New researches

Monday, October 10, 2022

Breathing Exercises, Open-Access Book Data, Rugby World, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 10, 2022

Breathing Exercises, Open-Access Book Data, Rugby World, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 10, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: Take a wellbeing break, and dive into the Rhythm Of Nature. “In Rhythm Of Nature is a digital wellbeing experience inspired by the Carl Linnaeus Flower Clock. Linneaus was a renowned 18th century botanist and taxonomist who developed a modern system to identify, name, and classify living things. His unique garden designs captured the natural circadian rhythms of different plants that would open and close their blooms in relation to the time of the day. In Rhythm With Nature aims to establish an intimate connection between humans and nature through a series of beautifully crafted breathing exercises timed by the flowers opening and closing. Essentially you are breathing with flowers that open according to your time of the day.”

Public Books: Where Is All The Book Data?. “Culture industries increasingly use our data to sell us their products. It’s time to use their data to study them. To that end, we created the Post45 Data Collective, an open access site that peer reviews and publishes literary and cultural data.”

Rugby World: Rugby World Archive Launched. “Now, for the first time, readers can revisit past issues of the magazine online through the newly launched Rugby World Archive. Want to know who was on the cover of the first-ever issue in October 1960? Or find out what the big talking points were in the 1980s? Or see what novel photo shoots were created in the 1990s? Well, now you can.”

USEFUL STUFF

SlashGear: Discord Features That You’re Missing Out On. “Today, Discord has tens of millions of active users, many of whom are members of multiple servers (via Cloudwards). If you’re one of those users, you may have missed out on some of the lesser-known features, tips, and tricks that could help you streamline your Discord experience. Or, at least make it a little more fun.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Internet Archive Blog: Internet Archive Seeks Donations of Materials to Build a Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications. “Internet Archive has begun gathering content for the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC), which will be a massive online library of materials and collections related to amateur radio and early digital communications. The DLARC is funded by a significant grant from the Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC), a private foundation, to create a digital library that documents, preserves, and provides open access to the history of this community.”

NBC News: TwitchCon had a foam pit exhibit. Two attendees say they got injured when they jumped in.. “At least two TwitchCon attendees said they were severely injured after they participated in an interactive exhibit that featured a shallow pit of foam cubes scattered over bare concrete. The exhibit was part of the weekend-long event for the livestreaming video platform, which this year was held at the San Diego Convention Center.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Decrypt: New Tool Shows Just How Much Users Lost in Celsius Bankruptcy. “A new tool now lets anyone see just how much money some users have lost after the troubled crypto lender filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July. It’s easy to check whether someone has made it onto the questionable ‘leaderboard’ of biggest losers from the Celsius debacle, by simply typing their name into the convenient search bar.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Houston: Going ‘Rogue’: UH Researchers Examine Viral Trend in Global Marketing. “Chris Taylor, director of the beverage management program in the University of Houston Conrad N. Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership, watched in awe as sales of White Claw skyrocketed seemingly overnight in the summer of 2019. As a new entry in the relatively unknown hard seltzer category, it was completely unexpected and had virtually nothing to do with the company’s own marketing strategy. White Claw’s rapid success was due, almost entirely, to a social media influencer.”

TechCrunch: AI music generators could be a boon for artists — but also problematic. “Harmonai is an organization with financial backing from Stability AI, the London-based startup behind Stable Diffusion. In late September, Harmonai released Dance Diffusion, an algorithm and set of tools that can generate clips of music by training on hundreds of hours of existing songs.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

UVA Today: Finally, The Real Answer Why Your Best Ideas Come While Showering. “Zac Irving, a University of Virginia assistant professor of philosophy, explains in new co-written research why a wandering mind sometimes comes up with creative solutions to a problem when a person is engaged in a ‘mindless’ task. The secret appears to be that the task at hand isn’t truly mindless. A moderate level of engagement is required.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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October 11, 2022 at 12:22AM
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Illinois Law Enforcement, British Library Collections, The Lantern Project, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, October 10, 2022

Illinois Law Enforcement, British Library Collections, The Lantern Project, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, October 10, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Illinois News Bureau: New database catalogs police shootings in Illinois to improve accountability. “The Systematic Policing Oversight Through Lethal-Force Incident Tracking Environment project, called ‘SPOTLITE,’ identified more than twice as many police-involved shooting incidents than previously reported by the Illinois State Police, for a total of 694 lethal force incidents involving 734 civilians from 2014-21. Nearly two-thirds of those incidents occurred in Cook County. SPOTLITE includes any incident when police use firearms – including those with nonfatal outcomes – as well as any other use of force that results in a death.”

British Library: New online – September 2022. “We have another four projects that recently went online to highlight this month. Two projects from India, and one each from Cuba and Columbia.”

New-to-me, from Clarion Ledger: Enslaved family history records brought to public light by Mississippi project. “The problem with genealogical research for many African Americans is that before 1870, there were very few records because they were not documented as human beings but as property. However, an ongoing multi-state project enlisting help from three universities and libraries hopes to build a bridge for African American families wanting to trace their roots. The Lantern Project is an effort to scan and make available to the public legal records documenting enslaved persons. Probate records and various other legal records from the early 1800s have been or are being scanned and will be available to people doing family history research or anyone interested.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Mashable: Dictionary.com adds ‘antiwork’ because it, too, does not dream of labor. “For those who dream of a four-day workweek, Dictionary.com feels your pain. And to give you the language to express your woes, it’s added a slew of work related terms — plus a few internet faves, climate terms, and accurate Ukrainian endonyms.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Automate Your iPhone Based on Time, Activity, or Location. “Your iPhone can become more efficient with a few simple automations that show relevant information and hide distractions, depending on what you’re doing. Automating your iPhone can help you be more productive at work, get a better night’s sleep, or surface useful reminders at the best possible time.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: How social media ‘censorship’ became a front line in the culture war. “What people can and can’t say online — and the role of Big Tech in making those calls — has emerged as a critical fault line in American politics. The left cries for content moderation to tamp down disinformation, racism and misogyny. The right decries that as censorship and demands the right to free speech. In recent months, several flash points have brought this battle to the fore.”

The Guardian: ‘The cultural memory of the UK’: unearthing the hidden treasures of the BBC archive. “For years the corporation has been digitising its vast reserve of content, turning up lost footage of everyone from General Eisenhower to Victoria Wood. Meet the team bringing a century of footage back to life.”

The National: ‘Ramy’, ‘Mo’ and the rise of the Arab social media comedy star . “With the new season of Ramy receiving rave reviews, and the recent success of Mo, which stars Mo Amer as the first Palestinian lead character on American television, Arab comedy is enjoying a renaissance. The effect can be seen across the comedy landscape and particularly among an emerging group of Arab comedians who have been carving out large audiences through social media platforms.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: Twitter and Instagram lock Kanye West’s accounts after a weekend of antisemitic posts. “Kanye West’s return to Twitter has been short-lived. Less than a day after Elon Musk welcomed him back to the platform, the rapper saw his account suspended for posting an antisemitic message.”

FStoppers: What I Did When My Photos and Articles Were Stolen. “Occasionally, it’s worth Googling your name to see what turns up. When I did it, it showed that a website was plagiarizing Fstoppers articles and stealing my photos too. This is what I did about it.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Hawaii: New Polynesian archaeology journal launched by UH faculty. “In the wake of Hawaiʻi Archaeology Week (September 26–October 2), the University of Hawaiʻi Press joins two non-profit organizations to launch the Journal of Polynesian Archaeology and Research, an open-access title that will soon accept submissions for its inaugural issue.”

Newswise: Online fandom communities can facilitate state censorship, according to new Concordia research. “Authoritarian regimes worldwide have embraced the digital age. And they have been generally effective at limiting the online presence of perceived adversaries within their borders — from intellectual dissidents to transnational activists. However, as a new study published in the journal New Media & Society shows, censorship is not strictly a state-run affair.” Good morning, Internet…

October 10, 2022 at 05:25PM
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Saturday, October 8, 2022

Let The Body Speak, Creative Commons, Twitter, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 8, 2022

Let The Body Speak, Creative Commons, Twitter, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 8, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Place: ‘Let The Body Speak’ A Digital Hub Supporting Ukrainian Dancers. “The Contemporary Dance Platform, as part of the British Council’s UK/Ukraine Season of Culture, has created a digital hub to collect dance videos from Ukrainian dancers and choreographers called Let The Body Speak. Let The Body Speak aims to create a digital archive of works, movement practices and discussions that Ukrainian dance artists are having in these unprecedented times.”

EVENTS

Creative Commons: Join Us to Celebrate 20 Years of Creative Commons. “In November 2022, CC will bring the 20th anniversary celebration to an official close with both online and in-person activities. The CC Global Network and our broader community are at the heart of CC’s work to support better sharing for an open commons, so we are inviting you to be a part of marking this milestone. There are several ways you can join the celebration — pick one or all!”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

PopCulture: Social Media Network to Livestream Look-Ins for MLB Postseason Games. “Twitter recently announced that it will livestream look-ins for MLB postseason games, making it the only social media platform to officially stream live look-ins during the playoffs. Official Twitter accounts from MLB, Blecher Report, ESPN and MLB on Fox will stream live look-ins, and MLB Network will provide shoulder programming.”

Search Engine Roundtable: Google Still Working On Getting Timestamps Accurate In Search Results. “Google is still working on getting the timestamps accurate in the search results and news search results. Several publishers, including the Director of SEO at USA Today and the SEO Editor for Wall Street Journal, complained about the inaccurate timestamps in Google Search the other day.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Techdirt: Arizona GOP Secretary Of State Candidate Insists ‘Deep State’ Google Is Blocking His Website; Turns Out He Requested It Not Be Indexed. “… it is true that if you search for his campaign website on Google, you come up empty (though you do find lots of other stuff about him, including his lies about the 2020 election). However as Grid News figured out, the reality is not just different, but (for yet another reason) raises serious questions about [Mark] Finchem’s competence. It turns out that Finchem’s campaign inserted a ‘noindex’ meta tag… telling Google not to index it or show it in search.”

TechCrunch: Google will open its first data center in Japan in 2023. “Google said today that it will open its first data center in Japan by 2023. The company noted that this data center will be located in Inzai City, Chiba and is a part of its $730 million infrastructure fund that will continue through 2024. This is the company’s third data center in Asia after Taiwan and Singapore.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

KTOO: Alaska Legislature’s new social media policy nixes banning and blocking. “If Alaska’s state legislators remove constituents’ comments or block them on social media, they may forfeit state-paid legal protection, according to a new social media policy adopted Friday. A House-Senate panel voted 8-3 in favor of adopting the new policy on behalf of the entire Legislature.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Vox: The Instagram capital of the world is a terrible place to be. “The problem of travel at this particular moment is not too many people traveling in general, it is too many people wanting to experience the exact same thing because they all went to the same websites and read the same reviews. It’s created the idea that if you do not go to this specific bar or stay in this exact neighborhood, all the money and time you spent on being here has been wasted, and you have settled for something that is not as perfect as it could have been.”

The Conversation: Why so many medieval manuscripts feature doodles – and what they reveal. “Although you wouldn’t dare doodle on a medieval manuscript today, squiggly lines (sometimes resembling fish or even elongated people), mini-drawings (a knight fighting a snail, for instance), and random objects appear quite often in medieval books. Usually found in the flyleaves or margins, doodles can often give medievalists (specialists in medieval history and culture) important insights into how people in earlier centuries understood and reacted to the narrative on the page.”

Michigan Daily: The Queen is dead, long live the memes. “Social media is engineered to get you to feel strong emotions and see controversial opinions so that you continue to engage with their app, and yeah, the Queen’s passing seems to have elicited a few strong emotions, to say the least. While there may be some serious discussion potential on the privilege of the royal family and the unfixed damage of the British empire, most likely the closest we’ll get is quite a few ver hearty ‘RIP bozo’s.” Good afternoon, Internet…

October 8, 2022 at 11:54PM
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RumorGuard, Signal, Google Easter Eggs, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, October 8, 2022

RumorGuard, Signal, Google Easter Eggs, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, October 8, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Mashable: New debunking site might be the winning tool in those frustrating Facebook fights. “In a timely (and necessary) step towards broader news literacy, a new fact-checking site has launched to teach people how to better pinpoint misinformation. Called RumorGuard, it offers a one-stop shop for misinformation debunking and a glimpse into the fact-checking process, on top of a library of authoritative tools to help individuals spot, verify, and fight against rapidly spreading misinformation themselves.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Even Signal is hopping on the Stories bandwagon. “Like Instagram, Facebook and so many others, Signal is hopping aboard the Stories bandwagon. The privacy-focused messaging app started beta testing an ephemeral Stories feature this week. Users can share videos, images and text-based messages with their friends. Stories will vanish after 24 hours.”

CNET: Google’s Splatoon Easter Egg Lets You Paint Search Results. “Google is celebrating the launch of Splatoon 3 on Nintendo Switch with a colorful Easter egg that gives you the chance to cover your search results with paint, as previously reported by Nintendo Life.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Use Google Earth Web as a Presentation Tool. “Google Earth isn’t just a cool navigation tool. You can also use it for presentations that involve real-life locations. The app already has a built-in feature just for that purpose. Let’s say you’re a travel journalist and you want to be able to demonstrate where you’ve been around the world when pitching to new clients. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create such presentations on Google Earth.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Poynter: How fact-checkers are banding together to serve Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. “With more than 200 million inhabitants, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa by a wide margin. But given the relatively few fact-checking organizations in the country, the ratio of fact-checkers to the overall population is comparably tiny. Setting out to reverse this trend, a group of African fact-checking organizations is banding together in a coalition to maximize its impact in the country ahead of the 2023 election season.”

Tubefilter: Snapchat’s 523 program is back with $10,000 monthly grants for “small content companies from underrepresented groups”. “Snap is now accepting applications for its 523 accelerator. Through $10,000 monthly grants and other benefits, the parent company of Snapchat will empower content businesses that are at least 51% owned, operated, and controlled by individuals from underrepresented backgrounds.”

Washington Post: Europe’s largest airline is a troll on social media — and it’s working for them . “Last month, when a Ryanair passenger tweeted a complaint about the lack of a window by her exit row seat, she might have expected Europe’s largest airline to offer an apology using language straight out of a customer service manual. But this wasn’t British Airways or Lufthansa. It was a no-frills carrier that might best be described to Americans as the Spirit Airlines of Europe — if Spirit had the most savage Twitter presence of any brand in the sky.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CISA, and a PDF, unfortunately: Malicious Cyber Activity Against Election Infrastructure Unlikely to Disrupt or Prevent Voting . “The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) assess that any attempts by cyber actors to compromise election infrastructure are unlikely to result in largescale disruptions or prevent voting. As of the date of this report, the FBI and CISA have no reporting to suggest cyber activity has ever prevented a registered voter from casting a ballot, compromised the integrity of any ballots cast, or affected the accuracy of voter registration information.”

Ars Technica: Elon Musk can’t be trusted to complete merger, Twitter tells judge. “Elon Musk’s latest promise to buy Twitter can’t be trusted, the company told a Delaware Court of Chancery judge yesterday.”

The Verge: Can an artist sue over a virtual tattoo? It’s complicated. “Over the past several years, the creators of two major sports titles have fought protracted lawsuits over their right to use tattoos on avatars of players without paying a fee to the person behind the tattoo. Late last week, one of those suits went to a jury, ending with a payout to the artist. It’s not a clean win for either side, but it does offer a fascinating case of how complicated tattoos and copyright really are.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

FedTech: DNA and Glass May Provide Alternative Storage Methods as Data Backlog Grows. “The size of the datasphere has exploded. In 2020, the world created or replicated more than 64 zettabytes of data. That number that is expected to increase to 175ZB by 2025, driving the need for improved storage options.”

The Conversation: With seemingly endless data storage at our fingertips, ‘digital hoarding’ could be an increasing problem. “The way we interact with digital content through easily available smartphones, social media and messaging apps only exacerbates the behaviour. Social media platforms especially encourage us to hoard, as our emotions get entangled with the digital contents we share with others, such as photos with lots of shares or likes. If it can take up to 25 or more selfies before seeing a ‘winner’, the sheer volume of content creation raises an important question: how do we plan to manage this morass of data?” Good morning, Internet…

October 8, 2022 at 05:28PM
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Friday, October 7, 2022

Virginia Unclaimed Property, TikTok, Ubuntu, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 7, 2022

Virginia Unclaimed Property, TikTok, Ubuntu, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 7, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

WDBJ: Virginia has new unclaimed property program. “The Virginia Department of the Treasury Unclaimed Property Division has launched its new KAPS program and website to manage the administration, reporting and claiming of unclaimed property, according to Governor Glenn Youngkin, who says, ‘This new user-friendly website makes it easier for citizens to identify and more quickly claim their unclaimed property.'”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: TikTok’s New Editing Tools Let You Adjust Video, Sound and Text, Add Sound Effects. “TikTok has rolled out a suite of new editing tools that allow users to more easily adjust video, sound, text and more, the company announced Thursday. The updates are available now to US users and most TikTokers around the world.”

How-To Geek: What’s New in Ubuntu 22.10 ‘Kinetic Kudu’. “Canonical has released the beta build of Ubuntu 22.10, the next release of their Ubuntu Linux distribution. Ahead of its October 20, 2022 release, we check out the Kinetic Kudu to see what’s new.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Texas Public Radio: San Antonio Philharmonic makes deal to save Symphony archives, recordings and instruments . “The San Antonio Philharmonic announced on Tuesday that it made a deal to secure the assets of the San Antonio Symphony…. When the San Antonio Symphony filed for bankruptcy last June, all the symphony’s assets were seized so that they wouldn’t disappear.”

Vice: Trump’s Social Media Platform Is Now Showing Ads Targeting QAnon Believers. “Former President Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social has become such a hive of QAnon activity that even advertisers are now trying to take advantage.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Roblox sued for allegedly enabling young girl’s sexual, financial exploitation. “Through the pandemic, the user-created game platform that’s so popular with kids, Roblox, expanded its user base and decided to go public. Within two years, its value shot from less than $4 billion to $45 billion. Now it’s being sued—along with Discord, Snap, and Meta—by a parent who alleges that during the pandemic, Roblox became the gateway enabling multiple adult users to prey on a 10-year-old girl.”

Christian Science Monitor: Meet the amateur art sleuths helping bring back Asia’s stolen heritage. “Illicit trade of cultural property is the third-largest international criminal activity, surpassed only by drug and arms trafficking. In recent years, there has been a burgeoning movement to bring back the stolen art, and hobbyists like Mr. [Vijay] Kumar are the backbone of these efforts. Collaborating over Facebook groups, he and other heritage enthusiasts spend their spare time scouring virtual museum catalogs and auction listings to identify stolen items, as well as urging authorities to hold the art world accountable.”

ProPublica: Authorities Raid Alleged Cyberscam Compounds in Cambodia. “Human traffickers who have forced workers to engage in investment scams that defrauded victims out of millions have been disrupted, at least temporarily. Meanwhile, Apple’s app store has removed an app that frequently facilitated the frauds.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Pew (PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!): The Role of Alternative Social Media in the News and Information Environment. “These newer sites have created a small but satisfied community of news consumers, many of whom say one of the major reasons they are there is to stay informed about current events, according to a new Pew Research Center study. The study included a survey of U.S. adults along with an audit of seven alternative social media sites – BitChute, Gab, Gettr, Parler, Rumble, Telegram and Truth Social – and a detailed analysis of prominent accounts and content across them.”

CogDogBlog: The More You Dig Into Google Search Results, the Worse the Smell. “Having made the call for the broken state of Google’s touted ability to locate open licensed images getting some notice (my peak Hacker News hit) and followed up with what looks like improvement is even not, and sad for how wrong and terrible Google’s delivered results turns out to be. I could not resist going back in to look more closely. That sensation when you open the refrigerator door and smell something rotten?” Good afternoon, Internet…

October 8, 2022 at 12:38AM
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Facebook Roundup, October 7, 2022

Facebook Roundup, October 7, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Electronic Frontier Foundation: How to Ditch Facebook Without Losing Your Friends (Or Family, Customers or Communities). “Today, we launch ‘How to Ditch Facebook Without Losing Your Friends’ – a narrated slideshow and essay explaining how Facebook locks in its users, how interoperability can free them, and what it would feel like to use an ‘interoperable Facebook’ of the future, such as the one contemplated by the US ACCESS Act.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Independent: Meta employees revolt over plan to force them to share desks: ‘Complete and utter disconnect from reality’. “Meta staff have publicly voiced their frustration with the Facebook parent company after it announced a new desk sharing policy. It told staff that it would be testing a ‘new workplace experience’ as part of an ‘evolving workplace’. Most staff will not have their own place in the office, and instead be asked to reserve desks before they come in, Meta said.”

Semafor Media: Semafor Interview: Facebook could lift Trump’s suspension in January, Nick Clegg says. “Former President Donald Trump could be allowed back on Facebook once a suspension of his account expires in 2023, Nick Clegg of parent company Meta Platforms, said Thursday at an exclusive Semafor Exchange event in Washington, DC.”

Bloomberg: Amid job cuts, Meta is closing a New York office . “Meta Platforms Inc. is planning to close one of its offices in New York after scaling down its expansion plans in the city, according to people familiar with the matter. The company is exercising its option to terminate its lease at 225 Park Ave. South in Manhattan, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information was private.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

MarketWatch: Almost 100 Facebook janitors laid off as Silicon Valley’s dreaded service-worker cuts continue. “Nearly 100 Facebook janitors were laid off from the tech giant’s California offices Friday, two months after being told their jobs would be safe. The number of job cuts was actually supposed to be closer to 120, but about 30 janitors are being placed elsewhere, according to workers who spoke with MarketWatch as well as the union that represents them, SEIU United Service Workers West.”

BBC: Anti-vax groups use carrot emojis to hide Facebook posts. “Facebook groups are using the carrot emohttps://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/09/lawsuits-say-meta-evaded-apple-privacy-settings-to-spy-on-millions-of-users/ji to hide anti-vax content from automated moderation tools. The BBC has seen several groups, one with hundreds of thousands of members, in which the emoji appears in place of the word ‘vaccine’. Facebook’s algorithms tend to focus on words rather than images. The groups are being used to share unverified claims of people being either injured or killed by vaccines.”

New York Times: Meta Will Freeze Most Hiring, Zuckerberg Tells Employees. “In May, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, froze hiring for engineers and low-level data scientists. In July, Mr. Zuckerberg warned employees to buckle up for an ‘intense period’ of 18 to 24 months, and asked managers to start identifying weak performers. This week, he told his employees that the company would freeze hiring and reduce budgets across most teams at Meta, leading to layoffs in parts of the company that have previously seen unchecked growth.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: Unsealed docs in Facebook privacy suit offer glimpse of missing app audit. “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover up… The scandal-hit company formerly known as Facebook has fought for over four years to keep a lid on the gory details of a third party app audit that its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally pledged would be carried out, back in 2018, as he sought to buy time to purge the spreading reputational stain after revelations about data misuse went viral at the peak of the Cambridge Analytica privacy crisis. But some details are emerging nonetheless — extracted like blood from a stone via a tortuous, multi-year process of litigation-triggered legal discovery.”

WIRED: A Sprawling Bot Network Used Fake Porn to Fool Facebook. “IN NOVEMBER 2021, Tord Lundström, the technical director at Swedish digital forensics nonprofit Qurium Media, noticed something strange. A massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack was targeting Bulatlat, an alternative Phillippine media outlet hosted by the nonprofit. And it was coming from Facebook users.”

Ars Technica: Coroner lists Instagram algorithm as contributing cause of UK teen’s death [Updated]. “In a London court this week, coroner Andrew Walker had the difficult task of assessing a question that child safety advocates have been asking for years: How responsible is social media for the content algorithms feed to minors? The case before Walker involved a 14-year-old named Molly Russell, who took her life in 2017 after she viewed thousands of posts on platforms like Instagram and Pinterest promoting self-harm.”

CNET: These 400 Apps Might Have Stolen Facebook Usernames and Passwords “A million Facebook users might have provided their usernames and passwords to harmful apps designed to help scammers take over their accounts, Facebook parent company Meta said Friday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Associated Press: Rohingya seek reparations from Facebook for role in massacre. “For years, Facebook, now called Meta Platforms Inc., pushed the narrative that it was a neutral platform in Myanmar that was misused by malicious people, and that despite its efforts to remove violent and hateful material, it unfortunately fell short. That narrative echoes its response to the role it has played in other conflicts around the world, whether the 2020 election in the U.S. or hate speech in India. But a new and comprehensive report by Amnesty International states that Facebook’s preferred narrative is false.”

October 7, 2022 at 07:44PM
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Chicago Sun-Times, Neuromaps, Google Pixel, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, October 7, 2022

Chicago Sun-Times, Neuromaps, Google Pixel, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, October 7, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Chicago Sun-Times: The Sun-Times’ new chapter: Our digital content is now free for everyone. “…today, we are dropping our paywall and making it possible for anyone to read our website for free by providing nothing more than an email address. Instead of a paywall, we are launching a donation-based digital membership program that will allow readers to pay what they can to help us deliver the news you rely on. It’s a bold move: Reporting the news is expensive, and the converging market forces of inflation and an anticipated (or possibly already here) recession could further endanger local newsrooms like ours. But we know it’s the right thing to do.”

News-Medical: New database brings together multiple brain maps in one place. “The database, called neuromaps, will help scientists find correlations between patterns across different brain regions, spatial scales, modalities and brain functions.”

EVENTS

The Verge: Google’s Pixel 7 and Pixel Watch event live blog. “About Google’s latest phones, which it hopes can use machine learning and artificial intelligence to help you take better photos and get more stuff done. About Google’s first-ever smartwatch, which better be good if Google wants to take a run at the Apple Watch. Maybe even about the tablet Google mentioned at I/O — you know, the one with the huge bezels. There could be more surprises, too, as Google continues to try and make a name for itself as a hardware company. Whatever’s in store, we’re covering it all live, and we’d love it if you’d hang out with us to see what’s new.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Yahoo Finance: Judge postpones Twitter-Musk trial after company accuses him of ‘mischief and delay’. “News emerged Tuesday that Musk was willing to go through with the $44 billion deal under its original terms after his decision to back out in July prompted a lawsuit from Twitter seeking to force him to go through with the deal. While Twitter confirmed that it intended to close the deal, negotiations grew acrimonious on Thursday after the company objected to Musk’s proposal to halt the trial.”

TechCrunch: Twitter is making its crowdsourced fact-checks visible to all U.S. users with Birdwatch expansion . “After last month’s expansion of Twitter’s crowdsourced fact-checking program known as Birdwatch, Twitter announced this morning the notes fact-checkers leave on tweets will now be visible to all U.S. users. That doesn’t mean everyone in the U.S. will be able to participate in Birdwatch, however.”

BusinessWire: Nextdoor Celebrates the 10th Anniversary of Treat Map With New, Pet-friendly Halloween Features (PRESS RELEASE). “Neighbors have the ability to pin their home on the Treat Map and can then explore the interactive local guide to find their favorite streets for treats and Halloween decor. For the first time, a unique pet-friendly pin will be available to neighbors in the U.S., ensuring pet owners or pet-welcoming neighbors can include their furry friends in the trick-or-treating fun.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NiemanLab: Way back in 1989, USA Today launched an online sports service. I found it at Goodwill. “In 2006, one of the most memorably bad ideas to emerge from Bristol, Connecticut came to life in the form of Mobile ESPN, a service that aimed to convince people to sign up for a specialized mobile phone service, at a time when it was hard to imagine subscribing to a mobile company dominated by one brand. At the time, most people already owned a phone, and they weren’t going to shell out extra for one that shouted sports scores at you.”

Poynter: How memes can fuel political strategy. “Memes, like jokes, are often depicted as mostly harmless and incapable of exerting political influence. But recent elections have demonstrated organizers can easily leverage them to build political movements, spread group narratives and influence voters.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: Are You Sure You Know What Revenge Porn Is?. “In nearly every state, there are significant, largely overlooked limitations in the scope of criminal and civil revenge porn laws. Such limitations exclude from protection a wide range of sexual expression that is extremely common in the digital age, yet doesn’t conform to dominant understanding of moral propriety and sexual privacy.”

Daily Beast: Internet Trolls Have Tormented This Sci-Fi Writer for Years—and He Can’t Stop Them. “Four years ago, Patrick Tomlinson tweeted out that he never found Saturday Night Live legend Norm Macdonald funny. That largely innocuous hot take has since resulted in a yearslong mass harassment campaign, culminating in the sci-fi author receiving countless death threats and being on the receiving end of multiple ‘swatting’ attempts—hoaxing a serious law-enforcement emergency at a target’s home—the last of which was just days ago. Worse yet, his anonymous tormentors are protected by the law.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

UK Web Archive Blog: WARCnet Special Report: Skills, Tools and Knowledge Ecologies in Web Archive Research, 2022. “The WARST team are delighted to announce the publication of a WARCnet Special Report, titled: Skills, Tools and Knowledge Ecologies in Web Archive Research… The study focuses on individuals around the globe who participate in web archive research, in the context of web archiving, curation, and the use of web archives and archived web content for research or other purposes.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Ars Technica: Adafruit’s Cheekmate gets to the bottom (ahem) of chess cheating controversy. “Figuring out how to communicate with a player mid-match was tricky since any kind of visible LED or audible speakers would be far too obvious. The Adafruit team opted to use a tiny vibration motor similar to those used in cell phones, along with a small driver board to supply a bit more current. And because the receiving device must be concealed on (or in) a sweaty human body, it needed to be encased in something sufficiently moisture-proof to protect the electronics.” Good morning, Internet…

October 7, 2022 at 05:32PM
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