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This Week's Updates:
California AG Warns CPCs to Stop Performing Unlicensed Ultrasounds
On Tuesday, California Attorney General Robert Bonta sent cease and desist letters to two anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), which his office found to be performing ultrasounds on patients without proper licenses. CPCs typically exist in a regulatory gray area, because they often do not employ real medical staff or offer paid services, and therefore don’t fall under HHS’ regulatory authority. In court, anti-abortion organizations defend their conduct as “freedom of speech,” and claim that laws limiting deceptive practices are a violation of their rights. At the state level, though, lawmakers have been able to enact regulations that emphasize patient safety; California’s law, for example, creates steep civil penalties for individuals that perform ultrasounds in unlicensed clinics. A CPC in Massachusetts is already being sued for missing a woman’s life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, which led to her needing invasive surgery. According to her lawyers, the ultrasound she received at the CPC was not performed by a licensed nurse – underscoring the importance of laws like California’s.
In April, CfA sent complaints to the attorneys general of Idaho, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington alleging that CPCs in their states had potentially violated consumer protection laws by telling clients their personal health information was protected under HIPAA, when it appears that it is not.
Meta Blames “Glitch” for Apparent Political Content Restrictions
On Wednesday, Meta briefly appeared to limit political content for all Instagram users, leaving them unable to change a preference that limits exposure to recommended posts featuring governments, elections, or social topics. Meta made this restriction active by default for all Instagram and Threads users in March, but panic spread on other social media platforms this week as users found they were unable to change the setting. Meta Communications Director Andy Stone quickly claimed that this was an “error,” and that actual user preferences had not been reset. The timing of the incident also sparked concern among journalists and political content creators, given that the presidential debate was scheduled to take place the next evening.
Even if Meta’s restrictions didn’t go into effect, the subsequent panic underscores the critical role its platforms play in political discourse. Disinformation influencers are still finding success on Facebook, according a recent report by The New York Times, while millions of users rely on Instagram accounts to get news about the war in Gaza. Instead of embracing this reality and uplifting reliable news sources, Meta has opted to throttle external links, cutting off traffic to publishers while supercharging AI content farms. Meta’s definition of political content also includes “social topics that affect a group of people” – a remarkably vague category that raised alarms for advocates and appears to have impacted content creators who discuss racial justice, LGBTQ issues, and disability rights. Meta has not clarified any internal definition for “social topics,” beyond “content that identifies a problem that impacts people and is caused by the action or inaction of others.”
Houston Chronicle Editorial Board Sounds Alarm on Crypto Energy Use
On Monday, the editorial board of Texas’s largest paper criticized state policymakers for encouraging the rapid development of crypto mining operations, amidst extreme weather events and the threat of deadly blackouts. Texas initially lured crypto miners with the promise of affordable, reliable energy, as well as tax incentives and a lucrative “demand response” program that pays them to curtail their operations when extra power is needed. In 2022, CfA’s Tech Transparency Project (TTP) released a report on the program, explaining how crypto miners were collecting hundreds of millions of dollars during events like Winter Storm Uri. Ultimately, the storm knocked out Texas’s grid and caused 246 recorded deaths, almost two thirds of which were linked to hypothermia. The Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the state’s grid, recently announced that they were “confident” about this coming summer, but acknowledged a 16% chance of an “emergency” in August.
Now, a growing coalition of Texas lawmakers are concerned about the strain crypto mining facilities place on aging power infrastructure. Following a hearing on crypto energy use and grid reliability, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick Tweeted that he was more concerned about getting electricity to families and “normal businesses,” instead of supporting “very niche industries that have massive power demands and produce few jobs.” This last point is supported by another TTP report, which found that many crypto mining initiatives have failed to deliver promised jobs and tax revenue.
