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This Week's Updates:
Weapons Accessories Still Sold on Meta Platforms
On Wednesday, new reports surfaced of illegal gun modifiers being bought and sold on social media platforms, including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram. Glock switches—which can be used to convert handguns to automatic weapons—were being openly exchanged on Facebook groups in violation of Meta’s policies. Law enforcement officials interviewed for the story said that they wanted to see tech platforms doing more to crack down on these black markets, as Glock switches become more of a widespread threat. It is still alarmingly easy to find pages purporting to sell these devices on Facebook – here, several illicit sellers appear alongside official pages for firearm manufacturers.
CfA’s Tech Transparency Project (TTP) has worked to draw attention to advertisements for guns and weapon accessories running on Meta platforms, which primarily rely on an automatic ad-review system. On top of quick loading accessories and scopes, TTP identified advertisements for AR-15 style weapons listed without a price, in an attempt to subvert Meta’s guidelines.
There’s More to the Charter School Case Turned Down by the Supreme Court
On Monday, the Supreme Court decided not to take up a case concerning a North Carolina charter school that required girls to wear skirts – a decision that could have had wider implications for the status of charters across the country. The Charter Day School, which is tuition-free and publicly funded, will now be required to abide by a circuit court decision striking down its dress code.
The Charter Day School belongs to a network of schools operated by The Roger Bacon Academy, which describes itself as espousing the “traditional values of western civilization.” That organization is run by a North Carolina businessman named Baker Mitchell, who allegedly sells or leases computers, equipment, land, and buildings to The Roger Bacon Academy through his own companies. This arrangement has proved profitable, and a 2014 ProPublica investigation revealed that Mitchell’s companies had earned over $20 million in six years. Since then, his charter network has expanded, and more explicitly conservative or even religious charter schools have opened across the country.
DeSantis Administration Steered $92 Million to Infrastructure Project Benefitting Donor
Last week, Reuters reported that Morteza Hosseni, a wealthy businessman, had gifted Florida Governor Ron DeSantis a high-end golf simulator worth tens of thousands of dollars. The Florida Commission on Ethics confirmed that DeSantis had never filed a gift disclosure during his tenure as governor – something that should have been done for any gift valued over $100. Both DeSantis and Hosseni argue that the golf simulator will remain in the Florida Governor’s mansion, and therefore isn’t a personal gift.
Now, the Washington Post has reported that Hosseni benefited from $92 million in leftover coronavirus funding, which the DeSantis administration used to build a highway interchange serving two tracts of land which Hosseni plans to develop. Hosseni is also the chairman of the University of Florida board of trustees, and has allegedly served as a liaison to DeSantis.
SCOTUS Decision and Google Student Loan Scams
This morning, the Supreme Court announced its 6-3 decision striking down the Biden Administration’s student loan forgiveness plan—likely sending some concerned borrowers to Google to search for answers about their financial future. Unfortunately, a 2022 TTP report found that Google search results were rife with scam ads when searching popular queries related to student loans. These included ads for services that charge questionable fees, impersonate government agencies, or try to harvest personal data for unclear purposes. When TTP researchers searched this morning, they were served an ad from a provider that similarly charges upfront fees.
With loan payments restarting soon—and with borrowers now back on the hook for the $400 billion in payments that the forgiveness plan was set to cancel—it’s now more important than ever for Google to ensure that it's not profiting from ads that leave vulnerable searchers worse off financially than when they started.
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