New researches

Friday, December 10, 2021

Wild Horse Management, North Carolina Newspapers, Political Cartoons, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, December 10, 2021

Wild Horse Management, North Carolina Newspapers, Political Cartoons, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, December 10, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Nevada Today: Wild Horses and Burros Documents Available Online. “The University Libraries recently completed work on a yearlong project to preserve documents collected and scanned by Catherine Barcomb, former administrator of the Nevada Wild Horse Commission. Donated to the Libraries in December 2019 and covering over sixty years of history, these +3,000 documents capture the complex issues that surround wild horses and burros in the American West.”

DigitalNC: This week: 25 Titles including over 5,000 issues of The Wilmington Morning Star. “In following with our collaboration with newspapers.com, we have another large batch of newspapers this week!… While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.”

Daily Cartoonist: Comic Chronicles: According To Doyle. “Penn State University Libraries’ Eberly Family Special Collections is hosting a new digital exhibition titled ‘The World According to Doyle: Editorial Cartoons from The Jerry Doyle Papers at Penn State.'”

University of California Riverside: Wildfire dataset could help firefighters save lives and property. “The dataset can be used to simulate the spread of wildfires to help firefighters plan emergency response and conduct evacuation. It can also help simulate how fires might spread in the near future under the effects of deforestation and climate change, and aid risk assessment and planning of new infrastructure development. The open-source dataset, named WildfireDB, contains over 17 million data points that capture how fires have spread in the contiguous United States over the last decade. The dataset can be used to train machine learning models to predict the spread of wildfires.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Twitter acquires, shuts down Slack rival Quill. “Twitter has acquired Quill, a Slack rival in the business-focused messaging space, the companies said on Tuesday. The specific terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.”

Twitter Blog: 2021 #OnlyOnTwitter. “You really had to be there, but fortunately we made sure to capture the magic that lived #OnlyOnTwitter in 2021. Read on as we revisit some of the top global moments of the year. Note: We only feature one Tweet per account and we don’t consider Tweets that offer reward in exchange for followers or engagement.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: In London, the Goldsmiths’ Company Gets Ready to Mark 700 Years. “The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, generally known as the Goldsmiths’ Company, is unusual among its 11 peers for still being directly linked to Britain’s goldsmithing industry… it is creating a digital archive of its 12,000-piece, centuries-old collection of silverware and jewelry as well as its extensive accumulation of design drawings and management and apprenticeship records.”

ABC News (Australia): National Film and Sound Archive announces 2021 Sounds of Australia inductees. “‘For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.’ These words from Kevin Rudd’s Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples were heard across the country when they were first uttered in 2008, as part of a formal apology on behalf of the Australian Parliament to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Now, they have been added to the National Film and Sound Archive’s (NFSA) Sounds of Australia for 2021.”

CNN: ‘TikTok changed my life.’ Real estate estate agents find huge success on the app. “During the height of the pandemic, real estate agents across the country discovered that social media platform TikTok was an ideal way to safely show prospective buyers homes. Now, some are saying the video app has revolutionized the way they sell real estate — and it is here to stay.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: YouTube reveals millions of incorrect copyright claims in six months. “Over 2.2 million copyright claims hit YouTube videos before later being overturned between January and June of this year, according to a new report published by the company today…. The 2.2 million incorrect claims represent less than 1 percent of the more than 729 million total copyright claims issued in the first half of this year, 99 percent of which originated from Content ID, YouTube’s automated enforcement tool.”

Ars Technica: Verizon overrides users’ opt-out preferences in push to collect browsing history. “Verizon is automatically enrolling customers in a new version of a program that scans mobile users’ browser histories—even when those same users previously opted out of the program when it had a different name.”

Axios: Scoop: Over 200 papers quietly sue Big Tech. “Newspapers all over the country have been quietly filing antitrust lawsuits against Google and Facebook for the past year, alleging the two firms monopolized the digital ad market for revenue that would otherwise go to local news.” Good morning, Internet…

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December 10, 2021 at 06:24PM
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Thursday, December 9, 2021

Apple Open Source, Healthcare Cybersecurity, Foggy Bottom, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 9, 2021

Apple Open Source, Healthcare Cybersecurity, Foggy Bottom, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 9, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

9to5 Mac: Apple launches redesigned website with its open source projects and others from the community. “Apple today launched a redesigned version of its Apple Open Source website, on which the company provides access to open source data. The new website highlights not only Apple’s open source projects, but also those of third parties.”

GovInfoSecurity: HHS Launches Repository for Health Sector Cybersecurity Help. “The new website provides a single repository for healthcare and public health sector entities to access an array of resources, best practice documents, videos, newsletters and other tools aimed at raising awareness, driving behavioral change and moving toward consistency in mitigating the cybersecurity threats most relevant to the sector, HHS says.”

The GW Hatchet: Foggy Bottom Association launches digital neighborhood history project. “The Foggy Bottom Association kicked off an ongoing history project last month with a series of blog posts and an archive of historical resources about the neighborhood’s history after announcing the initiative earlier this year. The leaders of the project said they hope students and residents will form a better understanding of the neighborhood and increase efforts to preserve and acknowledge the centuries-long history of Foggy Bottom.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechRadar: Google Drive update will force you to clean up your mess of files and folders. “In 2020, the company launched a shortcuts system designed to simplify file and folder structures, by ‘creating pointers to items, rather than having items which existed in multiple locations’. Now, Google has confirmed that multi-location files will be automatically migrated to shortcuts, starting early next year.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: How to create an NFT — and why you may not want to. “NFTs have been a cultural phenomenon throughout 2021, constantly making headlines as celebrities dabble in the space and as shenanigans, scams, and legal fights ensue. With some creators making millions off NFTs, though, it’s understandable why you’d want to try your hand at it or play around with the tech to get a better feel for it. We’re going to go over how to create an NFT using two of the most popular marketplaces, but before we get to that point, let’s cover some of the basics of what an NFT is and the decisions you may have to make before deciding to sell one.” Extensive explainer.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

American Music Research Center: AMRC to preserve and share historic trove of silent-era film scores. “Between 1900 and 1929, when Sid Grauman ran silent films with live orchestral accompaniment in his Hollywood ‘movie palaces,’ he probably never imagined that the thousands of orchestral scores used by his musicians would be recognized as important Americana in their own right. A century later—with a $116,916 grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Committee (NHPRC)—the University of Colorado Boulder’s American Music Research Center (AMRC) is creating a comprehensive digital archive of the Grauman Theatre Scores Collection.”

CNET: Google to give $1600 bonus to employees worldwide, says report. “Google plans to deploy an additional cash bonus of $1600, or its equivalent to employees worldwide, according to a Reuters report published Thursday, as a support measure for its global workforce amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Los Angeles Times: ‘I need my girlfriend off TikTok’: How hackers game abuse-reporting systems. “It’s a very 2021 thing to fear. The policing of user-generated internet content has emerged as a hot-button issue in the age of social-mediated connectivity, pitting free speech proponents against those who seek to protect internet users from digital toxicity. Spurred by concerns about misinformation and extremism — as well as events such as the Jan. 6 insurrection — many Democrats have called for social media companies to moderate user content more aggressively. Republicans have responded with cries of censorship and threats to punish internet companies that restrict expression.”

Wired: An ‘Alt-Jihad’ Is Rising On Social Media . “Unlike their predecessors, the post-September 11 generation of young internet jihadists is no longer simply defined by their ideological affinities. This is a generation that was born into a global war on terror, came of age during the rise of the Islamic State, and witnessed the Taliban taking back control of Afghanistan. A generation that no longer trusts its self-appointed leaders, others within its communities, or mainstream religious mores. A generation that seems outwardly conflicted, borrowing from those that hate what it represents but seemingly compelled by that very same hate. A generation as fluent in Hadith to support wanton violence as in the hatred of minorities and the latest DaBaby track.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Sacramento Bee: Stories about minor criminal offenses to be reviewed under The Bee’s ‘Clean Slate’ program. “Next month, The Sacramento Bee will launch the Clean Slate project, an effort to re-examine some older news stories about incidents, minor criminal offenses or cases that ultimately were dismissed but still live on in the digital world, sometimes making it difficult for the subjects to find jobs or move on with their lives.” Good afternoon, Internet…

December 10, 2021 at 02:02AM
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Resilience of the Redwoods, New York City Genealogy, Black Railway Porters in Canada, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, December 9, 2021

Resilience of the Redwoods, New York City Genealogy, Black Railway Porters in Canada, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, December 9, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: Explore resilience in the face of the California wildfires. “Through detailed 3D models of famed redwood trees, archival photographs, and multimedia stories from Park employees, you can now explore Resilience of the Redwoods on Google Arts and Culture. Travel through time at California’s first park from the budding preservation movement to Park Rangers’ connections to the trees today. Through interactive 3D, explore centuries of scars and growth of some of the oldest trees in the park and learn about the increasing impacts of fire on the ancient redwood habitat.”

Columbia News: A Digital Map of Historical New York Offers an Extraordinary Level of Detail. “A glimpse into New York City at the turn of the 20th century can now be viewed at an exceptional level of detail: 6.5 million unique census records from 1850, 1880, and 1910 are pinpointed to residential addresses on the recently launched website Mapping Historical New York: A Digital Atlas. During these 60 years, New York City experienced a radical transformation due to an immigration surge and expansion into Brooklyn.”

University at Buffalo: UB professor’s book inspires digital exhibition. “Myseum of Toronto is hosting an online conversation with Cecil Foster, UB professor of Africana and American Studies, at 7 p.m. Dec. 8 to officially open a new exhibition based on his groundbreaking history, ‘They Call Me George: The Untold Story of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Modern Canada.’ ‘Derailed: The History of Black Railway Porters in Canada’ is a digital exhibit created in collaboration with Foster that builds upon his book’s illuminating narrative to present the porters’ story through dramatic monologues, articles, archival photographs, artifacts and discussion surrounding their push for civil rights across North America.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNN: Here’s what people Googled in 2021. “If 2020 was defined by a spike in people frantically Googling for everything related to the coronavirus, this year saw the old standards of sports and entertainment make a resurgence in online searches around the world.”

Bleeping Computer: Amazon is shutting down web ranking site Alexa.com. “Amazon announced on Wednesday plans to shut down its global website ranking system and competitor analysis tool ‘Alexa.com’, which has been available for 25 years. Alexa.com is a subsidiary company of Amazon and it’s widely known for its global ranking system which uses web traffic data from its partners to list the most popular internet companies.”

Engadget: ‘Reading Rainbow’ will return in 2022 with an interactive component. “After more than 15 years off the air, Reading Rainbow will return to TV in early 2022. Per CBS News, this latest version of the classic children’s show will be known as Reading Rainbow Live. It will feature an interactive component that kids will be able to access through Looped. The platform will allow viewers to ask questions of the cast, and participate in games. Naturally, Reading Rainbow Live will also be available to stream online.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Reuters: New online archive for Benin Bronzes to go live at end of 2022. “An online archive bringing together information on thousands of Benin Bronze artefacts in museums around the world is expected to go live at the end of next year, one of the organisers said on Friday. The Benin Bronzes, which are mostly in Europe, were stolen from Nigeria’s Benin City during colonialism and are among Africa’s most significant heritage objects.”

CNET: Wide-eyed kid from Popeye’s meme is now a state football champ. “You might not know Dieunerst Collin personally, but you still know Dieunerst Collin. In a Vine video shot back in 2013, he stands wearing a yellow shirt, holding a Popeye’s fast-food drink cup, side-eyeing the camera…. His image is still regularly pasted into plenty of reaction memes, whenever anyone wants a wary, alarmed face to go with a caption. And now Collin has a new, more impressive title for his resume: State football champ.”

Pennsylvania Pressroom: The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission Awards More Than $2 Million In Grants To Museums, Historical Organizations, Local Governments And Academic Institutions. “The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission (PHMC) has awarded almost $2 million in Cultural and Historical Support Grants to 154 eligible museums and official county historical societies from 56 Pennsylvania counties. In addition, PHMC awarded more than $175,000 in Historical and Archival Records Care (HARC) Grants to 34 organizations in 24 Pennsylvania counties.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Cambodia Says Looter Helping It Reclaim Stolen Artifacts Has Died. “Cambodian officials say a reformed looter who directed a ring that pillaged Khmer-era temples for two decades, ending in the late 1990s, has died, but that they will continue to use the testimony he provided as they work to reclaim more stolen artifacts. The man, Toek Tik, 62, spent the last two years informing officials of his activities as he sought to help them reclaim hundreds of statues and other relics he said he had personally looted, many of which, Cambodia says, are now in private hands and museum collections.”

Ars Technica: The movement to hold AI accountable gains more steam. “New York’s City Council last month adopted a law requiring audits of algorithms used by employers in hiring or promotion. The law, the first of its kind in the nation, requires employers to bring in outsiders to assess whether an algorithm exhibits bias based on sex, race, or ethnicity. Employers also must tell job applicants who live in New York when artificial intelligence plays a role in deciding who gets hired or promoted.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Wired: Jack Dorsey’s Twitter Failed African Countries. “To the West, Twitter under Dorsey’s reign from 2015 to 2021 often looked like an acidic, hate-fuelled, raging dumpster fire. But what westerners got was Twitter’s platinum version. It’s the version made by people who take their civic problems seriously because those problems are theirs too. Misinformation, hate speech, and manipulation on the platform is much worse in my corner of the world and Dorsey’s legacy in Africa is even more neglectful and hypocritical than his legacy in the Western world.”

KentOnline: Rochester Castle captured by drones to create digital model. “A detailed digital model for conservation work at Rochester Castle has been created from drone imagery. Commercial ‘pilot’ Geoff Watkins flew his craft over the historic building as part of a partnership scheme with English Heritage and Medway Council.” Good morning, Internet…

December 9, 2021 at 06:38PM
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Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Ute Language, Firefox, Face Swapping, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 8, 2021

Ute Language, Firefox, Face Swapping, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 8, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

PR Newswire: Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Launch Digital Ute Language Dictionary (PRESS RELEASE). “The Ute Language digital dictionary is the latest resource for speakers and learners of the Ute Language. Time is critical for this Indigenous community as they fight to reinvigorate the next generation of learners. It is estimated that today there are a little over 110 fluent Ute Mountain Ute speakers. The Ute Mountain Ute digital dictionary will be free for learners to access on the web or to download the app on both iOS and Android devices.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Firefox’s latest security feature is designed to protect itself from buggy code. “The feature, called RLBox, was developed with help from researchers at the University of California San Diego and the University of Texas, and it was originally released as a prototype last year. It’s coming to both the desktop and mobile versions of Firefox. At its core, RLBox is a sandboxing technology, which means that it’s effectively able to isolate code so that any security vulnerabilities it might contain can’t harm the overall system.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: The 7 Best Face Swap Apps. “The smartphone has made it possible for anyone to easily employ advanced photo-editing tools, for which you’d otherwise need Photoshop skills. One such ability is to swap people’s faces in pictures. Face swap apps have made this as simple as tapping your screen a few times. Whether you want to perfect a face swap using manual manipulation or you want an app that does all the hard work for you, there is a face swap app available for that.”

PC World: Stay focused with these 5 Google Chrome extensions. “While remote work definitely has its perks (nothing beats wearing comfy pajama bottoms all day), it has its downfalls too. Do you ever find yourself getting absorbed in a juicy Twitter thread or being sucked down a wormhole of countless dog-themed TikToks? If Google Chrome is your browser of choice, then you’re in luck. We’ve rounded up the best Chrome extensions to help keep you on track.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Those Cute Cats Online? They Help Spread Misinformation.. “Videos and GIFs of cute animals — usually cats — have gone viral online for almost as long as the internet has been around. Many of the animals became famous: There’s Keyboard Cat, Grumpy Cat, Lil Bub and Nyan Cat, just to name a few. Now, it is becoming increasingly clear how widely the old-school internet trick is being used by people and organizations peddling false information online, misinformation researchers say.”

Vietnam+: Vietnam steps up digitalisation of cultural heritage. “The programme aims to build a national database system on cultural heritage on a consistent digital platform, which serves the archive, management, research, conservation and introduction of heritage, thereby fostering sustainable tourism development. It is also to step up digital transformation and integration of national digital data on cultural heritage.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Techdirt: Newly Revealed Details Show That Missouri Government Totally Knew That Journalists Were Not At Fault For Teacher Data Vulnerability. “The Post-Dispatch, whose reporters potentially still face charges, put out an open records request to find out more about what the government was saying and discovered, somewhat incredibly, that before DESE [Department of Elementary and Secondary Education] referred to them as hackers, it already knew that it was at fault here and even initially planned to thank the journalists.”

Washington Post: Google disrupted a massive botnet that hackers used to steal information and mine cryptocurrency. “Google is suing two Russia-based individuals it alleges are behind a massive network of infected computers that have been used for crimes ranging from the theft of personal information to secretly mining bitcoin on the computers of unsuspecting hacking victims.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NiemanLab: How researchers used decades of Wall Street Journal articles to predict stock market returns . “Financial news articles can be a good short-term indicator of why the U.S. stock market is doing well or poorly, finds a new working paper, ‘Business News and Business Cycles,’ from the National Bureau of Economic Research. Based on a full-text analysis of 763,887 Wall Street Journal articles published from 1984 to 2017, the authors find that news coverage of particular topics, like signs of a looming recession, predicts 25% of average fluctuations in stock market returns.”

UC San Diego: Who’s got your mail? Google and Microsoft, mostly . “Who really sends, receives and, most importantly perhaps, stores your business’ email? Most likely Google and Microsoft, unless you live in China or Russia. And the market share for these two companies keeps growing.” Good afternoon, Internet…

December 9, 2021 at 01:27AM
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Black Canadian Veterans, South Dakota Suffrage, Twitter, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, December 8, 2021

Black Canadian Veterans, South Dakota Suffrage, Twitter, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, December 8, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

CBC: Stories of Black Canadian veterans the focus of new website leading up to federal apology in 2022. “Ontario historian Kathy Grant, whose Barbadian father served as a volunteer in the Canadian Armed Forces during the Second World War, has been researching Canada’s Black soldiers for years, digitizing their photographs and records and posting their stories on social media. But it was only last month that she was able to launch the website Black Canadian Veterans Stories, funded by Veterans Affairs Canada.”

South Dakota State News: State Historical Society digitizes important suffrage papers . “More than 3,765 women’s suffrage items from the John A. and Alice Pickler Papers are now available on the South Dakota Digital Archives of the South Dakota State Historical Society. In 1991, 65 boxes of Pickler family records were donated to the State Historical Society-Archives at the Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre, including photographs, political papers, business records, and more than four boxes of suffrage-related correspondence, speech notes, meeting minutes, and booklets.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Twitter will use new data from reported tweets to identify platform problems earlier. “Like most social media companies, Twitter has long relied on user reporting to flag potentially policy-violating tweets. But in its new imagining of that system those reports would provide the company with a richer picture of behavior on the platform rather than just a way to evaluate individual incidents in isolation.”

MakeUseOf: The 8 Best Storyboarding Apps to Visualize Your Ideas. “The utility of a storyboarding app is not confined to the film industry anymore. Whether you are a teacher, businessman, ad maker, animator, or social media enthusiast, you can make the best out of a storyboarding app for an organized narrative. Check out the best storyboarding tools that you should use to smoothen the video production process and minimize errors.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: A Landmark Photo Archive of Black Life in New York Comes to the Met. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem announced Tuesday that they would share ownership of the archive of James Van Der Zee, a virtuoso photographer who over a 70-year professional career produced an unrivaled chronicle of African American life in Harlem. The archive, which will be housed at the Met, comprises about 20,000 prints and 30,000 negatives.”

JamBase: Jerry Garcia Foundation Announces Jerry Garcia Archive. “The Jerry Garcia Foundation announced the launch of the Jerry Garcia Archive. The official online archive honoring the late Grateful Dead guitarist will be available on what would have been Jerry Garcia‘s 80th birthday, August 1, 2022.”

Mashable: The 7 TikTok recipes of 2021 that actually deserved the hype. “Where I was once skeptical, I am now a convert: TikTok is fantastic for people who love cooking, eating, and learning about food. There are a lot of talented cooks and creators on the app — a personal favorite is chef @sad_papi — but there are those singular dishes that transcend the platform to become global trends in and of themselves. This year, certain TikTok recipes, somehow, someway, ended up just as popular as the renegade dance. We’re talking ‘ingredients became hard to find’ popular.

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Microsoft seizes multiple websites from Chinese hacking group. “Microsoft on Monday said that its digital crime unit obtained authorization from a federal court to seize multiple websites a Chinese hacking group was using to target organizations in the US and 28 other countries. The hacking group, dubbed Nickel, was using the sites to execute attacks ‘for intelligence gathering from government agencies, think tanks and human rights organizations,’ Microsoft said in a blog post.”

Times of Malta: Guilty of a crime? It can now be ‘forgotten’ online after three years. “People found guilty of a crime can apply to have the court judgment against them removed from the public domain after three years, according to guidelines issued by the Court Services Agency. The guidelines also state that if the judgment is appealed, the three year period starts from the date of the appeal decision.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Mashable: How I fixed my toxic relationship with Twitter . “As a woman online who writes primarily about music and fandom, I have experienced the ire of passionate fan bases. Sadly, it comes with the job. There have been times when those criticisms can lead to real, constructive discourse. But as Twitter becomes increasingly weaponized by stans, those instances have become few and far between. After all, it’s hard to search through hundreds of instances of threats and abuse to find the people who want to give you helpful feedback. Even engaging with those tweets results in more harassment. It just became too much. And it made me too sad amid a pandemic that had already destroyed my confidence and self-worth.”

Phys .org: New website evaluates the effectiveness of science communication activities. “Scientists regularly appear in the media. They participate in science cafés, write a popular-science book or visit school classes. In that way, they want to convey their knowledge and enthusiasm to society. But do they succeed? To answer that question, a new website is launched, with a toolbox full of instruments to evaluate the effect of science communication activities.” This resource is in Research & Opinion instead of New Resources because it is currently only available in Dutch. An English version is planned.

MIT News: Machines that see the world more like humans do. “A new ‘common-sense’ approach to computer vision enables artificial intelligence that interprets scenes more accurately than other systems do.” Good morning, Internet…

December 8, 2021 at 06:28PM
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Tuesday, December 7, 2021

New York State Digital Equity Portal, Edith Cavell, Chromebooks, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 7, 2021

New York State Digital Equity Portal, Edith Cavell, Chromebooks, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 7, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Cornell Chronicle: Advancing digital equity: ILR School develops tool to help NYS communities. “The ILR School and Community Tech NY are launching the New York State Digital Equity Portal Dec. 7 in partnership with the New York State Department of Education, the New York State Library and the John R. Oishei Foundation. The portal is an interactive, online data mapping tool for communities and individuals seeking data to inform broadband adoption and improve digital equity for millions of New York state residents without wired internet access.”

Nursing Times: New archive of memorabilia on WWI nurse Edith Cavell launched. “A new archive celebrating Edith Cavell, a British nurse who saved the lives of British, French and Belgium soldiers and civilians in Brussels during World War 1, has been launched in Norfolk, the county of her birth.”

USEFUL STUFF

CNET: 10 Chromebook productivity tricks to use if you’re trying to be more efficient. “If you were only introduced to the world of Chromebooks in the past year or two, you’re not alone. Chromebook shipments skyrocketed in 2020 due to the sharp increase in remote workers and students caused by the pandemic. That didn’t slow down in 2021, either, according to the research firm Canalys. New Chromebook users and veterans alike can learn some new tricks to boost productivity in Chrome OS. Read on for eight features that make your life more efficient on a Chromebook.”

MakeUseOf: How to Organize Your Folders, Categories, and Tags for Maximum Efficiency. “So, your task organization system needs help. Maybe your folder structure has gotten so deep that it’s about to come out on the other side of the planet. Maybe you’re tired of typing a thousand tags for every item. If so, this article is for you.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Playbill: Personal Letters From Late Broadway Legend Stephen Sondheim Collected in New Instagram Account . “A new Instagram account… collects personal correspondence from late Broadway titan Stephen Sondheim, the groundbreaking composer-lyricist behind such musicals as Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, Company, and Sunday in the Park with George.”

AFP: AFP, Google team up to fact-check French polls. “AFP and Google France announced on Monday a fact-checking project to combat false information ahead of the French presidential and legislative elections next year. With the support of Google, AFP will coordinate an alliance of media and fact-checking organisations to train French newsrooms, the internet giant and the global news agency said in a joint statement.”

Techdirt: MLB Removes References To Current Players On MLB.com Due To Lockout. “For non-MLB fans, the quick version is this: the collectively bargained labor agreement between owners and players expired this week without a new agreement inked. As a result, the players are now locked out of team facilities by ownership. That last bit is important, because many people have been describing this as a labor strike. It isn’t. At all. This is the owners refusing to let the players fulfill their duties. And as part of that, it seems, MLB released the following news update on its MLB.com website.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Motherboard: Judge Orders Google to Disclose Secret Anti-Union Documents. “A National Labor Relations Board judge ruled that Google must ‘immediately’ produce more than 70 subpoenaed documents related to a secret anti-union campaign, known as code name ‘Project Vivian,’ that Google ran to crush a union drive at the company.”

Reuters: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware – sources . “Apple Inc iPhones of at least nine U.S. State Department employees were hacked by an unknown assailant using sophisticated spyware developed by the Israel-based NSO Group, according to four people familiar with the matter.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Michael Hoffman: Could a Podcast Make Itself?. “I run a daily podcast called The Weather in Brooklyn. Every morning, you can expect a new episode to appear in its feed. There’s an audio logo at the beginning, then some music starts playing, and the host begins to speak. The host presents the weather forecast for that day in Brooklyn, reads the credits, and signs off. The music fades out, and the episode ends. But the host isn’t me. It’s not a person at all. And I don’t exactly run this podcast. It’s my podcast, to be sure, but I don’t make it every day. In fact, I’m usually still half asleep when new episodes are created.” Good afternoon, Internet…

December 8, 2021 at 02:05AM
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Frances Haugen, Disinformation Campaigns, Hate Speech, Congressional Hearings, More: Facebook Roundup, December 7, 2021

Frances Haugen, Disinformation Campaigns, Hate Speech, Congressional Hearings, More: Facebook Roundup, December 7, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WGN Radio: Haugen urges lawmakers to avert impasse on social media laws. “Ex-Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen implored lawmakers Wednesday to avert the usual congressional stalemates as they weigh proposals to curb abuses on social media platforms by limiting the companies’ free-speech protections against legal liability.”

Business Insider: Meta says it busted more than 600 Facebook and Instagram accounts linked to a massive China-based COVID-19 disinformation campaign. “Meta’s ‘Adversarial Threat Report’ said that the company removed 524 Facebook accounts, 86 Instagram accounts, 20 Facebook pages, and four Facebook groups linked to this disinformation campaign in November.”

CNET: Meta to mandate two-factor authentication for high-profile users. “Facebook-owner Meta said Thursday that it will begin requiring its highest-profile and highest-risk users to protect their accounts with two-factor authentication. The new security requirement will apply to users of Facebook Protect, a feature offered to human rights activists, journalists, government officials and other high-profile users deemed likely to be targeted by cybercriminals. The feature also monitors accounts for hacking threats.”

KnowTechie: Instagram desperately wants you to create a new account. “If you haven’t noticed, Instagram is subtly pushing users to start a new account. A couple of weeks back, the app presented me with a popup that encouraged me to ‘try a new account’ and floated the idea that it would help me ‘keep up with a smaller group of friends.’ But what’s the point of doing that when Instagram already offers you the ability to share Stories with ‘Close Friends’ and set an account to private? This sounds like an easy cash grab to boost the company’s user numbers, but hey, I could be wrong.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Washington Post: Facebook’s race-blind practices around hate speech came at the expense of Black users, new documents show. “The Black audience on Facebook is in decline, according to data from a study Facebook conducted earlier this year that was revealed in documents obtained by whistleblower Frances Haugen. According to the February report, the number of Black monthly users fell 2.7 percent in one month to 17.3 million adults…. Civil rights groups have long claimed that Facebook’s algorithms and policies had a disproportionately negative impact on minorities, and particularly Black users. The ‘worst of the worst’ documents show that those allegations were largely true in the case of which hate speech remained online.”

New York Post: Facebook staffer secretly advised Andrew Cuomo’s team to ‘victim shame’ accuser. “A Facebook manager who once worked for Andrew Cuomo secretly advised the disgraced ex-governor’s team to ‘victim shame’ a sexual harassment accuser, according to text messages released this week by the New York Attorney General’s office. The Facebook staffer then sought to cover up her involvement in advising the governor, the messages reveal.”

CNN: Facebook sold ads comparing vaccine to Holocaust. “Facebook has sold ads promoting anti-vaccine messages, comparing the US government’s response to Covid-19 to Nazi Germany, casting doubt on the result of the 2020 election, and even pushing political violence. The ads have been run by merchandise companies that have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Facebook over the last few years.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: The head of Instagram agrees to testify as Congress probes the app’s effects on young people.. “Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has agreed for the first time to testify before Congress, as bipartisan anger mounts over harms to young people from the app. Mr. Mosseri is expected to appear before a Senate panel during the week of Dec. 6 as part of a series of hearings on protecting children online, said Senator Richard Blumenthal, who will lead the hearing.”

Sky News: Channel deaths: People smugglers touting openly on Facebook. “Finding a route across the channel is as easy as typing ‘smuggler’ into Facebook. Far from being a hidden world, Sky News has found that a network of smugglers is operating openly on the social media platform. Routes into Europe and the UK are regularly highlighted, with posts featuring images of the Union Jack and Big Ben. One smuggler even claimed he would be able to make customers a British passport.”

Rolling Stone: FBI Document Says the Feds Can Get Your WhatsApp Data — in Real Time. “As Apple and WhatsApp have built themselves into multibillion-dollar behemoths, they’ve done it while preaching the importance of privacy, especially when it comes to secure messaging. But in a previously unreported FBI document obtained by Rolling Stone, the bureau claims that it’s particularly easy to harvest data from Facebook’s WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage services, as long as the FBI has a warrant or subpoena.”

BBC: Rohingya sue Facebook for $150bn over Myanmar hate speech. “Dozens of Rohingya refugees in the UK and US have sued Facebook, accusing the social media giant of allowing hate speech against them to spread. They are demanding more than $150bn (£113bn) in compensation, claiming Facebook’s platforms promoted violence against the persecuted minority.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Morning Consult: Could the Facebook Papers Close the Deal on Privacy Legislation?. “The disclosures from the Facebook Papers have led to a flurry of legislative proposals on Capitol Hill to address data use, kids’ online safety and malicious content. The single most effective step Congress can take is to enact comprehensive privacy legislation to address the explosion of digital information that is presently not covered by existing, narrower privacy laws.”

December 8, 2021 at 12:41AM
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