New researches

Saturday, July 2, 2022

Wolfram Language / Mathematica, Twitch, Reverse Phone Number Lookup, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 2, 2022

Wolfram Language / Mathematica, Twitch, Reverse Phone Number Lookup, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 2, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Stephen Wolfram Blog: Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language & Mathematica . “In recent years we’ve established something of a rhythm, delivering the fruits of our development efforts roughly twice a year. We released Version 13.0 on December 13, 2021. And now, roughly six months later, we’re releasing Version 13.1. As usual, even though it’s a ‘.1’ release, it’s got a lot of new (and updated) functionality, some of which we’ve worked on for many years but finally now brought to fruition.”

TechCrunch: Twitch’s new Guest Star mode will let anyone turn their stream into a talk show . “Twitch wants to make it easier for creators to pull guests into their livestreams, talk show-style — and everybody gets to be a creator. The company is announcing Guest Star, a new feature that will tie into existing streaming software, allowing stream hosts to bring up to five guests into a stream and swap them in and out fluidly.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 7 Sites to Identify the Owner of a Phone Number. “Phone numbers are a little like fingerprints; they can reveal a lot about a person, for example, their name or where they live. If you received a call from a number you don’t recognize, the following resources can help you identify the caller before you ring them back. One option even calls the number for you.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Boing Boing: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning instructions, but leaves up the lethal tips. “It is extraordinarily dangerous, and dozens of people have been killed following instructions contained in viral videos. Ann Reardon recently posted a thorough debunking of the method, which quickly became popular in its own right… But YouTube has removed Reardon’s video, claiming it is harmful and dangerous—while leaving up fractal wood burning videos demonstrating methods that have killed, at latest count, 34 people in America.”

Digital Library of Georgia: Digital Library of Georgia Awards Digitization Subgrants to 6 Georgia Cultural Heritage Institutions Across the State. “The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) announced today the 6 recipients of its 10th set of digitization service awards. Among the awardees are four new partners. Awardee projects include documentation of the Augusta Jewish community and Evans County African American genealogical materials.”

9to5 Google: ‘Google Public Sector’ is a new subsidiary focused on US government, education. “Google today is home to two divisions that have their own CEOs: Cloud and YouTube. ‘Google Public Sector’ was announced today as a ‘new Google division that will focus on helping U.S. public sector institutions.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Deadly Abortion Misinformation Rings Alarm Bells for Doctors, TikTok. “TikTok and other social media platforms are attempting to clamp down on posts highlighting certain toxic herbs that some say might stop a pregnancy, as doctors sound the alarm over their potentially fatal effects for the person taking them.”

Protocol: How lax social media policies help fuel a prescription drug boom. “The U.S. is almost alone in embracing direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertisements. Nations as disparate as Saudi Arabia, France and China all find common ground in banning such ads. In fact, of all developed nations, only New Zealand joins the U.S. in giving pharmaceutical companies a direct line to consumers. As it so happens, Americans are also highly medicated.”

The New Times (Rwanda): Activists renew call to return UN court archives to Rwanda. “Following the appointment of the new president of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), activists have renewed call to bring to Rwanda physical archives of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: DALL-E Mini Is the Internet’s Favorite AI Meme Machine. “The outwardly simple app, which generates nine images in response to any typed text prompt, was launched nearly a year ago by an independent developer. But after some recent improvements and a few viral tweets, its ability to crudely sketch all manner of surreal, hilarious, and even nightmarish visions suddenly became meme magic.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 3, 2022 at 01:06AM
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A Queer Eye on Art History, Oregon Wildfire Risk, Mapping U.S. Broadband, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, July 2, 2022

A Queer Eye on Art History, Oregon Wildfire Risk, Mapping U.S. Broadband, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, July 2, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: A Queer Eye on Art History with Google Arts & Culture. “In honor of Pride Month and beyond, and in collaboration with over 60 cultural institutions, Google Arts & Culture presents the “A Queer Eye on Art History” hub. It’s a place where you can explore archives and collections to celebrate LGBTQIA+ lives and art and dive into more than 20 newly curated stories, new collections from partners, and much more.”

KVAL: New map details Oregon wildfire risk. “Oregonians have a new tool to help track wildfire risk across the state, in the form of a new online map. The map, announced Thursday by the Oregon Department of Forestry, illustrates the risk of wildfire with color-coded risk levels that range from low (green) to high (red).”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

FCC: Status Update: Mapping Where Broadband Is—and Is Not—Available in the U.S.. “For as long as people have been talking about the digital divide, there have been complaints that we lack detailed maps to tell us exactly where broadband is—and is not—available…. Congress took up this challenge in March 2020 when it passed the Broadband DATA Act instructing the FCC to create a publicly accessible, data-based nationwide map of where fixed and mobile broadband is truly available throughout the United States…. Over the past 18 months, we’ve been doing that work and making a lot of progress. I wanted to give people a brief of the latest key developments.”

Tom’s Guide: Google Docs just got a big upgrade to help you ditch Office. “Google Docs is getting the ability to edit Microsoft Office documents while offline, essentially paving the way for you to fully ditch any reliance on Microsoft’s productivity software.”

USEFUL STUFF

MIT Technology Review: How to track your period safely post-Roe. “The fear is that in the hands of law enforcement, this data could be used to bolster a criminal case against a person who attempts to get an abortion in a state where it is restricted or banned. Understandably, a lot of people are scared and confused. So here’s our guide to what you need to know about period-tracking apps, what the apps’ makers say about their often murky privacy policies, and what alternative methods you can use to track your menstrual cycle that don’t involve handing your data over.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Slate: Being a Therapist on Social Media Can Be a Little Traumatic. “Since the dawn of the pandemic, mental health content creators have flourished across social media, especially TikTok and Instagram. But they aren’t all equal. Creators with questionable qualifications and intentions have proliferated too, sharing dubious information, outlining symptoms, suggesting that various behaviors indicate all manner of DSM diagnoses, and at times even proffering treatments.”

Mashable: TikTokkers are hiding their deepest insecurities in product requests. “The whiplash between the question and the following vulnerability doesn’t only create a safe space for users to share their thoughts, but it also mimics the way we hold these fears with us at all times. These anxieties can pop up at any moment whether we are browsing for a new sunscreen or scrolling on TikTok. Sharing these kinds of fears online isn’t new. People are always using the internet to find people they relate to and to feel less alone, but the trend allows for a different approach.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Canada .com: Google to pay $90 mln to settle legal fight with app developers. “Alphabet Inc’s Google has agreed to pay $90 million to settle a legal fight with app developers over the money they earned creating apps for Android smartphones and for enticing users to make in-app purchases, according to a court filing.”

Ars Technica: FCC says it closed a loophole that many robocallers used to evade blocking. “Large voice providers were required to implement STIR/SHAKEN a year ago. But there was an exemption for carriers with 100,000 or fewer customers that would have given those smaller companies until June 30, 2023, to comply. The FCC voted in December to move that deadline up to June 30, 2022, because small phone companies were apparently carrying a disproportionately high number of illegal robocalls.”

Engadget: Cyberattack impacts unemployment benefits in several states. “A cyberattack on a third-party vendor has impacted employment services, including unemployment benefits, in several states, according to the Associated Press. Some state employment websites have been offline since Sunday, including the ones in Tennessee and Nebraska.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Griffith University: Rock art detection via machine learning model a breakthrough. “Co-led by Dr Andrea Jalandoni, a digital archaeologist from Griffith University’s Centre for Social and Cultural Research, the study used hundreds of images of rock art found within Kakadu National Park to train a ML model to detect whether painted rock art was present within the image. The model achieved an 89% success rate, meaning it determined which images contained rock art the vast majority of times.”

NewsWise: Study Shows Link Between Cyberbullying and Suicidality in Early Adolescence. “Young adolescents who are targets of cyberbullying are more likely to report suicidal thoughts and attempts, an association that goes above and beyond the link between suicidality and traditional offline bullying, according to new research from the Lifespan Brain Institute (LiBI) of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the University of Pennsylvania.” Good morning, Internet…

July 2, 2022 at 05:27PM
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Friday, July 1, 2022

Google Maps, Social Media Trolls, Crypocurrency Transactions, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 1, 2022

Google Maps, Social Media Trolls, Crypocurrency Transactions, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 1, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Roundtable: Google Maps Tests New Local Panel With Images At Top & Tabs For Reviews. “Google Maps is testing a new local listing interface where it shows more images in the top portion of the local listing and there are tabs to show the business overview on the left and the reviews on the right.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Techdirt: How The Internet Enabled A Mariners Fan And DoorDash Driver To Connect And Do Something Cool. “The internet is responsible for both good and bad outcomes in society, as is pretty much everything else. But the internet also is only as good or bad as those that make use of it. And sometimes, the internet enables really awesome stuff. Take the story of Sofie Dill, Seattle Mariners fan, and Simranjeet Singh, a DoorDash driver.”

Rest of World: A million-strong troll army is targeting Iran’s #MeToo activists on Instagram. “More than one million bots have flooded the Instagram accounts of prominent Iranian feminist activists, in a coordinated harassment campaign that started mid-April, according to a new report released by Qurium, a digital forensics nonprofit.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: EU reaches agreement on crypto regulation requiring personal data collection on every transfer. “The European Parliament and Council reached a provisional agreement to force crypto providers to provide identifying information on all digital asset transactions, despite an industry backlash. The so-called transfer of funds regulation, or TFR, seeks to strengthen anti-money-laundering requirements to ensure that crypto transfers can always be traced and suspicious transactions blocked.”

Ars Technica: A wide range of routers are under attack by new, unusually sophisticated malware. “An unusually advanced hacking group has spent almost two years infecting a wide range of routers in North America and Europe with malware that takes full control of connected devices running Windows, macOS, and Linux, researchers reported on Tuesday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Wall Street Journal: Tech Giants Pour Billions Into AI, but Hype Doesn’t Always Match Reality. “After years of companies emphasizing the potential of artificial intelligence, researchers say it is now time to reset expectations. With recent leaps in the technology, companies have developed more systems that can produce seemingly humanlike conversation, poetry and images. Yet AI ethicists and researchers warn that some businesses are exaggerating the capabilities—hype that they say is brewing widespread misunderstanding and distorting policy makers’ views of the power and fallibility of such technology.”

Engadget: NOAA triples its supercomputing capacity for improved storm modeling. “Last year, hurricanes hammered the Southern and Eastern US coasts at the cost of more than 160 lives and $70 billion in damages. Thanks to climate change, it’s only going to get worse. In order to quickly and accurately predict these increasingly severe weather patterns, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Tuesday that it has effectively tripled its supercomputing (and therefore weather modelling) capacity with the addition of two high-performance computing (HPC) systems built by General Dynamics.”

EurekAlert: How technology can detect fake news in videos. “Researchers from the K-riptography and Information Security for Open Networks (KISON) and the Communication Networks & Social Change (CNSC) groups of the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) have launched a new project to develop innovative technology that, using artificial intelligence and data concealment techniques, should help users to automatically differentiate between original and adulterated multimedia content, thus contributing to minimizing the reposting of fake news.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

University of East Anglia: Rare Volumes Provide Contemporary Design Inspiration. “What kind of image do the words ‘rare books’ conjure up? Probably a man turning pages with white gloves in an atmosphere that’s reverent, hushed, and a bit stuffy. The Unlocking the Archive project, led by Dr Tom Roebuck and Dr Sophie Butler from UEA’s School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, has been about challenging that perception.”

I am linking to this because I have been Team Brown Noise since I knew about different noise colors, and I’m feeling vindicated. Yes, it’s petty, but it’s also Friday. Mashable: What is brown noise? TikTok suggests it’s better than white noise.. “Whereas white noise encompasses sounds from all over the spectrum, including low, mid-range, and high frequency notes, brown noise uses only low frequency and bass-heavy notes. This makes brown noise much deeper in sound than white noise and more ideal for those who find the high frequency notes in white noise uncomfortable.” Good afternoon, Internet…

July 2, 2022 at 12:56AM
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Language Preservation, Death Sentences, National Education Summit, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, July 1, 2022

Language Preservation, Death Sentences, National Education Summit, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, July 1, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: Preserving languages and the stories behind them. “Thanks to a collaboration with our global partners, ranging from language communities to national language institutes, you can now discover the languages of Maya, Tepehua, Sanskrit, Vurës, Kumeyaay/Diegueño, Potawatomi and Serravallese, spoken across Mexico, South Asia, the South Pacific, the United States and Italy.”

Death Penalty Information Center: On Anniversary of Furman v. Georgia, DPIC Census of U.S. Death Sentences Details 50 Years of Arbitrariness, Bias, and Error. “The census is the most comprehensive database of death sentences ever assembled, containing more than 9,700 death sentences…. In the census, DPIC has attempted to identify every death sentence handed down in the U.S. from the day Furman was decided through January 1, 2021 and track the status of each sentence.”

EVENTS

Smithsonian: Smithsonian Will Convene Thousands of Educators From Across the Nation This Summer To Discuss the Importance of Teaching Inclusive, Holistic and Well-Rounded Content. “Educators across the country are facing unforeseen challenges and rising levels of uncertainty in the classroom. As part of its 175-year commitment to education, the Smithsonian will host a free two-day National Education Summit to celebrate teachers and share instructional strategies and resources to ensure that every leaner has the opportunity to thrive.” The summit will have both in-person and virtual components. Registration is required.

Library of Congress: Why Web Archiving?: A Conversation with Web Archivists and Researchers. “On May 23, the Library of Congress hosted ‘#WhyWebArchiving: Preserving Internet Content for Research Use,’ a virtual event that brought together Library subject experts actively involved in building web archives with researchers that have utilized the Library’s web archives in their work…. A video recording of the panel is now available online, and you can also read about some of the highlights here.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Substack CEO says he’s ‘very sorry’ about laying off 13 people. “Substack is the latest tech company to announce layoffs, with the company’s CEO Chris Best tweeting on Wednesday that he’s letting 13 workers go. According to Axios, that’s around 14 percent of Substack’s workforce. In his letter and follow-up tweets, Best cites ‘market conditions’ as the reason behind the layoffs.”

Search Engine Journal: W3C Announces Major Change. “The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C), the standards body in charge of web standards such as HTML and browser privacy, announced a significant change in how it will operate. Beginning on January 2023, the W3C will become a new public-interest non-profit organization.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 5 Competitor Monitoring Strategies and Tools for Your Online Businesses. “If you’re ready to take your competitive strategy to the next level, this post will help you get started with five strategies for monitoring competitors that are tailored for online businesses.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Museums + Heritage Advisor: ‘Don’t be afraid to fail’: digital storytelling experiments in small museums. “As part of this year’s Museums + Heritage Show the Director of Royal Crown Derby Museum and the Curator of Gawthorpe Textiles Collection share some of their learnings after bolstering their digital storytelling efforts.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Motherboard: TikTok Users Are Doxing the Supreme Court. “Some of these videos had thousands of likes, comments and views. Many of them have since been taken down by TikTok, but the same information is recirculating through smaller and smaller accounts in the same format: a slideshow of the justices’ portraits, with text over their faces.”

Bleeping Computer: OpenSea discloses data breach, warns users of phishing attacks. “OpenSea, the largest non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, disclosed a data breach on Wednesday and warned users of phishing attacks that could target them in the coming days. The online NFT marketplace says it has more than 600,000 users and a transaction volume that surpassed $20 billion.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NewsWise: These Red Flags Can Let You Know When You’re in an Online Echo Chamber. “Online echo chambers are virtual spaces that gather like-minded individuals. Prior research has shown that people are more likely to believe and share information they encounter in these spaces, because it confirms their existing beliefs. Echo chambers are also an ideal venue for hyperpartisanship, or rigid political ideology that shows a strong bias toward one perspective, while attacking another.”

BBC: New map of ancient trees an opportunity for conservation. “A new map shows there could be around two million trees with exceptional environmental and cultural value previously unrecorded in England. That’s ten times as many as currently on official records. This tree-map is sounding a rare note of optimism in the conservation world. But the Woodland Trust charity warns that these trees – known as ancient or veteran specimens – have ‘almost no’ legal protection.” Good morning, Internet…

July 1, 2022 at 05:27PM
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Thursday, June 30, 2022

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

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

NEW RESOURCES

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

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

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

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

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

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

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

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

SECURITY & LEGAL

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

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

RESEARCH & OPINION

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

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

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

Facebook Roundup, June 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

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

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

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

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

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

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

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

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

SECURITY & LEGAL

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

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

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

RESEARCH & OPINION

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

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

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

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

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

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

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

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

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

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

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

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

SECURITY & LEGAL

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

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

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

RESEARCH & OPINION

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

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

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

June 30, 2022 at 06:50PM
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