San Mateo County school officials filed a lawsuit this week alleging three major social media companies—YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat—are designed to be purposefully addictive and that the platforms have sparked a mental health crisis among young people. In the suit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the San Mateo County Board of Education and Superintendent Nancy Magee claim the social media giants designed their products to target youth at the expense of their mental health. The suit alleges the platforms harm schools, inhibit education, increase absenteeism and are even responsible for physical damage to school property. “There is hard science behind the claim that social media is fueling a mental health epidemic in school-age children,” Magee said in a news release.
Blog
03-18 BEWARE: ‘Patient Influencers’ are Being Paid by Big Pharma to Mislead TikTok and Instagram Followers About Drugs like Wegovy, Experts Warn
‘Patient influencers’ are being paid by big pharma to mislead TikTok and Instagram followers about drugs like Wegovy, experts warn
- Researchers interviewed 26 patient influencers, mainly ‘mico-influencers’
- More than half had collaborated with a pharmaceutical company in some way
- Maker of ‘miracle’ weight loss jab Wegovy ‘bribed pharmacists’
- Are you a patient influencer or do you know one? Contact caitlin.tilley@mailonline.com
So-called ‘patient influencers’ are being paid by big pharmaceutical companies to make content that might mislead their TikTok and Instagram followers, experts warn. With trust in pharmaceutical companies decreasing, drug makers are cashing in on real patients turned social media influencers to spread the word about their products. An influx of posts on TikTok and Twitter has put drugs such as weight-loss shots Ozempic and Wegovy in the spotlight, leading some to take it without a doctor’s prescription.
03-17 Dr. Rachel Levine Says Changing Kids’ Genders Will Soon be Fully Embraced: ‘Wheels Will Turn on This’
Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Rachel Levine promised that medically changing kids’ genders will soon be normalized.
Levine praised the “gender-affirming care” at the Pediatric Grand Rounds session at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford. Levine was invited to speak at the event about the Florida Parental Rights in Education law and the political implications of gender reassignment surgery taking place at children’s hospitals.
03-16 Trainee Family Doctor, 32, is Arrested ‘After Cops Found Huge Trove of Child Porn and Clips of Him Examining Children He’d Secretly Recorded on a BRACELET’ During Search of His Parents’ Home
Trainee family doctor, 32, is arrested ‘after cops found huge trove of child porn and clips of him examining children he’d secretly recorded on a BRACELET’ during search of his parents’ $1.1m mansion
- Thousands of images and videos on over 60 devices were seized from properties linked to 32-year-old Dr. Bradford David Ferrick, federal prosecutors claims
A trainee family doctor concealed a huge trove of child porn – and secretly recorded himself examining children using a camera hidden in a bracelet, police say.
Dr Bradford David Ferrick, 32, appeared at a Boston federal court on Tuesday and was ordered held without bail over the disturbing allegations.
Raids at his apartment in Amherst and at his parents’ $1.1 million Winchester mansion are said to have turned up thousands of child porn images held on 60 electronic devices.
03-15 Sex Traffickers: The Hidden Role of Women
Key points
- Although sex trafficking is traditionally seen as a male-perpetrated offense, female traffickers are more common than male traffickers.
- Female traffickers are often victims themselves exposed to the lifestyle early on.
- Trauma and abuse play major roles in the likelihood of a female sex trafficker.
03-14 Cops Rescue ‘Kidnapped’ 13-year-old from a Locked Shed in North Carolina after She was Groomed on Social Media and Lured with Cash from her Home 1,000 Miles Away in Dallas: Man, 34, is Arrested for Abduction
The girl was found on property belonging to Jorge Camacho, 34, who has been arrested and charged with multiple offenses including rape, child abduction and human trafficking.
Camacho was arrested after police discovered he had used a social media messenger to groom and lure the abducted girl from her home.
03-13 EXCLUSIVE: America’s Child Marriage SHAME: More than 100 Teen Girls in the United States Have Wed Older Adult Men Since 2021, Risking Lopsided Unions with Abusive ‘Groomer’ Husbands They Can’t Escape
EXCLUSIVE: America’s child marriage SHAME: More than 100 teen girls in have wed older adult men since 2021, risking lopsided unions with abusive ‘groomer’ husbands they can’t escape
- The era of 11-year-olds marrying older men is in America’s rearview mirror
- But exclusive data show how scores of mid-teen girls are still getting hitched
- West Virginia, Michigan, and Wyoming recorded many child marriages in 2021
The era of 11-year-old girls marrying much older men is in America’s rearview mirror, but exclusive new data show that a worrying number of youths in their mid-teens are still getting hitched to adults.
DailyMail.com obtained figures from Unchained At Last, a non-profit that campaigns to end young marriages, showing how scores of kids — mostly girls aged 16 and 17 — have wed adults from Maine to North Dakota these past two years.
That includes 30 teens in West Virginia, 39 in Michigan and another 15 in Wyoming in 2021, according to the latest figures gathered from state sources that can take years to trickle through the system.
03-12 NEW BOOK RECOMMENDATION: Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation
03-11 Meta, Owner of Facebook and Instagram, is Building its Own Twitter: Report
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) is reportedly giving a hard look at building its own take on the digital town square.
The Facebook parent is exploring creating a stand-alone app for text updates that would serve as a rival to Twitter (TWTR), which is now several months into a tenure as a private company under the control of billionaire Elon Musk, according to Reuters.
“We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates,” a spokeperson told the news service. “We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests.”
Unlike Twitter, Meta would base its app on a decentralized platform like Mastodon, a free and open-source Twitter-like service that saw a surge in users in the fall after Musk took over Twitter and began implementing changes to the platform.
That would echo the move former President Donald Trump made in launching his Truth Social network, also based on Mastodon code.
03-10 Overmedicated: How the US Foster Care System Is Failing Our Children
On Jan. 17 a federal class action lawsuit was filed against the state of Maryland Department of Human Services (DHS) over inadequate prescription oversight of psychotropic drugs for children in the foster care system—putting them in danger of overdoses and serious side effects.
According to the lawsuit, recent DHS data shows that at least 72.1 percent of children in Maryland foster care who are taking psychotropic drugs “do not have a documented psychiatric diagnosis.”
The lawsuit states that “this could suggest that psychotropic drugs are not administered in response to a diagnosed mental health condition but instead are administered as a form of chemical restraint,” and “at minimum, it evidences inadequate medical record-keeping.”