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Mark Zuckerberg Personally Rejected Meta’s Proposals to Improve Teen Mental Health, Court Documents Allege
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has personally and repeatedly thwarted initiatives meant to improve the well-being of teens on Facebook and Instagram, at times directly overruling some of his most senior lieutenants, according to internal communications made public as part of an ongoing lawsuit against the company.
The newly unsealed communications in the lawsuit — filed originally by Massachusetts last month in a state court — allegedly show how Zuckerberg ignored or shut down top executives, including Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri and President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg, who had asked Zuckerberg to do more to protect the more than 30 million teens who use Instagram in the United States.
The disclosures highlight Zuckerberg’s sway over decisions at Meta that can affect billions of users. And they also shed light on tensions that have occasionally arisen between Zuckerberg and other Meta officials who have pushed to enhance user well-being.
Other newly unveiled allegations in the complaint accuse Meta of exploiting the psychology of adolescent brains and that Zuckerberg personally established goals for the company to increase the amount of time users spend on Instagram.
“These unreacted documents prove that Mark Zuckerberg is not interested in protecting anyone’s privacy or safety. The rot goes all the way to the top,” said Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project.
COVID Lockdowns Increased ADHD Risk Among 10-Year-Old Children, New Study Finds
The COVID-19 lockdowns had a widespread impact on children’s mental health, many studies have shown — and now new research highlights how those lockdowns impacted ADHD diagnoses in 10-year-old children.
A study by the University of Copenhagen in Denmark determined that kids in this age group who already had a genetic risk of developing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder saw a “significant increase” in diagnoses after the pandemic. Children assessed after the lockdown who had polygenic risk scores (PRS) for behavior and attention problems had a large increase in ADHD diagnoses after the lockdown, researchers found.
Dr. Marc Siegel, a clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Fox News medical contributor, was not involved in the study but said the results align with what he would have expected.
“This showed what we already know from previous studies, but affirmed and added to it,” he told Fox News Digital. “Lockdowns and restrictions worsened kids’ ability to focus and worsened ADHD symptoms, as well as anxiety and depression,” he said.
The Future of Airport Security Is Facial Recognition
Though the airport screening technologies used by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have evolved over the past 20 years, one highly visible objective has remained the same: focusing on stopping prohibited items from entering the sterile (secure) side of airports. Even passengers enrolled in TSA PreCheck require some physical screening at airports, classified as expedited screening.
The one area that has undergone significant changes in recent years is identity verification. The TSA has upgraded Credential Authentication Technology (CAT) (labelled CAT-2 to include biometric facial recognition, which effectively becomes your form of identification). This is the future for airport security, as biometric technology and artificial intelligence become more ubiquitous in airport security checkpoint operations.
CLEAR uses biometrics (fingerprints and iris scans) to validate a person’s identity. They charge customers as much as $189 annually for membership, which allows such passengers to move ahead of those waiting for the TSA to manually check their ID. CLEAR customers must still undergo physical screening, either in PreCheck lanes or standard lanes.
EU Asks TikTok and YouTube for More Info on How They’re Safeguarding Kids
The European Commission has sent another couple of formal requests for information to major platforms subject to the bloc’s rebooted online governance and content moderation rulebook, the Digital Services Act (DSA). The latest requests, which are focused on child safety, have been sent to TikTok and YouTube.
“The Commission is requesting the companies to provide more information on the measures they have taken to comply with their obligations related to the protection of minors under the DSA, including the obligations related to risk assessments and mitigation measures to protect minors online, in particular with regard to the risks to mental health and physical health, and on the use of their services by minors,” the Commission wrote in a press release.
The EU has given the companies until November 30 to respond with the data. Regulators will then assess the next steps — which could include opening formal investigations.
The regulation also explicitly bans targeted advertising on minors.
How India Tamed Twitter and Set a Global Standard for Online Censorship
For years, a committee of executives from U.S. technology companies and Indian officials convened every two weeks in a government office to negotiate what could — and could not — be said on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
At the “69A meetings,” as the secretive gatherings were informally called, officials from India’s information, technology, security and intelligence agencies presented social media posts they wanted removed, citing threats to India’s sovereignty and national security, executives and officials who were present recalled. The tech representatives sometimes pushed back in the name of free speech. One company resisted the most: Twitter.
But two years ago, these interactions took a fateful turn. Where officials had once asked for a handful of tweets to be removed at each meeting, they now insisted that entire accounts be taken down, and numbers were running in the hundreds. Executives who refused the government’s demands could now be jailed, their companies expelled from the Indian market.
This escalating censorship in the world’s largest democracy is part of a wider campaign by Modi and his Hindu nationalist allies to monopolize public discourse: tightening their grip on power, advancing their Hindu-first ideology and squeezing out critical and dissenting voices. American technology companies have increasingly fallen in line, fearing for their employees’ security and their profits.
“The [stuff] that they’re doing in India should be freaking everybody out,” said a former U.S. Twitter policy staffer.
Digital and human rights advocates warn that India has perfected the use of regulations to stifle online dissent and already inspired governments in countries as varied as Nigeria and Myanmar to craft similar legal frameworks, at times with near-identical language. India’s success in taming internet companies has set off “regulatory contagion” across the world, according to Prateek Waghre, a policy director at India’s Internet Freedom Foundation.
Keep Scrolling: Social Media Detox May Not Improve Mental Health
Social media might be addictive, but it turns out quitting is complicated. A study out Wednesday from the U.K.’s Durham University asked 51 moderate to heavy social media users to stay off the apps for one week. Participants had a decrease in negative emotions and feelings including boredom, but they reported a drop in positive feelings as well. It adds to a growing body of evidence that there may be no easy fix for my specific personal problems.
Social media is often compared to alcohol or other addictive substances, and that’s as true in academic circles as it is in popular culture. Accordingly, the researchers expected that abstinence would come with withdrawal symptoms. That’s not what happened: not only were the emotional changes a mixed bag, but going cold turkey didn’t lead to the cravings you’d expect from other more established chemical or behavioral addictions.
The researchers hypothesized this might be because the effects of social media are nuanced. As the study points out, content on social media can trigger feelings like fear of missing out or comparing yourself to other people who seem to be doing better, but it can also lead to feelings of social approval.
Humane Officially Launches the AI Pin, Its OpenAI-Powered Wearable
On Thursday, after months of demos and hints about what the AI-powered future of gadgets might look like, Humane finally took the wraps off of its first device: the AI Pin.
The device, as we revealed yesterday, is a $699 wearable in two parts: a square device and a battery pack that magnetically attaches to your clothes or other surfaces. In addition to that price, there’s also the $24 monthly fee for a Humane subscription, which gets you a phone number and data coverage through T-Mobile’s network. The company told Wired the device will start shipping in early 2024 and that preorders begin November 16th.
The AI Pin is powered by a Snapdragon processor — though it’s not clear which one — and you control it with a combination of voice control, a camera, gestures, and a small built-in projector. The Pin itself weighs about 34 grams, and the “battery booster” adds another 20. The built-in camera takes 13-megapixel photos and will capture video as well after a software update.
