ProPublica: Sheryl Sandberg and Top Facebook Execs Silenced an Enemy of Turkey to Prevent a Hit to the Company’s Business. “Turkey was demanding the social media giant block Facebook posts from the People’s Protection Units, a mostly Kurdish militia group the Turkish government had targeted. Should Facebook ignore the request, as it has done elsewhere, and risk losing access to tens of millions of users in Turkey? Or should it silence the group, known as the YPG, even if doing so added to the perception that the company too often bends to the wishes of authoritarian governments?”
Monthly Archives: February 2021
Times of Israel: Rare Israeli Bedouin audio archive digitized to boost study of nomadic society
Times of Israel: Rare Israeli Bedouin audio archive digitized to boost study of nomadic society. ” Leading Bedouin scholar Clinton Bailey has amassed hundreds of hours of recordings about the nomadic society’s poetry, history and legal system, in a career that began while jogging through Israel’s Negev desert. Bailey’s unique Arabic audio archive is now being transcribed and digitized by Israel’s National Library, a project aimed at enriching Bedouin scholarship in Israel, the Arab world and beyond.”
University of Georgia: New data traces rise, fall of the Freedman’s Bank
University of Georgia: New data traces rise, fall of the Freedman’s Bank. “In 1865, the U.S. government established the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Co. in to help newly emancipated communities gain a financial footing. With 37 branches across the South and in New York, the bank initially flourished and grew to include more than 100,000 customers. But it collapsed in June 1874 after the Financial Panic of 1873. Some of the Freedman’s Bank records have been lost to time, but many still exist. [Professor Malcom] Wardlaw and his Ph.D. student, Virginia Traweek, found the archived records and decided to analyze the data to see what they could discover about African American communities after the Civil War.”
Statewatch: New database on the oversight of intelligence agencies in Europe
Statewatch: New database on the oversight of intelligence agencies in Europe. “A European research project examining surveillance, intelligence and oversight has produced a new database that aims to provide ‘an evolving document archive of laws and regulations, court decisions and official reports surrounding intelligence oversight.'”
WFTV: Bill proposes database to track use-of-force complaints against Florida police officers
WFTV: Bill proposes database to track use-of-force complaints against Florida police officers. “House Bill 277 is one of 16 bills announced by the Legislative Black Caucus this month focused on police reform. It would create a database to help agencies track use-of-force complaints against Florida officers.”
Techdirt: The Best Summary Of Australia’s News Link Tax / ‘Bargaining Code’ Legal Issues
Techdirt: The Best Summary Of Australia’s News Link Tax / ‘Bargaining Code’ Legal Issues . “The Juice Media, an Australian outfit that is famous for making hilarious ‘Honest Government Ads’, usually for the Australian government (but sometimes for elsewhere) has put out a new ‘ad’ about the link tax in which they explain how it was a fight to take money from one set of giant rich companies, and give it to another set of giant rich companies, and not to do anything useful in between.” Includes several obscenities. Hysterically funny and also enraging.
New York Times: Bangladeshi Writer, Detained Over Social Media Posts, Dies in Jail
New York Times: Bangladeshi Writer, Detained Over Social Media Posts, Dies in Jail. “The writer, Mushtaq Ahmed, was among 11 people charged early last year over the spread of social media content, including cartoons, that alleged mismanagement and corruption in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s response to the pandemic.”
MakeUseOf: 5 Free Email Tools to Clean Your Inbox and Make Gmail Better
MakeUseOf: 5 Free Email Tools to Clean Your Inbox and Make Gmail Better. “The internet has hundreds of social networks, thousands of chat apps, and millions of ways to connect with people, but good old email isn’t going anywhere. Your email inbox still rules your personal and professional life, so it’s in your best interest to learn all the tips and tricks to get the most out of email. The good news is that all you need are a few free apps and browser extensions.”
Namoi Valley Independent (Australia): New website offers insight into historical Female Factory in Paramatta
Namoi Valley Independent (Australia): New website offers insight into historical Female Factory in Paramatta. “LAST Sunday marked the Bicentenary of the Parramatta Female Factory, an institution which operated as an assignment depot, prison, place of industry and medical facility for approximately 5,000 women and children until its closure in 1848….The City of Parramatta has created a website which details many of the stories of the women who passed through the Factory gates.”
Pete Warden: How screen scraping and TinyML can turn any dial into an API
Pete Warden: How screen scraping and TinyML can turn any dial into an API. “I’ve already heard from multiple teams who have legacy hardware that they need to monitor, in environments as varied as oil refineries, crop fields, office buildings, cars, and homes. Some of the devices are decades old, so until now the only option to enable remote monitoring and data gathering was to replace the system entirely with a more modern version. This is often too expensive, time-consuming, or disruptive to contemplate. Pointing a small, battery-powered camera instead offers a lot of advantages. Since there’s an air gap between the camera and the dial it’s monitoring, it’s guaranteed to not affect the rest of the system, and it’s easy to deploy as an experiment, iterating to improve it.”
The Verge: Citizen will now tell you why helicopters are flying overhead
The Verge: Citizen will now tell you why helicopters are flying overhead. “Citizen, the app that turns everyone into a crime reporter, now wants to track helicopters. The company announced today that it’s introducing helicopter tracking to the app, which will explain to users why there are flying vehicles overhead.”
Reuters: Bots hyped up GameStop on major social media platforms, analysis finds
Reuters: Bots hyped up GameStop on major social media platforms, analysis finds. “Bots on major social media platforms have been hyping up GameStop Corp and other ‘meme’ stocks, according to an analysis by Massachusetts-based cyber security company PiiQ Media, suggesting organized economic or foreign actors may have played a role in the Reddit-driven trading frenzy.”
Tubefilter: New ‘TikTok For Black Creatives’ Incubator Unveils Inaugural Class Of 100 Creators
Tubefilter: New ‘TikTok For Black Creatives’ Incubator Unveils Inaugural Class Of 100 Creators. “TikTok has unveiled the inaugural class for its new incubator program dubbed TikTok For Black Creatives, which was announced in January to amplify the voices of Black creators and musicians across the platform. The three-month initiative will see a total of 100 creators participating in motivational town halls with Black entrepreneurs and celebrities, and will also comprise community-building forums and educational events with TikTok executives.”
The Register: 1Password has none, KeePass has none… So why are there seven embedded trackers in the LastPass Android app?
The Register: 1Password has none, KeePass has none… So why are there seven embedded trackers in the LastPass Android app?. “A security researcher has recommended against using the LastPass password manager Android app after noting seven embedded trackers. The software’s maker says users can opt out if they want.”
New York Times: Seniors Seeking Vaccines Have a Problem: They Can’t Use the Internet
New York Times: Seniors Seeking Vaccines Have a Problem: They Can’t Use the Internet. “Annette Carlin feels trapped. Before the pandemic, Ms. Carlin, who is 84, loved to go on walks in Novato, Calif., with her grandchildren and dance at the senior center. Since March, though, she has been stuck indoors. She has been eager to sign up for a vaccine and begin returning to normal life. But booking an appointment has been a technological nightmare. Ms. Carlin cannot afford to buy a computer, and would not know how to navigate the internet in search of a shot even if she could. While members of her family might be able to help her there, she avoids seeing them as a safety precaution.”