Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Kelp Watch, Hospital Cost Transparency, Flickr’s Change of Heart, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 5, 2022

Kelp Watch, Hospital Cost Transparency, Flickr’s Change of Heart, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 5, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Nature Conservancy: World’s Largest Dynamic Kelp Map Launched, Uncovering Unprecedented Declines in Key Areas of California. “A groundbreaking open-source web tool, Kelpwatch.org harnesses the power of machine learning and cutting-edge remote sensing science to analyze nearly 40 years of Landsat satellite data and interactively display kelp forest canopy. Kelpwatch.org users can select a region, time frame and seasons of interest to animate the changes in kelp canopy over time and freely download data.”

PR Newswire: Understanding Hospital Costs– New Tool Makes Data More Transparent and Accessible (PRESS RELEASE). “The [Hospital Cost Tool] identifies different cost measures including hospital revenue, cost to charge ratios, and profitability across more than 4,600 hospitals nationwide from 2011 through 2019. It is interactive, allowing users to examine data for an individual hospital or specific health system, by state or users can compare data across hospitals and states. The tool is based on NASHP’s Hospital Cost Calculator that uses Medicare Cost Report data annually submitted to the federal government by hospitals. Data for 2020 will be added to the tool after more hospitals have completed their reports for that year.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Input: Flickr deleted, and then undeleted, 5 million archival images. “After a Twitter thread by Danish designer Jonas Lönborg brought attention to the heartbreaking erasure, Flickr CEO Don MacAskill responded that Flickr’s recommendation for the Internet Archive to delete the account had been ‘a mistake.’ He explained that the 5 million book images ‘were drowning out the rest of the Commons members’ and announced a new solution: Flickr will restore the account but move it out of the Commons.”

CNBC: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors. “Elon Musk will join Twitter’s board of directors after taking a 9.2% stake in the social media company, according to a release filed with the SEC.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Fashionista: The Internet’s Favorite Fashion Archivist Has Aspirations Beyond the Feed. “The popularity of archival accounts reflects a really ‘zeitgeisty’ moment in fashion where vintage is king and spotting a reference is a form of cultural currency. Accounts like [Kim] Russell’s have turned archives into open access platforms that allow fans to engage with images or garments that previously required a more rigorous search to accurately ID a piece. Her work is a starting point for anyone who wants to explore vintage, but still leaves room for the audience to engage with the content on their terms.”

CNET: How Social Media Became a Force for Digital Activism. “Social media has gained a reputation over the years for misinformation and distrust, but it’s also an important tool for activists and advocacy groups. With its nonstop nature and widespread reach, social media isn’t something they could ignore anyway. Instead, many have embraced it and rethought their strategy around recruiting and getting their message out.”

Reuters: India blocks 22 YouTube news channels citing national security. “India’s government on Tuesday said it has banned 22 YouTube channels, including four of Pakistani origin, for disinformation on subjects concerning national security and public order, the latest such federal crackdown in the country. The country’s Ministry of Information & Broadcasting said the blocked YouTube channels had a combined total of 2.6 billion viewers.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Techdirt: Why Moderating Content Actually Does More To Support The Principles Of Free Speech. “Lawyer Akiva Cohen recently had a really worthwhile thread that explains why the entire concept of a ‘philosophical commitment to free speech’ is somewhat meaningless if you think it’s distinct from government consequence. The key point that he makes is that once you separate the ‘principles’ or the ‘philosophy’ of free speech from legal consequences, you’re simply down to debating competing speech and associations.”

Washington Post: The FBI is spending millions on social media tracking software. “Social media users seemed to foreshadow the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — and the FBI apparently missed it. Now, the FBI is doubling down on tracking social media posts, spending millions of dollars on thousands of licenses to powerful social media monitoring technology that privacy and civil liberties advocates say raise serious concerns.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Creative Commons: CC publishes policy paper titled Towards Better Sharing of Cultural Heritage — An Agenda for Copyright Reform. “Over the past few months, members of the Creative Commons (CC) Copyright Platform along with CC friends from around the world have worked together to develop a policy paper addressing the key high-level policy issues affecting access and sharing of cultural heritage, notably by galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs). In this blog post, we provide some background on the paper and share a few highlights.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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April 6, 2022 at 02:42AM
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Endangered Cultural Heritage, NFT Fundraising, Spanish-Language Disinformation, More: Ukraine Update, April 5, 2022

Endangered Cultural Heritage, NFT Fundraising, Spanish-Language Disinformation, More: Ukraine Update, April 5, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bloomberg: Ukraine Raises $600,000 Through Museum NFT Sales to Help Rebuild. “Ukrainian MetaHistory NFT-Museum sold 1,282 artworks on its first day of sales, raising 190 Ether cryptocurrency tokens for the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, the museum said in an email. The NFTs are meant to document the war through artwork that features rubble and destruction, Ukrainian soldiers, fires burning and the Ukrainian flag.”

Coda Story: Russians face grim options on social media. “Evgenny Domozhiroff, an opposition politician in Vologda, Russia, had not been blocked on VKontakte, the Russian version of Facebook, during the 11 years he conducted anti-corruption investigations. Nor had he been shut down in a decade of posting outspoken criticism of Vladimir Putin and local officials. But on March 26, Domozhifoff was blocked. He wasn’t surprised.”

Ars Technica: World of Tanks maker closes studios in Russia, Belarus. “Wargaming, the developer behind the massively popular military MMO World of Tanks and its spin-offs, has decided to close its offices in Russia and Belarus amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: A lab in rural Virginia is racing to preserve Ukraine’s cultural heritage. “Housed in the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab is the museum world’s version of a war room: a network of computers, satellite feeds and phones that represents one of the newest tools being employed to protect national treasures threatened by natural disasters or geopolitical events. Created last year in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution Cultural Rescue Initiative — a world leader in this field — the lab is compiling imagery of Ukraine’s cultural sites to help track attacks on them.”

NBC News: Russia disinformation on Ukraine spreads on Spanish-speaking social media. “As that war rages, Russia is launching falsehoods into the feeds of Spanish-speaking social media users in nations that already have long records of distrusting the U.S. The aim is to gain support in those countries for the Kremlin’s war and stoke opposition against America’s response.”

Los Angeles: Column: Gen X TikTok is recycling the culture of the late Cold War, and what’s old is new again. “As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine passed the month mark, and reports emerge that Russia’s nuclear forces have been placed on high alert, the culture of the late Cold War has made a swinging comeback. Think of it as Cultural Cold War 2.0, with Russia as stand-in for the former Soviet Union.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: UK links “malign cyber activity” to 3 Russian intelligence services. “Britain attributed malign cyber activity to parts of three Russian intelligence services: the FSV, SVR and GRU, publishing a factsheet on Tuesday that set out what it said were organizational details of Russia’s cyber capabilities.”

The Times: Explicit photos sent to Ukrainian refugee women looking for shelter. “Ukrainian women seeking safety in the UK say they have been sent explicit images by men exploiting the Homes for Ukraine programme. Women who posted on Facebook groups set up to connect refugees with British households said they had also been verbally abused by men. They added that messages they had received from men on Facebook’s Messenger app had deterred them from coming to Britain.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Ukrainian Institute: Call to suspend cultural cooperation with Russia and international presentation of Russian culture. “The Ukrainian Institute reiterates its call to international and Ukrainian cultural institutions and individual professionals, academic community, and civil society organisations to suspend any cooperation with Russia. We consider this a necessary step to push back the aggressor that launched a violent and unjustified invasion against Ukraine, a sovereign and peaceful European country, and has long instrumentalised culture and soft power for political propaganda and manipulation of public opinion.”

The Conversation: Guns, tanks and Twitter: how Russia and Ukraine are using social media as the war drags on . “Information warfare is no longer an additional arm of strategy, but a parallel component of military campaigns. The rise of social media has made it easier than ever before to see how states use mass communication as a weapon.”

The Conversation: Cyberattacks have yet to play a significant role in Russia’s battlefield operations in Ukraine – cyberwarfare experts explain the likely reasons. “As the war has evolved, it’s clear that analysts on both sides of the debate got it wrong. Cyber operations did not replace the military invasion, and as far as we can tell, the Russian government has not yet used cyber operations as an integral part of its military campaign. We are political scientists who study the role of cybersecurity and information in international conflict. Our research shows that the reason pundits on both sides of the argument got it wrong is because they failed to consider that cyber and military operations serve different political objectives.”

Bellingcat: Russia’s Bucha “Facts” Versus the Evidence. “Initial reports from human rights organisations on the actions of Russian forces have detailed violence targeting civilians. Interviews with local residents, meanwhile, have accused Russian troops of carrying out summary executions of unarmed men over suspicions they had fought for Ukrainian armed forces in the Donbas in 2014, or even ‘simply for having a tattoo of Ukraine’s national emblem’. Russian officials have pushed back against these claims.”

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April 5, 2022 at 07:04PM
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ReproZip-Web, Vermont Diaries, RealityScan, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, April 5, 2022

ReproZip-Web, Vermont Diaries, RealityScan, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, April 5, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Grand Valley Lanthorn: GV alum and current NYU librarian working to preserve the dynamic web. “Grand Valley State University alum and current New York University Librarian for Journalism, Media, Culture and Communication, Katy Boss, is working with a team dedicated to preserving the dynamic web. Boss, along with co-principal investigator Vicky Rampin and lead developers Remi Rampin and Ilya Kreymer, is developing a tool called ReproZip-Web that preserves dynamic web apps and websites. ReproZip-Web is an open-source program that bundles together all the files necessary to run dynamic web apps and saves them as a downloadable .rpz file.”

University of Vermont Libraries: Special Collections Launches a New Digital Collection. “Silver Special Collections is pleased to announce the launch of our latest digital collection, Diaries. The collection provides access to more than thirty digitized and transcribed Vermont diaries from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, with three-fourths of the diaries authored by women.”

9to5 Mac: ‘RealityScan’ is a new app from Epic Games that uses the iPhone camera to create 3D models. “Epic Games announced on Monday a new app called ‘RealityScan,’ which will let anyone use the iPhone camera to scan objects and turn them into high-fidelity 3D models. The app was developed using technologies from Capturing Reality, a company specializing in photogrammetry that was acquired by Epic in 2021.” The app is free but is currently in a limited iOS beta.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Podnews: Exclusive: YouTube’s plans for podcasting. “Despite no announcement from YouTube’s director of podcasting, Kai Chuk, at Podcast Movement Evolutions last week, Podnews has been sent an 84-page presentation produced by YouTube, intended for podcast publishers. In it, three slides marked ‘Looking Ahead’ allow us a view into what YouTube is planning…”

Search Engine Journal: Google Introduces Retail Search For Ecommerce Sites. “A new solution for ecommerce sites provides Google-quality search and recommendations on retailers’ digital properties. Google Cloud has announced the release of Retail Search, a tool designed to give retailers the capabilities of Google’s search engine on their own domains.”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: 6 Free Ways to Practice Sign Language Online . “Although studying ASL online cannot replicate the nuanced experience of in-person communication, curious students who are willing to invest time do not need to pay money for beginner lessons. All of the learning options on our list are either completely free or offer a generous amount of content in front of their paywalls.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Gathering Watch-World Heritage in One URL. “Imagine if the world’s horological archives — and their cache of pamphlets, drawings, reports, photographs, letters and other primary sources — were accessible to anyone with an internet connection. To make that possible, the universe of analog ephemera documenting the history of watchmaking would need to be digitized and organized into a Big Data repository, an effort almost too big to contemplate. And yet, over the past two years, a team of horological specialists has begun to do just that, creating what it calls the Watch Library.”

Techdirt: Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Mr. Top Hat Doesn’t Give A Damn!. “There were quite a few entries this year that did ambitious things with their visuals — always a bold challenge to undertake in a 30-day game jam. That’s just not enough time to make something graphically polished, but it’s plenty of time to do something graphically creative, and that’s just what Josh from Dirtbug Games did with Mr. Top Hat Doesn’t Give A Damn! The game mines what is increasingly one of the richest veins of visual assets and inspiration that can be found amidst the material entering the public domain right now: American animation.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Hackers breached Mailchimp to phish cryptocurrency wallets. “Mailchimp, the veteran email marketing platform, has confirmed that hackers used an internal tool to steal data from more than 100 of its clients — with the data being used to mount phishing attacks on the users of cryptocurrency services. The breach was confirmed to the press by Mailchimp on Monday, but it had come to light over the weekend when users of the Trezor hardware cryptocurrency wallet reported being targeted by sophisticated phishing emails.”

CNET: State Department Launches New Cybersecurity Bureau. “The State Department on Monday launched a new cybersecurity bureau in an effort to make digital security a part of US foreign policy at a time when authoritarian regimes in Russia and China are increasingly trying to influence the internet.”

The Guardian: Stolen Darwin journals returned to Cambridge University library. “Two Charles Darwin manuscripts that were reported as stolen from Cambridge University library have been anonymously returned in a pink gift bag, with a typed note on an envelope wishing a happy Easter to the librarian. The items were found to be missing in 2001, but at the time staff believed they may have been misshelved.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Hack A Day: Monitor Space Weather And The Atmosphere With Your Cellphone!. “Above our heads, the atmosphere is a complex and unpredictable soup of gasses and charged particles subject to the influence of whatever the Sun throws at it. Attempting to understand it is not for the faint-hearted, so it has for centuries been the object of considerable research. A new project from the European Space Agency and ETH Zurich gives the general public the chance to participate in that research in a small way, by crowdsourcing atmospheric data gathering to a mobile phone app.” Good morning, Internet…

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April 5, 2022 at 05:25PM
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Monday, April 4, 2022

Colorado Climate Change, Cruise Stock Photography, Animal Conservation, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 4, 2022

Colorado Climate Change, Cruise Stock Photography, Animal Conservation, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 4, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Kiowa County Press: Colorado website spotlights neighborhood-level risks of climate change. “Pegah Jalali, environmental policy analyst with the Colorado Fiscal Institute, said their new website allows Coloradans to see, for example, how air pollution – from highways, power plants and refineries, and wildfires – is impacting their neighborhoods.”

PR Newswire: Celebrity Cruises Launches All-inclusive Campaign Featuring Work by World-renowned Photographer Annie Leibovitz and Others to Change the Faces in Travel Marketing (PRESS RELEASE). “Recognizing the need to improve the representation of all people who travel in marketing materials, the new-luxury cruise line has created both a new campaign and the world’s first free to use, ‘open source’ travel image library. The campaign and collection – ‘The All-Inclusive Photo Project’ (AIPP) – aims to start a movement, calling on travel companies to help address the lack of diversity in travel marketing imagery.”

EVENTS

Smithsonian: Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute and National Head Start Association Partner to Reach Children Nationwide About Animals and Conservation. “The Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (SNZCBI) and National Head Start Association (NHSA) have announced today, March 31, a yearlong partnership to provide free nature- and conservation-based learning opportunities about SNZCBI animals to young children in Head Start programs across the country.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Public Domain Review: 5.2 Million Book Illustrations Deleted from Flickr — Help Get Them Back. “Imagine a corner of the internet, free to all, where you could search, browse, and download from an archive of more than 5 million illustrations extracted from public domain books? And more than that, improve metadata by tagging and commenting, and contribute to findability by favouriting and saving images to your own publicly-accessible galleries? This very special space was the Internet Archive Book Images account on Flickr: The Commons. I write was because a couple of weeks ago it was deleted.”

Reuters: Two key tech execs quit Truth Social after troubled app launch. “Josh Adams and Billy Boozer – the company’s chiefs of technology and product development – joined the venture last year and quickly became central players in its bid to build a social-media empire, backed by Trump’s powerful brand, to counter what many conservatives deride as ‘cancel culture’ censorship from the left. Less than a year later, both have resigned their senior posts at a critical juncture for the company’s smartphone-app release plans, according to two sources familiar with the venture.” The chief legal officer has apparently also left.

Arab News: Sri Lanka lifts short-lived social media ban as protesters defy curfew. “Ordinary citizens and the opposition in Sri Lanka on Sunday defied a weekend curfew to demand President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation over his handling of the economic crisis, as authorities lifted a short-lived social media shutdown intended to contain growing public dissent.”

USEFUL STUFF

My Ancestors and Me: Until There’s an Every-Name Index for the 1950 U.S. Census. “Without an every-name census index it might be harder to find your people, but it’s still possible. These are my suggestions for the steps that will make it easier.” Let me add one because it tripped me up: search by county AND by city if you have an address. I searched by county and couldn’t find the people I was looking for until I searched by city. There were two separate sets of records.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Deutsche Welle: Increased social media use puts African leaders on edge. “In the latest example of an African nation threatening a social media shutdown, South Sudan said last week it may be forced to close down Facebook and Twitter as users were abusing social media by creating panic. Estimated at around 4% in January 2022, the number of social media users in South Sudan is low. But those who do have social media access, mainly urban youth, are turning to social media to criticize the government of President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Your Digital Footprint: It’s Bigger Than You Realize. “Today, your digital self includes your social media accounts, biometric identifiers, usernames and passwords. Possibly most creepy: Your smartphone records the location data of your daily life as you tote it around. The data collection doesn’t stop there. Your Yelp review of a pizza parlor or a comment you posted on your local newspaper’s website all become part of your digital profile. They’re used by marketers trying to get you to buy something, to support a policy or to vote for a candidate. There are oodles of data about you. Most of that info is largely free for the taking.”

The Markup: Can Chatrooms Replace Courtrooms?. “Online dispute resolution, as it’s known, had already been growing in popularity as a means to make often costly, slow-moving court processes more efficient. The tools, pioneered by eBay and PayPal, were designed to settle millions of disputes in their own businesses quickly and with as little need for human oversight as possible. But, it turns out, taking an e-commerce dispute platform and imbuing it with legal authority over everything from small claims cases to medical debt suits, child custody negotiations and eviction proceedings has its downsides.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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April 5, 2022 at 12:28AM
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Ukraine Support Fund, Sanction Impacts, OSINT, More: Ukraine Update, April 4, 2022

Ukraine Support Fund, Sanction Impacts, OSINT, More: Ukraine Update, April 4, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Emerging Europe: ‘Start-ups and tech will be key to rebuilding’: Google launches Ukraine Support Fund. “Google for Startups has launched a Ukraine Support Fund worth five million US dollars to allocate equity-free cash awards throughout 2022. According to the IT Association of Ukraine, around 85 per cent of the country’s IT workers continue to deliver services for their clients. Some 70 per cent are doing so from safe areas within Ukraine, while a further 16 per cent (mainly women) have relocated to other countries.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Clubhouse debuts ‘protected profiles’ in response to at-risk users in Ukraine and Russia. “Invite-only social audio platform Clubhouse will let users limit who can see their full profiles due to increased security threats related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a company blog post.”

Bloomberg: Russia Internet Giant Risks Running Out of Vital Tech in a Year. “Yandex NV may run short of the semiconductors needed for the servers it uses to power its business within a year to 18 months because of import restrictions, two people with direct knowledge of the issue said, asking not to be identified in order to speak candidly. Sanctions on dual-use technology, which have both military and commercial uses, have hit its self-driving vehicle unit particularly hard, they said.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: How to use Twitter’s content warnings when sharing sensitive images. “When shared sensitively, such images can shed new light on the horrors of war and galvanize support for the people who need it. They can also provide important contributions toward documenting what’s happening in conflict areas. But as fact-checking and open-source intelligence group Bellingcat notes, repeated exposure to such graphic imagery can contribute to a sense of secondary trauma.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Deutsche Welle: Lessons from online investigators in Syria help Ukraine. “In Ukraine, open-source investigators are gathering videos posted to social media of missile attacks, counting destroyed tanks and collating the names of soldiers killed. Some investigators work remotely from anywhere in the world while others are in the country. Open-source investigators did similar over the past 11 years in Syria. But while in Syria, the field of online open-source research was only just evolving, in Ukraine it has matured.”

Internet Archive: Ukrainian Book Drive: Please Contribute. “The Internet Archive is requesting donations of Ukrainian books and books useful to Ukrainians. The books will be preserved, digitized and lent (for free to one user at a time) over the Internet. The Internet Archive is prioritizing the digitization and hosting of relevant materials for Ukrainians.”

The Block: Inside Ukraine’s digital ministry and crypto efforts during wartime. “As we speak from approximately 5,000 miles apart, Alexander Bornyakov will not specify where he is located. It’s still in Ukraine, but not in Kyiv, and either way, it’s definitely short on natural light. Bornyakov is, for his part, visibly short on sleep in the way that all of Ukraine’s officials have been for going on two months now. He gestures with a green e-cigarette firmly in his hand. It is a remarkably digitized version of life during wartime.”

New/Lines Magazine: Inside Ukraine’s Psyops on Russian and Belarusian Soldiers. “Ukrainian telecom specialists, New Lines has learned, have been using hacked telephone databases to track down the personal communications of Russian soldiers not just already deployed inside Ukraine but also those still garrisoned at the border. Many of these exchanges, particularly the recorded ones, have been uploaded to YouTube channels and other platforms, mostly untranslated. Tellingly, Ukrainians have targeted not only Russians but also Belarusian troops, who have yet to receive an order to deploy by Alexander Lukashenko’s dictatorship, which Western intelligence sources say is constantly stalling on pressure from Moscow.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: Russians Need VPNs. The Kremlin Hates Them. “After Russia invaded Ukraine, VPN companies say the number of Russian users has spiked. The VPN company Windscribe told WIRED that almost a million people from Russia had signed up since the war started, 20 times the usual rate. Another provider called Psiphon said its number of daily active users in Russia jumped to more than 1.1 million immediately after Instagram was blocked, before settling at 650,000. But VPN companies have not escaped Russian censorship.”

Ars Technica: Biden sanctions Russian tech companies, including country’s biggest chipmaker. “The Biden administration slapped a new round of sanctions on Russia, with a focus on technology companies that support the Russian war effort in Ukraine. Among the sanctioned companies is Mikron, Russia’s largest chipmaker.”

Fossbytes: Ukraine’s Biggest ISP In Russian Crosshairs As Nokia Deserts Putin’s Surveillance Setup. “Finnish tech firm Nokia joins many other organizations in ostracizing Russia for its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Earlier this month, CEO Lundmark announced cutting off the company’s ties with the invading nation as per the latest sanctions. According to the NY Times, Nokia would also leave behind some equipment crucial for Russia’s SORM surveillance tool.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Fielding Graduate University: How Memes and Media Are Crafting the Way We See War. “Memes play a central role as the world watches Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine in real-time. Not only is the amount of information available is unprecedented, but social media’s aesthetics are shaping how we see conflict. Viral mockery of Putin has replaced funny cat memes. The juxtaposition of Putin at a ridiculously long table is funny as a visual and political joke. But it creates an image of Putin as out of touch, isolated and paranoid. This kind of short-form content defines the narrative of this war, particularly for younger generations.”

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



April 4, 2022 at 09:18PM
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Monday CoronaBuzz, April 4, 2022: 51 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.

Monday CoronaBuzz, April 4, 2022: 51 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

CORONAVIRUS MISINFORMATION / FACT-CHECKING

Engadget: Spotify adds promised COVID-19 content advisory. ” Spotify has finally acted on its promise to add a COVID-19 content advisory label. As CNBC reports (and Engadget can confirm), you’ll now see a tab for a COVID-19 Guide when you visit podcasts and other content discussing the new coronavirus.”

Deutsche Welle: German man got COVID jab 87 times — report. “The man reportedly went to eastern German jab centers and got vaccinated up to three times a day. Authorities believe it was all as part of a scheme to sell vaccination passes to anti-vaxxers.”

MISINFORMATION / FACT-CHECKING – IVERMECTIN

New York Times: Ivermectin Does Not Reduce Risk of Covid Hospitalization, Large Study Finds. “The anti-parasitic drug ivermectin, which has surged in popularity as an alternative treatment for Covid-19 despite a lack of strong research to back it up, showed no sign of alleviating the disease, according to results of a large clinical trial published on Wednesday.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

The Guardian: How the pandemic created a new generation of stoners. “The Covid-19 nightmare sparked a number of shake-ups to the social order – a burgeoning anti-work movement, a sharp economic swoon, and tiresome new polarities in the culture war. But as lockdown orders marched on, many weed agnostics dived in to the community with gusto, forming a new cohort of pandemic-era stoners. According to the data analytics firm Headset, legal marijuana sales increased by 120% in 2020, and 61% in 2021, and Fortune reported that Americans bought $18bn worth of cannabis in our first coronavirus year, $7bn more compared with 2019 transactional figures.”

Axios: American teens’ health behaviors suffered a lot during pandemic. “From increased drug and alcohol use to high levels of reported abuse and feelings of mental distress, the pandemic wreaked some major havoc on the health of American teenagers, according to a CDC report released Thursday.”

ACTIVISM / PROTESTS

New York Times: After the Protesters Left, an Illicit Weed Began Growing in Parliament’s Garden. “When anti-vaccination protesters finally cleared out of New Zealand’s Parliament grounds after a three-week occupation, they left behind a scene of destruction and disorder — the charred remains of a children’s playground, camping equipment and human waste, among other items. This week, a man eating lunch in the Parliament garden spotted something else left behind by protesters — cannabis seedlings nestled among the brassicas and marigolds.”

HEALTH CARE / HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

Boston Globe: ‘I felt like I was drowning’: Exhausted and burned out, nurses are leaving their jobs in droves. “During the peaks of the pandemic, nurses witnessed the suffering and death that COVID can bring. They held the hands of dying patients. They worried about becoming sick themselves, or bringing the virus home to their families. And sometimes, instead of gratitude, patients in the throes of illness responded with abuse. At first, nurses said, adrenaline kept them going. But when COVID receded, other sick patients flooded hospitals. There was no time for health care workers to rest. With each successive surge of the virus, more experienced nurses have opted to leave. And the conditions for those who remained have become even worse.”

EVENTS / CANCELLATIONS

CNET: Could Hybrid Music Events Be Next Post-Pandemic Trend?. “Robert Meitus co-founder and VP of industry relations at Mandolin told CNET his company began as a way to bring live events to people in lockdown at home. He says now that people are going to see music again this will lead to more hybrid events in the future.”

BUSINESS / CORPORATIONS

New York Times: Need a Drink? Get in Line. “New York City’s bars are back and more crowded than ever. Since indoor vaccine mandates were lifted for the city’s bars on March 4, bar and club owners have reported huge lines and a big bump in drink sales.”

Medill Reports Chicago: Local restaurants struggle back to pre-pandemic ‘normalcy’. “Starting a restaurant is a monumental challenge at any time, but COVID-19 and the restrictions placed on dining in Chicago over the past two years have made the path to profitability for new and experienced restauranteurs alike difficult to navigate.”

Business Insider: Meta is no longer requiring COVID-19 booster shots for employees returning to its US offices. “Meta employees returning to US offices are no longer required to receive a COVID-19 booster shot prior to resuming in-person work, a reversal of its previous policy. ”

WORK

Axios: Night owl gets the worm. “Research shows roughly half of people are night owls, dictated by genetics, not choice. Not having to go into the office allows them to work — and often sleep — later.”

TIME: Back-to-Office Pressure Is Creating a Crisis for Long COVID Patients. “Millions of people in the U.S. have chronic illnesses or physical disabilities, and advocates have been calling for better workplace accommodations and federal disability policies since well before the pandemic. But two big changes in the workforce—an alarming number of newly disabled adults in the U.S. (many of them likely long-haulers) and millions of open jobs that need to be filled—may finally force companies to become more accommodating.”

WORLD GOVERNMENT / NON-US GOVERNMENT

The Guardian: No 10 lockdown breaches: Met police expected to issue first fines. “The first fines for lockdown breaches in Downing Street are expected to be issued imminently after Scotland Yard concluded that laws were broken at the heart of government, sources have told the Guardian. Multiple government insiders said the Metropolitan police had made referrals for the first tranche of fixed penalty notices (FPNs) connected with parties and gatherings being investigated by police in No 10 and the Cabinet Office.”

South China Morning Post: Missing coffins? Hong Kong’s Covid-19 deaths leave funeral agents struggling to meet demand for caskets. “Hong Kong Funeral Business Association chairman Ng Yiu-tong said he had heard of coffins allegedly stolen from warehouses earlier this month, when the high number of deaths from the city’s fifth wave of Covid-19 infections resulted in a shortage of caskets…. But he added that he would not be surprised if funeral workers mixed up casket orders by mistake as the industry faced its busiest period since the pandemic began two years ago.”

The Guardian: Profiteering over Covid PPE ‘disgraceful’, says UK government adviser. “A leading UK government adviser has criticised the ‘disgraceful’ profiteering of some companies that sought contracts to provide personal protective equipment and Covid testing during the pandemic.”

The Mainichi: Japan had fewer foreign residents in 2021 amid COVID border controls. “Japan had fewer foreign residents as of the end of 2021, down 4.4 percent from a year before, apparently due to its tighter border controls amid the coronavirus pandemic, official data showed Tuesday.”

New York Times: Outbreak at Shanghai Hospital Exposes Covid’s Risks to China’s Seniors. “A coronavirus outbreak is ravaging a hospital in Shanghai for older adults, underscoring the difficulties officials have had in containing infections even as the city imposed a 10-day staggered lockdown.”

The Mainichi: Japan confirms 1st coronavirus case among Cabinet ministers. “The government said Friday that Seiko Noda, minister in charge of gender equality and children’s policies, has been infected with the novel coronavirus, the first confirmed case among incumbents of the Japanese Cabinet.”

Associated Press: Hong Kong urges testing, Shanghai struggles under lockdown. “Hong Kong authorities on Saturday asked the entire population of more than 7.4 million people to voluntarily test themselves for COVID-19 at home for three days in a row starting next week. The announcement by Chief Executive Carrie Lam came as the southern Chinese city is struggling to contain its worst outbreak with authorities sending mixed signals about testing and lockdowns.”

The Guardian: Covid experts call for return of free tests as UK cases hit new high. “Covid has hit an all-time high across the UK, with almost 5 million people – one in 13 of the population – estimated to have the virus, according to the most recent official data, prompting experts to call for the return of free testing.”

Axios: 44 countries have COVID vaccination rates under 20% despite supply increase. “COVID vaccine supply struggles are easing, but in 44 countries — most of them in Africa — less than 20% of the population is fully vaccinated. In 19, the rate is under 10%.”

Business Insider: A robot dog issuing COVID-19 safety instructions is roaming the streets of locked down Shanghai. “A robot dog is being used to bark COVID-19 safety measures in Shanghai, China. With a loudspeaker strapped to its back, the robodog tells residents in the city’s Jiading district to ‘wear a mask, wash hands frequently, and check your temperature,’ amid COVID-19 restrictions, The Times report.”

UNITED STATES / UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

CDC: CDC Recommends Additional Boosters for Certain Individuals. “Following FDA’s regulatory actionexternal icon today, CDC is updating its recommendations to allow certain immunocompromised individuals and people over the age of 50 who received an initial booster dose at least 4 months ago to be eligible for another mRNA booster to increase their protection against severe disease from COVID-19. Separately and in addition, based on newly published data, adults who received a primary vaccine and booster dose of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen COVID-19 vaccine at least 4 months ago may now receive a second booster dose using an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.”

Associated Press: Americans ease up on masks, virus safeguards: AP-NORC poll. “Americans are letting down their guard even as experts warn a new wave of COVID-19 cases is coming. A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows fewer people taking protective measures than at any point in AP-NORC polls conducted since early 2021.”

CNET: CDC Lifts COVID-19 Risk Warning for Cruise Travel. “While the change doesn’t mean there is zero risk of transmission on a cruise, the agency said in a statement that ‘travelers will make their own risk assessment when choosing to travel on a cruise ship, much like they do in all other travel settings.'”

NBC News: U.S. Covid hospitalizations hit new low, falling 32 percent in the last two weeks. “Covid hospitalizations are at their lowest levels since the U.S. began keeping records at the start of the pandemic, according to an NBC News analysis of data from the Department of Health and Human Services. Average hospitalizations fell to 16,760, lower than the previous low of 16,808, set before the delta wave in June.”

New York Times: The head of the C.I.A. tests positive and has mild symptoms.. “William J. Burns, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday, a day after meeting with President Biden. The meeting was not considered a close contact for Mr. Biden because the two practiced social distancing and Mr. Burns was wearing an N95 mask, according to a C.I.A. statement. Mr. Biden tested negative on Wednesday when he was screened as part of regular health monitoring, an administration official said.”

New York Times: Coronavirus deaths in the U.S. fall to their lowest point since the summer.. “Fewer than 800 coronavirus deaths are being reported each day in the United States, the lowest daily average since before the Omicron variant took hold late last fall. The last time the rate was this low was in mid-August, according to a New York Times database.”

CNN: Nearly all American women agree the pandemic changed their lives, but their experiences vary drastically. Here’s why.. “According to CNN’s poll, a 54% majority of women in the US said they faced a major disruption to at least one of eight aspects of their everyday life due to the coronavirus — and 94% said they faced at least a minor disruption in one of those areas. About three-quarters of women said they faced at least a minor disruption in their relationship with close friends or family (77%), their plans for the future (74%), or their mental health (72%).”

STATES / STATE GOVERNMENT

WHMI: State to report COVID-19 data once per week as cases decline. ” The state plans to begin reporting Michigan’s COVID-19 data once per week as the numbers of cases and deaths decline. Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services says its online COVID-19 dashboard will be updated only on Wednesdays.”

State of Missouri: Governor Parson Announces End To Covid-19 Crisis In Missouri. ” Today, during a press conference at the State Capitol, Governor Mike Parson announced an end to the COVID-19 crisis in Missouri and that the state will be shifting to an endemic phase of the pandemic on Friday, April 1, 2022. A whole-of-government COVID-19 emergency response was taken for more than two years, an effort that responded to the needs of all Missourians during the global pandemic and sustained state operations as more was learned about the novel virus. Vaccines, testing resources, and treatments are now readily available for all Missourians, and much of the population now has some immunity to the virus.”

Denver Post: Colorado’s COVID-19 hospitalizations drop to near-record low. “The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reported 84 people were receiving care statewide for confirmed COVID-19 as of Tuesday. The daily count of people hospitalized for the virus has only been lower twice, on the first two days that Colorado collected that data in late March 2020.”

ABC 4 Utah: Utah changes statewide COVID response, shuts down testing sites. ” Utah will be moving to a ‘steady state’ format in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic response. The Utah Department of Health (UDOH) announced on Wednesday that changes will be made to ‘bring the COVID-19 response more in line with responses to other infectious diseases.'”

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

New York Times: International Tourists Flock Back to New York, With One Big Exception. “After two years of sparse crowds in Times Square and other popular attractions, New York City is finally hoping for a robust rebound of visitors this year. But the city will still be missing a main driver of its prepandemic tourism boom: big spenders from China, whose government has yet to allow travel abroad.”

Chicago Sun-Times: Chicago COVID-19 cases up 34% in a week, but city still ‘in good control,’ top doc says. “Case counts have remained relatively flat across most of the state, but the average seven-day positivity rate is at the highest point seen in a month. COVID deaths across the state have continued to plummet. The city is averaging less than one viral death per day.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS

CNN: In about half of US counties, less than 10% of children ages 5 to 11 are fully vaccinated against Covid-19. “The youngest group eligible to be vaccinated against Covid-19 in the US, children ages 5 to 11, is also the least vaccinated one. In about half of US counties, less than 10% of children 5 to 11 are fully vaccinated, according to a CNN analysis of data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

NBC News: As omicron lurks, Native Americans wary of boosters. “Nationally, 72 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives of all ages had received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine as of March 28, and 59 percent were fully vaccinated — having received two doses of Moderna’s or Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine or one dose of Johnson & Johnson’s. A much smaller share had received booster shots — 44 percent of fully vaccinated Native Americans ages 12 and up, below the booster rates for whites, Asian Americans, and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.”

Chicago Sun-Times: Chicago bluesman Bob Stroger turned to music to weather the pandemic storm. “Award-winning blues singer, songwriter and bass player Bob Stroger has been performing the blues for as long as he’s lived in Chicago. Having lived and performed through some of the most turbulent, transformative eras Black musicians have endured, the 91-year-old musician says the COVID-19 pandemic ‘was a trip’ unlike anything he’s ever experienced.”

San Diego Union Tribune: For this San Diego healing artist, musical meditation and jam sessions were her salvation during the pandemic. “San Diegan Liza Plummer — known as Lyza E. on stage — is a singer and healing artist who began hosting jam sessions and musical meditation gatherings during the pandemic to help people manage the stresses and anxieties that came with COVID-19.”

Daily Beast: Elite Marine Sniper’s New Enemy Is a Disease We Can’t Escape. “Anybody who knows 5-year-old Rebekah Sullivan would understand the significance of the video her mother received on Monday at the North Carolina ICU where the girl’s father is fighting to regain enough strength for a double transplant to replace his COVID-ravaged lungs. The video showed Rebekah in a pharmacy near her home with a Band-Aid on her right upper arm. A neighbor had just taken her to get a pediatric dose of the COVID vaccine. And she hates getting shots.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Some women extend breastfeeding to get COVID antibodies into their babies. “At just 19 months old, Ashley Bournias’ son, Theodore, is too young to receive any of the COVID vaccines. But Ms. Bournias has found a way to give him some protection against the virus: through antibodies in her breast milk…. Ms. Bournias, of McCandless, is part of a group of women sometimes referred to as long-haul breastfeeders, who are continuing to breastfeed longer than they had planned, in order to protect their toddlers from COVID-19.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS – CELEBRITIES/FAMOUS

NBC News: BTS’ Jungkook tests positive for Covid days ahead of Grammys. “K-pop star Jungkook tested positive for Covid and is in self-quarantine after having arrived in the U.S. States for BTS’ Grammy performance. In a statement posted Monday on the Korean fan app Weverse, BTS’ management company, BigHit Music, said Jungkook, 24, has no symptoms aside from a ‘mild sore throat’ and that he is in self-quarantine.”

Deadline: Daniel Craig Contracts Covid-19, Cancels ‘Macbeth’ Performances On Broadway. “There will be no Daniel Craig appearances in the latest Broadway staging of Shakepeare’s Macbeth for a while. The Longacre Theater announced that the actor has tested postive for Covid-19 and will be out for a while.”

K-12 EDUCATION

BuzzFeed News: Teachers In America Were Already Facing Collapse. COVID Only Made It Worse. “Teachers all over the country describe problems that touch every aspect of our culture and society, from technology dependence to stats-obsessed bureaucracy to a post-COVID behavior crisis.”

San Francisco Chronicle: This Bay Area school is reinstating its mask mandate after a COVID-19 spike. “A Bay Area elementary school has restored its mask mandate after reporting a sudden increase in COVID-19 cases. Since March 22, Coleman Elementary School in San Rafael has confirmed 23 total cases of the coronavirus across the school — 17 in students and six in employees — the district said. In response, the school informed families that it would be reinstating an indoor mask mandate through April 15.”

RESEARCH

Associated Press: Into the wild: Animals the latest frontier in COVID fight. “Scientists are concerned that the virus could evolve within animal populations – potentially spawning dangerous viral mutants that could jump back to people, spread among us and reignite what for now seems to some people like a waning crisis.”

Stanford Medicine: COVID-19 vaccines reduce hospitalization, death in people with prior infection, study finds. “Two-dose COVID-19 vaccines significantly increase protection against hospitalization and death in people who had the illness before they were immunized.”

New York University: Researchers Outline Bias in Epidemic Research—And Offer New Simulation Tool to Guide Future Work. “A team of researchers unpacks a series of biases in epidemic research, ranging from clinical trials to data collection, and offers a game-theory approach to address them, in a new analysis. The work sheds new light on the pitfalls associated with technology development and deployment in combating global crises like COVID-19, with a look toward future pandemic scenarios.”

CRIME / SECURITY / LEGAL

NBC News: ‘Biggest fraud in a generation’: The looting of the Covid relief plan known as PPP. “Many who participated in what prosecutors are calling the largest fraud in U.S. history — the theft of hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money intended to help those harmed by the coronavirus pandemic — couldn’t resist purchasing luxury automobiles. Also mansions, private jet flights and swanky vacations. They came into their riches by participating in what experts say is the theft of as much as $80 billion — or about 10 percent — of the $800 billion handed out in a Covid relief plan known as the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP.”

Sacramento Bee: She sold fake COVID vaccine cards on Facebook — two to undercover trooper, NY cops say. “Kaiyah S. Heinrich, of Cheektowaga, appeared in court on the charge of one count of criminal possession of a forged instrument on March 28, the office said in a news release provided to McClatchy News. She’s accused of selling the pair of fake cards to the undercover investigator on March 10.”

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Facebook Roundup, April 4, 2022

Facebook Roundup, April 4, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

The Verge: Facebook’s Algorithm Was Mistakenly Elevating Harmful Content For The Last Six Months. “In addition to posts flagged by fact-checkers, the internal investigation found that, during the bug period, Facebook’s systems failed to properly demote nudity, violence, and even Russian state media the social network recently pledged to stop recommending in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine. The issue was internally designated a level-one SEV, or Severe Engineering Vulnerability — a label reserved for the company’s worst technical crises, like Russia’s ongoing block of Facebook and Instagram.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Data Center Dynamics: Meta data center in Zeewolde facing opposition by Dutch Housing Minister. “This is the latest development in the obstacle-ridden path faced by Meta (formerly known as Facebook) in its plans to develop in the Netherlands. Despite the Zeewolde council approving the zoning change and plans for the data center, it is currently prevented from being built as part of the land intended for the Meta data center belongs to the government, which announced new and stricter rules for hyperscale developments.”

Reuters: Facebook owner Meta puts plans to build Dutch data centre on ice. “Facebook owner Meta (FB.O) said on Tuesday it was suspending plans to build a giant data centre in the Netherlands, following political opposition. The move comes a week after the Dutch Senate passed a motion asking Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s government to ‘use its powers’ to temporarily block construction of the site in the northern town of Zeewolde, 50 km east of Amsterdam.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: Facebook paid GOP firm to malign TikTok. “The campaign includes placing op-eds and letters to the editor in major regional news outlets, promoting dubious stories about alleged TikTok trends that actually originated on Facebook, and pushing to draw political reporters and local politicians into helping take down its biggest competitor. These bare-knuckle tactics, long commonplace in the world of politics, have become increasingly noticeable within a tech industry where companies vie for cultural relevance and come at a time when Facebook is under pressure to win back young users.”

San Francisco Chronicle: Internet entrepreneurs far from the U.S. are inflaming political division on Facebook to sell T-shirts and coffee mugs. “On a wintry morning in the town of Moulvibazar in northeast Bangladesh, 21-year-old Saeed Ahmed was reading news on Facebook when he came across an unusual story: Truckers were staging a mass protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates in the Canadian capital of Ottawa. Much of the world was bewildered by the ‘Freedom Convoy’ and its disruptive blockades, but Ahmed was excited. He sensed an opportunity — one made possible by two tech companies with roots in the Bay Area.”

PR Newswire: Meta to Open Hyperscale Data Center in Temple, Texas (PRESS RELEASE). “Meta, formerly the Facebook company, announced today that it will invest $800 million in the creation of a Hyperscale Data Center in Temple, Texas. The new facility, which will total approximately 900,000 square feet when completed, will be located on 393 acres off NW H K Dodgen Loop and Industrial Blvd., and will support approximately 100 operational jobs in the community. The project is expected to employ 1,250 construction workers onsite during peak construction, which will begin in Spring 2022.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

AdAge: Facebook Small Advertisers Win Class-action Status In Fraud Suit. “A lawsuit accusing Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook of overstating its advertising audience got a lot bigger Tuesday when a court expanded the pool of plaintiffs to include more than 2 million small ad buyers. Dismissing what he called a ‘blunderbuss of objections’ by the company, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that the case can proceed as a class action on behalf of small business owners and individuals who bought ads on Facebook or Instagram since Aug. 15, 2014.”

Stanford Law School: Facebook’s Oversight Board’s Work – And Other Free Speech Challenges. “Michael McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor at Stanford Law School, where he also directs the Constitutional Law Center. The former Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit also is a co-chair of Facebook’s Oversight Board. That body is charged with helping the social media platform deal with difficult questions about freedom of expression online. In this conversation with Lindsay Lloyd, the Bradford M. Freeman Director of the Human Freedom Initiative at the George W. Bush Institute, and William McKenzie, Senior Editorial Advisor at the Bush Institute, McConnell explains the work of the Oversight Board.”

University of Minnesota Law School: It’s Complicated: Facebook’s Liability for Users’ Posts. “Facebook lets users describe their relationship status as ‘it’s complicated,’ but it also enables them to commit fraud, harassment, intellectual property infringement, and invasion of privacy, or to spread all kinds of disinformation, defamation, and intimate images. When is Facebook (or any other platform) legally responsible for users’ bad behavior? When should they be?”

RESEARCH & OPINION

North Carolina State University: New Study Reveals Why Facebook Ads Can Miss Target. “New research from North Carolina State University offers insight into why Facebook’s targeted advertising can sometimes be more like a wild pitch. Researchers already knew Facebook creates interest profiles for users based on each user’s activities, but the new study finds this process doesn’t seem to account for the context of these activities.”

Associated Press: Facebook fails to detect hate against Rohingya: report. “A new report has found that Facebook failed to detect blatant hate speech and calls to violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority years after such behaviour was found to have played a determining role in the genocide against them. The report shared exclusively with The Associated Press showed the rights group Global Witness submitted eight paid ads for approval to Facebook, each including different versions of hate speech against Rohingya. All eight ads were approved by Facebook to be published.”

Teen Vogue: Instagram Is Bad for Teen Mental Health — We Want to Know All the Data. “For Facebook to keep growing, they’ll need younger generations to flock to Instagram just like the millennials who came before. Young people have leverage, so our voices and our experiences must shape the future of Instagram and other social media platforms. However, there is still a lot we don’t know. The sad irony is that social media platforms rely on the willingness of us as users to share information about our lives, but they themselves have opted to withhold detail of how their platform impacts our mental health. No more.”

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