New researches: June 2022

Thursday, June 30, 2022

WWII Refugees, Building Occupant Behavior, Gmail, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 30, 2022

WWII Refugees, Building Occupant Behavior, Gmail, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Jewish Chronicle: New site launched for Shoah stories . “The National Holocaust Centre & Museum has created a new website which tells the story of four refugees from Nazi Europe, using some of the objects they owned. Ordinary Objects, Extraordinary Journeys, set up jointly with the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and with sponsorship from the Arts Council, was launched on Tuesday to coincide with Refugee Week.”

Scientific Data: A Global Building Occupant Behavior Database . “This paper introduces a database of 34 field-measured building occupant behavior datasets collected from 15 countries and 39 institutions across 10 climatic zones covering various building types in both commercial and residential sectors. This is a comprehensive global database about building occupant behavior.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Wondering Why Gmail Looks Different? New Design Rolls Out by Default. “Google is taking the next step to move people over to Gmail’s new layout, which brings together Gmail, Chat and Meet in one unified interface. Starting Tuesday, some people will see Gmail’s new look by default, the company said in a blog post.”

TechTarget: Tableau adds data storytelling tool in latest update. “Six months after the analytics vendor’s acquisition of Narrative Science comes Data Stories, a new tool aimed at enabling more employees within organizations to work with data.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

MIT Technology Review: Social media filters are helping people explore their gender identity. “Oliver Haimson, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan who studies transgender identity and experiences online, says that for trans, gender-nonconforming, or gender-curious folk, filters can be a way to play with gender expression without the investment and skill that makeup requires or the time, hormones, and luck it takes to grow facial hair. He explains that filters are an important and widely used tool for identity exploration.”

TechCrunch: Google and the Internet Archive are the first customers to gain commercial access to Wikipedia content. “Google is going to start paying for its use of Wikipedia information to help power its knowledge panels in Google Search. The search giant, along with the digital library the Internet Archive, are the first customers for the still relatively new commercial product launched by the Wikimedia Foundation — the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia. Its new service, Wikimedia Enterprise, offers access to Wikimedia content to companies that reuse and source Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects at a high volume.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Personal info on California gun owners wrongly made public . “The California Department of Justice on Wednesday acknowledged the agency wrongly made public the personal information of perhaps hundreds of thousands of gun owners in up to six state-operated databases, a broader exposure than the agency initially disclosed a day earlier.”

Entrackr: Indian government censors tweets critical of Indian internet censorship. “The government of India in 2021 ordered Twitter to take down tweets by the nonprofit Freedom House that discussed declining internet freedom in India. Twitter only disclosed this request on Sunday. The tweets promote Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2021 report. Entrackr has reviewed a copy of the disclosure by Twitter. This content is no longer visible in India, but much of it remains available on Twitter in other countries.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PR Newswire: University Of Maryland Medicine Launches Precision Health Study To Create Biggest And Most Diverse Research Database In State (PRESS RELEASE). “University of Maryland Medicine, the joint enterprise of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the University of Maryland Medical Center, and University of Maryland Medical System, today launched a landmark initiative called My Healthy Maryland Precision Medicine Research. The project aims to enroll 250,000 Maryland residents over the next decade who reflect the diversity of the state and want to play a pivotal role in helping researchers understand how genes and lifestyle affect an individual’s health.”

Inside Climate News: Rediscovered Reports From 19th-Century Environmental Volunteers Advance the Research of Today’s Citizen Scientists in New York. “After unearthing 200-year-old seasonal observations from across New York, a team of researchers found a window into the past of the state’s natural landscapes, and a key to understanding its future.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 1, 2022 at 12:53AM
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Facebook Roundup, June 30, 2022

Facebook Roundup, June 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: As Midterms Loom, Elections Are No Longer Top Priority for Meta C.E.O.. “Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, made securing the 2020 U.S. election a top priority. He met regularly with an election team, which included more than 300 people from across his company, to prevent misinformation from spreading on the social network. He asked civil rights leaders for advice on upholding voter rights. The core election team at Facebook, which was renamed Meta last year, has since been dispersed.”

CNET: Meta to Scrap Tool Researchers Use to Track Misinformation Online, Report Says. “CrowdTangle, a tool owned by Facebook parent Meta that monitors content on the internet, has played a vital role in disrupting misinformation on social media, but it reportedly won’t be around for much longer. Meta plans to shut down the platform, though no concrete date has been set, according to a Bloomberg report Thursday.”

WIRED: Meta Made Millions in Ads From Networks of Fake Accounts. “Between July 2018 and April 2022, Meta made at least $30.3 million in ad revenue from networks it removed from its own platforms for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB), data compiled by WIRED shows. Margarita Franklin, head of security communications at Meta, confirmed to WIRED that the company does not return the ad money if a network is taken down. Franklin clarified that some of the money came from adverts that didn’t break the company’s rules, but were published by the same public relations or marketing organizations later banned for participating in CIB operations.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Meta clamps down on internal discussion of Roe v. Wade’s overturning.. “Meta told its workers on Friday not to openly discuss the Supreme Court’s ruling eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion on wide-reaching communication channels inside the company, people with knowledge of the situation said.”

Motherboard: Facebook Is Banning People Who Say They Will Mail Abortion Pills. “Facebook is removing the posts of users who share status updates that say abortion pills can be mailed and in some cases temporarily banning those users. When exactly Facebook started removing these and similar posts is unclear. But Motherboard confirmed Facebook removed such posts on the same day that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the United States.”

MIT Technology Review: Facebook is bombarding cancer patients with ads for unproven treatments. “Evidence from Facebook and Instagram users, medical researchers, and its own Ad Library suggests that Meta is rife with ads containing sensational health claims, which the company directly profits from. The misleading ads may remain unchallenged for months and even years. Some of the ads reviewed by MIT Technology Review promoted treatments that have been proved to cause acute physical harm in some cases. Other ads pointed users toward highly expensive treatments with dubious outcomes.”

CNET: How Meta Is Trying to Put an End to Fake Facebook Reviews. “People may see fewer reviews on Facebook that disingenuously bolster business on the platform, thanks to a new Community Feedback policy. The Community Feedback policy targets reviews on the social network that are fake, incentivized, fraudulent or offensive to ensure that real customers are writing real reviews, according to a blog post from parent company Meta on Monday.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Facebook Settlement in Tracking Lawsuit Gets Preliminary OK From Court. “More than a decade after Facebook was accused of tracking users even after they logged off the social media platform, a district court in California has given preliminary approval for a $90 million class-action settlement.”

The Independent: Meta removes ‘large numbers’ of upskirting images found on Facebook. “Facebook owner Meta said it has removed a large number of groups and accounts which were sharing upskirting content following a BBC News investigation into the issue. The TV report found images and videos of upskirting being shared on the social media platform. It said some content which was reported to Facebook by the investigation was not immediately removed, with the site saying it did not appear to breach its community standards.”

CNET: Facebook Parent Meta Settles Lawsuit Alleging Discriminatory Housing Ads. “Facebook parent company Meta on Tuesday reached a settlement with the US Department of Justice over a lawsuit that alleged the social network allowed landlords and home sellers to run housing ads that excluded people based on race, sex, religion and other characteristics.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington Post: Facebook Oversight Board says company should be much more transparent. “More than a year after its creation, the Facebook Oversight Board argued in the first of what are to be annual reports that the social media company should be far more transparent about how it decides which posts and accounts to leave up and which to take down.”

The Atlantic: Sheryl Sandberg and the Crackling Hellfire of Corporate America. “During her 14 years at the company, she’s done so much damage to our society that we may never recover. The simple truth is that you cannot simultaneously dedicate yourself to making untold fortunes for a giant corporation and to championing a social good.”

June 30, 2022 at 08:21PM
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Ukraine at Cannes, Destroyed Cultural Heritage, Yandex in Ireland, More: Ukraine Update, June 30, 2022

Ukraine at Cannes, Destroyed Cultural Heritage, Yandex in Ireland, More: Ukraine Update, June 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Museums+Heritage: 12 museums among cultural sites damaged or destroyed in Ukraine confirms UNESCO . “According to a new count, 152 cultural sites in Ukraine have been partially or totally destroyed since the beginning of the war. Last week UNESCO published an updated assessment of the damage caused to cultural sites in Ukraine since 24 February 2022, when the Russian offensive began. According to the checks carried out by its experts, 152 cultural sites have been partially or totally destroyed as a result of the fighting, including 30 historical buildings, 18 cultural centres, 15 monuments, 12 museums, seven libraries and 70 religious buildings.”

The Drum: Digital effort to preserve Ukraine’s cultural artifacts amid war wins Grand Prix at Cannes. “On the second day at Cannes Lions, the Digital Craft Lions Grand Prix — which spotlights the best technological craft in the industry — was awarded to Virtue Worldwide New York for a project designed to protect and preserve Ukrainian cultural artifacts amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It was selected among 661 entries to win the top award in the category.”

Independent (Ireland): Russia-based tech giant Yandex pulls the plug on Irish subsidiary. “Yandex, the Russian tech giant, is shutting down its Irish entity less than six months after registering it here. The company is often referred to as Russia’s Google with its business spanning search, cloud computing and transport apps.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Task & Purpose: Ukraine’s new (and probably fake) war hero is a goddamn goat. “To paraphrase Mark Antony, ‘Cry havoc, and let slip the goats of war.’ Or something like that, because this latest dispatch from the war in Ukraine is about a goat supposedly taking out a platoon of Russian soldiers. The goat in question, at least according to The Telegraph, wandered into a group of Russian soldiers rigging some grenades around a hospital. The goat, carrying on with its goat business, then supposedly prematurely set off the boobytrap. It presumably walked away unscathed, leaving 40 wounded Russian troops in its wake.”

Motherboard: Ukrainians Will Write Your Message on Munitions Aimed at Russians for Donations. “A Ukrainian Telegram account is offering to write a message of your choice on artillery shells that will then be fired at Russian in exchange for $40 per message. The account claims that the funds it raises will go towards arming Ukrainian soldiers.”

Marine Corps Times: Ukraine lessons take center stage in Marines’ new information warfare plan. “The Marine Corps wants all troops to treat information as a core function of waging war. And the Russia-Ukraine conflict is providing a heavy underline to its efforts. On Thursday, the service released its eighth Marine Corps doctrinal publication, this one focused on information.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Ukraine arrests cybercrime gang operating over 400 phishing sites. “The Ukrainian cyberpolice force arrested nine members of a criminal group that operated over 400 phishing websites crafted to appear like legitimate EU portals offering financial assistance to Ukrainians.”

New York Times: Lithuania blames Russia for cyberattacks, citing threats over cargo restrictions.. “Just days after Moscow threatened retaliation against Lithuania for placing restrictions on cargo traffic to the isolated Russian territory of Kaliningrad, computer hackers ‘linked to the Russian state’ attacked dozens of Lithuanian government and private organizations, the Baltic nation’s deputy defense minister said.”

Bleeping Computer: Russia fines Google for spreading ‘unreliable’ info defaming its army. “Roskomnadzor, Russia’s telecommunications watchdog, has fined Google 68 million rubles (roughly $1.2 million) for helping spread what it called ‘unreliable’ information on the war in Ukraine and the failure to remove it from its platforms.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Brookings Institution: Russia’s narratives about its invasion of Ukraine are lingering in Africa. “The information spaces in Africa and other regions of the Global South like India and China have been heavily targeted by Russian disinformation and propaganda campaigns in recent months and years. In the case of Africa at this moment, Russia’s objectives are not only to justify its invasion of Ukraine, but to sway African countries to support Russia’s actions and secure Russia’s influence over the region, especially as the country becomes increasingly isolated from the United States and Europe.”

BBC: Tracking where Russia is taking Ukraine’s stolen grain. “There’s mounting evidence that Russian forces in occupied areas of Ukraine have been systematically stealing grain and other produce from local farmers. The BBC has talked to farmers and analysed satellite images and shipping data to track where the grain is going.”

Center for European Policy Analysis: The Quickest Route to Peace in Ukraine. “As ever, the Kremlin’s information warfare would not work without the impatience, short attention span, and anxiety in Western democracies, which the Kremlin knows very well. It has learned to exploit this with some skill.”

June 30, 2022 at 06:50PM
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Irish Traditional Music New York, New Jersey Environmental Threats, Colorado Environmental Justice, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, June 30, 2022

Irish Traditional Music New York, New Jersey Environmental Threats, Colorado Environmental Justice, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, June 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Irish Traditional Music Archive: From the Bridge: a view of Irish traditional music in New York launched Wednesday 29 June 2022. “The online exhibition showcases rare recordings, stories and photographs relating to New York’s remarkably rich Irish traditional music heritage. The ‘at-risk’ multimedia materials have now been preserved by ITMA and will be freely accessible online to a global audience thanks to the generosity of collectors, performers, their families, and our funders.”

The Sand Paper: New State Website Assists in Addressing Environmental Threats to Public Health. “A new website created by New Jersey’s Department of Health and Department of Environmental Protection provides municipal-level reports to help local governments and residents better understand and address environmental threats to public health. The Healthy Community Planning New Jersey site… allows access to reports detailing environmental, health and demographic indicators for each town in the state.”

Colorado State University: Colorado launches environmental justice tool developed by three CSU organizations. “This week marks the launch of Colorado EnviroScreen, the interactive online environmental justice tool to help disproportionately impacted communities and designed by three Colorado State University entities for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). More specifically, EnviroScreen identifies the Colorado communities that have been most impacted by systematic barriers to health and wellness and the cumulative impact of environmental pollution.”

EVENTS

University of Texas at San Antonio: UTSA’s virtual conference will share best practices and current trends in STEM librarianship. “This summer, UTSA Libraries will host the annual STEM Librarians South Conference from 12:30 to 5 p.m. on July 28 and from noon to 5 p.m. on July 29. The conference will feature a series of online presentations and will bring together information professionals and academics from across the United States to discuss current research, ideas, insights and best practices that advance STEM research and education.” Registration is required but the conference is free to attend.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Google: Firefox now automatically removes tracking parameters from URLs to enhance privacy. “According to an article from Bleeping Computer, companies like Facebook, Marketo, and HubSpot use custom URL query parameters to track links on clicks. Companies do this in order to provide users with a more personalized ad experience online. Called Query Parameter Stripping, these sites can no longer track what links you click when browsing on Firefox; once you’ve enabled the feature.”

New York Times: Crypto Crash Widens a Divide: ‘Those With Money Will End Up Being Fine’. “Enthusiasts promote the digital coins — which are exchanged using networks of computers that verify transactions, rather than through a centralized entity like a bank — as a means for people of all backgrounds to achieve transformational wealth outside the traditional finance system. But for all those supposedly egalitarian principles, crypto’s collapse has revealed a yawning divide: As employees of crypto companies lose their jobs and ordinary investors suffer huge losses, top executives have emerged relatively unscathed.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WKYC: Ohio’s LGBTQ news media through the decades. “The Gay People’s Chronicle published a guide to safe sex during the height of the AIDS crisis. It was delivered to each member of Cleveland City Council as a reminder that they represented everyone. Even President Obama took out a campaign ad during the 2008 election.”

NBC News: The rockstars of Minecraft are giving teens something to root for online . “Without as many traditional Internet A-listers as years past, VidCon, an annual social media conference for creators and their fans, seemed unusually quieter this year. That is, unless you were at the Dream SMP panel on Thursday. Two hours before the group, made up of Minecraft players, was expected to show up, screams had already broken out from the packed audience of about 2,000 fans. That doesn’t include the 135,000 people who livestreamed the panel from their homes.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Techdirt: China Unveils New Regulations Requiring Sites To Pre-Censor All Comments. “…China has pushed out a draft of revisions to its regulations regarding online commenting. And, while some of it is unclear, it appears to include a provision saying that services that enable comments need to have tools in place to review every comment before it can be viewed on the site.”

Rest of World: Argentina’s Supreme Court backs Google, says “right to be forgotten” can infringe on freedom of information. “The Argentine Supreme Court denied celebrity Natalia Denegri’s petition to have content about a scandal she was involved in more than 25 years ago removed from search engines on Tuesday. It is the first ruling by a Supreme Court in Latin America on the ‘right to be forgotten,’ which allows the public to control their online history.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Tampa Bay Times: As your dead relative, I don’t want Amazon’s Alexa to mimic me. “Listen. I have passed on, and that is sad. But I implore you. I do not want this. For starters, this is the beginning of at least six to 10 horror movies, and you know it. This is demon-level behavior. This opens the portal in the basement. Yes, this brings me back into the house, but not the way you want me. Oh, at first, you think it’s me, but then things start to get weird and the kitchen chairs fly across the room.”

VentureBeat: Roboflow expands open-source datasets for better computer vision AI models. “In an effort to help developers more easily benefit from labeled datasets and machine learning models for computer vision, Roboflow today announced an expansion of its datasets and AI models as part of its Roboflow Universe initiative, which could well be one of the largest such open-source repositories available. Roboflow claims that it now has over 90,000 datasets that include over 66 million images in the Roboflow Universe service launched in August 2021.” Good morning, Internet…

June 30, 2022 at 05:32PM
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Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Lead Free NC, Nebraska Rural Response Council, Google Scholar, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 29, 2022

Lead Free NC, Nebraska Rural Response Council, Google Scholar, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 29, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

NC Child: Creep, crawl, explore & grow safely. “This week, Lead Free NC is launching a new database that provides parents, realtors, and renovators with easy access to information about whether a home contains risks from lead-based paint.”

Farm & Ranch: Nebraska launches farm crisis website. “The Nebraska Rural Response Council, sponsor of the Rural Response Hotline, has a new website with information on resources available to farmers in crisis. Since 1984, the Rural Response Hotline has been providing information and resources in times of crisis.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google Scholar Blog: 2022 Scholar Metrics Released. “Scholar Metrics provide an easy way for authors to quickly gauge the visibility and influence of recent articles in scholarly publications. Today, we are releasing the 2022 version of Scholar Metrics. This release covers articles published in 2017–2021 and includes citations from all articles that were indexed in Google Scholar as of June 2022.”

B&T: Pinterest Appoints Former Google Executive Bill Ready As CEO. “Image sharing service Pinterest have announced that Bill Ready will be taking over the role of chief executive officer, after Ben Silbermann announced his resignation following 12 years of tenure. Silbermann will remain with Pinterest, however he will be moving on to the position of executive chairman, with his responsibilities significantly reduced.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NiemanLab: The Los Angeles Times gets a fully staffed “burner account”. “Unlike other social teams — including the Times’ own audience engagement staff — the 404 does not create content to amplify existing journalism. And readers won’t see work by the 404 on the Times’ website. Instead, the 404 has been tasked with ‘continually inventing new types of experimental content’ in hopes of reaching younger, more diverse audiences who are not already reading or engaging with The L.A. Times.”

New York Times: The Rise of the 0.5 Selfie. “Unlike a traditional selfie, which people can endlessly prepare and pose for, the 0.5 selfie — so named because users tap 0.5x on a smartphone camera to toggle to ultra-wide mode — has become popular because it is far from curated. Since the ultra-wide-angle lens is built into the back cameras of phones, people can’t watch themselves take a 0.5 selfie, creating random images that convey the whimsy of distortion.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: FCC Commissioner urges Google and Apple to ban TikTok. “‘TikTok is not just another video app. That’s the sheep’s clothing.’ That’s what Brendan Carr wrote in his tweet along with a copy of the letter he sent Apple and Google, asking the companies to remove TikTok from their app stores.”

Australian Financial Review: Apple and Google hit with class actions by Australian app users . “Apple and Google Android users in Australia are suing the California-based technology giants, alleging they used their market power to force app developers to use their payment systems, resulting in higher prices for consumers. Twin legal actions allege Apple and Google have ‘a substantial degree of power in the markets for the purchase’ of apps via the App Store and Google Play Store respectively, and the in-app purchase of content.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Swansea University: Swansea To Lead International Research Network On Violent Online Political Extremism. “The amount of online content promoting violent politics is increasing. Although initial concern on this issue was centred around violent jihadists, such as so-called ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS), VOX-Pol’s focus covers all groups who employ or advocate physical violence against other individuals and groups to forward their political objectives.”

Phys .org: Online platform designed to improve reproducibility, scientific collaborations. “For centuries, scientists relied on a pen or pencil and trusty lab notebook to make sure their experiments could be understood and replicated by colleagues. Now, as experiments may involve dozens of steps and hundreds of materials, produce gigabytes of data that require supercomputers to process and are shared with collaborators around the globe, the lab notebook may no longer suffice. In a recent study, the researchers report on the development of an online platform that can help genomic researchers track experiments from conception to publication, keeping exacting records for quality control purposes and easing potential reproducibility efforts.” Good afternoon, Internet…

June 30, 2022 at 12:21AM
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EmilyBlaster, Cloud Computing Security, Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, June 29, 2022

EmilyBlaster, Cloud Computing Security, Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, June 29, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Boing Boing: Literary Hub has an 90s style “Mathblaster” game based on Emily Dickinson. “Literary Hub’s new game ‘EmilyBlaster’ could be the most engaging way to make students that are interfacing with Emily Dickinson’s work for the first time view the classic poems in a new light. Although the potential for enticing students to read Emily Dickinson exists, the game was actually created to serve as a tie-in to the novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.”

SecurityWeek: New Database Catalogs Cloud Vulnerabilities, Security Issues. “Cloud security company Wiz has announced the launch of a new database whose goal is to keep track of vulnerabilities and other security issues affecting cloud services.”

Local Journalism Initiative: Knowledge Basket shares database of Indigenous information to care for lands and water. “The Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership has officially launched a new initiative titled the IPCA Knowledge Basket. It will provide resources through a database to communities and officials involved with Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCA). These are lands and waters where Indigenous governments have the primary role in protecting and conserving ecosystems.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Roundtable: Google Adds Pros & Cons To Search Result Snippets. “Normally when someone sends me a sophisticated search result snippet from Google and I dig in, I find a reason for how Google came up with this snippet. But it seems like in this case below, Google is being a bit more sophisticated and showing pros and cons in the snippet without the web site having mentioned pros and cons specifically.” Today in “What could possibly go wrong”….

How-To Geek: What’s New in Mozilla Thunderbird 102. “Thunderbird 102 isn’t the complete overhaul that some fans might be waiting for — the ‘completely modernized UI’ is scheduled for Thunderbird 114 next year. However, this update is a step in the right direction, with a few design tweaks and new features.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNN: ‘Watchdog moms’ on TikTok are trying to keep minors safe. “Seara Adair, a mother of two young daughters from Atlanta, revealed in a TikTok video last year that she was sexually abused by a family member as a child. In the next few weeks, her follower count grew by tens of thousands, many of whom appeared to be minors. After that, she started using the popular short-form video app to educate her followers about various digital dangers. She posted about the risks of being approached by strangers online and the problematic content found hidden in the deep corners of TikTok and other platforms.”

Hyperallergic: Warhol Foundation Grants $3.9 Million to 50 US Arts Organizations. “A few common themes emerged from the organizations and projects that received funding in this cycle. Some initiatives are social justice-oriented, highlighting issues surrounding Indigenous land rights, climate change and sustainability, and racial inequity. Others hope to train an eye on forgotten figures who have been buried in the historical archive as a result of structural forces that worked against them in their lifetimes: Several grants will support major museums and institutions that are putting on an underrepresented artist’s first solo exhibition or retrospective.”

BusinessWire: GRAMMY Museum® Grant Program Awards $200,000 for Music Research and Sound Preservation (PRESS RELEASE). “The GRAMMY Museum® Grant Program announced today that $200,000 in grants will be awarded to 16 recipients in the United States to help facilitate a range of research on a variety of subjects, as well as support a number of archiving and preservation programs.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: Russia fines Airbnb, Twitch and Pinterest for not storing data locally. “Russia has fined Airbnb, Twitch and Pinterest for violating the country’s personal data legislation, Reuters reports. On Tuesday, a court in Moscow ordered all three companies to pay fines of 2 million roubles (approximately $37,700) for not storing the data of Russian citizens within the country.”

Bleeping Computer: US, Brazil seize 272 websites used to illegally download music. “The domains of six websites that streamed and provided illegal downloads of copyrighted music were seized by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Department of Justice. 266 other websites part of the same network were also taken down in Brazil, with six individuals arrested in 30 search and seizure raids across the country.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: Democracy Is Asking Too Much of Its Data. “WE’VE ALLOWED OUR democracy to devolve into a game of musical chairs. The population of the United States has tripled, while states must fight over the same 435 seats and must see their fates determined by an algorithmic system plagued by arbitrary outcomes. It is time to enlarge the House of Representatives, a conclusion shared by a bipartisan committee of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.”

Galaxy Brain / The Atlantic: The “Hollow Abstraction” of Web3 . “I cannot stop watching videos of Web3 boosters failing to explain the usefulness of the technology. I realize this is petty, but the videos are deeply cathartic. I’m talking about two clips in particular, both of which were posted by Liron Shapira, a tech investor and writer, and a critic of crypto and Web3.” Good morning, Internet…

June 29, 2022 at 05:29PM
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Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Political Email, WordPress Plugins, Desk Work Exercise, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 28, 2022

Political Email, WordPress Plugins, Desk Work Exercise, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 28, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Axios: Scoop: Google moves to keep campaign messages out of spam. “Google has asked the Federal Election Commission to green light a program that could keep campaign emails from ending up in spam folders, according to a filing obtained by Axios.”

USEFUL STUFF

CogDogBlog: Useful Way to Taste a WordPress Plugin . “Think about it when you are looking to review or pick a WordPress plugin. All you have is what the authors write about it, maybe if luck a link to a demo. But this ‘trick’ Emma shared lets you actually take out of the Codex for a full test drive.”

MakeUseOf: How the Wakeout App Can Make Quick Workout Breaks More Fun. “Doing regular activity—even just standing—for a few minutes during extended periods of sitting time can help keep you feeling your best. However, when you’re engrossed in work, study, or a movie, it can be easy to forget to move. Wakeout is designed to get you moving regularly, and here’s how it works.”

How-To Geek: How to Play Adobe Flash SWF Files Outside Your Web Browser. “Adobe has ended any and all support for Flash. The company has now removed the download link to the Flash Player from its website, too. The program is still available on the Wayback machine for the time being.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Organization of American States: OAS and Foundation El Libro Total Make Available 80,000 Books in Spanish Free of Charge . “The Organization of American States (OAS) and Foundation El Libro Total today signed an agreement to disseminate more than 80,000 books digitized by the institution’s platform, free of charge, throughout the Americas and the world.”

Bloomberg: Google’s Cloud Customers Will Learn Their Gmail Carbon Footprint. “Google’s cloud-computing division is preparing to reveal the carbon footprint for its Workspace apps, including Gmail and Docs, as it builds out its suite of tools to help customers assess their impact on the environment.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: Period tracker Stardust surges following Roe reversal, but its privacy claims aren’t airtight. “TechCrunch ran a network traffic analysis of Stardust’s iPhone app on Monday to understand what data was flowing in and out of the app. The network traffic showed that if a user logs into the app using their phone number (rather than through a login service provided by Apple or Google), Stardust will periodically share the user’s phone number with a third-party analytics service called Mixpanel.”

CNN: ‘I’ve never experienced pain like that’: Influencers recount harrowing experiences with Daily Harvest crumbles, blast company’s handling of recall. “Instagram-friendly meal kit service Daily Harvest is facing a firestorm of online backlash over the voluntary recall of one of its products, after a slew of people who consumed it reported becoming ill with mysterious symptoms, including extremely elevated liver enzymes. The direct-to-consumer brand has long utilized a network of online influencers to promote its products. Now several influencers, who say they were sickened, say the company’s lackluster handling of the crisis is putting new responsibility on the influencer community to warn the public.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Rest of World: DALL·E mini has a mysterious obsession with women in saris. “[Fernando] Marés, a veteran hacktivist, began using DALL·E mini in early June. But instead of inputting text for a specific request, he tried something different: he left the field blank. Fascinated by the seemingly random results, Marés ran the blank search over and over. That’s when Marés noticed something odd: almost every time he ran a blank request, DALL·E mini generated portraits of brown-skinned women wearing saris, a type of attire common in South Asia.”

MIT Sloan School of Management: The promise of edge computing comes down to data. “Cloud adoption has rocketed as companies seek computing and storage resources that can be scaled up and down in response to changing business needs. But even given the cost and agility upsides to cloud, there’s rising interest in yet another deployment model — edge computing, which is computing that’s done at or near the source of the data. It can empower new use cases, especially the innovative artificial intelligence and machine learning applications that are critical to modern business success.” Good afternoon, Internet…

June 29, 2022 at 12:18AM
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Pandora Papers, Australia/New Zealand Music Festivals, Google Hangouts, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, June 28, 2022

Pandora Papers, Australia/New Zealand Music Festivals, Google Hangouts, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, June 28, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: Sign up for a guided email tour of the Pandora Papers. “The Pandora Papers also explore how this shadow economy takes a global toll beyond lost tax revenue, harming everyday people and the public interest in often unexpected ways. To help readers navigate the vast scope of this investigation, this six-part guided tour will walk you through the most explosive stories and break down key findings, email-by-email over the next two weeks, right in your inbox.”

The Music Network: That Festival Site to Launch New Era For Australian and New Zealand Music Festivals. “Officially launching this month, the new site is the creation of 21-year-old founder Jack Malloch, who wanted to develop a one-stop place for festival lovers to easily find information about both upcoming and past music festivals. Data has been gathered for more than 95 festivals, featuring a massive 900 lineups, 19,000 artists, and 30 years of music. Information on ticket prices, set times, and festival maps can be found, with key announcement dates also provided.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Google Hangouts is shutting down this fall. “Hangouts holdouts will have to finally say goodbye to Google’s most resilient chat app later this year. On Monday, the company announced it would start migrating consumer Hangouts users to Chat before the former is no longer available after November 2022.”

ZDNet: Google makes Earth Engine available to all businesses and governments. “For the past decade, researchers in academia and the nonprofit world have had access to increasingly sophisticated information about the Earth’s surface. Now, any commercial or government entity will have access to Earth Engine.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 8 of the Best Reddit Clients for iOS and Android. “Whether you are a Reddit lurker or spend hours a day on the site, finding the best experience on your smartphone is important, but finding the best Reddit clients for iOS and Android isn’t always easy. This list includes the best Reddit clients for your mobile in no particular order.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNET: Twitch, YouTube Debaters Are Talking People Out of Dangerous Conspiracy Theories. “Debaters like [Hunter] Avallone spend hours each day discussing politics and current events, often pulling their viewers from the brink of the misinformation abyss. They’ve become an informal part of an alliance of fact-checkers and researchers who are fighting to promote facts about COVID-19, election security and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Scoop Empire: Egypt’s Enduring Cassette Culture. “To rewind and get a better sense of the history of cassette culture in Egypt and its stubborn perseverance in the digital age, I spoke with Andrew Simon, a historian of popular culture and media in the Middle East who has taken a particular interest in Egyptian cassette culture. In his recently published book entitled Media of the Masses: Cassette Culture in Modern Egypt, Simon explores these questions and more in a thoroughly enjoyable deep-dive into Egyptian cassette culture and its cultural and political implications.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BusinessWire: CYBER.ORG Launches Project Access, a National Effort to Increase Access to Cybersecurity Education for Students with Disabilities (PRESS RELEASE). “Through the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Cybersecurity Education and Training Assistance Program (CETAP) grant, CYBER.ORG is pioneering a series of camps this summer in Arkansas, Maine, Virginia, and Michigan to introduce blind and vision impaired students to key cybersecurity topics, help them develop cybersecurity skills, and explore the possibility of a career in a growing industry.”

Associated Press: Company buying Trump’s social media app faces subpoenas. “The company planning to buy Donald Trump’s new social media business has disclosed a federal grand jury investigation that it says could impede or even prevent its acquisition of the Truth Social app.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CSUDH: Student Podcast Brings Ancient Maya to Life. “What’s the best way to make an ancient civilization accessible to a wide audience? Ask Jackeline and Lesli Hernandez, and they will tell you that podcasting is the key. The two sisters, who both graduated from CSUDH in May with degrees in anthropology, started the podcast ‘Uncovering the Ancient Maya’ in Spring 2022 to provide accurate, historical insights about the Maya to the general public.” The sisters started the podcast with three episodes, but it looks like other students will help it continue.

Phys .org: Research finds that Google searches may be a predictor of domestic violence. “…a study just published in the European Journal of Population finds that Google searches are an effective tool to track and predict domestic violence, especially in times of crisis, such as the period that followed the COVID-19 outbreak. And policymakers could use these results to better devise surveillance/monitoring systems to contain, minimize, and even anticipate surges in domestic violence.”

Grocery Business Canada: Sunkist uses citrus fruit sorter that’s powered by Google AI. “The sorting and grading of citrus fruit just got a lot easier thanks to the fully-automated Sunsortai machine, a next-generation sorter from Sunkist Research and Technical Services. The revolutionary new sorter uses Google AI technology to assess the inherent quality of each piece it processes, including any potential defects.” Good morning, Internet…

June 28, 2022 at 05:31PM
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Monday, June 27, 2022

Deaf and Disabled Performers Australia, First Ladies Fashion, Royalty-Free Sound Effects, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 27, 2022

Deaf and Disabled Performers Australia, First Ladies Fashion, Royalty-Free Sound Effects, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 27, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

IF Australia: CGA and Showcast launch database for Deaf and disabled performers. “The Casting Guild of Australia (CGA) has partnered with casting resource Showcast to create a dedicated platform to showcase Deaf and disabled performers. Hosted on Showcast’s website, the database will be made available to casting directors, agents and producers, and include self-taped video footage of individual performers, as well as a headshots and CVs.”

WWD: Untold Stories of Designers Who Dressed First Ladies Is Focus of New Virtual Exhibition. “Eight unsung and primarily lesser-known seamstresses, dressmakers and fashion designers, who dressed first ladies for some essential public appearances, are getting their due in the new digital exhibition, ‘Glamour and Innovation: The Women Behind the Seams of Fashion at the White House.'”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: The 11 Best Places to Find Royalty-Free Sound Effects for Your YouTube Videos. “When making YouTube videos, you need to ensure that you have the right to use particular sound effects. Many websites allow you to download royalty-free sound effects, but not all sites are created equal. This article introduces the best places to find royalty-free sound effects for your YouTube videos.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Associated Press: Why captions are suddenly everywhere and how they got there. “In recent years, smartphone apps like Otter; Google’s Live Transcribe; Ava; InnoCaption, for phone calls; and GalaPro, for live theater performances, have emerged. Some are aimed at people with hearing loss and use human reviewers to make sure captions are accurate. Others, like Otter and Live Transcribe, instead rely on what’s called automatic speech recognition, which uses artificial intelligence to learn and capture speech.”

Mashable: A centuries-old secret society is hanging out in Facebook groups. “Centuries ago, Rosicrucians were only able to maintain their society through their ability to be invisible. But over the past several hundred years, the world has changed — and, along with it, so has the need for Rosicrucians to stay shielded from the public. Now, they’re finding new ways to connect, by pivoting away from secrecy with the help of the most public tools they could find: Facebook, Zoom, and YouTube.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Hill: Federal government getting ready to open its books and show us the receipts. “As members of Congress and staff dig into President Biden’s 2023 budget request, they have a new tool for tracking when, where, and how the president is authorizing federal agencies to spend money — but Congress, and the public, needs to know this new tool exists. It comes in the form of apportionment transparency, an instrument designed to reinforce Congress’s power of the purse.”

ITPro Today: My Body, My Data Act Tackles Online Privacy in Wake of Roe v. Wade Decision. “Government action to protect reproductive health data is already in the works in the form of the My Body, My Data Act, which was introduced simultaneously in the Senate and House of Representatives on June 16. If enacted, the legislation will create a national standard to protect personal reproductive health data by restricting the data that can be collected and retained. Additionally, the legislation would prevent the data from being disclosed or misused.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Heriot Watt University: New project helps Amazon create dataset to advance multilingual language understanding research. “Researchers at the National Robotarium, hosted by Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh, have created a Spoken Language Understanding Resource Package (SLURP) aimed at making it easier for AI and machines to understand spoken questions and commands from humans. One of the items included in the package is an open dataset in English spanning 18 domains. Amazon recently localised and translated the English-only SLURP dataset into 50 typologically diverse languages, creating a new multilingual dataset called MASSIVE.”

PetaPixel: The Smithsonian is Shifting to a Future of Digital Museum Experiences. “The Smithsonian’s collection of historical artifacts is so large that only 1% of its 150 million piece collection is showcased at any given time. Mixed with age and fragility, the museum is quickly virtualizing its collection to be viewed online. The goal of the Smithsonian Digitization Program Office (DPO) is to digitally scan these historical artifacts and publish those scans online for future generations to enjoy and interact with.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

The Scotsman: Great Scottish books to get Scots translation. “Works such as Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, Dracula by Bram Stoker, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and Peter Pan are to get the Scots treatment in a new project designed to promote the language. Braw Beginnings is being run as part of Scotland’s Year of Stories, with Scots language ambassador Alistair Heather leading the work for VisitScotland.” Good afternoon, Internet…

June 28, 2022 at 12:34AM
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Setting Up a GitHub Full of Search Gizmos

Setting Up a GitHub Full of Search Gizmos
By ResearchBuzz

When I applied for the Bellingcat Tech Fellowship, it served to make me very aware of what I don’t know. I mean, I realize I know exactly nothing at least three times a day doing ResearchBuzz, but the lack of real programming ability felt more like an internal missing Lego block than a mere fact of ignorance.

So at the beginning of May I resolved to start learning JavaScript. So I got a good shot of JavaScript under my belt, took a brief detour to SQL so I could understand a couple of concepts, and am now playing around with JavaScript and Python. I’m learning enough that I’m getting ideas that I want to implement.

(Though I’m still terrible. If you feel compelled to email me and tell me I’m not a good programmer, I assure you I already know and don’t need a reminder.)

Consequently I’m making a bunch of experimental Google filters with JavaScript and HTML, and I’m keeping them on GitHub. I’m also hosting them on GitHub Pages so you can try them. My GitHub’s at https://github.com/ResearchBuzz , and my GitHub Page site’s at https://researchbuzz.github.io/ .

Here are the applications you can try at https://researchbuzz.github.io/ . None of them require API keys or any kind of registration, and you’re always welcome to grab the files from GitHub and make your own copies. I find they work fine when I host them locally on my machine.

Stay tuned, I suspect the more I learn the more I’ll make.

Twitter Receipts: — https://researchbuzz.github.io/Twitter-Receipts/index.html

Twitter Receipts has you enter a Twitter handle and a date, then queries The Wayback Machine for the closest snapshot of the Twitter handle to that date. The Wayback Machine page opens in a new URL. Sometimes the API is a little slow so give it a few seconds.

Back That Ask Up: — https://researchbuzz.github.io/Back-That-Ask-Up-/

Enter a Google News query and the number of days/months/years’ worth of the most recent news items you want to eliminate. BTAU will construct a date-restricted search query in Google News and open it in a new window.

The Anti-Bullseye Name Search: — https://researchbuzz.github.io/The-Anti-Bullseye-Name-Search/

TABNS takes a name and generates a Google search that searches for the name in reverse order (Lastname Firstname) and specifically excludes the most common expression of firstname lastname. It changes the tenor of the search results completely, surfacing many more legal- and data- based results. It also removes a lot of commercial clutter from your search (Amazon, eBay, Pinterest, etc) and gives you the option of adding focusing keywords to the name search.

Sinker Search: — https://researchbuzz.github.io/sinker-search/index.html

Sinker Search takes full advantage of Google’s 32-word query limit by letting you choose an emphasized word in your search which will be repeated until Google’s query limit is reached.

Blogspace Time Machine: — https://researchbuzz.github.io/blogspace-time-machine/index.html

A Google filter for exploring recently-created (current month) content in blogspace, with the option of seeing the same search in blogspace from one, three, five, ten, or fifteen years ago.

Blog Shovel: — https://researchbuzz.github.io/Blog-Shovel/index.html

A Google filter unearthing blog content, from the early days of the Web until now. For much older content than the Blogspace Time Machine (goes back to 1995.)

June 27, 2022 at 09:17PM
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