New researches

Friday, April 15, 2022

Black History Illinois, Android, FindMyPast, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 15, 2022

Black History Illinois, Android, FindMyPast, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 15, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Chicago Tribune: University project aims to show how everything you know about the history of Black Illinois is kind of lacking. “…two years ago, [Kate] Masur and a handful of Northwestern undergraduates and graduate students started work on an online exhibition of sorts, part of an even larger archive that now spans several universities and museums, to document the radical importance of the Colored Conventions movement, one of our first nationwide conversations on race. Recently launched, their website… does not have the sexiest title: ‘Black Organizing in Pre-Civil War Illinois: Creating Community, Demanding Justice.’ But its history is more accessible than academic and its intent is ambitious: No less than a reframing of Black Illinois itself.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Google quietly launches its awaited ‘Switch to Android’ app on iOS. “Last year, reports began circulating that Google was developing a ‘Switch to Android’ app for iOS users looking to make the jump from iPhone to a smartphone running Google’s Android OS. Now that app has arrived. On Monday, Google quietly launched the Switch to Android app on the App Store in a number of global markets, including the U.S. As expected, the app promises to make the transition between mobile platforms easier to manage by helping users import their contacts, calendar, photos, and videos to their new Android phone.”

FindMyPast: Hold the front page! We’ve hit 50 million. “Back in 2011, we set out to digitise the British Library’s entire newspaper collection and open it up to the public as the British Newspaper Archive. Today we’re proud to announce that we’ve passed the 50 million pages milestone. But we’re not stopping there.”

Search Engine Land: Google’s new highly cited label for top stories now live. “Google’s new highly cited label for top stories in the mobile US English search results are now rolling out. Google announced this feature a few weeks ago and told us it would be rolling out soon, and now it is.”

USEFUL STUFF

Gizmodo: The Hidden Hack for Super-Speedy Web Browsing. “Chances are you spend a lot of time in a web browser every day—so anything you can do to speed up the way you get around the internet is going to make a significant difference to your productivity levels (and give you extra time to do something more exciting). Yes, even on the best web browsers. Here’s one such hack you might not have tried yet: Mouse gestures.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Television Academy Foundation: Foundation Announces National Endowment for the Humanities Grant to Preserve The Interviews. “The Television Academy Foundation today announced it has been awarded a $350,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for the preservation of its online archive The Interviews: An Oral History of Television…. Under the direction of Television Academy Foundation Chair Cris Abrego and Vice Chair of the Foundation and Chair of The Interviews committee Jonathan Murray, the Foundation is focused on additional fundraising to secure the core collection for the next 100 years, prioritizing inclusive representation for future interviews, and making The Interviews more accessible with captioning and language translation.”

CNET: Pakistan Journalists Move to YouTube as Political Upheaval Forces Them Off TV. “When Imran Riaz Khan lost his job as an anchor at Pakistan’s Samaa TV last weekend, he joined a growing list of journalists who’ve found themselves out of work amid the country’s political turmoil. Luckily, Riaz Khan has a YouTube channel with 2.6 million subscribers to fall back on.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Axios: DOJ charges three Russians running ‘disinformation network’. “A prominent Russian legislator and two of his aides have been charged with running a disinformation campaign targeting U.S. citizens, including lawmakers, for several years, the Department of Justice announced Thursday…. Aleksandr Babakov, 59, and two staffers allegedly operated an ‘international foreign influence and disinformation network to advance the interests of Russia,’ between 2012 and 2017, according to an indictment filed in Manhattan federal court.”

Orange County Register: Santa Ana police blasted Disney songs to prevent a resident from filming them . “The idea, according to the videographer and others, was that because social media platforms remove home-made videos with copyright-protected music, any video made by the blogger wouldn’t spend much time online and wouldn’t be seen by many people. The video was shot anyway. And it wound up starring Santa Ana police and a city councilman, Johnathan Ryan Hernandez, who chastised an officer for waking his neighbors and disrespecting his community.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PsyPost: An individual’s personality appears to be highly correlated with their Twitter behavior. Uh-oh. “Do we project our true personalities on our social media accounts? While many people use social media as a way to express themselves, others see it as an opportunity to present a false persona. So, how telling are our Twitter posts about our personalities? A study published in Computers in Human Behavior suggests that our online behavior does, in fact, reflect our true behavior.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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April 16, 2022 at 12:50AM
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Scrabble, OpenMind Magazine, Baseball Games, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, April 15, 2022

Scrabble, OpenMind Magazine, Baseball Games, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, April 15, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Comicbook: Scrabble Launches Website With Free Online Play. “To celebrate International Scrabble Day (which celebrates the birthday of Scrabble creator Alfred Mosher Butts), Hasbro has announced that the popular word tile game is launching its very own website, Scrabble.com, that includes a free-to-play online version of the game. Scrabble.com will support both PvP and PvE modes along with ranked competitions. Other features include an official Scrabble word finder and dictionary, a Scrabble blog, and a moderated Scrabble forum.”

NiemanLab: A new magazine delves into the ways that people consume wrong information. “There’s a new magazine in town, one dedicated to pieces about misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and other ways that people consume wrong information. OpenMind Magazine (whose tagline is ‘tackling science controversies and deceptions’) was officially launched in mid-March and was really the result of old friends wanting to launch a magazine together.” The article notes that everything published in OpenMind Magazine is made available under a Creative Commons license, but I can’t find that information on the site itself.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Major League Baseball will stream 15 games on YouTube this season. “Like an ambitious butcher trying to cleave a dollar of meat out of a ten cent steak, Major League Baseball announced on Thursday that it is carving out a bit more of its television broadcast rights, renewing its four season-old deal for the ‘MLB Game of the Week Live on YouTube’ with the Alphabet property. But unlike other recently struck deals, these streaming exclusives will be free to watch and without local blackout restrictions.”

The Verge: The Twitter board is reportedly not interested in Elon’s takeover offer. “Twitter’s board is also reportedly considering using a ‘poison pill’ strategy to make it more difficult for Elon to acquire a large stake in the company and avoid a hostile takeover. Poison pills can, as one example, flood the market with shares once an investor acquires stock above a certain limit, making them easier to acquire for others (and costly for a single investor to buy up) when someone attempts a takeover.”

CNET: YouTube Shorts Rolls Out Ability to Sample Other Videos, Like TikTok. “YouTube is updating a feature of Shorts, the video giant’s competitor to TikTok, that lets creators ‘remix’ segments from other Shorts or YouTube video into their own posts. After introducing the ability for Shorts to sample audio from other videos, YouTube is starting to roll out the ability to sample a short video segment of any eligible YouTube video.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 8 Online Tools to Find Your Doppelgänger. “You’ve heard that each one of us has six lookalikes in this world. While this may not be entirely true, there’s no doubt that many people have doppelgängers. To be honest, we’d all like to discover who our twin is. If you, too, are curious, this guide will show you some online tools for finding your doppelgänger.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Museums Association: Sensory Journeys: creating digital storytelling sessions for children. “South Shields Museum, part of Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, launched Sensory Journeys at the end of last year, offering children and their families inclusive digital sensory story-telling sessions that are linked to local history and provide engagement with the museum’s collections. Sensory Journeys are digital audio story-telling sessions where the listener creates the sights, sounds, smells, touches and tastes to bring each story to life. Or they can just sit back, relax and listen.”

San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco spent $250,000 on a database to track construction delays. Years later, it has never been used. “Three years after developing a database meant to track the performance of contractors on city construction projects, the system of checks and balances remains unused, according to a report from the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Google Chrome emergency update fixes zero-day used in attacks. “Google has released Chrome 100.0.4896.127 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, to fix a high-severity zero-day vulnerability actively used by threat actors in attacks.”

Mashable: Scammers spoof Amazon Prime Video and trick users into paying fake fees. “We all know those dreaded streaming app screens that pop up on our smart TVs just when we get comfortable on the couch, ready to watch that new latest release. Perhaps it’s an activation screen for that newly downloaded streaming app. Or maybe it’s that dastardly prompt that lets you know the app has internet connection issues. All of us can agree those screens are annoying. However, they’re also turning out to be quite lucrative for scammers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Indiana University: IU team identifies new method of measuring social optimism from Twitter. “There’s no question that 2020 was a whirlwind of a year. Humanity faced a pandemic and social unrest of historic precedence. How did these events influence our optimism toward the future? To address this question, a team of IU researchers, including faculty from the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering and IU’s Cognitive Science Program turned to Twitter.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Man of Many: Spacecraft Captures Highest Ever Resolution Image of the Sun and it’s 83-Megapixels of Insanity . “We’re told not to stare at the sun, but in this case, please feast your eyes! The highest ever resolution image of the sun’s full disc has been snapped in all its life-giving glory and is 100% worthy of The Gram (Instagram, for all you space boomers). Whether you view it as gorgeous or oddly terrifying, this is one space photo that simply can’t be missed. Although we’ve posted a close-up image below, you’ll need to download the bigger version if you want to appreciate all the filaments and flares’ in detail.” Good morning, Internet…

April 15, 2022 at 05:27PM
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Thursday, April 14, 2022

Alexei Navalny, Disinformation Campaigns, Wardoxxing, More: Ukraine Update, Afternoon, April 14, 2022

Alexei Navalny, Disinformation Campaigns, Wardoxxing, More: Ukraine Update, Afternoon, April 14, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Guardian: Alexei Navalny calls for social media ‘information front’ against Russia. “Alexei Navalny has called for an ‘information front’ against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as the jailed opposition leader asserted that poll results showing 75% of Russians support the conflict were a ‘Kremlin lie’. In an extended series of tweets, Navalny called on western leaders to support a massive social media ad campaign in order to break through Kremlin propaganda regarding the invasion.”

Reuters: Yandex appoints Artem Savinovksy as general director in Russia. “Tech giant Yandex said on Thursday Artem Savinovsky has been appointed to lead Yandex LLC, its Russian operating subsidiary, replacing Elena Bunina who held the role of general director since December 2017.”

Financial Times: Amazon’s Twitch bans some channels after researchers find pro-Russia propaganda. “Amazon-owned Twitch has moved to ban several accounts on the livestreaming platform after research detailed how pro-Kremlin propaganda had spread on the network. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Twitch said it would move to ‘prohibit harmful misinformation actors from using our service’. But a report from the Tech Transparency Project detailed multiple accounts pushing pro-Kremlin falsehoods, such as claims the invasion was ‘de-Nazifying’ Ukraine and a Russian ‘special operation’. Other streams peddled falsehoods about “biolabs” being set up in the war-torn country.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Bloomberg: Russia Wages Social-Media Campaign to Label Bucha Massacre a Hoax. “Russian politicians, foreign embassies and state media accounts on Twitter Inc. with hundreds of thousands of followers tweeted the term ‘Bucha’ more than 1,000 times last week, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a nonprofit which has been tracking Russian disinformation relating to the war. The campaign was an attempt to manipulate public discourse surrounding the events that unfolded in the Kyiv suburb early this month, according to researchers.”

Bellingcat: Russia’s Kramatorsk ‘Facts’ Versus the Evidence. “On April 8, 2022, a Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile struck the main railway station in Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region of government-controlled Ukraine. The missile killed at least 50 people, including five children. Civilians had gathered at the station to flee the approaching Russian offensive, which has pivoted to the country’s east in recent weeks…. Russian officials have blamed the strike on Ukraine, citing claims that the Russian military does not use the Tochka-U.”

Washington Post: In Ukraine, Facebook fact-checkers fight a war on two fronts. “First came a one-minute video taken on the streets of Bucha, a Kyiv suburb abandoned by retreating Russian forces. The footage showed numerous bodies, civilians in winter coats, scattered along the muddy roads like leaves on a fall day. Then came the deluge of misinformation: On social media, some argued the images were fake, that the bodies were actors pretending to be dead. Others falsely claimed the Ukrainian military had slain their own countrymen. It fell to Valeriia Stepaniuk, 22, to set things straight.”

Atlantic Council: Russian War Report: Russia promotes misleading video accusing Ukraine of using mannequins as casualties. “On April 7, Kremlin-controlled TV channel Rossiya 24 broadcast a video that it claimed was evidence of the Ukrainian military using mannequins to stage war casualties. However, the video was taken in Russia on a set of a TV series.”

PBS NewsHour: Open source intelligence combats disinformation on Russia’s war against Ukraine. “It is often said that truth is the first casualty in any war. Propaganda, disinformation and outright lies have always been dependable tactics to win hearts and minds. But in a world more connected than ever by technology, it is more possible for anyone to root out information. It’s called open source intelligence, and as Miles O’Brien reports, some are using it to lift the fog of war in Ukraine.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Financial Times: Prepare for Armageddon: Ukraine’s tactic against Russian hackers. “Armageddon is not the most sophisticated of Russian government-affiliated hacking groups that have attacked Ukraine, but it is among the most prolific. In 5,000 different attempts, it has unleashed ever more effective malware, hidden within cleverly engineered emails to spy on Ukrainian government bodies. But following Russia’s invasion on February 24, its latest attacks have been parried thanks, in large part, to Ukraine’s deep knowledge of Armageddon’s signature moves.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

C4ISRNET: Ukraine conflict heightens US military’s data privacy vulnerabilities. “Russian operators, or at least their supporters, have flooded the inboxes of Ukrainians, particularly military service members, with malware-laden email. This tactic can be used to distribute disinformation and amass personal data to further their effort of compiling lists of Ukrainians for detention and harm. Similarly, thousands of text messages have reportedly been sent to local police and military members. This risk is not unique to Ukraine, and U.S. leaders must take steps now to harden the United States and protect its service members against similar tactics.”

Washington Post: Here’s how the U.S. should respond to any Russian cyberattacks. “Since before the start of the war, cybersecurity experts — including one of us — have predicted that the likelihood of Russian cyber operations against the West would increase as the United States and its allies placed more severe economic sanctions on Moscow. Now, with the Russian economy beginning to feel the effects of sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears poised to use his intelligence agencies’ significant cyber capabilities to hit back at the West. As these threats loom, the U.S. government has a critical decision to make: How will it respond to Russia’s first wave of major cyberattacks?”

Bloomberg: Ukraine War’s Most Potent Weapon May Be a Cell Phone. “Winning requires resources devoted to telling the stories from the bloody battlefields to the diplomatic boardrooms. Videos have to be crisp and convincing, showing in graphic detail the war crimes being committed daily in Ukraine. This needs to be packaged and moved over the social networks in creative ways that capitalize on the West’s advantages — from getting them in the hands of social influencers in dozens of key countries to setting up professional-quality websites that are easy to navigate.”

April 15, 2022 at 02:46AM
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European Film, New Jersey Disinformation Awareness, NY Energy Advisor, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 14, 2022

European Film, New Jersey Disinformation Awareness, NY Energy Advisor, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 14, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Agenda (Country of Georgia): National Film Center unveils new portal introducing European cinema, film art . “A new film portal introducing European cinema heritage and facilitating study of the history of the art form was unveiled by the Georgian National Film Centre on Thursday, with the website aimed to provide access to archival material, video classes and more to young cinephiles…. Allowing young enthusiasts to ‘explore and analyse’ cinema with knowledge of the art form and its history, it has been designed to utilise ‘pedagogical potential across a range of curriculum subjects,’ and involves tests, exercises, video lessons and other visual material on the subjects.” The site is available in Georgian, English, Serbian, and Italian.

StateScoop: New Jersey jumps into disinformation fight. “Disinformation has long been a concern for federal officials, election administrators and health authorities, all of whom have struggled to deflect falsehoods spread by malicious actors seeking to undermine public trust in U.S. institutions. Now the State of New Jersey is getting into the fight, with a new website launched earlier this month by the state’s Office of Homeland Security and Preparation.”

State Of New York: NYSERDA Announces Launch of NY Energy Advisor Website. “The New York State Energy Research and Develop Authority (NYSERDA) today announced the launch of the NY Energy Advisor website, designed to streamline the awareness of and access to clean energy programs and energy assistance for low-to moderate income households in New York State.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Reddit rolls out new search improvements, including a way to find comments. “Reddit announced today that it’s rolling out the ability to search comments, alongside a few other search-related features. With the new comment search function, users no longer have to click on several comments to find threads when looking for a particular conversation.”

Engadget: Amazon is rebranding IMDb TV as ‘Freevee’. “Amazon’s IMDb TV is rebranding. Beginning April 27th, the ad-supported streaming service will be known as Freevee, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Amazon’s Studios division told the outlet the new name is designed to better reflect how much it costs to access the platform.”

USEFUL STUFF

Gizmodo Australia: Clever Stabilised Web Browser Makes Reading on iPads Easier for Users Dealing With Hand Tremors. “As much as technology has helped improve our lives, it’s not always as accessible as it could be, particularly for those with conditions like Parkinson’s disease which can cause tremors that make it hard to use some devices. But a new app called Staybl takes advantage of a feature included in the iPad since day one to make a simple task like surfing the web much easier even when tremors are being experienced.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Spectrum Local News: Hard-to-trace social media accounts stir up online debate about Maine energy politics. “A strange phenomenon can be seen in the replies to almost any social media post about the campaign to replace Maine’s investor-owned electric utilities with a consumer-owned nonprofit. In Twitter threads, Facebook pages and comments on local news articles, a group of at least six self-styled ‘real Mainers’ — their profile pictures showing dogs or lighthouses, with bios such as, ‘Just a girl from Maine!’ or ‘Not from away’ — first appeared online in January and have posted almost exclusively about an early-stage energy policy debate that many might find obscure.”

Inside Higher Ed: A New Tool for Assessing Campus Climate on Religion. “Prospective students and their parents can find a wide range of useful information online about colleges and universities to help them decide which institutions might be the best fit. But there’s no go-to resource to assess how welcoming a college is to students from various religious backgrounds. That’s about to change. A group of researchers at Ohio State University and North Carolina State University has crafted a tool called the Interfaith, Spiritual, Religious, and Secular Campus Climate Index, or INSPIRES, which scores higher ed institutions on their levels of religious diversity and inclusion.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Microsoft’s huge Patch Tuesday includes fix for bug under attack. “Microsoft’s massive April Patch Tuesday includes one bug that has already been exploited in the wild and a second that has been publicly disclosed. In total, the Redmond giant patched over 100 bugs today, including 10 critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Princeton University: What climate choices should cities make? A Princeton data tool helps planners set priorities.. “A new tool for city planners helps them design a portfolio of actions that encompasses compact development, smart electric mobility, electric heating systems, mass timber construction, urban reforestation, and technologies that allow resources to circulate efficiently through the food, waste and energy sectors.” Good afternoon, Internet…

April 15, 2022 at 12:26AM
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Facebook Roundup, April 14, 2022

Facebook Roundup, April 14, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Queensland: UQ sheds light on campaign spending trends. “The social media spending trends of candidates seeking to secure votes in the upcoming Federal election will be highlighted by a data dashboard created by University of Queensland academics. Experts in political and computer sciences have joined forces to build the UQ Election Ad Data Project to map and analyse data on Facebook election advertising during the 2022 campaign.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: Mark Zuckerberg Ends Election Grants. “Mark Zuckerberg, who donated nearly half a billion dollars to election offices across the nation in 2020 and drew criticism from conservatives suspicious of his influence on the presidential election, won’t be making additional grants this year, a spokesman for the Facebook founder confirmed on Tuesday.”

Engadget: Meta will close a loophole in its doxxing policy in response to the Oversight Board. “Meta has agreed to change some of its rules around doxxing in response to recommendations from the Oversight Board. The company had first asked the Oversight Board to help shape its rules last June, saying the policy was ‘significant and difficult.’ The board followed up with 17 recommendations for the company in February, which Meta has now weighed in on.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Reuters: Facebook takes down Brazil environmental disinformation network with ties to military. “Facebook owner Meta Platforms said on Thursday it had removed a network of social media accounts with ties to the Brazilian military that posed as fake nonprofits to play down the dangers of deforestation. Although the individuals involved in the network were active military personnel, Meta’s investigation did not find enough evidence to establish if they were following orders or acting independently, said a person with knowledge of the matter.”

Ars Technica: Project “Zuck Bucks”: Meta plans virtual coin after cryptocurrency flop. “Meta has drawn up plans to introduce virtual coins, tokens and lending services to its apps, as Facebook’s parent company pursues its finance ambitions despite the collapse of a project to launch a cryptocurrency. The company, led by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, is seeking alternative revenue streams and new features that can attract and retain users, as popularity falls for its main social networking products such as Facebook and Instagram—a trend that threatens its $118 billion-a-year ad-based business model.”

Washington Post: Some women shared the messages they get on Instagram. It’s not pretty.. “Women on Instagram are exposed to an ‘epidemic of misogynist abuse,’ according to a new report… In one shocking statistic, the CCDH found that Instagram didn’t act on 90 percent of abuse sent via direct message to the women in this study, despite the messages being reported to moderators.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Instagram beyond pics: Sexual harassers, crypto crooks, ID thieves. “A platform for everyone to seamlessly share their best moments online, Instagram is slowly turning into a mecca for the undesirables—from sexual harassers to crypto ‘investors’ helping you ‘get rich fast.’ The Gram today has a dark side that goes beyond fancy filters and reels. The network is being actively abused by shady marketers to promote obscene content or by Bitcoin investors with dubious whereabouts.”

New York Times: Adults or Sexually Abused Minors? Getting It Right Vexes Facebook. “The company reports millions of photos and videos of suspected child sexual abuse each year. But when ages are unclear, young people are treated as adults and the images are not reported to the authorities.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Streetsblog NYC: Opinion: Fake Plates are Hiding in Plain Sight on Facebook, Yet Authorities Do Little . “For a certain kind of person, license plates are a pain. If you want to drag race, leave the scene of a crash, avoid bridge tolls, park illegally, or ignore speed cameras, license plates mean you can get busted. That’s where fake temporary tags come in. These paper license plates are almost totally unregulated. The NYPD is well aware of the problem — Det. Thomas Burke appeared on NBC News last year to say that the plates even facilitate drive-by shootings. The Port Authority, according to that report, complained to eBay and Craigslist, asking them to quit selling fake tags. But today, the market has moved to Facebook Marketplace and fellow Meta app Instagram.”

Evening Standard: Instagram ‘failing to protect women in the public eye from misogynist abuse’. “A study by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which included input from several women in the public eye such as actor Amber Heard and broadcaster Rachel Riley, suggests that Instagram was failing to remove accounts that sent abuse to women, in violation of the site’s rules.”

CNBC: Meta’s A.I. exodus: Top talent quits as the lab tries to keep pace with rivals. “At least four prominent members of Meta AI have departed in recent months, according to people familiar with the matter and LinkedIn analysis. Between them, the scientists have published dozens of academic papers in world-renowned journals and made multiple breakthroughs that Meta has used to enhance Facebook and Instagram.”

Toronto Star: Social media is too important to public discourse to let Facebook call the shots. “Social media takes social discourse and similarly externalizes it, placing the conversations, expressions, pronouncements and debates into the space of the web. The public sphere is now no longer quite an abstract idea of what is being said by the chattering classes, but a collection of things happening on screens. It all sounds a bit abstract, but more plainly: Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and more own a big chunk of public discourse. The effects of that are clear: an intensified, polarized political discourse, and a frazzled attention economy that can be upended by a bizarre event at the Oscars or whatever is exercising people that week.”

April 14, 2022 at 07:28PM
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Backup Ukraine, Conflict Misinformation, Worldwide Disinformation, More: Ukraine Update, April 13, 2022

Backup Ukraine, Conflict Misinformation, Worldwide Disinformation, More: Ukraine Update, April 13, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

IFL Science: Project Aims To Digitally Preserve Ukraine’s Landmarks And Artifacts Threatened By War. “Called ‘Backup Ukraine,’ the non-profit project is in partnership with the Danish National Committee of the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Blue Shield Denmark, Polycam, and a VICE media group Using the Polycam app, people can capture data of cultural heritage relics and sites using their camera, then use the app to create three-dimensional renderings of the works, digitally preserving them away from the bombs and missiles.”

This is from the end of February but I completely missed it and haven’t seen mentions of it anywhere. The Social Media Lab at Ryerson University: Introducing The Russia-Ukraine ConflictMisinfo.org Dashboard . “The dashboard is an information management tool for monitoring online misinformation and disinformation about the Russia-Ukraine war. It tracks and visualizes debunked claims from hundreds of trusted fact-checkers based around the world, such as AFP, Reuters, and others. The dashboard is available in English, Ukrainian and Russian.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Washington Post: TikTok created an alternate universe just for Russia. “Last month, as many tech companies sided with Ukraine over Russia’s invasion, TikTok appeared to follow suit by suspending new video uploads and live streams from Russia. The company said it made the move to protect Russian users from the country’s new laws criminalizing criticism of its military. But the wildly popular, Chinese-owned social media app also walled off Russian users from seeing any posts at all from outside the country, including from Ukraine — effectively creating a second, censored version of its platform. For the tens of millions of Russians on TikTok, the outside world has fallen silent.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Conversation: Libraries around the world are helping safeguard Ukrainian books and culture. “Librarians and libraries across the world play a role in preserving and sharing Ukraine’s cultural history. They acquire western observations about Ukraine or material printed on its territories. And people can learn a lot from these resources.”

Deutsche Welle: How Russia is waging a successful propaganda war in Latin America. “Russian state media were a major force in Latin America before the war in Ukraine. Promoting populist content to lure their audience, they are an established presence — not just in countries with authoritarian regimes.”

New York Times: Russian Tech Industry Faces ‘Brain Drain’ as Workers Flee. “By March 22, a Russian tech industry trade group estimated that between 50,000 and 70,000 tech workers had left the country and that an additional 70,000 to 100,000 would soon follow. They are part of a much larger exodus of workers from Russia, but their departure could have an even more lasting impact on the country’s economy.”

Campaign US: It’s our brand: Ukraine’s government turns nation’s bravery into biggest cultural export. “Throughout Vladimir Putin’s bloody attack, one beacon of light cast across all the horrors is the admirable bravery of the Ukrainian nation. So, while other countries base their economies on natural resources like oil, The Office of the President of Ukraine and the Government of Ukraine intend to make bravery Ukraine’s biggest cultural export.”

Slate: The People Who Believe Russia’s Disinformation. “Russia has been running propaganda campaigns since the Cold War. What does feel new is the preponderance of true information available—and perhaps equally importantly, the speed at which it spreads. Social media, satellite imagery, and 24/7 reporting are directly refuting Russian disinformation in real time. That news is only reaching some people, however. It’s worth stepping back to consider the various audiences for Russia’s disinformation campaigns and examine where they’re working and where they’re not.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Business Insider: Ukrainian prosecutor investigating potential Bucha war crimes says that Russians left behind a computer server that could help identify perpetrators. “The chief regional prosecutor in Bucha, Ukraine, told the New York Times that Russian soldiers left behind a computer server with potentially damning information as investigators are zeroing in on killings and mass graves in the city.”

National Post: Russia’s disinformation campaigns now targeting CAF members, including doctored pictures claiming Canadian military fighting in Ukraine: CSE. “Russia is spreading doctored pictures falsely claiming Canadian military members are currently fighting on the front line in Ukraine as part of a new disinformation campaign targeting Canada, says our country’s digital spy agency.”

The Verge: Ukraine says it stopped a Russian cyberattack on its power grid. “An attack on Ukraine’s power grid was foiled by cybersecurity analysts and officials, as reported by Reuters. After investigating the methods and software used by the attackers, cybersecurity firm ESET says that it was likely carried out by a hacking group called Sandworm, which The Record reports allegedly has ties to the Russian government.”

WIRED: Russia Is Leaking Data Like a Sieve. “Since Russian troops crossed Ukraine’s borders at the end of February, colossal amounts of information about the Russian state and its activities have been made public. The data offers unparalleled glimpses into closed-off private institutions, and it may be a gold mine for investigators, from journalists to those tasked with investigating war crimes. Broadly, the data comes in two flavors: information published proactively by Ukranian authorities or their allies, and information obtained by hacktivists. Hundreds of gigabytes of files and millions of emails have been made public.”

April 14, 2022 at 06:29PM
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Banned Books, Taxation Transparency, South African History Archive, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, April 14, 2022

Banned Books, Taxation Transparency, South African History Archive, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, April 14, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New York Public Library: Books For All: NYPL Supports the Right to Read Banned Books. “The New York Public Library’s mission is rooted in the principles of free and open access to knowledge, information, and all perspectives—in essence, the right to read. In light of recent, prominent efforts to ban books in communities across the United States, we have now partnered with publishers Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, and Scholastic to make a small selection of commonly banned or challenged books available to anyone who chooses to read them—all for free via our e-reader app, SimplyE.”

ProPublica: America’s Highest Earners and Their Taxes Revealed. “Secret IRS files reveal the top US income-earners and how their tax rates vary more than their incomes. Tech titans, hedge fund managers and heirs dominate the list, while the likes of Taylor Swift and LeBron James didn’t even make the top 400.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Daily Maverick: South African History Archive relaunched at Wits. “On 6 April, the South African History Archive was officially relaunched at Wits university by its Vice-Chancellor Zeblon Vilakazi. It will form part of an Archives and Research Hub that will give concerted attention to social justice archives. The devastating fire last year at UCT brought the general crisis of archives sharply into focus and it is clear that universities and civil society will need to be more active in this space.”

Search Engine Land: Yelp adds searchable eco-friendly business attributes. “In addition to being highlighted in Yelp’s search results, the new sustainability attributes will appear on Yelp business pages. Yelp today announced a new addition to its platform: searchable, eco-friendly business attributes. It is free for businesses to add these attributes.”

PR Newswire: OCLC and Google now connect web searchers directly to library collections (PRESS RELEASE). “OCLC and Google are working together to link directly from books discovered through Google Search to print book records in the catalogs of hundreds of U.S. libraries. This feature is part of Google’s ongoing effort to connect people to their local libraries through Google Search. The initial phase of this new program connects people using Google Search to the catalogs of hundreds of U.S. libraries whose books are cataloged in WorldCat, a worldwide database of information about library collections, and made available for discovery on the web.”

USEFUL STUFF

Popular Science: How to send a voice message in any chat app, even if you think you can’t . “There’s something uniquely appealing about sending voice messages through chat apps. Not only are they more intimate and personal than typed text, they’re also more permanent than an audio or video call—the recipient can listen to them again and again…. With that in mind, perhaps you should be sending more of these personalized, informal audio snippets that can say just about anything (whether you’re arranging a party or despairing about a sports game, a voice message works). Many messaging apps now support voice recordings as standard, and there are workarounds for the rest.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Reuters: Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter for $41.39 billion . “Billionaire Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter TWTR.N for $41.39 billion, a regulatory filing showed on Thursday.”

Norfolk Southern: Norfolk Southern donates Norfolk and Western Railway archives, $750,000 to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. “The collection dates to the 1840s and includes thousands of photographs and glass plate negatives, as well as business records, annual reports, blueprints, plans, bridge drawings, advertisements, portraits, and three-dimensional artifacts from predecessor railroads that together provide a fascinating look into the growth of rail transportation across the eastern United States. The company will also donate $750,000 to support the collection in perpetuity.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Sixth Tone: China’s Judicial Transparency Project Faces an Uncertain Future. “In 2013, China’s Supreme People’s Court officially launched China Judgements Online, a free online database containing decisions from all levels of China’s legal system, from local courts all the way up to the SPC itself. By 2020, the database was home to more than 100 million documents…. But now, that may be coming to an end. Zhou Yuzhong, a lawyer, found that courts uploaded slightly more than 100,000 judicial documents in 2021, a nearly 80% drop from the previous year. Meanwhile, a number of rulings have quietly disappeared from the database.”

Bloomberg: Google Tightens Philippines Apps Review to Curb Loan Sharks. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google will tighten approval for personal loan apps made available in the Philippines to fight illegal and abusive lending practices, the nation’s Securities and Exchange Commission said.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Electronic Frontier Foundation: Civil Liberties Groups Urge Social Media Platforms to Better Protect Free Flow of Information in Crisis Zones. “Whether in Ukraine or in other crisis zones around the globe, social media platforms have a duty to ensure that people have access to the free flow of life-saving information, according to a statement issued today by 31 international human rights and civil liberties organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).”

Stanford News: What to know about disinformation and how to address it . “[Eileen] Donahoe and Stanford scholars from across the social sciences are studying the threats disinformation poses to democracy and also other areas of public and private life, such as health and education. In many instances, researchers are providing specific recommendations for what governments, digital platforms and the public can do to counter its deleterious effects. Here are some of those findings and recommendations, as well as insight into the role disinformation played during the global pandemic and more recently, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.” Good morning, Internet…

April 14, 2022 at 05:26PM
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