine misinformation and other misinformation related to the pandemic. In March 2022, Murthy ordered social media platforms to hand over information about accounts spreading COVID misinformation.

Soldier Who Says He Was Injured by COVID Vaccine Alleges Lack of Support From Army

The Epoch Times reported:

An Army member who says he was injured by the COVID vaccine said he faced repeated pressure to take the second dose of the vaccine, despite receiving a temporary exemption from the vaccine mandate last year.

But Army Warrant Officer Douglas Rubin (a pseudonym) was ultimately assisted by the Pentagon’s recission of the vaccine mandate following the signing into law of the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Rubin was led to believe that he would not get a permanent medical exemption and his best course of action was a temporary exemption. In January 2022, he was granted a temporary exemption “indefinitely.”

After making every attempt to rule out all potential sources of his symptoms besides the Pfizer COVID-19, Rubin said, “No other sources could be found, and I am now permanently injured from this vaccine.” Rubin is still seeking a permanent medical exemption despite the Pentagon’s recent change in policy rescinding the mandate.

WSU Removing COVID Vaccine Requirement for Most Students

KIRO 7 News reported:

Beginning with 2023 summer classes, Washington State University is removing the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for most students, according to the WSU Insider.

The decision comes after a recommendation from the university’s Infectious Disease and Public Health Advisory Committee, which includes college representatives across public health, student services, human resources and environmental health and safety.

According to WSU, mandating the continued boosting process for the COVID-19 vaccines pose significant challenges, which include maintaining students’ ages, existing health conditions, previous vaccines and past COVID-19 infections to determine which students should be boosted or not.

In Oct. 2022, WSU lifted the vaccine requirement for most employees, contractors and volunteers after Gov. Jay Inslee rescinded the state’s COVID-19 emergency orders.

Appeals Court Rejects Ann Arbor Police Lawsuit Over COVID Vaccine Mandate

The Detroit News reported:

A three-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court ruling that cities are allowed to create and enforce vaccine mandates as a condition of employment for police officers.

The ruling, issued last week, came after the Ann Arbor Police Officers Association sued the city over its August 2021 policy, requiring all city employees to be fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus or face termination.

The union’s lawsuit centered on the state Legislature’s 2021-2022 omnibus Appropriations Act, passed in September of that year, which prohibits vaccine mandates by certain government employers.

A Washtenaw Circuit Court judge sided with the city, ruling that the appropriation act’s prohibition of vaccine requirements doesn’t apply to Ann Arbor’s police officers, who are city employees, not employees of the state’s treasury department. The panel of judges Noah Hood, Thomas Cameron and Kristina Robinson Garrett agreed.

BMS Settles Lawsuit With Two Fired Employees Who Refused COVID Vaccines

Fierce Pharma reported:

Two Bristol Myers Squibb employees who were fired for refusing to be vaccinated and sued the company have agreed to settlements, court documents show. Jeremy Beer and John Lott were two of four employees who filed suit in December of 2021 in federal court in the Southern District of New York, later to be joined by four other fired employees who filed in October of last year.

The case of one of the original four who sued, Dr. Carrie Kefalas, was dismissed on Tuesday.

The former employees claimed that BMS violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by rejecting their request for religious exemptions from the company’s COVID-19 vaccination policy. Terms of the settlements were not disclosed. BMS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The two former employees who settled were well-paid professionals. Lott, a biotechnologist with a Master’s degree from Johns Hopkins, was the associate director of strategy and submissions lead, patient safety and epidemiology, with an annual salary of $178,000. Beer was a senior manager for data integrity, with a salary of $146,000.

Oops, I Did It Again: Apple Faces Fourth iPhone Privacy Lawsuit After Gizmodo Story

Gizmodo reported:

Apple is famous for breaking records, and apparently, it’s just as competitive when it comes to getting sued. The company was just hit with a fourth class-action lawsuit over accusations of surreptitious iPhone data collection. Three of those lawsuits were filed in January alone. Impressive.

In November, Gizmodo exclusively reported on research demonstrating that your iPhone collects hyper-detailed data about what you do on its apps, like the App Store, Apple Stocks, Apple Music, Apple News and more — even when you turn off the iPhone Analytics privacy setting, which explicitly promises to stop the snooping.

Gizmodo contacted Apple about this problem for the seventh time this morning, which has to be another record breaker. As happened the previous six times, the company didn’t respond. Apple hasn’t said a single word to defend this privacy issue in public.

TikTok CEO to Testify Before House Panel About App’s Security and Ties to China

CNBC reported:

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will testify before a House panel on March 23 about the app’s security and privacy practices and its ties to China through parent company ByteDance.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee announced the hearing on Monday, saying it would be Chew’s first appearance before a congressional panel.

“ByteDance-owned TikTok has knowingly allowed the ability for the Chinese Communist Party to access American user data,” E&C Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said in a statement. “Americans deserve to know how these actions impact their privacy and data security, as well as what actions TikTok is taking to keep our kids safe from online and offline harms.”

The hearing announcement comes as the company’s negotiations with the U.S. government over how to secure its app in the country have continued to drag on. TikTok has been engaging with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which can determine if certain risk mitigation measures are adequate to dampen national security concerns.

‘Debilitating’ Effects of Pandemic Linger on for Britain’s Young

The Guardian reported:

Young people have been “disastrously” affected by the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, according to two pieces of research that show happiness and confidence has plunged to an all-time low.

Both studies detail the wide-ranging ways in which young people continue to suffer. The hardships include poorer mental and physical health, as well as extensive learning loss that experts say will undoubtedly affect their futures.

The findings echo the concerns expressed in the second part of the Guardian’s COVID generation series, published on Sunday, in which young people analyze how the pandemic is still affecting their lives and their plans for the future 18 months from the end of the third national lockdown.

Jonathan Townsend, the U.K. chief executive of the Prince’s Trust, which spoke to 2,025 young people aged 16 to 25, said: “The pandemic is still having a debilitating impact on young people’s plans, confidence and hopes for a positive future. The significant disruption to their education during this period has left these young people worried about their skills and qualifications, and lacking confidence in their ability to secure a job or achieve their future career goals.”

German Government Secretly Met With U.S. Big Tech to Censor Speech

Reclaim the Net reported:

German authorities have made quite a name for themselves over the past several years by walking the fine line, and critics say sometimes crossing it, between protecting citizens’ freedom of speech, and censoring them for “online speech.”

So is it really surprising that in the wake of scandalous revelations about COVID (and elections) related collaboration, or some would say, collusion between the U.S. government and Big Tech, something of the kind was also happening in Germany?

The charge here, as reported by German media, is that German officials and representatives of U.S. tech corporations held meetings on several occasions, including secretly, to talk about censoring COVID-related information. The Bild newspaper writes that there was a secret “summit” in early June 2020, initiated by the government and attended by representatives of Facebook (and Instagram) as well as Google (and YouTube).

Germany has a provision in its Constitution that is supposed to guarantee free speech: Article 5, which states that “every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures, and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources.”