White House enlists Apple, tech companies in fight against coronavirus pandemic

In response to growing concerns over the fast-moving COVID-19 pandemic, the White House on Wednesday asked Apple and a handful of other tech companies to police their respective platforms for misinformation and assist in ongoing government efforts to corral the virus.

The Trump administration in a conference call asked major tech players to coordinate efforts to identify and remove potentially harmful content, reports Politico.

While not specified in the report, tech companies are on the lookout for misinformation and other media that could negatively impact an official response to the pandemic.

Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Twitter were on the call, according to the report.

In addition to monitoring their own platforms, tech companies were asked to lend a hand in domestic efforts to stop or manage the spread of the virus. For example, the White House intends to release a database of research associated with the coronavirus and asked tech firms to help medical researchers analyze the information using artificial intelligence, the report said.

"Cutting edge technology companies and major online platforms will play a critical role in this all-hands-on-deck effort," U.S. Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios said in a statement. "Today's meeting outlined an initial path forward and we intend to continue this important conversation."

For its part, Apple is reportedly restricting distribution of COVID-19 apps to those developed by recognized health agencies and institutions. Other apps, even those that scrape data from sources like the World Health Organization, are being rejected on the basis of a new App Store guideline that requires apps associated "highly-regulated" fields to be submitted by a "legal entity that provides the services, and not by an individual developer."

Apple this week launched a special section in its News app dedicated to providing up-to-date coverage of COVID-19, with sources ranging from CNN to The Wall Street Journal.

44 Comments

seanismorris 1624 comments · 8 Years

About 4 years ago

So no quoting President Trump?

From CNN:

Trump continued by discarding his own administration's advice to stay home if you're feeling sick: "If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work, some of them go to work, but they get better, and then when you do have a death, like you've had in the state of Washington, like you had one in California, I believe you had one in New York." No deaths have been reported in New York.

"You know," Trump said, "all of a sudden it seems like 3 or 4%, which is a very high number, as opposed to a fraction of 1%. But again, they don't know about the easy cases because the easy cases don't go to the hospital. They don't report to doctors or the hospital in many cases. So I think that that number is very high. I think the number, personally, I would say the number is way under 1%."

revenant 610 comments · 15 Years

About 4 years ago

seanismorris said:

So no quoting President Trump?

From CNN:
Trump continued by discarding his own administration's advice to stay home if you're feeling sick: "If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work, some of them go to work, but they get better, and then when you do have a death, like you've had in the state of Washington, like you had one in California, I believe you had one in New York." No deaths have been reported in New York.
"You know," Trump said, "all of a sudden it seems like 3 or 4%, which is a very high number, as opposed to a fraction of 1%. But again, they don't know about the easy cases because the easy cases don't go to the hospital. They don't report to doctors or the hospital in many cases. So I think that that number is very high. I think the number, personally, I would say the number is way under 1%."

to be fair:
"Every one of these doctors said, 'How do you know so much about this?' Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president."

the lack of consistency on this terrible, yet not so bad, virus is weird. sit around and go to work does not need apple and other tech companies to help.

SpamSandwich 32917 comments · 19 Years

About 4 years ago

revenant said:

seanismorris said:

So no quoting President Trump?

From CNN:
Trump continued by discarding his own administration's advice to stay home if you're feeling sick: "If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work, some of them go to work, but they get better, and then when you do have a death, like you've had in the state of Washington, like you had one in California, I believe you had one in New York." No deaths have been reported in New York.
"You know," Trump said, "all of a sudden it seems like 3 or 4%, which is a very high number, as opposed to a fraction of 1%. But again, they don't know about the easy cases because the easy cases don't go to the hospital. They don't report to doctors or the hospital in many cases. So I think that that number is very high. I think the number, personally, I would say the number is way under 1%."

to be fair:
"Every one of these doctors said, 'How do you know so much about this?' Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president."

the lack of consistency on this terrible, yet not so bad, virus is weird. sit around and go to work does not need apple and other tech companies to help.

Here’s the thing. This virus is far more transmissible than the flu, even though it has a narrower group of people it might kill than the standard flu (it affects people who are older and with impaired lung function. Smokers seem to be affected more also).

And the initial very low numbers of people affected in the US gave the impression that it wouldn’t spread as fast as China. Clearly that was incorrect. Even so, should more have been done in the very beginning of the spread to the US? That’s a pointless exercise because there was no consensus that such a thing should happen right away. And it’s almost certain that the entire population will eventually be exposed to the Coronavirus.

revenant 610 comments · 15 Years

About 4 years ago

SpamSandwich said:

revenant said:

seanismorris said:

So no quoting President Trump?

From CNN:
Trump continued by discarding his own administration's advice to stay home if you're feeling sick: "If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work, some of them go to work, but they get better, and then when you do have a death, like you've had in the state of Washington, like you had one in California, I believe you had one in New York." No deaths have been reported in New York.
"You know," Trump said, "all of a sudden it seems like 3 or 4%, which is a very high number, as opposed to a fraction of 1%. But again, they don't know about the easy cases because the easy cases don't go to the hospital. They don't report to doctors or the hospital in many cases. So I think that that number is very high. I think the number, personally, I would say the number is way under 1%."

to be fair:
"Every one of these doctors said, 'How do you know so much about this?' Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president."

the lack of consistency on this terrible, yet not so bad, virus is weird. sit around and go to work does not need apple and other tech companies to help.

Here’s the thing. This virus is far more transmissible than the flu, even though it has a narrower group of people it might kill than the standard flu (it affects people who are older and with impaired lung function. Smokers seem to be affected more also).

And the initial very low numbers of people affected in the US gave the impression that it wouldn’t spread as fast as China. Clearly that was incorrect. Even so, should more have been done in the very beginning of the spread to the US? That’s a pointless exercise because there was no consensus that such a thing should happen right away. And it’s almost certain that the entire population will eventually be exposed to the Coronavirus.

horse biscuits. cdc was rather admit that the virus would spread quickly, it was the white house, particularly the president who said, “when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” the cdc was saying something opposite. WHO was saying the opposite. the only lack of consensus in the US was from the white house.

seanismorris 1624 comments · 8 Years

About 4 years ago

‘It’s just the flu’

P.S. ‘All flights to the EU is cancel’ & ‘all meetings on the coronavirus are classified’

Everything is fine. Nothing to see here. Please stop selling stock, it’s making me look bad.

How about some tax breaks? That will make everyone feel better...