Vietnam+: Vietnam – France joint website of archive photos launched. “A joint website featuring archive photos from the French School of Asian Studies (EFEO) and the Institute of Social Sciences Information at the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences was officially launched on February 15.”
NewsWise: ETRI, releasing multilingual speech recognition with 24 languages. “The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute(ETRI) has developed a multilingual speech recognition technology that understand 24 languages including Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Russian and south Asian language.”
Asahi Shimbun: Japan setting up rapid-response unit to counter disinformation. “The central government is setting up an organization within the Cabinet Secretariat to take on disinformation campaigns, such as fake news and impersonator accounts.”
BBC: New archive to show life in Derby’s south Asian communities. “Pictures illustrating life in a city’s south Asian communities over 30 years are to be collected in a new archive. Derby Museum’s Alternative Archive project is collecting images from the 1950s to the 1980s. Museum managers said the aim of the project was to fill a gap in its existing displays. The archive, which is being funded through a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant, will be displayed in an exhibition in 2024 and also online.”
Brookings Institution: Impact of disinformation on democracy in Asia. “In Asia and around the world, disinformation campaigns — perpetrated by foreign actors seeking to shore up power at home and weaken their competitors abroad and by domestic actors seeking political advantage — are increasingly putting pressure on democratic societies.”
Bleeping Computer: Chinese hackers target government agencies and defense orgs. “A cyberespionage threat actor tracked as Billbug (a.k.a. Thrip, Lotus Blossom, Spring Dragon) has been running a campaign targeting a certificate authority, government agencies, and defense organizations in several countries in Asia. The most recent attacks were observed since at least March but the actor has been operating stealthily for more than a decade and it is believed to be a state-sponsored group working for China.”
New York Times: Misinformation Swirls in Non-English Languages Ahead of Midterms. “More multilingual fact-checking groups are pushing back against misleading translations, manipulated images and outright lies that jump platforms and cross borders.”
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.”
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: Human Trafficking’s Newest Abuse: Forcing Victims Into Cyberscamming. “Tens of thousands of people from across Asia have been coerced into defrauding people in America and around the world out of millions of dollars. Those who resist face beatings, food deprivation or worse.”
Leiden University: Online platform Historical Maps of Southeast Asia launched. “On August 30, the online platform Historical Maps of Southeast Asia was launched. The platform provides access to over 1,400 digitised maps of Southeast Asia from the collections of the National Library Board Singapore (307 maps), Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library – Yale University (150 maps), Bodleian Libraries – University of Oxford (387 maps ) and Leiden University Libraries (UBL) (593 maps).”
Straits Times: From Facebook to TikTok: S’pore politicians’ latest social media battleground. “First, Members of Parliament went on Facebook when many Singaporeans spent more time on the social networking site. In recent years, they took to Instagram. Today, they are also turning to TikTok. The Sunday Times explores the trend and allure of this social media platform.” This is an overview leading to a set of related stories.
NPR: Asian founders work to steer the narrative as beauty trends pull from their cultures. “As social media influencers mainstream and rebrand Asian-inspired techniques, wellness experts and founders in the Asian diaspora are trying to preserve the integrity of their cultures’ rituals. ‘If we — brands like us who are authentic in how we pursue this — don’t do that, then that’s where the stories and the culture gets lost,’ [Rooshy] Roy said. ‘And then, we think that, you know, Gwyneth Paltrow is the one who discovered turmeric, when in reality it’s like something that’s so sacred to our heritage for centuries.’”
Fulcrum: The Russia-Ukraine War: Unpacking Online Pro-Russia Narratives in Vietnam. “Pro-Russia narratives in Vietnam’s cyberspace are the result of cross-pollination between sentimental attachment since the Soviet era, psychological bias towards Russia embedded in Vietnam’s education and propaganda system, and the overriding imperative to preserve the Vietnamese state’s political and ideological interests.”
The Conversation: Migrant workers are flipping the script and using Photovoice to tell their own stories . “COVID-19 and worries about food security have resulted in increased media coverage about migrant agricultural workers, with stories usually told on their behalf. Four sets of South Asian migrant men in Greece wanted to flip the script and tell their own stories. They used Photovoice, an arts-based social justice tool, to present themselves and their concerns directly to people. This eventually transformed into a travelling multi-media exhibition and a digital archive, This is Evidence.”
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