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Doximity at the New York Stock Exchange for their IPO, June 24, 2021.

Source: NYSE

Doximity, the medical website that’s used by more than 80% of U.S. doctors, is now trying to protect its millions of members after a spike in harassment that started during the Covid pandemic.

The 13-year-old company has introduced a free service called DocDefender that can scrub a physician’s personal contact information from the internet. The technology scans dozens of the most common websites where a doctor’s information might reside and automatically initiates the removal process.

Doximity’s platform, which for years was described as LinkedIn for doctors, allows health-care workers to stay current on medical news, manage paperwork, find referrals and carry out telehealth appointments with patients. Since the Covid pandemic broke out in 2020, health-care workers have faced elevated levels of harassment and violence due largely to the politicization of masking, social distancing and vaccine requirements.

Doximity says the new feature is all about giving peace of mind to doctors so they can feel safer in their personal and professional lives and can focus on providing better care.

Dr. Amit Phull, chief physician experience officer at Doximity, said the feature is a service that users wanted. In March, more than 200 doctors traveled to Doximity’s headquarters in San Francisco to help the company workshop new ideas for its platform. When executives presented DocDefender, they received a resounding standing ovation. 

“We’ve gotten positive feedback before,” Phull told CNBC in an interview. “That was a first for us.” 

Two months after the workshopping event, Doximity conducted a survey of more than 2,000 doctors and found that 85% of them worry about whether patients will access their personal information online. That number is higher within certain high-stress specialties like physical medicine and rehabilitation, neurology, emergency medicine and psychiatry.

Jeff Tangney, CEO, of Doximity at the New York Stock Exchange for their IPO, June 24, 2021.

Source: NYSE

Phull, who practices as a physician in emergency medicine, said he’s felt concerned about his safety many times throughout his career. He carried out his trauma training in Chicago, where he treated several victims of gang-related violence. Phull said he was often thrust in the middle of complex conflicts that were out of his control, and he worried that people would find him online and retaliate.  

“If you find yourself in one of those high-intensity situations, and outside of the scope of your practice that conflict still persists, that online element can be kind of scary,” he said.  

Since the onset of the pandemic, many patients have a shorter fuse. 

“I’ve been swung at by patients,” he said. “We certainly deal with a lot of hostility.”

Phull said that in testing the technology, he found details like his phone number, his relatives, his past and current addresses — and even a map to his old home on more than 25 websites. Now that he knows that information is being removed, Phull said he and his wife feel a little more comfortable.  

DocDefender users can monitor the removal process directly through Doximity’s interface, and they will receive regular follow-up reports about the status of their online presence. Additional scans will also be carried out periodically to identify any new listings. 

The service will be available to all doctors on Doximity starting Wednesday, and will expand to nurse practitioners and others over time. 

‘Opportunity to think very long term’

In addition to reaching more than 80% of U.S. doctors, Doximity says it’s also used by 50% of nurse practitioners and physician assistants. 

The platform verifies members to ensure that they’re practicing health-care professionals. Approved clinicians can use Doximity for free, as the company primarily generates revenue through its hiring, marketing and telehealth solutions.  

Doximity debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in June 2021, during the peak of the tech bull market. Its market cap climbed to $9.4 billion in its first day of trading, but has since fallen below $4 billion.

CEO Jeff Tangney, who co-founded Doximity in 2010, told CNBC the company is able to offer DocDefender for free in part because of its strong profit margins. 

“We just have the opportunity to think very long term and to invest in things that doctors really want, and that’s what we’re doing here,” he said.

Dr. Azlan Tariq, a physical medicine and rehabilitation doctor and the chief clinical officer at a  physiatry organization called Medrina, had early access to DocDefender.

Doximity CEO on physician social network going public: "Our mission is to help doctors be more productive"

PM&R physicians often deal with patients suffering chronic pain and are responsible for prescribing — and denying — medications like opioids. Around 96% of PM&R doctors reported feeling concerned about their online privacy in Doximity’s May survey.

Tariq said he’s taken steps to try and protect both his online identity and his physical safety, leaving social media sites like Facebook and taking down personal information elsewhere. He tries not to shop near his clinic to avoid disgruntled patients, and he said he’s always paying attention to his environment.

On one occasion, a patient was waiting for Tariq in the parking lot outside of his clinic. While the patient ultimately meant no harm, Tariq said he had to assume the worst. 

“You just think about exits. How can I get out of this?” he said. “Can I get back in the car? Can I get the door of the clinic and go behind? Those are just the normal behaviors.”

He added that some of his colleagues seriously consider carrying a gun. 

Since testing DocDefender, Tariq said he’s already noticed some of his personal information has been removed online, adding he feels a little more at ease.

Still, DocDefender doesn’t entirely remove the risk of being found. Dr. Jasdeep Gill, a psychiatrist, said there are some databases for Medicare and Medicaid that list doctors’ information, as well as websites that use their specific provider numbers. 

“Within the last two weeks, I’ve had two different people call my cell phone and request care, and I don’t know how they found my cellphone number,” said Gill, commenting that DocDefender is a step in the right direction to guard against this. “Trying to figure out how they got that information left me feeling just kind of uncomfortable.”

Gill works with patients, including some who are incarcerated, dealing with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and substance abuse. He said he started taking the risks more seriously after a patient made threats against him while he was in residency. 

Gill said he paid $20 a month for an information-removal service, but that process was “clunky” and “cumbersome.” He called Doximity’s tool a “really easy service to use” and sees it as a way for physicians to maintain the boundary between their professional and private lives. 

“Our background history of where we live, who we’re married to, what our cellphone numbers are, are things that are personal and that should be kept separate from the public’s view,” Gill said. “By creating that separation, it allows us to just do our jobs and focus on health care instead of worrying about safety.”

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AI could affect 40% of jobs and widen inequality between nations, UN warns

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AI could affect 40% of jobs and widen inequality between nations, UN warns

Artificial intelligence robot looking at futuristic digital data display.

Yuichiro Chino | Moment | Getty Images

Artificial intelligence is projected to reach $4.8 trillion in market value by 2033, but the technology’s benefits remain highly concentrated, according to the U.N. Trade and Development agency.

In a report released on Thursday, UNCTAD said the AI market cap would roughly equate to the size of Germany’s economy, with the technology offering productivity gains and driving digital transformation. 

However, the agency also raised concerns about automation and job displacement, warning that AI could affect 40% of jobs worldwide. On top of that, AI is not inherently inclusive, meaning the economic gains from the tech remain “highly concentrated,” the report added. 

“The benefits of AI-driven automation often favour capital over labour, which could widen inequality and reduce the competitive advantage of low-cost labour in developing economies,” it said. 

The potential for AI to cause unemployment and inequality is a long-standing concern, with the IMF making similar warnings over a year ago. In January, The World Economic Forum released findings that as many as 41% of employers were planning on downsizing their staff in areas where AI could replicate them.  

However, the UNCTAD report also highlights inequalities between nations, with U.N. data showing that 40% of global corporate research and development spending in AI is concentrated among just 100 firms, mainly those in the U.S. and China. 

Furthermore, it notes that leading tech giants, such as Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft — companies that stand to benefit from the AI boom — have a market value that rivals the gross domestic product of the entire African continent. 

This AI dominance at national and corporate levels threatens to widen those technological divides, leaving many nations at risk of lagging behind, UNCTAD said. It noted that 118 countries — mostly in the Global South — are absent from major AI governance discussions. 

UN recommendations 

But AI is not just about job replacement, the report said, noting that it can also “create new industries and and empower workers” — provided there is adequate investment in reskilling and upskilling.

But in order for developing nations not to fall behind, they must “have a seat at the table” when it comes to AI regulation and ethical frameworks, it said.

In its report, UNCTAD makes a number of recommendations to the international community for driving inclusive growth. They include an AI public disclosure mechanism, shared AI infrastructure, the use of open-source AI models and initiatives to share AI knowledge and resources. 

Open-source generally refers to software in which the source code is made freely available on the web for possible modification and redistribution.

“AI can be a catalyst for progress, innovation, and shared prosperity – but only if countries actively shape its trajectory,” the report concludes. 

“Strategic investments, inclusive governance, and international cooperation are key to ensuring that AI benefits all, rather than reinforcing existing divides.”

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Nvidia positioned to weather Trump tariffs, chip demand ‘off the charts,’ says Altimeter’s Gerstner

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Nvidia positioned to weather Trump tariffs, chip demand 'off the charts,' says Altimeter's Gerstner

Altimeter CEO Brad Gerstner is buying Nvidia

Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner said Thursday that he’s moving out of the “bomb shelter” with Nvidia and into a position of safety, expecting that the chipmaker is positioned to withstand President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs.

“The growth and the demand for GPUs is off the charts,” he told CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report,” referring to Nvidia’s graphics processing units that are powering the artificial intelligence boom. He said investors just need to listen to commentary from OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk.

President Trump announced an expansive and aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy in a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. The plan established a 10% baseline tariff, though many countries like China, Vietnam and Taiwan are subject to steeper rates. The announcement sent stocks tumbling on Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq down more than 5%, headed for its worst day since 2022.

The big reason Nvidia may be better positioned to withstand Trump’s tariff hikes is because semiconductors are on the list of exceptions, which Gerstner called a “wise exception” due to the importance of AI.

Nvidia’s business has exploded since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, and annual revenue has more than doubled in each of the past two fiscal years. After a massive rally, Nvidia’s stock price has dropped by more than 20% this year and was down almost 7% on Thursday.

Gerstner is concerned about the potential of a recession due to the tariffs, but is relatively bullish on Nvidia, and said the “negative impact from tariffs will be much less than in other areas.”

He said it’s key for the U.S. to stay competitive in AI. And while the company’s chips are designed domestically, they’re manufactured in Taiwan “because they can’t be fabricated in the U.S.” Higher tariffs would punish companies like Meta and Microsoft, he said.

“We’re in a global race in AI,” Gerstner said. “We can’t hamper our ability to win that race.”

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YouTube announces Shorts editing features amid potential TikTok ban

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YouTube announces Shorts editing features amid potential TikTok ban

Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images

YouTube on Thursday announced new video creation tools for Shorts, its short-form video feed that competes against TikTok. 

The features come at a time when TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is at risk of an effective ban in the U.S. if it’s not sold to an American owner by April 5.

Among the new tools is an updated video editor that allows creators to make precise adjustments and edits, a feature that automatically syncs video cuts to the beat of a song and AI stickers.

The creator tools will become available later this spring, said YouTube, which is owned by Google

Along with the new features, YouTube last week said it was changing the way view counts are tabulated on Shorts. Under the new guidelines, Shorts views will count the number of times the video is played or replayed with no minimum watch time requirement. 

Previously, views were only counted if a video was played for a certain number of seconds. This new tabulation method is similar to how views are counted on TikTok and Meta’s Reels, and will likely inflate view counts.

“We got this feedback from creators that this is what they wanted. It’s a way for them to better understand when their Shorts have been seen,” YouTube Chief Product Officer Johanna Voolich said in a YouTube video. “It’s useful for creators who post across multiple platforms.”

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