News Wrap: TikTok faces legal challenge over impact on mental health of children

In our news wrap Tuesday, TikTok is facing a legal challenge over its algorithm and impact on the mental health of children, President Biden is pushing the nation’s water utilities to replace lead pipes within ten years, the UK’s spy chief issued a warning about assassination attempts by Russia and Iran and the Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to two pioneers of artificial intelligence.

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Geoff Bennett: And we start today’s other headlines with a legal challenge against TikTok and its impact on the mental health of children; 13 states in the District of Columbia filed lawsuits today alleging that the short form video app’s algorithm is intentionally addictive.

The suits argue that certain design features like tailored content, push notifications, and endless scrolling exploit young users by keeping them on the app for hours. Today, New York’s attorney general said it’s causing profound psychological harm to young people.

Letitia James, New York Attorney General: We wanted to protect children. It’s simple as that, because, nationwide, children and teens are struggling with significantly high rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, suicidal ideation, and other mental health issues, largely because of social media.

Geoff Bennett: The states are seeking new financial penalties against the company. TikTok called the claims inaccurate and misleading, pointing to its safety features like screen time limits for minors.

President Biden is pushing the nation’s water utilities to replace lead pipes across the country within 10 years. The plan announced today comes a decade after the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, renewed concerns about the dangers of lead in tap water. Lead is a neurotoxin that can cause health defects, including brain damage. Children are especially at risk.

The president made the announcement at a rally in Milwaukee today. The city has the fifth highest number of lead pipes in the U.S.

Joe Biden, President of the United States: What’s the government for if it cannot protect the public health?

(Cheering)

Joe Biden: And, in the process, we’re creating jobs. We’re building a better America. And clean water is just one critical part.

Geoff Bennett: The new rule is the strongest such measure in roughly three decades. The EPA says the effort will prevent up to 1,500 premature deaths a year.

The U.K.’s spy chief issued a stark warning today about a rise in assassination attempts by Russia and Iran. MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said his agents and police have stopped 20 Iran-backed plots since 2022. And he warned that increased violence between Iran and Israel could lead to more Iranian state aggression in the U.K.

In a rare public speech, McCallum also said that Russian military intelligence called GRU is waging a campaign to, in his words, generate mayhem on British and European streets.

Ken McCallum, Director General, MI5: We have seen arson, sabotage and more, dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness, and having precisely the opposite effect of what the Russian state intends, in driving increased operational coordination with partners across Europe and beyond.

Geoff Bennett: McCallum also warned of signs that the Islamic State group is attempting a comeback. He cited the deadly theater attack in Moscow earlier this year as a brutal demonstration of its capabilities.

The Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to two pioneers of artificial intelligence, John Hopfield of Princeton University and Geoffrey Hinton, a University of Toronto professor known as the godfather of A.I.

In their announcement in Sweden today, the Nobel Committee credited Hopfield’s work in creating a data processing model based on the functions of the human brain. Hinton built on that work to develop machines that learn by fine-tuning errors until they disappear.

We spoke with Geoffrey Hinton last year shortly after he left his post at Google and he warned about the dangers surrounding the technology he helped create.

Geoffrey Hinton, Artificial Intelligence Pioneer: We should realize that we’re probably going to get things more intelligent than us quite soon and they will be wonderful. They will be able to do all sorts of things very easily that we find very difficult. So there’s huge positive potential in these things, but, of course, there’s also huge negative possibilities.

And I think we should put more or less equal resources into developing A.I. to make it much more powerful and into figuring out how to keep it under control and how to minimize bad side effects of it.

Geoff Bennett: The Nobel announcements continue tomorrow with the chemistry prize.

On Wall Street today, stocks rebounded from Monday’s losing session. The Dow Jones industrial average added more than 100 points to close above 42000. The Nasdaq jumped more than 250 points, or nearly 1.5 percent. The S&P 500 also ended higher on the day.

And a passing of note. The baseball pitching great Luis Tiant has died. Born in Cuba, Tiant played for six different clubs over his 19-year career, winning 229 games along the way. But it was his eight seasons in Boston that made El Tiante a star. Known for his unique wind-up and big personality, Tiant became the city’s first Latino superstar.

He was a three-time All-Star and was inducted to the Red Sox Hall of Fame back in 1997. But Tiant fell short in his bid for Cooperstown. Luis Tiant was 83 years old.