New researches

Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Banana-Related Research, NARA, OpenDocument Format, More: Wednesday Evening ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2021

Banana-Related Research, NARA, OpenDocument Format, More: Wednesday Evening ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

EurekAlert: A new site for banana-related research. “MusaNet, the global collaborative network for Musa-related research, was created in 2011 to implement the Global Musa Strategy established with the banana research community. MusaNet is excited to announce the launch of a new website that collects and shares information on all aspects of banana, be it diversity, conservation or current threats.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

National Archives: National Archives Releases Recommendations from Internal Task Force on Racism. “Last year, as our nation was confronting ongoing issues related to racial justice, Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero established a task force of National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) employees to identify issues of racial inequality in both our customer-facing operations and internally within our workplaces, in pursuit of an equitable and inclusive environment for all employees and customers.”

Neowin: OpenDocument Format 1.3 becomes approved as an OASIS Standard format. “The Document Foundation, the body behind the popular LibreOffice suite, has announced that Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF, also known as OpenDocument Format) 1.3 has been approved as an OASIS Standard after receiving 14 affirmative consents and no objections. With the standardisation of the format, other office suites, including Microsoft Office, can add support for the format according to defined specifications that boost compatibility between different suites.”

USEFUL STUFF

Online Journalism Blog: What are regular expressions — and how to use them in Google Sheets to get data from text . “In an extract from a new chapter in the ebook Finding Stories in Spreadsheets, I explain what regular expressions are — and how they can be used to extract information from spreadsheets. The ebook version of this tutorial includes a dataset and exercise to employ these techniques.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Tech Giants, Fearful of Proposals to Curb Them, Blitz Washington With Lobbying. “Executives, lobbyists, and more than a dozen groups paid by Big Tech have tried to head off bipartisan support for six bills meant to undo the dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.”

NDTV Education: National Library To Upload Books On Indian Culture On Web. “As part of its outreach drive for young generation readers, the National Library plans to upload on the web a select part of its voluminous collection, including books on Indian culture, a top official said Tuesday. Of the 20 lakh odd books in its possession, 5,000 titles under the Indian Culture section will be uploaded on the web in the coming months, the new officiating director general told reporters here.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: House Judiciary Committee debates antitrust legislation to rein in Big Tech. “The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday began debate on a series of bills aimed at reining in the power of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and other tech giants. The first of the five bills advanced out of committee by early afternoon on Wednesday.”

Reuters: Brazilian Senate to hear Google, Facebook, Twitter in pandemic probe. “A Brazilian Senate committee on Wednesday formally approved a request to call representatives of Google, Facebook and Twitter to testify in an ongoing probe into the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Senators want to look into what role the companies had in helping to spread potentially dangerous misinformation during the pandemic.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

BBC: AI helps restore Rembrandt’s Night Watch masterpiece. “For the first time in more than 300 years, Rembrandt’s masterpiece The Night Watch can again be seen in its entirety in the Netherlands. Created in 1642 by the Dutch master, the huge picture was trimmed on all four sides in 1715 to fit between two doors in Amsterdam town hall. The city’s Rijksmuseum has now added the missing scenes from a small, early copy of the original. It used artificial intelligence (AI) to mimic Rembrandt’s style.”

Open Access Government: Big data: With great data comes great responsibility. “Personal data stored within large repositories of companies are regularly exfiltrated in data breaches. Almost every individual in Western society has been subject to their data being exposed in almost always multiple data breaches. Nation-state actors have been exposed to conduct cyber-espionage on individuals and companies. Although it is 2021, George Orwell’s novel 1984 is a distinct possibility nowadays. So, we must ask ourselves: How do we combine Western civil liberties with the advance of ubiquitous data collection technologies?” Good evening, Internet…

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June 24, 2021 at 05:09AM
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Invasive Plants, New York Times, Instagram, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2021

Invasive Plants, New York Times, Instagram, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Green Blog: UC launches WeedCUT, a new online tool to manage invasive weeds in wildlands without herbicides. “Cal-IPC and the University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM), with funding from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) Alliance Grants Program, developed two resources that provide land managers access to the latest information on non-herbicide practices for managing weeds in wildlands. Best Management Practices for Non-Chemical Weed Control is a free downloadable manual. The same information has been incorporated into an interactive online tool called WeedCUT.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: Introducing Gift Articles, a New Way for Times Subscribers to Share Articles. “New York Times news subscribers can now share up to 10 gift articles with nonsubscribers each month on NYTimes.com and soon, on iOS and Android.”

Bloomberg: Facebook’s Instagram Adds Shopping Via Images, Virtual Try-On. “Facebook Inc.’s Instagram is adding new shopping tools, like letting people search for products using an image, as it expands e-commerce offerings across its family of apps.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Reclaim the Net: Patreon deplatforms censored video archive altCensored for “hate speech”. “altCensored, a platform that archives videos that have been censored or limited by YouTube, has been booted by the fan-funding platform Patreon for ‘hate speech.’ The platform has received around 500,000 unique monthly visitors over the last year, according to estimates based on web analytics company SimilarWeb and altCensored’s server logs.” Platforms like altCensored do important work. YouTube content removal often leads to unintended consequences like removing evidence of war crimes.

San Antonio Express-News: Black history preserved in collection donated to San Antonio African American Community Archive. “The largest known San Antonio African American history collection now resides with the San Antonio African American Community Archive Museum. Laura Thompson, CEO and creator of The African American Network, has donated her collection of biographies to the museum, located in La Villita. The collection, called 300 Voices in 300 Days, was part of the city’s tricentennial celebration.”

The Globe and Mail: How families are building a digital archive to commemorate the Air India bombing. “Air India Flight 182 was flying from Toronto to London, England. A bomb caused it to crash into the Atlantic Ocean while in Irish airspace. All 329 people on board were killed, including 280 citizens or permanent residents of Canada. The disaster was followed by long trials (which ended in acquittal), a public inquiry and an apology from the Canadian government. However, to Dr. [Chandrima] Chakraborty and many others, including victims’ families, this event was never truly perceived as a Canadian tragedy.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: Egypt detains female TikTok star after human trafficking conviction. “The verdict came five months after another court overturned prison sentences that [Haneen] Hossam and [Mawada] Adham were given for ‘violating family values’ with videos they posted on TikTok. Human rights activists say the two women have been prosecuted as part of a crackdown by Egyptian authorities targeting female social media influencers on charges that violate their rights to privacy, freedom of expression, non-discrimination and bodily autonomy.”

National Law Review: State Laws Hinder Progress of Non-Bias AI. “Artificial Intelligence (AI) relies on oceans of data, most people know this. But many people do not yet understand how data shapes AI before the AI is functional, or how data is used by AI in production. Each raises its own set of practical, technical and social issues. This lack of understanding can lead people to conflate data used in AI formation with the data AI uses as it operates.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Nature: Ancient oaks of Europe are archives — protect them. “Fennoscandia and the United Kingdom could better safeguard their oaks using mechanisms such as those offered by the European Union’s Natura 2000 network of protected areas, or the protections conferred by UNESCO World Heritage sites in the United Kingdom. Otherwise, unsustainable management practices, deforestation, air pollution and climate change could leave these ancient species vulnerable to disease and extinction, with the loss of irreplaceable scientific information and cultural heritage.” Clueless about Fennoscandia? Me too. WorldAtlas helped me out.

EurekAlert: Using virtual populations for clinical trials. “A study involving virtual rather than real patients was as effective as traditional clinical trials in evaluating a medical device used to treat brain aneurysms, according to new research. The findings are proof of concept for what are called in-silico trials, where instead of recruiting people to a real-life clinical trial, researchers build digital simulations of patient groups, loosely akin to the way virtual populations are built in The Sims computer game.” Good afternoon, Internet…

June 24, 2021 at 02:53AM
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Europe Cycling Incentives, Food Labels, Sperm Length, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2021

Europe Cycling Incentives, Food Labels, Sperm Length, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, June 23, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Cycling Industry News: New tool lists nearly 300 EU subsidy and tax incentives for bike firms. “A new tool developed by the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) and the City Changer Cargo Bike project (CCCB) has curated a list of nearly 300 tax and subsidy benefits available in Europe. The national, regional and local incentives have been compiled in a first of its kind directory in the hope of giving bike firms and cycling groups a clear view on perks that may help them both in business and to subsequently grow cycling numbers in Europe.”

Vermont Law School: New “Labels Unwrapped” Website Breaks Down The Confusing Laws Behind Food Labels . “The website explains many of the common terms and claims found on labels through a series of interactive illustrated labels spanning different product categories: protein, dairy, grains, produce, fats and oils, sweets, and supplements. Users can hover over the various claims on each to learn more about common marketing terms like ‘gluten free,’ ‘all natural,’ ‘USDA organic,’ ‘grass-fed,’ and dozens more. Straightforward explanations outline what each claim means, as well as how (and if) it is regulated, and by whom. A ‘Labels 101’ section provides a breakdown of the general law of food labels and frequently asked questions.”

Inverse: Is Bigger Always Better? Scientists Explain The Evolution Of Sperm Size. “The researchers searched the scientific literature for data on sperm size, ultimately creating a database of sperm records from more than 3,000 species from 21 different animal groups known as ‘phyla.’ This is the largest known database on sperm length and fertilization methods, including both vertebrates and invertebrates. The study focuses on three classes of animals, depending on where and how their sperm fertilizes eggs during reproduction.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Screen Rant: How To Try Twitter’s New Super Follows & Ticketed Spaces. “On June 22, 2021, Twitter formally unveiled Super Follows and Ticked Spaces. Both have been leaked and teased leading up to this, but they’ve now been fully unveiled in all of their glory. Super Follows stands to be the most game-changing of the two, as it reimagines the idea of following other users.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Washington Post: Rights group: Facebook amplified Myanmar military propaganda. “Facebook’s recommendation algorithm amplifies military propaganda and other material that breaches the company’s own policies in Myanmar following a military takeover in February, a new report by the rights group Global Witness says. A month after the military seized power in Myanmar and imprisoned elected leaders, Facebook’s algorithms were still prompting users to view and ‘like’ pro-military pages with posts that incited and threatened violence, pushed misinformation that could lead to physical harm, praised the military and glorified its abuses, Global Witness said in the report, published late Tuesday.”

New York Times: The Inequality of the GoFundMe Economy. “Turning to the internet for financial help didn’t work very well in a pandemic. That was among the discouraging conclusions of a new academic research paper that examined efforts on the fund-raising website GoFundMe to collect money for health care bills, groceries, funeral costs and other needs that resulted from the coronavirus crisis.”

ProPublica: How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life for Uyghurs. “Thousands of videos of Uyghurs denying abuses against their community are showing up on Twitter and YouTube. They’re part of an elaborate influence campaign by Chinese officials to counter reports of human rights violations in Xinjiang.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Courthouse News Service: Ninth Circuit Revives Suit Against Social Media Giants Over Nightclub Terror Attack. “A Ninth Circuit panel on Tuesday largely answered the question of whether social media networks can be held liable for terror attacks around the world: they can’t. Unless the families of victims can show — as they may have in one case — that the tech giants knowingly allow terrorist groups to create and maintain public accounts and turning a deaf ear to complaints. But the panel also said it’s time for either the executive or legislative branches to do something about unregulated social media networks and the broad immunity provided them under the Communications Decency Act of 1996.”

WFLA: New law creates Florida database for teacher firings, resignations over sexual misconduct. “HB 131 requires the Florida Department of Education to create and maintain a list of people who are disqualified from teaching in the state. Included in the database would be reasons for termination as well as a list of teachers who resigned rather than be fired for sexual misconduct.”

Library of Congress: Library of Congress Announces Copyright Public Modernization Committee . “The Library of Congress announced today the membership of the new Copyright Public Modernization Committee (CPMC), which is being convened to enhance communication and provide a public forum for the technology-related aspects of the U.S. Copyright Office’s modernization initiative. The first CPMC meeting will be hosted by the Library on July 22, 2021.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

AP: Virginia hopes to remove time capsule along with Lee statue. “If a court clears the way, the state of Virginia expects to remove not just a soaring statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Richmond’s historic Monument Avenue but also a little-known piece of history tucked inside the massive sculpture’s base: a 134-year-old time capsule.”

Florida Museum of Natural History: iDigBio receives $20 million from NSF to sustain U.S. museum digitization efforts. “The National Science Foundation has awarded iDigBio nearly $20 million to continue its mission of digitizing natural history collections nationwide, making them available online to researchers, educators and community scientists around the world.” Good morning, Internet…

June 23, 2021 at 07:13PM
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Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Digital Teaching and Research Collaborative Sessions, Brave Search, NetNewsWire, More: Tuesday Evening ResearchBuzz, June 22, 2021

Digital Teaching and Research Collaborative Sessions, Brave Search, NetNewsWire, More: Tuesday Evening ResearchBuzz, June 22, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

MIT: Online hub for research and teaching brings digital humanities to the fore. “… a new collaboration between the MIT Programs in Digital Humanities (DH Lab) and the MIT Libraries is helping foster relationships among scholars with intersecting interests in computational culture. Since September 2020, the DH Lab has partnered with the libraries to present Digital Teaching and Research Collaborative Sessions, a weekly series of virtual events that provide a regular, informal space for faculty and researchers to connect with DH Lab staff, MIT librarians, and with one another. Recordings of these sessions are now available on the MIT Libraries’ YouTube channel.”

CNET: Google gets a new rival as Brave Search opens to the public. “Unlike other new search engines, which generally repackage results from Google and Microsoft’s Bing, Brave is building an independent index of the web. Brave Search will rely on Bing in some areas, like images, where its own results aren’t yet good enough. And for ordinary searches, Brave can blend in Google results for people who enable the feature when prompted.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Mac: NetNewsWire for iPhone and iPad adds iCloud sync, Twitter and Reddit integration, more. “NetNewsWire is one of the most powerful RSS readers for iPhone and iPad, and it’s getting even better with a new update rolling out today. NetNewsWire 6 is now available on the App Store with new features including iCloud syncing, home screen widgets, and more.”

Bloomberg Quint: YouTube Shorts Is Taking on TikTok and Minting a New Constellation of Concise Video Stars. “Shorts is YouTube’s answer to ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok. That service has been wooing YouTube’s young audience, challenging its role as the primary platform for aspiring amateurs and inspiring copycat features from major social media networks, including Snapchat and Facebook’s Instagram. While YouTube is still the king of web video, its gargantuan size can be intimidating to newbies, many of whom see TikTok as a faster path to fame.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Conversation: How the bulletin board systems, email lists and Geocities pages of the early internet created a place for trans youth to find one another and explore coming out. “As I’ve found in my research on early digital trans communities, trans youths have been online since the late 1980s. They weren’t seeking out information and community because their friends were all doing it. They were doing it of their own accord.”

KSL: Board grants $25K to digitize pieces of Utah history. Here’s what is getting preserved. “Ever wanted to watch a jazz legend perform in Cedar City or read what Salt Lake County commissioners met about back in 1852? You may soon be in luck. The Utah State Historical Records Advisory Board, under the Utah Division of Archives and Records Service, last week approved a little more than $25,000 in grants that will go toward six organizations working to digitize pieces of Utah history and make it more accessible.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

South Florida SunSentinel: Florida urges judge to reject tech industry arguments against crackdown on social media. “Accusing social-media platforms of censorship, Florida attorneys late Monday pushed back against an attempt to block a new state law that would put restrictions on companies such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The state, in a 61-page court filing, argued that U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle should reject a request by online-industry groups for a preliminary injunction against the law, a top priority of Gov. Ron DeSantis.”

National Post (Canada): Liberals pass Bill C-10 to regulate social media, streaming. “Canadian lawmakers passed a controversial bill that aims to regulate programming distributed by media streaming services and social platforms like Facebook and YouTube, a measure that critics warn could infringe on individual speech.”

CNN: US government seizes dozens of US website domains connected to Iran. “The United States government has seized dozens of US website domains connected to Iran, linked to what the US says are disinformation efforts, a US national security official told CNN.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Space: Huge new catalog of ultrabright ‘fast radio bursts’ may shed light on the structure of the universe. “If human eyes could see radio waves, the night sky would periodically light up with flashes thanks to fast radio bursts (FRBs). It would, that is, if we looked quick: These pulses last less than a blink of an eye and then vanish without a trace…. This new catalog of FRBs, which was described on June 9 during a presentation at the 238th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), is allowing scientists to ask big-picture questions about the structure of the universe.” Good evening, Internet…

June 23, 2021 at 05:03AM
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Ohio Jobs, Google, Twitter, More: Tuesday Evening ResearchBuzz, June 22, 2021

Ohio Jobs, Google, Twitter, More: Tuesday Evening ResearchBuzz, June 22, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

WSAZ: ‘SkillsMatch’ tool launched to help Ohio job seekers. “A new resource is now available for Ohioans looking for a job. The tool links Ohio job seeks with potential employment opportunities through the information provided on their resume.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: Google Executives See Cracks in Their Company’s Success. “It is hard to argue that things aren’t going great for Google. Revenue and profits are charting new highs every three months. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is worth $1.6 trillion. Google has rooted itself deeper and deeper into the lives of everyday Americans. But a restive class of Google executives worry that the company is showing cracks.”

EveningStandard: New Twitter prompt to offer support to online scam victims. “A new tool offering support and guidance to people who have been the victim of an online scam will begin appearing on Twitter on Tuesday.”

Input Magazine: TikTok makes a bold and daring leap into… web pages. “TikTok has introduced a new tool called Jump, which allows creators on the video-sharing platform to enhance their videos by attaching ‘mini-programs’ that direct viewers to another experience outside the app, like a cooking recipe list or a quiz on BuzzFeed.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

BBC: Valuable 350-year-old oil paintings found in skip. “German police have issued an appeal for information after two valuable 17th Century paintings were discovered dumped in a road-side skip. The oil paintings are believed to be by Dutch artist Samuel van Hoogstraten and Italian Pietro Bellotti, police said. A man found the paintings at a motorway service station on the A7 south of Würzburg in Bavaria last month.”

Floornature Architecture & Surfaces: Winners of the 5th European Award for Architectural Heritage Intervention. “The winners of the 5th European Award for Architectural Heritage Intervention, a prize awarded every two years in four categories, with a special mention for restoration, were announced a few days ago. The winning projects stand out for their ability to demonstrate great sensitivity, care and respect.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

University of Southern California: Database provides details about officer-involved shootings and deadly incidents. “[Professor Brian] Finch is preparing to launch a new repository for police homicide data: the National Officer-Involved Homicide Database (NOIHD). NOIHD is an expansion of the Fatal Encounters website and will provide more data, such as whether the deceased was armed or unarmed, the education and training requirements for the officers in that department and who conducted the autopsies of the deceased. The NOIHD information is collected from police departments, hospital emergency departments, the FBI, census data, state governments and other sources.”

Reuters: India’s antitrust watchdog orders probe into Google in smart TVs suit. “India’s antitrust watchdog on Tuesday ordered an investigation into allegations that Alphabet Inc’s Google abused its Android operating system’s position in the country’s smart television market.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Major Ocean-Observing Satellite Starts Providing Science Data. “After six months of check-out and calibration in orbit, the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite will make its first two data streams available to the public on June 22. It launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Nov. 21, 2020, and is a U.S.-European collaboration to measure sea surface height and other key ocean features, such as ocean surface wind speed and wave height.”

ZDNet: Google rolls out AI-powered visual inspection tool for manufacturers. “Google Cloud on Tuesday launched Visual Inspection AI, a new tool to help manufacturers identify defects in products before they’re shipped. It’s the latest move from Google to win more customers in the manufacturing space, one of the key verticals the cloud company is targeting.” Good evening, Internet…

June 23, 2021 at 03:50AM
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Kentucky Higher Education, The Baffler, North Carolina Landslides, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, June 22, 2021

Kentucky Higher Education, The Baffler, North Carolina Landslides, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, June 22, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

WTVQ: New website helps students research college majors and salaries. “Students have a new interactive tool to research degree programs at Kentucky’s public colleges and universities, allowing them to compare tuition, student debt and salaries for hundreds of occupations before choosing a major. The tool, called the Kentucky Students’ Right to Know website, offers extensive data on all of the state’s public universities and the Kentucky Community and Technical College System.”

Exact Editions: The full digital archive of The Baffler is now available. “The Baffler 1988 was first established in the summer of 1988, initially introduced as a punk literary magazine in its very first issue. The founders, Thomas Frank and Keith White, were recent graduates of the University of Virginia and named their journal as a joke on academic fads like undecidability, then in fashion.”

State of North Carolina: New landslide website provides critical hazard data for North Carolina communities. “The Landslides in Western North Carolina Project website allows users to explore current and historical information about landslides in North Carolina. Users can access resources to help them plan for and build resilience to landslide hazards. The new ‘Western North Carolina Landslide Hazard Data Viewer’ will make it easier for various audiences to access, interact with and understand landslide hazard data.”

Culture Map Houston: Smokin’ new website makes it easy to explore Houston’s barbecue scene . “A new website wants to help Houstonians eat better barbecue. Created by the founders of the Houston BBQ Festival, the Houston BBQ Guide offers readers the ability to search for restaurants based on a wide range of criteria, including location, parking, and whether a restaurant is likely to sell out of food.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Politico: Trump’s fundraising arm is back advertising on Facebook. “Former president Donald Trump’s fundraising arm is once again advertising on Facebook after the social media giant banned the ex-president from using the site. Starting late last week, Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, a joint venture between Trump’s Save America leadership PAC and his Make America Great Again PAC, has spent $3,506 on Facebook ads promoting Trump’s upcoming rally outside Cleveland, Ohio and calling for donations to his fund.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Marketplace: What the authoritarian crackdown on social media means for global activism. “It’s been more than a decade since the revolution that came to be known as the Arab Spring, when protesters across the Middle East challenged — and in some cases overthrew — authoritarian governments. Social media played a central role in helping activists organize and build support. Now, autocratic leaders around the world have been stifling dissent on these platforms or banning them altogether. Russia, China, India and Nigeria are some recent examples. Could social media play the same role today that it did in 2010?”

CNN: How Russian threats in the 2000s turned this country into the go-to expert on cyber defense. “When people like the German Chancellor Angela Merkel or the King of Belgium want to learn more about cybersecurity, they go to Estonia. The Baltic country runs on the internet. From filing taxes and voting, to registering the birth of a new baby, nearly everything a person might want or need from the government can be done online. It’s an approach that’s incredibly convenient for Estonia’s 1.3 million people — but it also requires high level of cybersecurity.”

Bloomberg: Facebook on blockchain? A real estate mogul is pouring US$100 million into decentralising social media. “Frank McCourt, the billionaire real estate mogul and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is pouring US$100 million into an attempt to rebuild the foundations of social media. The effort, which he has loftily named Project Liberty, centers on the construction of a publicly accessible database of people’s social connections, allowing users to move records of their relationships between social media services instead of being locked into a few dominant apps.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: EU court rules in Telenet copyright case: ISPs can be forced to hand over some customer data use details. “Europe’s top court has ruled ISPs can be forced to hand over the details of customers who are alleged to have downloaded material illegally online – but only if they meet certain criteria. That’s the latest judgement in another case involving Cyprus-based Mircom International Content Management Consulting, and Belgian ISP Telenet.”

Department of the Interior: Secretary Haaland Announces Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative. “The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative will serve as an investigation about the loss of human life and the lasting consequences of residential Indian boarding schools. The primary goal will be to identify boarding school facilities and sites; the location of known and possible student burial sites located at or near school facilities; and the identities and Tribal affiliations of children interred at such locations.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

BBC: Political trolling twice as popular as positivity, study suggests. “Social media posts are twice as likely to go viral if they are negative about politicians they oppose rather than positive about those they support, a Cambridge University study suggests.”

EFF: The New ACCESS Act Is a Good Start. Here’s How to Make Sure It Delivers.. “The ACCESS Act is one of the most exciting pieces of federal tech legislation this session. Today’s tech giants grew by taking advantage of the openness of the early Internet, but have designed their own platforms to be increasingly inhospitable for both user freedom and competition. The ACCESS Act would force these platforms to start to open up, breaking down the high walls they use to lock users in and keep competitors down. It would advance the goals of competition and interoperability, which will make the internet a more diverse, more user-friendly place to be.” Good afternoon, Internet…

June 23, 2021 at 02:27AM
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Monday, June 21, 2021

Community Archiving, Vegetation Worldwide, Older Adult Caregiving, More: Monday Evening ResearchBuzz, June 21, 2021

Community Archiving, Vegetation Worldwide, Older Adult Caregiving, More: Monday Evening ResearchBuzz, June 21, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

UNC University Libraries: New toolkit from University Libraries helps communities tell their stories. “Communities working to preserve their own histories—and the libraries and archives seeking to support them—have new tools in the form of a free web resource from the University Libraries at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill…. The new site brings together dozens of guides, tip sheets and instructional videos that the project team created over the course of the grant. UNC-Chapel Hill and community archivists also contributed reflections through blog posts and profiles.”

Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg: Vegetation of planet Earth: Researchers publish unique database as Open Access. “It’s a treasure trove of data: the global geodatabase of vegetation plots ‘sPlotOpen’ is now freely accessible. It contains data on vegetation from 114 countries and from all climate zones on Earth. The database was compiled by an international team of researchers led by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).”

PR Newswire: New online library connects organizations to 300 resources that can help older adults and their caregivers during emergencies like COVID-19 (PRESS RELEASE). “A new online resource library, released today, connects organizations that serve older adults and their caregivers with existing programs and services in the U.S. that can help these populations during public health emergencies such as disease outbreaks like COVID-19, natural disasters, and severe weather.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Poynter: The lessons of Squash, the first automated fact-checking platform. “Today, Squash (our code name for the project, chosen because it is a nutritious vegetable and a good metaphor for stopping falsehoods) has been a remarkable success. It displays fact checks seconds after politicians utter a claim and it largely does what those readers wanted in 2007. But Squash also makes lots of mistakes.”

9to5Google: Google adding new ‘Insights’ tool for web creators powered by Search Console and Analytics. “Google is rolling out a new Search Console Insights tool that provides creators with an overview of how their content is performing. It’s meant to be an ‘easier way to understand how your content resonates with readers.'”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

UCLA: UCLA Library acquires new materials based on student proposals. “It’s been more than a year since the coronavirus halted physical access to the UCLA Library. Rather than seeing it as a hurdle, Matthew Fisher, associate professor of English, and Devin Fitzgerald, curator of rare books and the history of printing, devised a series of remote-learning alternatives for students to research, think and write about books and book collections in new ways, culminating in a final writing project that allowed students to explore an unfamiliar role: special collections curator.”

BBC: The relatives frozen in time on Google Street View. “Social-media users are sharing Google Street View images featuring friends and relatives who have since died. It was sparked by a post on the Twitter account Fesshole, which asks followers to submit anonymous confessions – many of which are explicit.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: One of Big Tech’s Biggest Critics Is Now Its Regulator. “[Lina Khan’s] fast ascent from researcher to leader of a large federal agency underscores the growing concerns about the power of the big tech companies — and big business in general — in Washington. In her new job, she will command more than 1,000 investigators, lawyers and economists who are responsible for policing the American economy.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Caltech: Computers Predict People’s Tastes in Art. “Do you like the thick brush strokes and soft color palettes of an impressionist painting such as those by Claude Monet? Or do you prefer the bold colors and abstract shapes of a Rothko? Individual art tastes have a certain mystique to them, but now a new Caltech study shows that a simple computer program can accurately predict which paintings a person will like.”

NiemanLab: Comment moderators should focus more on hate speech than profanity, a new study suggests. “News consumers and social media platform users prioritize the removal of hate speech over the removal of profanity, according to a new study by the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas, Austin.” Good evening, Internet…

June 22, 2021 at 05:37AM
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