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TikTok Not Liable for Philadelphia Girl, 10, Who Died Trying Viral ‘Blackout Challenge,’ Court Finds
TikTok is protected from a wrongful death lawsuit accusing the social media company of promoting a “blackout challenge” that led to the death of a 10-year-old Philadelphia girl, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Nylah Anderson died in December while attempting the “blackout challenge” on the social media app TikTok, the girl’s family has said. The family has claimed the challenge, which is to choke oneself long enough to lose consciousness, was spread through videos on the platform.
U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond in Philadelphia dismissed the lawsuit on Tuesday, ruling that TikTok was immune under a part of the federal Communications Decency Act, Reuters reported. The act protects entities that publish the work of others. “The wisdom of conferring such immunity is something properly taken up with Congress, not the courts,” Diamond wrote in his ruling, according to the report.
The family’s lawyer, Jeffrey Goodman, said in a statement obtained by the outlet that the family would “continue to fight to make social media safe so that no other child is killed by the reckless behavior of the social media industry.”
Scientists: COVID Restrictions Caused ‘Immunity Gap,’ Leading to Virus Uptick in Children
Cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and other viruses are rising across the nation, and scientists are now saying the uptick is due to measures put in place during the pandemic that restricted immune development.
The phenomenon is called an “immunity gap,” and essentially happened when restrictions and practices that were common during the pandemic limited the spread of viruses, leading to fewer people developing immunity to them. When people re-entered society, the viruses were back, too.
Babies often receive antibodies for RSV through their mother’s breast milk, but even the mothers often weren’t exposed to RSV during lockdowns.
Meta Faces $24.7 Million Fine for Campaign Finance Violations in Washington
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, was hit with a $24.7 million fine Wednesday after a Washington judge found the tech giant had intentionally violated the state’s campaign finance disclosure laws 822 times.
The big picture: The fine that King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North issued “represents the largest campaign finance penalty anywhere in the country — ever,” per a statement from Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson. A Meta spokesperson said the firm is assessing its options and declined to comment further.
Driving the news: North issued the maximum penalty for the violations of Washington’s Fair Campaign Practices Act. Each violation carried a $30,000 penalty.
The law “requires campaign advertisers, including entities such as Meta that host political ads, to make information about Washington political ads that run on their platforms available for public inspection in a timely manner,” per Ferguson’s office. “The state asserted that Meta violated the law repeatedly since December 2018 and committed hundreds of violations.”
Meet the EU Law That Could Reshape Online Speech in the U.S.
The First Amendment generally precludes the U.S. government from limiting private speakers’ and companies’ ideas or controlling how social media firms govern their spaces.
But other governments may soon fill that void, and regulate how American tech giants referee speech on their platforms. Earlier this month, the European Union approved legislation aimed at regulating social media platforms: the Digital Services Act.
The law will take effect in 2024, in time for the next U.S. presidential elections, and promises big shifts in how online speech is refereed not just in Europe, but also here at home. The law, among other requirements, places substantial content moderation expectations on large social media firms — many based in the U.S. — which include limiting false information, hate speech and extremism.
It’s not clear how social media firms will adapt to the law, but the fines they will face for failing to comply will be massive. Firms can be fined up to six percent of their annual revenue — that’s $11 billion for Google and $7 billion for Meta. Essentially, the EU has created a significant new legal incentive for firms to regulate expression on their platforms.
Navy COVID Vaccine Refusal Separations Nears 2,000
The Navy separated 180 active-duty sailors in the past month for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the sea service’s monthly update.
The Navy has separated a total of 1,544 active-duty sailors and 327 reservists for refusing to get the mandatory two-shot vaccine for COVID-19. Another 22 sailors were also released in their first 180 days of service, bringing the Navy’s total of separated sailors to 1,893.
The Navy has received 3,318 religious waiver requests from active-duty sailors and 859 from reservists. Under a court ruling, the Navy cannot separate anyone who has submitted a religious exemption request.
The case, which involves approximately 35 special warfare community members, is currently in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral testimony in the case is currently scheduled for the week of Feb. 6, 2023.
Hollywood’s Unions and Studios Extend COVID Protocols With Small Modifications
The Hollywood Reporter reported:
After a protracted round of negotiations, minor modifications have been made to Hollywood’s COVID-19 protocols as the industry continues to evolve in its approach to the pandemic.
Nearly a month after the latest agreement was temporarily extended to allow unions and studios more time to discuss, both sides agreed to change the deal to allow daily antigen tests for the cast and crew who work most closely with them during a surge in COVID cases, as opposed to requiring tests at least three times a week (one of them a PCR test) during a wave in COVID cases.
Another modification to the criteria for the agreement’s most stringent protocols to take effect: This threshold was raised from 10 or more new COVID cases per 100,000 people for seven straight days to 14 or more COVID hospital admissions per 100,000 people. The change in criteria from cases to hospitalizations means that even if there’s an uptick in cases in the next few months, the strictest protocols will only be implemented if those illnesses result in hospitalizations. The new deal also adds six days to workers’ bank of COVID sick days.
Still, employers can opt to institute stricter protocols for masking and testing on productions, and can continue to mandate vaccinations in “Zone A” of sets, the statement added.
U.K. Police Use of Live Facial Recognition Unlawful and Unethical, Report Finds
Police should be banned from using live facial recognition technology in all public spaces because they are breaking ethical standards and human rights laws, a study has concluded.
LFR involves linking cameras to databases containing photos of people. Images from the cameras can then be checked against those photos to see if they match.
British police have experimented with the technology, believing it can help combat crime and terrorism. But in some cases, courts have found against the way police have used LFR, and how they have dealt with infringements of the privacy rights of people walking in the streets where the technology has been used. There are also concerns about racial bias.
The report, from the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, at the University of Cambridge, says LFR should be banned from use in streets, airports and any public spaces — the very areas where police believe it would be most valuable.
Chinese Cities Double Down on Zero-COVID as Outbreaks Widen
Chinese cities from Wuhan in central China to Xining in the northwest are doubling down on COVID-19 curbs, sealing up buildings, locking down districts and throwing millions into distress in a scramble to halt widening outbreaks.
China on Thursday reported a third straight day of more than 1,000 new COVID cases nationwide, a modest tally compared with the tens of thousands per day that sent Shanghai into a full-blown lockdown earlier this year but enough to trigger more restrictions across the country.
As of Oct. 24, 28 cities were implementing varying degrees of lockdown measures, with around 207.7 million people affected in regions responsible for around 25.6 trillion yuan ($3.55 trillion) of China’s gross domestic product, according to Nomura.
Elon Musk, Nearing Twitter Deal, Says Site Will Continue to Police Hateful Content
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who appears set to acquire Twitter, said on Thursday that he plans to police some content on the platform that falls short of breaking the law, signaling that he will preserve more content moderation than he had previously indicated.
Musk, an avowed proponent of free speech, has faced questions from some analysts over the potential loss of users and advertisers if a more permissive approach to content allows hate speech and false information to proliferate on the platform.
In a letter directed at advertisers on Twitter, Musk explained the motivation behind his bid for the platform and his plans for content policing.
“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk said. “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be said without consequences!”
Meta Shares Plummet 20% in Pre-Market After Q3 Revenue Decline
Shares of Facebook’s parent firm Meta were down nearly 20% in pre-market trading, continuing a slide Thursday after the company’s third-quarter earnings released a day earlier fell short of expectations.
The social media giant reported quarterly revenue of $27.7 billion — down more than 4% year-on-year — its second consecutive quarter of revenue decline.
Meta’s Reality Labs division, which is leading the company’s pivot towards building a metaverse, reported a $3.7 billion loss in the third quarter, bringing its total losses so far this year to $9.4 billion.
