The online child abuse epidemic; Chinese tech billionaire vanishes -- Tech Law & Policy This Week
Release Date: 02/18/2023
Should police get Ring footage whenever they want?; Would a TikTok ban alienate Gen Z & suburban moms? – Tech Law & Policy this Week
Tech Policy Leaders
Hey everybody, I’m Joe Miller and here’s what’s going on in the world of tech law & policy this week. Alfred Ng over at Politico reports that the police can obtain Ring camera footage without your permission. All they need is a warrant. But don’t worry – they will be nice. They will call you instead of knocking on your door. If you don’t give them the footage, Ring will also contact you. If you still don’t give them the footage, well, I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t want to find out what happens after that! And getting a warrant is the least...
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Sean Davis: The Rise of Online Scammers – How to Keep Your Money Safe
Tech Policy Leaders
The internet can be a minefield of financial scams, but you don't have to navigate it alone. Arm yourself with knowledge and stay protected from online fraud. Bio Sean Davis is a privacy lawyer based in Washington, D.C. and Senior Analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). Previously, he was with Engine.org, the small business advocate, where he served as Policy Manager. Prior to that Sean was with Wikimedia Foundation and Public Knowledge. He earned his JD from George Washington University School of Law and his Bachelor’s in English from Mount...
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Republican lawmakers move bill to ban TikTok; the White House releases a new blueprint to prevent online harassment and abuse – Tech law & Policy This Week
Tech Policy Leaders
Characterizing the popular TikTok app as a modern-day “Trojan Horse” because its parent company, ByteDance, is based in China, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Michal McCaul, aa Texas Republican, introduced the “Deterring America's Foreign Adversaries Act, which would ban TikTok in the United States. Democrats oppose the bill, saying it would go too far in abridging the Freedom of Speech. The American Civil Liberties Union is also pushing back against the bill. Federal courts have previously held that blocking TikTok would violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act,...
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Meredith Broussard: Is it Okay to be AI?
Tech Policy Leaders
In this episode of the Tech Policy Leaders podcast, discusses her new book ‘,’ which takes a critical look at algorithms and the people who create them. Bio Data journalist is an associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University, research director at the Alliance for Public Interest Technology, and the author of several books, including “Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World” and “More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech.” Her academic research focuses on artificial...
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Jan. 6th goon gets just 38 months for threatening AOC with assassination on Twitter, assaulting officers; US DoD exposed highly sensitive data for full 2 weeks -– Tech Law & Policy this Week
Tech Policy Leaders
Hey everybody, I’m Joe Miller and here’s what’s going on in the world of tech law & policy this week. Somehow, a U.S. government server running on Microsoft’s Azure government cloud was unsecured, exposing U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) data, including sensitive personnel information. Security researcher Anurag Sen discovered the breach last week, and the Department of Defense patched it up after spilling data for 2 weeks. USSOCOM told TechCrunch that no data breach occurred. Thirty-eight months – that’s all Garret Miller got for assaulting officers and...
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ChatGPT: GPT-3, Law, & the Nature of Existence
Tech Policy Leaders
ChatGPT is an (AI) chatbot written in natural language processing (NLP) technology that can interact with its users on and respond in meaningful ways. AI-driven tools are emerging as powerful new tools in the legal industry, especially when it comes to streamlining mundane tasks, assisting with research and enhancing customer service functions. In this episode, I interviewed ChatGPT and input its responses into a text to speech generator. We took a dive into the , the limitations of its capabilities, and some of the philosophical questions about the nature of how it “thinks,”...
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The online child abuse epidemic; Chinese tech billionaire vanishes -- Tech Law & Policy This Week
Tech Policy Leaders
Folks, kids are having a really hard time, and a lot of it has to do with what’s happening on the internet. Some lawmakers appear to be trying to do the right thing, but it seems like all they’re really capable of doing is introducing legislation – legislation that doesn’t get anywhere. The CDC released a report Monday finding teens, especially girls, are in a bad place right now with some 57% of the 17,000 high school girls surveyed persistently feeling bad or hopeless. Some twenty percent of these girls report experiencing sexual violence. And a third of boys also report...
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Ahmad Thomas: Defining Corporate Social Responsibility in a Turbulent Climate
Tech Policy Leaders
Ahmad Thomas: A Glimpse Into a Shifting World - Examining the Purpose of Corporate Social Responsibility in a Turbulent Environment (CSR) has become an increasingly important part of business practices. Companies are ostensibly thinking more proactively and creatively about how they can contribute to the world around them and make a positive impact on society. But what does this mean for in a tumultuous world? In this episode of , you’ll learn from Ahmad Thomas, CEO of the . After listening to this episode, you’ll understand more about: 1. The current state of corporate social...
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Report – Twitter makes millions from haters & incels; Women fend for themselves in hostile online environment – Tech Law & Policy This Week
Tech Policy Leaders
<p>Hey everybody, I’m Joe Miller and here’s what’s going on in the world of tech law & policy this week. </p> <p> </p> <p><br>So the White House confirmed earlier this afternoon that it had shot down another object floating 40,000 ft. above Alaska. No word yet on whether it’s part of China’s balloon festival, but this one was much smaller than the one they shot down last week. Feds are investigating.</p> <p> </p> <p>Americans want privacy legislation...
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[Encore Episode] Tiffany D. Cross: How to Stay True to Your Audience
Tech Policy Leaders
[Encore Episode -- originally recorded 1/17/2017] Bio Having spent significant time working in newsrooms, covering Capitol Hill, managing in-house corporate public affairs, working on campaigns, and navigating communities of color, she brings a unique set of skills that casts a wide net of influence. Understanding the intersection of press, partnerships, politics, and policy, Tiffany has a proven record of excellent relationships in the private and public sectors, media, the entertainment industry, and civic and social justice organizations. Most recently, Tiffany served as a Senior...
info_outlineFolks, kids are having a really hard time, and a lot of it has to do with what’s happening on the internet. Some lawmakers appear to be trying to do the right thing, but it seems like all they’re really capable of doing is introducing legislation – legislation that doesn’t get anywhere.
The CDC released a report Monday finding teens, especially girls, are in a bad place right now with some 57% of the 17,000 high school girls surveyed persistently feeling bad or hopeless. Some twenty percent of these girls report experiencing sexual violence. And a third of boys also report feeling persistently sad or depressed.
One young person in Washington State is working to get a bill passed to protect images their parents shared on parenting blogs that went viral. And here in DC, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard brutal testimony from victims of addiction, cyberbullying, sexual abuse, and suicides spurred by social media and the internet.
Committee Chair Dick Durbin notes that we often warn kids about strangers in public, but obv iously aren’t doing enough to protect kids. So Senate Democrats introduced legislation on Monday, the Clean Slate for Kids Online Act, that would give kids the ability to have content removed that depicts them before they turned 13.
Another bill, the EARN IT Act, which would establish a National Commission on Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention, has been floundering in Congress since 2020.
On the House side, the Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan subpoenaed Google, Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft for documents regarding their content moderation practices. The House is currently investigating the platforms for harboring anti-conservative bias.
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Down in Florida, Polk County arrested 200, charging 89 of them with soliciting a prostitute, after a week-long investigation. 111 of the suspects were arrested for prostitution, of which 24 actually turned out to be human trafficking victims.
Separately, the U.S. denied a tourist visa to a UK-based VRChat user who goes by the name of “Hex.” She does sex shows on the platform. The reason for the passport denial? Prostitution.
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Don’t be surprised if the healthcare platforms you rely on are selling your information to marketers. The only privacy bill specifically for healthcare is the Health Insurance Privacy & Portability Act (HIPPA), which contains no provisions regarding your health data in the U.S.
An anonymous plaintiff filed a class action lawsuit in Loa Angeles this week alleging Microsoft Bing, Google, and Meta rec eived data from Cedars-Sinai Health System and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center via a tracking code. And a new Duke study found data brokers can sell lists containing personally-identifiable information on thousands of depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and OCD patients.
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Bao Fan has disappeared in China. The American-educated and outspoken billionaire investment banker has stakes in massive Chinese companies like Alibaba & Tencent. Chinese president Xi Jinping, as Daisuke Wakabayashi of the New York Times reports, has been cracking down on business titans there. Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma disappeared from public view as well back in 2020 for being too vocal about China’s fiscal policies. As were several other prominent Chinese billionaires, one of which, Xiao Jianhua, who was born in China, was arrested at the Hong Kong Four Seasons and got 13 years in the slammer for embezzlement and bribery.
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Elon Musk says he’ll eventually step down as Twitter CEO once he gets the company financially stable – he’s aiming for the end of this year. Earlier this week, Casey Newton reported on Platformer that Musk was forcing engineers – firing one of them – for not getting Musk’s content to the top of the feed. Musk responded with a meme of a woman force-feeding another woman from a bottle of milk. Then he claimed that Newton’s source was a disgruntled former employee.
Also, Twitter is allowing weed advertisers on the platform now. Musk was high last year when he announced plans to acquire the company.
Also,
Podcaster Joe Rogan got deepaked by someone – they made him look like he was endorsing a testosterone supplement.
Voice Actors are calling folks out for using their voices to create AI models without their consent
Microsoft’s Chatbot has gone haywire, telling one reporter to leave his wife.
And the EU is investigating Amazon for acquiring iRobot
To go deeper, you can find links to all of these stories in the show notes. Stay safe, stay informed, have a great week. Ciao.
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