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Seventh grade Alabama teacher Sarah Wildes relies on a tool called Checkology to teach her students how to spot real news and misinformation.
Courtesy of Sarah Wildes

When Sarah Wildes, a seventh grade teacher in Alabama, was asked by a student about the mass confusion surrounding the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, she knew she had a big job in front of her. 

“I have to tread lightly, but I pointed out that we do know,” said Wildes, a science and technology teacher at Sparkman Middle School in the small town of Toney. “There are facts. There have been committees who reviewed the election. The numbers show us a truth, but the social media bubbles confuse us about that truth.”

Wildes and teachers across the country face a vexing and evolving challenge as the new school year begins and students return to the classroom following a roughly 18-month hiatus from normal in-person learning. Since the last time full classrooms congregated, a whole industry of misinformation has exploded online, spreading conspiracy theories on everything from the alleged steal of the presidential election, which Joe Biden won, to the prevalence of microchips in Covid-19 vaccines.

It’s bad enough that kids are exposed to dangerous untruths across their favorite social media apps like Facebook, YouTube and TikTok. An equally large problem is that, while stuck at home during the pandemic, many students had their days of virtual schooling interrupted by screaming parents, who themselves had fallen deep into the internet’s darkest rabbit holes.

Some 15 percent of Americans believe QAnon conspiracy theories, according to a May report from non-profit groups Public Religion Research Institute and Interfaith Youth Core. QAnon believers were largely responsible for spreading “stop the steal” content on social media, backing the lie that former president Donald Trump won the election.

Meanwhile, 22% of Americans self-identify as anti-vaxxers, according to an academic study published in May, even as scientists and public health officials agree on the extreme efficacy and importance of Covid-19 vaccines.

For kids who have yet to fully develop critical thinking skills, basic truths are being distorted by the combination of misinformation on social media and a growing population of duped and radicalized parents.

“They were at home consuming this information without really being able to bust out of their own bubble having been in quarantine,” Wildes said. “They were starved for guidance on how to navigate all the things that they were seeing.”

In addition to dealing with the standard curriculum and trying to make up for lost classroom time, Wildes is taking on the responsibility of helping students filter out misinformation and find reliable news outlets. She’s leaning on the News Literacy Project (NLP), a non-profit in Washington, D.C., that last year developed Checkology, an online tool for educators to help students spot and dispel misinformation.

Checkology teaches students about the various types of misinformation they may encounter, the role the press plays in democracy, understanding bias in the news and recognizing how people fall into conspiracies. Since its launch in May 2016, Checkology has registered more than 1.3 million students and nearly 36,300 teachers. 

“The pandemic, the election, social justice issues — people are looking for information, and educators need support to navigate that disinformation out there,” said Shaelynn Farnsworth, NLP’s director of educator network expansion.

Finding a Reddit community

Other online communities are giving the children of conspiracy theorists ways to connect and share their experiences. And also to detox.

Mobius, a 17-year-old who lives on the West Coast, said his mom is an anti-vaxxer who has started down the path of QAnon. Mobius, who asked us not to use his real name to preserve his family relationships, said his mom talks about the coronavirus as biological warfare and thinks the government is trying to profit from vaccines. He said 90% of her information comes from Facebook or TikTok.

In July, most of Mobius’s family was infected with Covid-19 after his mother contracted the virus and didn’t enter quarantine. She even traveled by plane while she was sick, said Mobius, adding that he was the only one in the family to get vaccinated and to avoid infection.

He said his mom wouldn’t let his siblings get the vaccine and that he missed several childhood immunizations growing up.

Mobius posted about his experience in QAnonCasualties, a Reddit group that says it offers “support, resources and a place to vent” for people who have friends or loved ones “taken in by QAnon.” The group was created in July 2019 and has 186,000 members. It’s flooded with stories that resemble Mobius’ experience.

A woman wearing a pin during an anti-mandatory coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine protest held outside New York City Hall in New York, August 16, 2021.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters

One user post last month was from a university student recounting the anxiety she felt after her dad showed her a video that claimed Covid vaccines would make her infertile. A more recent post came from a 16-year-old girl, who claims she recently “escaped” her abusive QAnon parents and doesn’t know whether to get the Covid vaccination.

“I don’t know what’s real or not anymore,” she wrote on the Reddit board. “I’m terrified and confused. My parents told me I’d get blood clots, I’d die, be dead within five years, be sterile, microchipped, tracked by the government, controlled by the government etc.” 

QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory movement that emerged after the 2016 election. Though the messaging is disjointed, members often claim the world is controlled by a cabal of Satanic and cannibalistic elites who conspired against former President Trump.

Mobius, who just entered college and needed the vaccination to attend, said he began to question his family’s views around the time Trump entered office. He got more proactive in seeking the facts, turning to news sources rather than listening to his mom. He landed on the Associated Press and BBC as his most trusted outlets.

Still, Mobius said he tries to avoid talking about anything remotely political with his mom’s side of the family. He said his mom has gotten better about spouting conspiracies since getting sick, though her beliefs haven’t changed.

On QAnonCasualties, divorcees mourn the loss of decades-long relationships, workers talk about leaving their jobs because of a supervisor’s anti-vaccine rants and teens and young adults desperately vent about their parents.

Afraid of ‘vaccine toxicity’

Another member of the Reddit group, who asked to be called Vulture, posted on the board in early August, looking for support and advice on dealing with her mom. 

Vulture, who’s 18 and was only comfortable going by a pseudonym, described her mom as an anti-vaxxer who began diving into the QAnon conspiracy in early 2020, at the start of the pandemic.

She said her mom believes 5G cell phone towers are harmful (one QAnon theory says that 5G causes the coronavirus), and she doesn’t allow her children to have WiFi on at night because she’s concerned about radiation. Vulture said her mom gets her information from Facebook, YouTube, Telegram and even in-person groups. 

Vulture’s parents divorced and her mom is now married to another woman. Her mom’s wife got vaccinated earlier this year, creating a riff in the relationship because Vulture’s mom was afraid she had “vaccine toxicity” and told her wife she no longer loved her unconditionally. 

Vulture said her mom has also threatened to kick her and her younger sibling out of the house if they get vaccinated, a threat that weighs heavily on her, especially as she prepares for her freshman year in college.

Jake A, 33, aka Yellowstone Wolf, from Phoenix, wrapped in a QAnon flag, addresses supporters of US President Donald Trump as they protest outside the Maricopa County Election Department as counting continues after the US presidential election in Phoenix, Arizona, on November 5, 2020.
Olivier Touron | AFP | Getty Images

While teenagers like Mobius and Vulture are finding like-minded people online, groups such as Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab (PERIL) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) are trying to protect kids from falling victim to hoaxes and disinformation.

Last year PERIL and SPLC published “A Parents & Caregivers Guide to Online Youth Radicalization,” to help adults deal with teenagers who are at risk of exposure to extremism and conspiracy theories.

“Radicalization is a problem for our entire society, from the innocent people it victimizes to the family bonds it breaks apart,” the guide says. It includes sections on how to recognize warning signs, understanding what drives people toward extremism and how caregivers can engage with at-risk youth.

PERIL and the SPLC also created supplements to the guide for educators, counselors and coaches and mentors.

Seventh grade Alabama teacher Sarah Wildes relies on a tool called Checkology to teach her students how to spot real news and misinformation.
Courtesy of Sarah Wildes

Wildes, the Alabama school teacher, sees a bigger role for the classroom and technology like Checkology in combating the spread of misinformation.

“Once people start going down the rabbit hole, it’s hard to get them out,” she said.

Checkology isn’t dogmatic in its approach, Wildes said. Through interactive lessons, the program is designed to give kids the tools to figure out what’s a hoax and what’s a fact supported by evidence. NLP also puts together a weekly newsletter, The Sift, which is intended to help educators teach students news literacy and to understand why a hoax or conspiracy theory that’s spreading is inaccurate.

Wildes said, based on the behavior she witnesses, that she thinks many middle school kids today are better equipped than adults to reject misinformation.

“I think they really enjoy being spoken to in a way that makes them responsible for their own thoughts,” she said.

WATCH: Former Facebook chief privacy officer on fighting vaccine misinformation

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E-commerce firm Shopee agreed to adjust its practices in Indonesia after watchdog says it violated competition law

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E-commerce firm Shopee agreed to adjust its practices in Indonesia after watchdog says it violated competition law

BRAZIL – 2022/03/22: In this photo illustration, a woman’s silhouette holds a smartphone with a Shopee logo in the background. (Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Rafael Henrique | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Shopee and its courier service Shopee Express agreed to adjust its current practices after admitting to breaching a competition rule in Indonesia, the country’s watchdog said on Wednesday.

Shopee is the e-commerce arm of Southeast Asian tech giant Sea Limited.

“Shopee and Shopee Express admitted that they had violated Law no. 5 of 1999, regarding delivery (courier) services on the Shopee platform by agreeing to various behavioral change points determined by the KPPU Council in the hearing yesterday,” Indonesia Competition Commission Komisi Pengawas Persaingan Usaha said in a Google-translated statement.

KPPU said Shopee proposed adjustments to its current practices on June 20 which were approved by the commission council.

“Shopee Indonesia attended a meeting with KPPU on 25 June to discuss points of the integrity pact that was shared by KPPU last week. On 20 June, Shopee proposed changes to our user interface to enhance our services and demonstrate our compliance in providing the best services to our users, in accordance with the feedback provided and approved by the KPPU,” Radynal Nataprawira, head of public affairs at Shopee Indonesia, told CNBC in emailed comments.

“Shopee is always committed to complying with all applicable regulations and laws in the Republic of Indonesia in conducting our business operations,” said Nataprawira.

Last month, KPPU revealed its preliminary investigation found that Shopee allegedly prioritized Shopee Express in every package delivery to consumers.

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The watchdog also accused Shopee of “discriminatory behavior,” saying Shopee Express and another delivery service J&T Express were “automatically activated en masse on the seller dashboard” while other companies that also have good service performance did not get selected automatically.

KPPU investigators also named an employee who held director positions in both Shopee Indonesia and Shopee Express, saying this “dual position” has the ability to influence competition and control the behavior of both companies.

KPPU is also probing Shopee rival Lazada, the Southeast Asian e-commerce arm of Chinese tech giant Alibaba, saying it has found indications of similar violations.

“If it is later proven to have violated, Lazada can be subject to a fine of a maximum of 50% of the net profit or 10% of the total sales it earned in the relevant market during the period of the violation,” KPPU said in a statement last month.

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Europe is at risk of over-restricting AI and falling behind U.S. and China, Dutch prince says  

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Europe is at risk of over-restricting AI and falling behind U.S. and China, Dutch prince says  

Prince Constantijn is special envoy to Techleap, a Dutch startup accelerator.

Patrick Van Katwijk | Getty Images

AMSTERDAM — Europe is at risk of falling behind the U.S. and China on artificial intelligence as it focuses on regulating the technology, according to Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands.

“Our ambition seems to be limited to being good regulators,” Constantijn told CNBC in an interview on the sidelines of the Money 20/20 fintech conference in Amsterdam earlier this month.

Prince Constantijn is the third and youngest son of former Dutch Queen Beatrix and the younger brother of reigning Dutch King Willem-Alexander.

He is special envoy of the Dutch startup accelerator Techleap, where he works to help local startups grow fast internationally by improving their access to capital, market, talent, and technologies.

“We’ve seen this in the data space [with GDPR], we’ve seen this now in the platform space, and now with the AI space,” Constantijn added.

European Union regulators have taken a tough approach to artificial intelligence, with formal regulations limiting how developers and companies can apply the technology in certain scenarios.

The bloc gave final approval to the EU AI Act, a ground-breaking AI law, last month.

Officials are concerned by how quickly the technology is advancing and risks it poses around jobs displacement, privacy, and algorithmic bias.

The law takes a risk-based approach to artificial intelligence, meaning that different applications of the tech are treated differently depending on their risk level.

For generative AI applications, the EU AI Act sets out clear transparency requirements and copyright rules.

All generative AI systems would have to make it possible to prevent illegal output, to disclose if content is produced by AI and to publish summaries of the copyrighted data used for training purposes.

But the EU’s Ai Act requires even stricter scrutiny for high-impact, general-purpose AI models that could pose “systemic risk,” such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 — including thorough evaluations and compulsory reporting of any “serious incidents.”

Prince Constantijn said he’s “really concerned” that the Europe’s focus has been more on regulating AI than trying to become a leader innovating in the space.

“It’s good to have guardrails. We want to bring clarity to the market, predictability and all that,” he told CNBC earlier this month on the sidelines of Money 20/20. “But it’s very hard to do that in such a fast-moving space.”

“There are big risks in getting it wrong, and like we’ve seen in genetically modified organisms, it hasn’t stopped the development. It just stopped Europe developing it, and now we are consumers of the product, rather than producers able to influence the market as it develops.”

Between 1994 and 2004, the EU had imposed an effective moratorium on new approvals of genetically modified crops over perceived health risks associated with them.

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The bloc subsequently developed strict rules for GMOs, citing a need to protect citizens’ health and the environment. The U.S. National Academies of Sciences says that genetically modified crops are safe for both human consumption and the environment.

Constantijn added that Europe is making it “quite hard” for itself to innovate in AI due to “big restrictions on data,” particularly when it comes to sectors like health and medical science.

In addition, the U.S. market is “a much bigger and unified market” with more free-flowing capital, Constantijn said. On these points he added, “Europe scores quite poorly.”

“Where we score well is, I think, on talent,” he said. “We score well on technology itself.”

Plus, when it comes to developing applications that use AI, “Europe is definitely going to be competitive,” Constantijn noted. He nevertheless added that “the underlying data infrastructure and IT infrastructure is something we’ll keep depending on large platforms to provide.”

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Waymo opens robotaxi service to all San Francisco users

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Waymo opens robotaxi service to all San Francisco users

A Waymo rider-only robotaxi is seen during a test ride in San Francisco on Dec. 9, 2022.

Paresh Dave | Reuters

Waymo robotaxis are now open to all users in San Francisco, expanding the self-driving ride-hailing service, which has been available in the city to a limited number of riders.

In a blog post on Tuesday, Waymo said nearly 300,000 people have signed up for the service, called Waymo One, since the Alphabet-owned company opened its waitlist. The company began commercial passenger operations in August after a period of testing.

“We’re committed to growing our service gradually and responsibly,” Waymo said in the post. “We work closely with city and state officials, first responders, and advocates for road safety to ensure our service helps local communities gain access to reliable, safe, environmentally friendly transportation and has a positive impact on mobility.”

It is the second citywide rollout for Waymo, following Phoenix in 2020. Waymo One also operates in limited capacity in Los Angeles and Austin, Texas. As of February, the company had approximately 700 vehicles in the Waymo One fleet, including about 300 cars as part of its San Francisco service.

Driverless vehicles have faced some public backlash in recent months following collisions and other accidents. In October, General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicle unit paused all driverless operations after collisions led to investigations and a suspension of its licenses in California.

However, Waymo has experienced less controversy. The company has a large public affairs operation and communicates closely with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and local first responders.

In total, the 15-year-old project, which became Waymo in 2016, has driven about 20 million fully autonomous miles and nearly two million paid ride-hail trips, Waymo said. The company said it has logged 3.8 million rider-only miles in San Francisco as of the end of March.  

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