Meta Platforms Inc. is facing a lawsuit from dozens of state attorneys general that alleges the corporate knowingly contributed to a youth mental health crisis by getting kids enthusiastic about social media.

A federal judge in California sided with 34 state attorneys general on Tuesday and allowed a number of the claims against Meta's Facebook and Instagram platforms to proceed in a sprawling legal battle over the harmful effects of social media.

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who issued the ruling, is overseeing a whole bunch of lawsuits alleging that a handful of social media corporations – including Google's YouTube, ByteDance's TikTok and Snap, in addition to Meta – make the most of young people's addiction to Social media have benefited products. Tuesday's ruling only concerns the allegations made by the Attorney General's Office against Meta.

Attorneys general have maintained that Meta is not going to remove the platforms' harmful features, despite research showing that use of Facebook and Instagram is linked to depression and other mental health problems. They also claimed that Meta unlawfully collected data from children under 13 years old. In October, TikTok was sued over similar claims in 13 state courts and in Washington, DC. The states accused the corporate of deceiving users about its child safety tools and using malicious features to maintain children on the platform longer to maximise profits. A TikTok spokesperson called the claims “inaccurate and misleading.”

A Meta spokesman said the corporate disagreed with the general decision, even though it welcomed the dismissal of some claims under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a long-standing federal law that protects web corporations from lawsuits.

“We've built numerous tools to support parents and teens, and recently announced that we're significantly transforming the Instagram experience for tens of millions of teens with new teen accounts. “This is a protected experience for teens that automatically limits who can contact them based on the content they see,” the spokesperson said in an email. “We believe the evidence will demonstrate our commitment to supporting young people.”

Meta shares fell about 1% to $581.77 after the ruling before rising to $586.27 on the close in New York.

Rogers said “Meta's alleged years-long public deception campaign about the risks” of social media addiction and mental health harm to children was a possible violation of state and federal laws against deceptive and unfair business practices. But she said Section 230 “provides a fairly significant limitation on these claims.”

The judge also ruled on individual personal injury lawsuits brought against the foremost social media platforms on behalf of a whole bunch of youngsters, teens and young adults. It concluded that some claims could also be made based on violations of consumer protection laws.

Lexi Hazam and Previn Warren, lead attorneys for the plaintiffs, welcomed the choice, saying it confirms that the businesses must “address our allegations that they failed to warn of significant risks to users' safety and mental health, and that they engaged in misleading marketing and business tactics.”

The social media companies are also facing hundreds of lawsuits from public school districts alleging the platforms created a public nuisance. The companies won a ruling in June that dismissed lawsuits filed by some counties in state court in Los Angeles. Rogers has yet to rule on a motion to dismiss the cases consolidated in her court.

The case is People of the State of California v. Meta Platforms Inc., 4:23-cv-05448, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (Oakland).

©2024 Bloomberg LP Visit Bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Originally published: October 16, 2024 at 11:26 am

Suspicions that U.S. consumers' personal information may very well be accessed from India prompted regulators in August to abruptly block two major private sector enrollment web sites from accessing the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

New details in regards to the suspensions are included in legal documents filed late Friday and are the results of the pair's effort to regain access to the Obamacare marketplace before the ACA program's open enrollment period begins Nov. 1.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services wrote in a Letter dated 2 September The firms were told they were suspended after the agency identified “a serious security breach” that will have led to marketplace data, including consumers' personal information, being accessed from abroad.

The letter, which is attached to the court documents, also states that regulators will investigate the 2 firms because they’ve “reasonable suspicion” that they’re players in a separate issue: Enrolling people in Obamacare insurance or changing their policies without consumers’ permission.

Whether these legal issues will likely be resolved before the upcoming enrollment deadline is an open query. At this time, the concerns raised against the businesses remain allegations, and neither the legal challenges nor the audit are impending a choice or conclusion.

Still, the larger problem of fraudulent ACA filing by rogue insurance agents searching for commissions will proceed to be a headache for regulators, with greater than 200,000 consumer complaints filed in the primary six months of 2024. And it has change into a political problem for the Biden administration. GOP lawmakers accused the plans partly as a consequence of the expansion of Obamacare premium subsidies supported by Biden.

President Joe Biden called the record enrollment numbers under the ACA one in all the best achievements of his administration. Regulators at the moment are trying to forestall fraudulent enrollment programs without slowing legitimate enrollment. In recent weeks, they’ve stripped not less than 200 agents of access to the federal ACA marketplace, and in July began to requirethat in lots of cases brokers take part in three-way conferences with their clients and the healthcare.gov Help Center before changes could be finalized.

The CMS letter now adds one other layer. It is the primary time this yr that the agency has taken an organization to task for questionable enrollment. It suspects that “the Speridian Companies” can have directed its “employees and other agents to change the insurance coverage of Marketplace enrollees and to enroll insured and uninsured consumers without the enrollees' consent.”

California-based Speridian Global Holdings owns the businesses in query, including the Benefitalign enrollment platform and TrueCoverage, which operates because the Inshura enrollment site. The company has an information center in India.

According to court documents, the now-blocked Benefitalign site processed not less than 1.2 million applications for ACA coverage in the course of the last open enrollment period, making it one in all the most important private enrollment sites allowed to integrate with the federal healthcare.gov marketplace.

Previously, CMS had only publicly stated that it had blocked the web sites for “abnormal activity.”

The suspended firms deny any wrongdoing related to the enrollment programs. Spokeswoman Catherine Riedel declined to comment beyond the court documents.

At the top of August, they filed a lawsuit against CMS within the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia over the suspensions and requested an injunction. added to this grievance on September 6, calling CMS’s suspension motion “unlawful.”

On August 8, CMS blocked each web sites from accessing information from healthcare.gov.

According to the September 2 letter, the explanation for this was concern that certain consumer data was being “processed and/or stored” in India and the “suspicion” that the info was being “accessed from outside the United States.”

That's an issue, the letter says, since the marketplace's data must remain within the U.S. to “eliminate the possibility of foreign powers gaining access to it.” In addition, web sites approved by the CMS to integrate with the federal marketplace are usually not allowed to transfer data outside the U.S. or provide access from outside the country, under the terms of the contracts those firms sign to realize CMS approval to operate.

CMS didn’t explain what consumer information might need been included, but ACA applications can include information resembling an individual's name, date of birth, address and detailed household income information.

In previous years, Sperdian firms had been suspended after which reinstated from the marketplace for other reasons, including issues with incorrect Social Security numbers provided on some TrueCoverage ACA applications in 2018 and an attempt by Benefitalign in 2023 to access the federal marketplace's “software test environment” from India, the CMS letter said.

In their request for a preliminary injunction against CMS, the businesses argue that the agency's decision to suspend them now is unfair and capricious and violates its own regulations and the Due Process Clause of the Constitution.

The filing describes the Sept. 2 CMS letter explaining the explanations for the suspensions as an “ex post facto justification” that comprises a litany of “'concerns,' 'suspicions,' and 'allegations.'” The filing also states: “These insinuations of violations are made without evidence of actual violations.”

The court documents say the suspensions will prevent the businesses from participating within the upcoming open enrollment period, harming themselves in addition to “the thousands of brokers” and “millions of consumers who rely on brokers” who use these sites to enroll in ACA insurance.

The suspension will remain in effect, CMS's letter says, partly because the corporate's concerns weren’t addressed by the data provided by the businesses, but additionally at some point of the review.

CMS has “reasonable suspicion based on credible evidence it has reviewed” that the businesses were involved in enrolling consumers or changing their coverage without explicit permission, the letter says, noting that such allegations are in a Civil motion filed by private sector attorneys within the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The firms had previously stated that the allegations within the civil lawsuit were unfounded.

Brokers who’ve used the blocked sites prior to now produce other options for enrolling customers, including several other sites currently approved for integration with the federal Obamacare marketplace. Consumers may also go on to the federal or state ACA web sites and enroll themselves or get help from the decision centers related to those marketplaces.

___

©2024 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Originally published: September 11, 2024 at 1:53 p.m.

Crypto stocks hit hardest

Political parties' platforms – their positions on issues – are rarely respected. In 2020, then-President Donald Trump considered shrinking his party's platform. from 66 pages in 2016 to simply one page – but ultimately the party just kept the identical platform document from 4 years earlier. As early as 1996, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole claimed that he had never read the party program.

The Republican Party Platform 2024published on 8 July, follows closely Trump’s policy proposals and campaign rhetoricIf the Republicans simply adapted Trump's regular speeches and Dole didn't even read them, why should anyone care in regards to the party's platform?

As an authority in US party politics, I even have seen that Party programs are a very important indicator about which groups within the two major national parties have real power. They also can make it easier to predict what the national government will actually do over the following 4 years.

Where does the platform come from?

Each national party has a committee that’s accountable for drawing up its party programme. This committee is made up of vital party figures and representatives of interest groups which are closely linked to the party. They work within the spring and summer before the presidential party conventions.

When a president is in office for the primary time, his party's committee receives its instructions from the White House. Presidents don’t need to run for re-election on a platform aside from their very own. The opposition party's platform is essentially controlled by its presidential candidate – for the Republicans this yr Donald Trump – and his closest advisors.

The opposition party's program committee often holds hearings across the countryin person and online to listen to the general public's opinion. In reality, the witnesses are almost at all times leaders of interest groups.

In 2024, Republicans decided to not follow this process. The Republican National Committee’s Platform Committee as an alternative met behind closed doors to create a platform under Trump’s leadership.

The writers of party manifestos must reconcile the compelling – if highly abstract – values ​​which have drawn their supporters to the party with the concrete desires of the party's allied interest groups as the worth for his or her loyalty.

This implies that on the one hand, one praises key rhetorical points corresponding to a powerful national defense, fair treatment of all people or a superb education system, and then again, one makes concrete guarantees corresponding to appointing right-wing judges, transferring abortion policy to the states or reducing certain emissions that cause climate change. The strongest party factions can have their goals written directly into the text of the party program.

As a result, Platform authors must navigate the strain between candidates' desire to appeal to a broad electorate and interest groups' insistence on explicit commitments to their goals. Typically, a lot of the manifesto language consists of appeals to the broad electorate. The rest is a protracted list of concrete guarantees to organized groups.

Once this system is written, it’s adopted on the party congress, which takes place every 4 years. In the past, there have been heated debates about some program elements, corresponding to abortion. Now Parties are so polarizedand the national conventions have turn into such a public demonstration of unity and enthusiasm that they fight to avoid debate in regards to the program.

What happens then?

The party leadership cannot do anything to implement its program – and can’t even exclude candidates who reject this system or only weakly support it. This is since the party leadership doesn’t select the party's candidates; voters do this within the primaries, and Voters don’t necessarily follow the recommendation the national party leaders.

The classic example is Representative Phil Gramm, who was elected as a Democrat by voters in his Texas district in 1978. Gramm sided with President Ronald Reagan's policies and joined Republican representatives in supporting the Republican side. His Democratic colleagues punished him for this by stripping him of his seat on the coveted House Budget Committee.

Undaunted, Gramm returned to his district and ran as a Republican for his old seat. He won. The indisputable fact that Gramm had been elected as a Democrat but rejected a central point of the Democratic national platform seemed didn’t hassle his voters in any respect.

There are even cases where a national party would favor that its candidate in a selected district not support the party platform. For example, if Republican voters in a swing congressional district nominate a candidate who supports government motion to combat climate change, that’s prone to be the kind of Republican who has the most effective probability of winning in that district. It would do national party leaders no good to campaign for a pro-coal and pro-oil candidate who would likely lose that district to a Democrat.

Signals for upcoming actions

Platforms will not be binding on elected officials and are read by almost nobody, but they still matter.

Anyone who reads them can easily guess how a celebration's elected representatives will behave in office. Researchers have found that when a celebration controls Congress and the White House, its The spending priorities reflect the themes highlighted of their programme Most presidents strive to maintain their campaign guarantees; after they fail, it is often due to opposition in Congress or changing events.

Changes in this system over time are sometimes vital indicators of changes within the party. When the Republican program of 1980 abandoned the party's long-standing commitment to the Equal Rights Amendment and adopted strong anti-abortion language, this was clear evidence of the turn to right-wing populism that characterizes the Republican Party today.

You may never read a celebration manifesto, but don't dismiss it as empty talk; for the reason that Second World Warit could let you know quite a bit about [how the party will spend your tax dollars] and take a look at, Regulate your behavior in terms of power.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on July 23, 2020.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday placed on hold efforts in Texas and Florida to limit the best way Facebook, TikTok, X, YouTube and other social media platforms regulate the content posted by their users.

The judges referred the cases back to the lower courts attributable to objections from the businesses' trade associations.

While the specifics vary, each laws were geared toward addressing conservative complaints that the social media firms were liberal-minded and censored users based on their views, particularly on the political right. The cases are only a couple of of several this term wherein the justices are grappling with free speech standards within the digital age.

The laws in Florida and Texas were signed by Republican governors within the months after Facebook and Twitter (now X) decided to dam then-President Donald Trump for his posts related to his supporters' attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Industry groups representing the businesses filed suit in federal court, claiming the laws violated the platforms' speech rights. One federal appeals court struck down the Florida law, while one other upheld the Texas law, but each cases were stayed pending the Supreme Court's decision.

In an announcement when he signed the law in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis said it was a “protection against the Silicon Valley elites.”

When Gov. Greg Abbott signed the Texas law, he said it was essential to guard free speech in what he called the brand new public space. Social media platforms “are a place for healthy public debate, where information should be able to flow freely — but there is a dangerous movement by social media companies to silence conservative views and ideas,” Abbott said. “That is wrong, and we will not allow it in Texas.”

But lots has modified since then. Elon Musk bought Twitter and never only modified the name, but in addition disbanded teams coping with content moderation and welcomed back many users who had previously been banned for hate speech and had used the location to spread conspiracy theories.

President Joe Biden's administration sided with the plaintiffs but warned the court against in search of a narrow ruling that preserves the power of governments to issue regulations to make sure competition, preserve privacy and protect consumer interests. Trump's lawyers filed a transient within the Florida case urging the Supreme Court to uphold the state law.

During the February hearing, the judges seemed inclined to dam the laws from being implemented. Several judges indicated on the time that they viewed the platforms as newspapers, which enjoy broad freedom of expression protections, slightly than telephone firms, that are often called public transit operators and subject to more extensive regulation.

But two justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, seemed more willing to simply accept the states' arguments. Thomas recommend the concept the businesses were in search of constitutional protection for “censoring dissenting speech.” Alito also equated the platforms' content moderation with censorship.

The judges also feared that the ruling might be too broad and affect firms that aren’t on the forefront of the law, resembling e-commerce sites resembling Uber and Etsy, in addition to email and messaging services.

Chinese regulators are completing a two-month “spring cleaning” of the country’s social media.

The latest version was launched on April 23, 2024 by the Cyberspace Administration of China. Qinglang Campaign – which accurately means “clean and bright” – goals to punish Chinese social media influencers and web celebrities who’re considered Display of wealth or conscious display of an opulent life based on money to draw followers and traffic. Its reach goes beyond the behavior of mainland social media users, as Taiwanese influencers are also feeling the pressure.

China is much from the one country to officially express concern concerning the perceived dangers of social media. The US government signalled on June 17 its desire to Place warning signs on platforms like TikTok, X and Instagram. But while the US efforts are Protecting mental health For users, the well-being of Chinese society is at the guts of Beijing's crackdown – and regulators there are going beyond mere warnings.

According to the policy of the Cyberspace Administration of China, various Chinese social media platforms blocked the accounts of influencers like for instance Wang Hongquanxingwho’s nicknamed “China’s Kim Kardashian”.

Wang appears to have been censored for boasting about his extravagant clothing and other luxury items. And he will not be alone. His fellow influencer Bo Gongzi received similar treatment for the demonstration of Porsche cars, Hermes bags and other rare and expensive accessories. And Baoyu Jiajie disappeared from Chinese social media platforms after boasting about her luxurious cuisine and lavish properties.

Violation of freedom of expression on the Internet?

Official Chinese media defended the move as a step against money worship and what Beijing describes as “toxic traffic“ – or recruiting online fans for the aim of being profitable.

Analysts reminiscent of Yao-Yuan Yeh, a Taiwanese professor of political science from St. Thomas University, have argued that the cancellation of influencers flaunting their wealth will not be simply motivated by a desire to guard public morality. Rather, it serves the aim of softening the Chinese public growing sense of relative economic drawbackaggravated by China’s current economic downturn.

While Ye's argument has merit, China has an extended history of punishing influencers who boast about their wealth, long before concerns concerning the country's economic situation arose. It reflects widespread fears in Beijing that social media might be used to spread views it considers subversive.

In 2014 there was an extra increase with the Cancellation by Guo Meimei.

Guo is an online celebrity known for her photos showing a lavish lifestyle, including driving a Mercedes and owning a big mansion.

The measures against the display of wealth come as a part of a broader crackdown on what Beijing sees as morally problematic behavior, reminiscent of watching pornography, gambling, drug use, vulgar live streaming and displaying Contempt for low-income residents.

The official campaign has received broad support from generally conservative public; it will not be only enforced from above.

In this respect, Chinese social conservatism draws on a centuries-old preference for an equal distribution of wealth, reflected within the Confucian idiom that political leaders “not concern about scarcity, but about unequal distribution.”

And Many surveys show The authoritarian Chinese government enjoys great support and trust among the many population.

As MIT political scientist Lily Tsai argues, the Chinese Supporting their authoritarian government will not be simply because of fear of political retaliation or satisfaction with long-term economic success. Rather, the Chinese Communist Party can also be credited with its ability to satisfy the general public's strong desire for retribution and justice.

This signifies that the Chinese people, by and enormous, support their government even when it punishes individuals who have violated the moral values ​​shared by each the political leadership and the common people – even when this implies restricting certain personal freedoms.

Taiwanese influencers

This public support for measures to combat social media activities deemed contrary to Chinese values ​​also serves as a political tool to strengthen the Chinese Communist Party's worldview.

As Experts on Chinese cultural policywe now have noted how China is putting pressure on Taiwanese social media influencers particularly to support its campaign against online wealth display. More broadly, China is using social media to encourage nationalist support and advance its agenda of reunifying the island democracy with mainland China.

The Chinese government has tightened control of cyberspace by directly or not directly pressuring celebrities and influential figures to publicly support pro-government values ​​and policies.

This happens in the shape of a Print campaign against the brand new Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, who was elected in January, despite some Taiwanese voters are concerned about his views on independence.

On May 20, Lai stressed in his inaugural speech as president that “the Republic of China (Taiwan’s official name) and the People’s Republic of China usually are not subordinate to one another“ – Comments which are understood as an uncompromising insistence on Taiwan’s independence.

China Central Television, an official media outlet in China, published a post on its social media account saying: warn the Lai government that “Taiwan independence was never, is never and never will be possible. China will eventually achieve complete reunification.”

Many Taiwanese entertainment stars, who mainly operate within the mainland, shared the CCTV post with their followers to indicate their support for China's reunification with Taiwan. CCTV, in turn, reposted their messages: Praise from “patriotic” Taiwanese celebritiesThis not directly put pressure on other Taiwanese celebrities to publicly declare their stance on reunification.

Current research shows that Taiwanese celebrities repost official messages less regularly on average than celebrities from the mainland and Hong Kong. Nevertheless, the frequent political signaling by celebrities on Chinese social media suggests an increasing politicization of popular culture.

An online army

Both the crackdown on online wealth displays and the pressure on Taiwanese influencers reflect Beijing's recognition of the facility of social media.

In 2022, China can have the biggest variety of web and social media users – about 1.02 billionin response to the most recent statistics. Chinese people use various social media platforms reminiscent of Twitter, WeChat, Xiaohongshu And Douyin for news and knowledge – something that President Xi Jinping, who got here to power in 2012, is well aware of.

The recent “spring cleaning” of Chinese social media will not be the primary to happen under Xi's watch, and it’s unlikely to be the last. Authorities in Beijing know that if social media is tightly regulated, it could possibly be used to spread their message. But if left unchecked, it could lead on to an increasingly subversive and chaotic cyberspace.