Welcome back to Lately, The Globe’s weekly tech newsletter. If you have feedback or just want to say hello to a real-life human, send me an e-mail.
In this week’s issue:
🤳 Instagram unveils new changes for teens
⛔ Meta bans RT from its platforms
🚑 An AI tool that can save lives, seriously
👀 For Canadian Eyes Only: TikTok is a potential tool for foreign interference
SOCIAL MEDIA
Sorry, teens. It’s going to be harder to spy on your crushes on Instagram
Instagram is putting teens on private mode.Damian Dovarganes/The Associated Press
On Tuesday, Instagram introduced new rules around how teens use the platform. The profiles of all users under 18 years old will now be made private by default, which means the account holder must approve new followers before they can see, like or comment on their posts. While that’s unfortunate news for teens who use the app to inconspicuously spy on crushes, Instagram says the changes will create a safer environment. The app is bringing in more parental supervision tools that allow parents to see who their teens are messaging, how long they’re on the app and set screen time limits.
The app will also block sensitive content from appearing on teens’ Explore and Reels pages, such as nudity, people fighting or promoting cosmetic procedures. Teens aged 16 or 17 will be able to change these new default settings, but those younger would need a parent’s approval. But can’t crafty teens simply lie about their age? Well, yes, but Instagram says it’s implementing an age verification regime that requires teen’s show ID or submit a selfie video for facial analysis that can determine someone’s age.
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE
Top secret CSIS document flags TikTok as potential tool for foreign interference
In a December, 2022 document marked “Top Secret and Canadian Eyes Only”, Canada’s spy agency CSIS warned the government that TikTok has the potential to be exploited by the Chinese government “to bolster its influence and power overseas, including in Canada.” TikTok says that user data is protected, but the CSIS document, which was declassified as part of the public hearings into foreign interference, alleges the Chinese government can access user data, including biometrics such as a user’s face, facial geometry, iris scans, voice recognition and fingerprints as well as location, gender, phone numbers, contacts, e-mail addresses and browsing history. The document also said that TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, allegedly suppresses posts that reflect poorly on non-Western countries and spreads disinformation in North America. ByteDance is currently appealing a U.S. law that would force the company to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company, or face a ban in the United States, alleging it poses a national security risk.
MISINFORMATION
The Quebec influencer, Russian propaganda and the Meta ban
Meta is banning RT from its platforms.Dado Ruvic/Reuters
In more foreign interference news: The Quebec right-wing influencer, Lauren Chen, and her husband, Liam Donovan, are being accused of accepting nearly US$10-million from Russian state media to spread Kremlin-friendly content to their followers. An unsealed criminal indictment alleges that the scheme was hatched by officials from the Russian state-controlled outlet RT and relied heavily on Chen and Donovan’s Tennessee-based company, Tenet Media. Chen and Donovan have not been charged, but the RT employees – Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva – are accused of money laundering. Now two weeks after the indictment, Meta announced it’s banning RT from its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, citing “foreign interference activity.” The alleged scheme is part of Russia’s long history of interfering in American elections, such as using internet trolls, fake accounts and bot farms on social media.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AI healthcare tool led to 26 per cent decrease in unexpected deaths
Although artificial intelligence has so far failed to live up to the hype in some areas – it’s still not great at speeding up drug development, increasing productivity or generating human-like hands – a new study has found it’s doing a good job at saving lives. CHARTWatch is an AI tool, developed by St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, that works as an early-warning system, flagging if a patient is at high risk of dying or needing intensive care. A year-and-a-half long study looked at around 13,000 patient admissions to St. Mike’s general internal medicine ward, which was using the tool, and compared the outcomes to other units at the hospital. The study found that use of the AI system led to a 26 per cent drop in the number of unexpected deaths among hospitalized patients.
What else we’re reading this week:
Don’t ask if AI can make art — ask how AI can be art (The Verge)
Lo-Fi weather channel videos Are soothing climate fears on YouTube (WIRED)
The collapse of self-worth in the digital age (The Walrus)
Soundbite:
“Being really, really focused on work and productivity can often be a way of avoiding the whole vulnerable, distressing messiness of relationships.”
— Oliver Burkeman, author of Meditations for Mortals and The Imperfectionist newsletter, as heard on this week's Lately.
Adult Money
ORGANIZATION
Me and this agenda are in a 10-year relationship.Supplied
Moleskine weekly planner, $28
Productivity and organizational apps such as Slack, Trello, Notion and Google Calendar have become mainstays in the workplace. But increasingly they’re encroaching on our personal lives. When a certain group of friends want to get together (ahem, Globe friends), they send me a Google Calendar invite. When my partner wanted to “optimize” our archive of favourite recipes, he invited me to a Notion project.
But when it comes to organization in my personal life, I still prefer the analogue. For the past decade, I’ve been getting the same black Moleskine weekly planner every January. It has the days stacked on one side and plain lines on the other for note-taking. If I’m feeling extra wild, I’ll get it in dark blue instead. I love this planner. It’s compact, simple and offers a small reprieve from looking at a screen. If you also question the way productivity apps have crept into all aspects of our lives, listen to this week’s episode of Lately about what can happen when our relationships are too optimized.
Also, I want to know: Are you also an agenda or planner freak? Tell me your favs at sedwards@globeandmail.com
Culture radar
STREAMING
The Toronto set for the reality show Beast Games.Paige Taylor White/The Canadian Press
YouTuber MrBeast faces lawsuit over new reality TV show, Beast Games
MrBeast, the extremely popular and controversial YouTuber known for wild acts of philanthropy, including giving away houses and a private island, is facing legal troubles. The 26-year-old, neé Jimmy Donaldson, is being sued in a California lawsuit for creating “unsafe” employment conditions on his reality TV show Beast Games. The lawsuit alleges female participants faced sexual harassment and the show misrepresented the odds of winning the $5-million grand prize. Amazon MGM studios, which is creating the show with Donaldson, is also named in the lawsuit. The initial shoot, filmed in Las Vegas, was marred in controversy before it even wrapped, with contestants saying they lacked regular access to food and medication on set. The actual competition was filmed in Toronto, and no date has been publicized for the show’s release.
More tech and telecom news:
Why BCE was forced into selling its MLSE stake to arch-rival Rogers
Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chip receives FDA tag to speed development of experimental implant
BlackBerry moves to further weaken discrimination, harassment lawsuit with motion to dismiss