After watching the dramatic re-entry into our atmosphere of the Artemis II’s Orion capsule Integrity, its subsequent splashdown, and the retrieval of the four astronauts in the Pacific Ocean last Friday evening, we were proud to learn that one of the four Navy dive medical personnel who swam to the Orion capsule and greeted the astronauts has a local connection to the Boston area.
Chief Hospital Corpsman Vlad Link grew up in Chelsea and is a 2007 graduate of Chelsea High School. “I have been exposed to the Navy since I was a young teenager, and I’m proud to represent both my family and hometown,” said Link , who noted that his role with the Artemis II mission has been the highlight of his 18 years of experience in dive medicine. “Contributing our efforts to NASA and the Artemis II mission is something we take great pride in as part of that legacy.”
Link and his fellow dive medical team members, who trained for years for their mission, performed the initial medical assessments of the Artemis II crew. They were prepared to provide triage care as necessary and assisted the astronauts in egress onto the inflatable raft set up outside by Navy divers. They then prepared the crew to be airlifted by helicopter back to the amphibious transport dock ship USS John P. Murtha.
According to the Navy Outreach department, Link is part of a specialized group, often working in expeditionary warfare communities, who are certified divers and who undergo specialized training to become experts in decompression illnesses and other undersea medical situations. Their mission is to care for and ensure dive-qualified service members are safe to conduct diving operations.
We know we join with all of our readers in offering a “Salute” to Chief Hospital Corpsman Link for a job well-done. He made all of us in the Greater Boston area feel a sense of pride in his accomplishment and we thank him for his service.
AG Campbell moves forward vs. the social media platforms
When Frances Haugen, a former data scientist with Facebook, disclosed thousands of internal documents to the Wall St. Journal in 2021 that revealed that Facebook’s own research showed the negative impacts of its Instagram algorithms on teen mental health, Americans on all sides of the political spectrum were shocked to learn that Facebook was prioritizing engagement — and profits — over the safety of our children.
Since then, the attorneys general in more than 30 states have filed lawsuits against Facebook, including in Massachusetts, where our Attorney General, Andrea Campbell, brought a suit based on c. 93A, the consumer protection law.
Facebook challenged the legality of Campbell’s lawsuit, citing the protection afforded social media platforms by a federal law, known as Section 230, which provides that companies such as Facebook cannot be held liable for the posts of third parties on their web sites, even if those posts are defamatory. (The only recourse for the person who is defamed is to sue the person who made the post.)
However, Campbell’s lawsuit is based not on what the users of social media have posted, but rather on the very design of the platforms themselves which, her lawsuit asserts, violates our state’s consumer protection laws.
Friday’s decision by the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court allowing Campbell’s lawsuit to proceed (Meta was appealing the denial by a lower court of its motion to dismiss based on Section 230) marks yet another legal setback for these social media platforms.
A few weeks ago, a New Mexico jury found Meta (the parent of Facebook/Instagram) liable for failing to protect children from sexual exploitation and predators on its platforms, ordering Meta to pay $375 million in civil penalties. (Social media giants Tik-Tok and Snapchat previously had settled their lawsuits with the New Mexico AG.)
With Attorney General Campbell’s lawsuit, among the many others, now set to proceed, It would appear that a reckoning for the social media companies finally is at hand — and that the safety of our children will prevail over profits.