TSMC is committing $3.8 billion to establish its first European factory in Germany, benefiting from significant state support for the $11 billion project as Europe aims to shorten supply chains. Reuters reports: The plant, which will be TSMC's third outside of traditional manufacturing bases Taiwan and China, is central to Berlin's ambition to foster the domestic semiconductor industry its car industry will need to remain globally competitive. Germany, which has been courting the world's largest contract chipmaker since 2021, will contribute up to 5 billion euros to the factory in Dresden, capital of the eastern state of Saxony, German officials said.

"Germany is now probably becoming the major location for semiconductor production in Europe," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, less than two months after Intel announced a 30 billion euro plan to build two chip-making plants in the country. "That is important for the resilience of production structures around the world, but it is also important for the future viability of our European continent, and it is of course particularly important for the future viability of Germany."

TSMC said it would invest up to 3.499 billion euros into a subsidiary, European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC), of which it will own 70%. Germany's Bosch and Infineon and the Netherlands' NXP (NXPI.O) will each own 10% of the plant, which will make up to 40,000 wafers a month for cars and industrial and home products when it opens in 2017. The factory will cost around 10 billion euros in total.

Kenya's Ministry of the Interior has issued a decree suspending Worldcoin enrollment in the country, citing concerns with the "authenticity and legality" of its activities in the areas of security, financial services and data protection. TechCrunch reports: The suspension covers both Worldcoin and "any other entity that may be similarly engaging the people of Kenya" and will remain in place until the authorities determine "the absence of any risks to the general public whatsoever." Up until today, Kenya had one of the largest collections of venues -- at least 18, according to the company's directory last week -- where you could visit an "Orb," as the company's spherical and mirrored iris scanners are called, "and verify your World ID." Now there is only one listed -- after Orb operators, overwhelmed by the huge turnout, shifted their stations on Sunday to Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC), a bigger ground in Kenya's capital that could accommodate the thousands of people streaming in.

"Relevant security, financial service and data protection agencies have commenced inquiries and investigations to establish the authenticity and legality of the aforesaid activities, and the safety and protection of the data being harvested, and how the harvesters intend to use the data," said Kithure Kindiki, Kenya's cabinet secretary for the ministry of interior and national administration. The news come amid separate reports that Worldcoin plans to expand its operations to sign up more users globally and allow other organizations to use its iris-scanning and identity-verifying technology.

Further reading: Sam Altman's Worldcoin Eyeball-Scanning Crypto Project Launches

Nasa engineers hope to re-establish contact with the Voyager 2 spacecraft after sending a faulty command that severed communications with the far-flung probe. From a report: The spacecraft is one of a pair that launched in 1977 to capture images of Jupiter and Saturn, but continued on a journey into interstellar space to become the farthest human-made objects from Earth. The space agency lost contact with Voyager 2, which is now more than 12bn miles away, when mission staff accidentally beamed the wrong command to the distant spacecraft more than a week ago.

The command caused the probe to tilt its antenna away from Earth, and although the direction it is pointing in changed by only 2%, the shift was enough for engineers operating receivers on Earth to lose touch with it. Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, were launched within a couple of weeks of one another to explore the planets and moons of the outer solar system. Voyager 1 is still in contact with Earth and nearly 15bn miles away. In 2012, it became the first probe to enter interstellar space and is now the most distant spacecraft ever built. Voyager 2 hurtled into interstellar space in 2018 after discovering a new moon around Jupiter, 10 moons around Uranus and five around Neptune. It remains the only spacecraft to study all four of the solar system's giant planets at close range.

A routine sequence of commands has triggered a 2-degree change in Voyager 2's antenna orientation, preventing the iconic spacecraft from receiving commands or transmitting data back to Earth, NASA announced earlier today. Mission controllers transmitted the commands to Voyager 2 on July 21. Gizmodo reports: Voyager 2, one of two twin probes launched in the 1970s to explore planets in the outer solar system, is located some 12.4 billion miles (19.9 billion kilometers) from Earth and is continually moving deeper into interstellar space. The glitch has disrupted the probe's ability to communicate with ground antennas operated by the Deep Space Network (DSN), and it's unable to receive commands from the mission team on Earth, NASA explained.

The communications pause is expected to be just that -- a pause. Voyager 2 is "programmed to reset its orientation multiple times each year to keep its antenna pointing at Earth," the space agency says. This procedure should -- fingers crossed -- re-establish the lost connection and allow routine communications to resume. The next reset is scheduled for October 15, which is 79 days from now. Undoubtedly, this will be 79 agonizing days for NASA and the Voyager team. Despite the current communication hiatus, the mission team remains confident that Voyager 2 will stay on its planned trajectory. Voyager 1, situated nearly 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away from Earth, "continues to operate normally," NASA added.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Congress is closer than ever to passing a pair of bills to childproof the internet after lawmakers voted to send them to the floor Thursday. The bills -- the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and COPPA 2.0 -- were approved by the Senate Commerce Committee Thursday by a unanimous voice vote. Both pieces of legislation aim to address an ongoing mental health crisis amongst young people that some lawmakers blame social media for intensifying. But critics of the bills have long argued that they have the potential to cause more harm than good, like forcing social media platforms to collect more user information to properly enforce Congress' rules.

KOSA is supposed to establish a new legal standard for the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general, allowing them to police companies that fail to prevent kids from seeing harmful content on their platforms. The authors of the bills, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), have said the bill keeps kids from seeing content that glamorizes eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, substance abuse, and gambling. It would also ban kids 13 and under from using social media and require companies to acquire parental consent before allowing children under 17 to use their platforms. At Thursday's markup, Blackburn proposed an amendment to remedy some of the concerns raised by digital rights groups, mainly language requiring platforms to verify the age of their users. Lawmakers approved those changes along with the bill, but the groups fear that platforms would still need to collect more data on all users to live up to the bill's other rules. [...] The other bill lawmakers approved, COPPA 2.0, raises the age of protection under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act from 13 to 16 years of age, along with similar age-gating restrictions. It also bans platforms from targeting ads to kids. "When it comes to determining the best way to help kids and teens use the internet, parents and guardians should be making those decisions, not the government," Carl Szabo, NetChoice vice president and general counsel, said. "Rather than violating free speech rights and handing parenting over to bureaucrats, we should empower law enforcement with the resources necessary to do its job to arrest and convict bad actors committing online crimes against children."

An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2004, Congress passed a law that established a moratorium on federal safety regulations for commercial astronauts and space tourists riding to space on new privately owned rockets and spacecraft. The idea was to allow time for new space companies to establish themselves before falling under the burden of regulations, an eventuality that spaceflight startups argued could impede the industry's development. The moratorium is also known as a "learning period," a term that describes the purpose of the provision. It's supposed to give companies and the Federal Aviation Administration -- the agency tasked with overseeing commercial human spaceflight, launch, and re-entry operations -- time to learn how to safely fly in space and develop smart regulations, those that make spaceflight safer but don't restrict innovation. Without action from Congress, by the end of September, the moratorium on human spaceflight regulations will expire. That has many in the commercial space industry concerned.

The House Science Committee is considering a commercial space bill that might extend the learning period, but the content of the bill hasn't been released yet. Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), chair of the House Science Committee, said one of his priorities in developing the space bill is ensuring a "thoughtful regulatory environment that supports innovation." Given the hotly partisan tenor of Capitol Hill and a range of other priorities, it's not clear if the bill -- whatever it says -- can be passed before October 1. "Things are sort of moving, but... how do you deal with the moratorium? Can you get that by October 1 and get something passed? Is that something everyone can agree to, or is that going to get bogged down? You just don't know right now, and that's just a bad place to be," said Allen Cutler, president of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, in a panel discussion at the John Glenn Memorial Symposium earlier this month.

Some of the world's most advanced artificial intelligence companies have formed a group to research increasingly powerful AI and establish best practices for controlling it, as public anxiety and regulatory scrutiny over the impact of the technology increases. From a report: On Wednesday, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI launched the Frontier Model Forum, with the aim of "ensuring the safe and responsible development of frontier AI models." In recent months, the US companies have rolled out increasingly powerful AI tools that produce original content in image, text or video form by drawing on a bank of existing material. The developments have raised concerns about copyright infringement, privacy breaches and that AI could ultimately replace humans in a range of jobs.

"Companies creating AI technology have a responsibility to ensure that it is safe, secure, and remains under human control," said Brad Smith, vice-chair and president of Microsoft. "This initiative is a vital step to bring the tech sector together in advancing AI responsibly and tackling the challenges so that it benefits all of humanity." Membership of the forum is limited only to the handful of companies building "large-scale machine-learning models that exceed the capabilities currently present in the most advanced existing models," according to its founders.

Google and Apple dominate the market for online maps, charging mobile app developers for access to their mapping services. The other mega-cap tech companies are joining together to help create another option. From a report: A group formed by Meta, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, along with TomTom, is releasing data that could enable companies to build their own maps, without having to rely on Google or Apple. The Overture Maps Foundation, which was established late last year, captured 59 million "points of interest," such as restaurants, landmarks, streets and regional borders. The data has been cleaned and formatted so it can be used for free as the base layer for a new map application.

Meta and Microsoft collected and donated the data to Overture, according to Marc Prioleau, executive director of the OMF. Data on places is often difficult to collect and license, and building map data requires lots of time and staff to gather and clean it, he told CNBC in an interview. "We have some companies that, if they wanted to invest to build the map data, they could," Prioleau said. Rather than spending that kind of money, he said, companies were asking, "Can we just get collaboration around the open base map?" Overture is aiming to establish a baseline for maps data so that companies can use it to build and operate their own maps.

Driven by a surge in demand for artificial intelligence, Taiwanese chip maker TSMC plans to invest nearly T$90 billion ($2.87 billion) in an advanced packaging facility in northern Taiwan, the company said on Tuesday. From a report: "To meet market needs, TSMC is planning to establish an advanced packaging fab in the Tongluo Science Park," the company said in a statement. CEO C.C. Wei said last week that TSMC is unable to fulfil customer demand driven by the AI boom and plans to roughly double its capacity for advanced packaging - which involves placing multiple chips into a single device, lowering the added cost of more powerful computing. For advanced packaging, especially TSMC's chip on wafer on substrate (CoWoS), capacity is "very tight," Wei said after the company reported a 23% fall in second-quarter profit. "We are increasing our capacity as quickly as possible. We expect this tightening will be released next year, probably towards the end of next year."

A bipartisan pair of senators unveiled a bill Wednesday to ban stock ownership by lawmakers and administration officials. The Hill reports: The bill, introduced by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), would establish firmer stock trading bans and disclosure requirements for lawmakers, senior executive branch officials and their spouses and dependents. The bill would ban congressional members, the president, vice president, senior executive branch members, and their spouses and dependents from holding or trading stocks, with no exception to blind trusts. Congressional members who violate this ban would be required to pay at least 10 percent of the banned investments.

The legislation also establishes harsh penalties for executive branch stock trading, requiring executive branch officials to give up profits from covered finance interests to the Department of Treasury, while also facing a fine from the Automatic Special Counsel. Congressional members, senior congressional staff and senior executive branch employees would also be required to report if they, a spouse or a dependent applies for or receives a "benefit of value" from the federal government, including loans, contracts, grants, agreements and payments. If they fail to file, they will face a $500 penalty.

The bill aims to increase transparency, requiring public databases of personal financial disclosures and financial transaction filings required by the STOCK Act, which prohibits members of Congress from using insider information when buying and selling stocks. The penalty for the failing to file STOCK Act transaction reports would also increase from $200 to $500.

Roblox is offering developers another way to earn money by allowing them to offer subscriptions within their experiences, according to a blog post published Tuesday. The Verge reports: Roblox already offers developers a lot of ways to monetize their experiences, including the ability to sell virtual items in an experience or on the Roblox marketplace, offering in-experience passes to certain content and gating experiences behind paid access. However, those examples are all one-time fees, and Roblox argues that subscriptions would offer a way for developers to "establish a recurring economic relationship with their users and potentially increase the predictability of their earnings." (Other monetization options include subscriptions to private servers, engagement-based payouts, and slotting in Roblox's "Immersive Ads.")

Subscriptions would also give Roblox another thing it can point to as a reason to develop for its metaverse platform instead of others. Epic Games' new system for Fortnite, for example, rewards creators based on factors like how long people play their experiences but doesn't allow creators to directly sell virtual goods or subscriptions inside those experiences. Developers looking for more flexibility in how they monetize might choose Roblox instead.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is proposing legislation to create a commission with the power to declassify government documents related to UFOs and extraterrestrial matters. The New York Times reports: The measure offers the possibility of pushing back against the conspiracy theories that surround discussions of U.F.O.s and fears that the government is hiding critical information from the public. The legislation, which Mr. Schumer will introduce as an amendment to the annual defense policy bill, has bipartisan support, including that of Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, and Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, who has championed legislation that has forced the government to release a series of reports on unidentified phenomena. Support in the House is also likely. On Wednesday, the chamber included a narrower measure (PDF) in its version of the annual defense bill that would push the Pentagon to release documents about unidentified aerial phenomena.

The Senate measure sets a 300-day deadline for government agencies to organize their records on unidentified phenomena and provide them to the review board. President Biden would appoint the nine-person review board, subject to Senate approval. Senate staff members say the intent is to select a group of people who would push for disclosure while protecting sensitive intelligence collection methods. [...] Under Mr. Schumer's legislation, the president could decide to delay material the commission has chosen to release based on national security concerns. But the measure would establish a timetable to release documents and codify the presumption that the material should be public. "You now will have a process through which we will declassify this material," said Allison Biasotti, a spokeswoman for Mr. Schumer.

The number of coins circulating in Japan has fallen by an unprecedented amount, suggesting the nation's households are coming to the end of their long love affair with the piggy bank. From a report: The national stock of coins rose steadily since 1970, but has fallen sharply on a year-on-year basis for 18 straight months, according to Bank of Japan data. The turnround has been sparked by a combination of the Covid pandemic, banking fees, inflation and the rise of cashless payment technology.

The popularity of cashless payments -- which some have linked with the idea that coins were perceived as "dirty" and a vector for Covid -- accelerated sharply in 2022. Cashless transactions accounted for 36 per cent of all consumer payments, compared with 15 per cent a decade earlier. Analysts said the public's shift away from coins may also signal a wider change in Japanese attitudes towards saving. The sharpest drop has been in circulation of the largest denomination 500 Yen ($3.5) coin. This is the most common coin given to children to keep in their piggy banks, a tradition that seeks to establish solid patterns of saving and deferred gratification at an early age.

"More major cities in the United States are letting public transit riders hop on board for free," reports CNN: Kansas City; Raleigh; Richmond; Olympia; Tucson; Alexandria, Virginia; and other cities are testing dropping fares on their transit systems. Denver is dropping fares across its system this summer. Boston is piloting three zero-fare public bus routes, and New York City is expected to test free buses on five lines.

Eliminating fares gives a badly needed boost to ridership, removes cost burdens — particularly for lower-income riders — — and reduces boarding times at stops. Proponents also hope it will compel more people to get out of their cars and ride transit... At least 35 US agencies have eliminated fares across their network, according to the American Public Transit Association. Massachusetts Sen. Edward Markey and US Rep. Ayanna Pressley have introduced a bill in Congress to establish a $25 billion grant program to support state and local efforts for fare-free systems.

The zero-fare push comes as ridership nationwide remains sluggish after people shifted to working from home during the pandemic. Ridership is at about 70% of pre-pandemic levels nationwide, and transit agency budget shortfalls threaten service cuts, layoffs and fare hikes.
CNN also reports the case against. Experts "say there are more effective policies to get people out of their cars and onto transit, such as congestion pricing and parking restrictions.

"And dropping fares does not make buses run on time or lead to faster and cleaner trains. These are the improvements that will get more people to take transit instead of drive, according to passenger surveys."

Yolanda Diaz, Spain's Labor Minister and candidate for Prime Minister with the progressive platform Sumar, has proposed a scheme to tackle social inequality by giving every young person in the country 20,000 euros (roughly $21,776) to spend on school, training or starting a business once they reach the age of 18. The Guardian reports: According to Diaz's Sumar platform, which announced the policy before Spain's snap general election on 23 July, the initiative would cost 10 billion euros, which would be raised by taxing the rich. Sumar said the aim was to guarantee "equality of opportunity" regardless of people's family backgrounds or earnings. The payments, which would begin at the age of 18 and continue until the age of 23, would be accompanied by administrative support to help people study, train or establish their own business.

DÃaz confirmed that the policy -- called the "universal inheritance" -- would be available to all young Spaniards regardless of their economic circumstances and would be funded by taxing people earning more than 3 million euros a year. Sumar estimates it would cost 0.8% of Spain's GDP. The minister, who was raised in a staunchly communist household, said she had been unable to follow her own dreams of becoming an employment inspector because there was not enough money for her to spend years studying. "Becoming an employment inspector in Spain would have taken about five years," she said. "I'm not an employment inspector because I'm the daughter of working-class parents and I could never have allowed myself to do that. This is a redistributive measure that will allow the young people of our country to have a future regardless of their surname."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: When former Samsung executive Choi Jinseog won a contract with Taiwan's Foxconn in 2018, he tapped his former employer's supplier network to steal secrets to help his new client set up a chip factory in China, a sealed indictment by South Korean prosecutors alleges. Prosecutors announced the indictment on June 12, saying the theft caused more than $200 million in damages to Samsung Electronics, based on the estimated costs Samsung spent to develop the stolen data. The announcement did not name Choi and gave only limited details, although some media subsequently identified Choi and his links with Foxconn. The unreleased 18-page indictment, reviewed by Reuters, provides details in the case against Choi, including how he is alleged to have stolen Samsung's trade secrets and details about the planned Foxconn plant.

Choi, who has been detained in jail since late May, denied all the charges through his lawyer, Kim Pilsung. Choi's Singapore-based consultancy Jin Semiconductor won the contract with Foxconn around August 2018, according to the indictment. Within months, Choi had poached "a large number" of employees from Samsung and its affiliates and illegally obtained secret information related to building a chip factory from two contractors, prosecutors allege. Jin Semiconductor illegally used confidential information involving semiconductor cleanroom management obtained from Cho Young-sik who worked at one of the contractors, Samoo Architects & Engineers, the indictment alleges. Clean rooms are manufacturing facilities where the enclosed environment is engineered to remove dust and other particles that can damage highly sensitive chips. Samoo had participated in the 2012 construction of Samsung's chip plant in Xian, China. Prosecutors allege Choi's company also illegally obtained blueprints of Samsung's China plant from Chung Chan-yup, an employee at HanmiGlobal, which supervised its construction and floor layouts involving the chip manufacturing process. They have yet to establish how the information on floor layout was obtained, according to the indictment.

Choi signed a preliminary consulting contract in around 2018 with Foxconn to build the chip factory potentially in Xian, his lawyer said. However, Foxconn ended the contract just a year later and only paid salaries related to the project, the lawyer said. He declined to comment on why Foxconn ended the contract or to provide further details, citing the sensitivity of the matter. The person with direct knowledge of the case said prosecutors found Foxconn had agreed to provide 8 trillion won ($6 billion) to build the factory, and Foxconn also paid several million dollars to Choi's company every month until it pulled out of the contract for reasons the indictment did not disclose. Jin Semiconductor's financial statement in 2018 said it entered into an arrangement with "a major customer" for the provision of qualified manpower in the next five years. The customer paid an advance of $17,994,217 to the company, according to the statement. Choi's lawyer said his client may be a scapegoat in a campaign by the South Korean government, caught in a rivalry between China and the United States, seeking seek to slow China's progress in chip manufacturing. [...] Choi is charged along with five other former and current Jin Semiconductor employees and a Samsung contractor employee. Trial is set to begin on July 12, court records show.

An ancient Nevada lakebed could become a vast source of the lithium used in electric car batteries, reports the Associated Press. But "NASA says the same site — flat as a tabletop and undisturbed like none other in the Western Hemisphere — is indispensable for calibrating the razor-sharp measurements of hundreds of satellites orbiting overhead." At the space agency's request, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has agreed to withdraw 36 square miles (92 square kilometers) of the eastern Nevada terrain from its inventory of federal lands open to potential mineral exploration and mining. NASA says the long, flat piece of land above the untapped lithium deposit in Nevada's Railroad Valley has been used for nearly three decades to get measurements just right to keep satellites and their applications functioning properly. "No other location in the United States is suitable for this purpose," the Bureau of Land Management concluded in April after receiving NASA's input on the tract 250 miles (400 kilometers) northeast of Las Vegas...

In Railroad Valley, satellite calculations are critical to gathering information beamed from space with widespread applications from weather forecasting to national security, agricultural outlooks and natural disasters, according to NASA, which said the satellites "provide vital and often time-critical information touching every aspect of life on Earth." That increasingly includes certifying measurements related to climate change. Thus the Nevada desert paradox, critics say. Although lithium is the main ingredient in batteries for electric vehicles key to reducing greenhouse gases, in this case the metal is buried beneath land NASA says must remain undisturbed to certify the accuracy of satellites monitoring Earth's warming atmosphere...

The area's unchanged nature has allowed NASA to establish a long record of images of the undisturbed topography to assist precise measurement of distances using the travel time of radio signals and assure "absolute radiometric calibration" of sensors on board satellites. "Activities that stand to disrupt the surface integrity of Railroad Valley would risk making the site unusable," Jeremy Eggers, a spokesman for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, told The Associated Press.
One company with most of the mining rights says the tract's withdrawal will put more than half the site's value out of reach, according to the article.

But the Associated Press got a supportive quote for the move from the satellite imaging company Planet Labs, which has relied on NASA's site to calibrate more than 250 of its satellites since 2016. "As our nation becomes ever more impacted by an evolving and changing environment, it is critical to have reliable and accurate data and imagery of our planet."

A submersible craft used to take people to see the wreck of the Titanic has gone missing in the Atlantic Ocean with its crew on board, sparking a major search and rescue operation. From a report: Tour firm OceanGate, which runs $250,000-a-seat expeditions to the wreck, said it was exploring all options to get the crew back safely. It said government agencies and deep sea firms were helping the operation. The Titanic sank in 1912 and lies some 3,800m (12,500ft) beneath the waves. The missing craft is believed to be OceanGate's Titan submersible, a truck-sized sub that holds five people and usually dives with a four-day supply of oxygen. It is not known when contact with the craft was lost.

"Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families," OceanGate said in a statement. "We are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to re-establish contact with the submersible," it added. The company bills the eight-day trip on its carbon-fibre submersible as a "chance to step outside of everyday life and discover something truly extraordinary." According to its website, one expedition is ongoing and two more have been planned for June 2024.

New York City's food delivery workers will be guaranteed a minimum wage for the first time under new regulations announced by Mayor Eric Adams. Gothamist reports: Tens of thousands of delivery workers are slated to make at least $17.96 per hour plus tips by July 12, and at least $19.96 an hour by 2025, city officials said. That's a sharp increase from what delivery workers make now. Many take home less than the city's minimum wage of $15 an hour. The $19.96 hourly rate is less than the $23.82 the Department of Consumer and Worker Protections originally proposed last November -- but is still almost three times more than what delivery workers currently make, according to the city agency.

Sunday's announcement comes after months of back-and-forth between delivery workers, elected officials and app companies over the minimum wage rates. City officials blew past a Jan. 1 deadline set by City Council legislation to establish the new wage rules. Delivery companies, like Uber and DoorDash, argued that the new legislation will force a raise in prices and less schedule flexibility, while some advocates claim these companies are manipulating employees into testifying against the measure. DoorDash spokesperson Eli Scheinholtz said the company was considering litigation against the city over the new pay rules. "The ones that bring you pizza in the snow, and that Thai food you like in the rain," said Mayor Adams. "This new minimum pay rate will guarantee these workers, and their families, can earn a living. They should not be delivering food to your household, if they can't put food on the plate in their household."

CNN summarizes the issue. "A recent advisory from U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy says there's not enough evidence to determine whether social media is safe enough for children and adolescents when it comes to their mental health." (Although a CNN news anchor points out that "Nearly all of the research points to negative impacts.")

CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent interviewed U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy "to examine what led him to sound the alarm, and who should be responsible for tackling the issue." And the surgeon general remembers when his five-year-old daughter asked to post a picture on social media. "I think finding the right balance is not easy, in part because, you know, the platforms weren't necessarily designed for balance. They were designed to maximize how much time we spend on them." CNN: How worried are you? When people hear something coming from the surgeon general's office, they think of, you know, smoking, opioids, things like this. Social media — is it at that level of concern for you?

Surgeon General: Yes, I would say yes, it is. And, and — but it's it's more complicated... because we know that some kids do actually get benefit from their experience of social media. Some are able to connect more easily with friends and family, to express themselves more creatively and more openly than they otherwise would, and to find community... But one of the things that has become an increasing source of worry for me is that the the association between social media use and harmful outcomes... [W]e're asking parents to somehow figure it out all on their own. And the reason I issued an advisory on this topic is I worry that we have not taken enough action to support parents and kids...

CNN: What is the level of evidence about the dangers of social media and what is the level of evidence that you want? I mean, what does it take for you as a surgeon general to act on this...?

Surgeon General: I think the first question I'm asking is where is the evidence of safety...? There's a lot of association data, right, that's showing an association between use and certain and negative outcomes, like for example, for kids who who use more than 3 hours of social media a day, they face double the risk of depression and anxiety symptoms. But we also know that kids are telling us in their own words and their own experience how they're experiencing social media. So, for example, about nearly half of adolescents are saying that using social media makes them feel worse about their body image...

And one of the consistent messages I hear from researchers who's been studying this area for a long time is that they are having a hard time getting access to the data from social media companies. You know, as a parent, I don't ever want to feel like someone or anyone is hiding information from me about how a product affects my child. But that's how a lot of parents are feeling right now. And so that's a place where I think transparency matters. Let's get the data out there so independent researchers can assess it and can help us understand the harms and benefits and which kids are most impacted so we can design, you know, our approach, you know, in a more informed way...

One of the things we call for in my advisory is for the policymakers to step in and establish actual, transparent, enforceable safety standards like we do for other products so that parents have some reassurance around safety... This technology is already being used by 95% of kids, Right. And I don't think that's realistic to put the genie back in the bottle here or to say somehow nobody should be using social media, that that's not the goal here... We don't like leave it up to car manufacturers to determine whether or not they've hit the standards or not. We don't do that with medications either. There should be, you know, independent authority that parents can trust are looking primarily in solely out for the welfare of their kids, and they should be the ones who enforce these standards....

You know, just to put it bluntly, I do not think we have done our job as a society to have the backs of kids and parents on this because we haven't moved fast enough to get the information to ultimately guide them on safe use... [P]arents across the country, people are trying to do the best they can with limited information.
The surgeon general also says their ideal legislation would also "help to reduce kids exposure to harmful content" and include "restrictions on features that seek to manipulate kids into spending excessive amounts of time on these platforms."