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New York launches lawsuit against Big Tech alleging harm to children’s mental health
New York City has launched a lawsuit against Google, Meta, Snapchat, and TikTok, accusing the tech giants of “fueling a nationwide youth mental health crisis.”
Last month, the New York mayor’s office designated social media as a “public health hazard”. Mayor Eric Adams revealed the state’s health commissioner, Dr Ashwin Vasan, had described apps like TikTok and Instagram as “environmental toxins” that impose harm onto young teens and adolescents.
New York has now launched a lawsuit accusing the Big Tech firms of three counts: public nuisance, negligence, and gross negligence.
The suit alleges these counts are achieved by way of harmful algorithms, gambling-like mechanisms, and manipulation through reciprocity — making the user “feel compelled to respond to one positive action with another positive action.” The Adams regime believes there to be a correlation between the increase in social media usage and the decline in local youth mental health over “more than a decade.”
Google and Meta told CNBC that they have always worked with youth safety experts and provided parental control tools.
SpaceX moves its legal home from Delaware to Texas
Elon Musk has started moving his businesses away from Delaware following a judge’s decision in the state to invalidate his $56b Tesla pay package.
In a post on X, Musk announced that SpaceX has moved its corporate home to Texas, along with a copy of the certificate of conversion it received from the Texas Secretary of State. “If your company is still incorporated in Delaware, I recommend moving to another state as soon as possible,” the executive added.
It comes after a Delaware judge invalidated Musk’s $56b Tesla compensation package following a lawsuit from a shareholder. In January, the judge found that Musk’s compensation was inappropriately set by the electric vehicle maker’s board and struck down the package.
Musk’s brain-chip implant company, Neuralink, also changed its location of incorporation from Delaware to Nevada last week.
EU ratifies deal on AI regulations
Lawmakers in the European Parliament have struck a provisional agreement on landmark AI legislation ahead of an April vote on rules to govern the technology.
The European Union’s AI Act aims to set guardrails for emergent AI technologies across a broad range of industries while also outlining regulations for foundation models or generative AI, such as ChatGPT.
“AI Act takes a step forward: MEPs in @EP_Justice & @EP_SingleMarket have endorsed the provisional agreement on an Artificial Intelligence Act that ensures safety and complies with fundamental rights,” one of the two European Parliament committees said on X.
It comes as a number of regions and countries look to position themselves as leaders in the AI space.
Romanian hospitals hit by ransomware attacks
Over one hundred hospitals and medical facilities in Romania have become victims of a major ransomware attack, with several sites forced to go completely offline in order to protect patients.
Cyber extortionists demanded 3.5 Bitcoin — worth over £130,000 on the current market — to unlock files which they had encrypted in the attack. But Romanian officials said data had been recently backed up, reducing the impact.
A statement from the Romanian Ministry of Health revealed the scale of the attack — which took place on Monday — revealing the hackers had targeted a widely used medical information system. The group responsible has yet to be identified.
Cisco to cut 5% of its workforce
Cisco has announced plans to cut around 4,250 jobs from its global workforce, representing about 5% of its total employee base.
The plan comes as part of company-wide restructuring, according to the networking hardware and software maker. The plans are to shift its focus to “key priority areas,” such as artificial intelligence. The layoffs are due to begin later this year, Cisco indicated.
“We continue to align our investments to future growth opportunities,” Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said in the company’s second-quarter earnings release. “Our innovation sits at the centre of an increasingly connected ecosystem and will play a critical role as our customers adopt AI and secure their organisations.”
It comes as part of wider layoffs across the tech sector in recent years. Since the start of this year, cuts at tech firms have affected nearly 35,000 workers. Since the cuts began in 2022, the total number of layoffs globally, as reported by layoffs.fyi, has surpassed 462,000 job cuts.
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