FedTech: Agencies Should Take Advantage of Their .Gov Eligibility. “More than 9,000 local, state and federal government agencies carry the .gov designation on their websites, but tens of thousands more do not. A major federal update of the infrastructure supporting that domain should encourage more state and local government organizations to do so, and will improve security for those already using it, experts say.”
UK Government: New one-stop shop to find the topics government is interested in researching. “A new tool which brings together all Areas of Research Interest (ARI) documents from across government departments in a one-stop shop is now live. ARIs are lists of research questions or topics which government departments and agencies would welcome more research on to inform their policies and help close the evidence policy gap. This new database allows anyone accessing it to search for particular areas of research interest, and find out what are the main research questions facing government departments.”
PR Newswire: Innovative digital tool equips policymakers with strategies and innovations from all 50 states to advance and strengthen early education and care (PRESS RELEASE). “The Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education today launched the Zaentz Navigator, an innovative, user-friendly, and interactive digital tool to help policymakers and leaders learn how cities and states across the country are working to structure, finance, expand, and advance early education and care.”
Route Fifty: More states look to boost kids’ social media literacy . “The push for greater social media literacy is in keeping with several states’ efforts to boost the overall digital literacy of their young people, something that has caught on in states like Illinois, New Jersey and others amid worries about misinformation and a lack of civic online reasoning.”
PD&R: Creating the National Zoning Atlas. “On April 1, 2023, at a session of the National Planning Conference in Philadelphia, panelists described efforts to create a National Zoning Atlas that already is beginning to centralize and organize every zoning code in the nation. The purpose of the atlas is to offer insight into zoning’s effects and democratize land use decisionmaking through comprehensive, digitized, and user-friendly zoning information.”
New York Times: As Iraq Tries to Chill Critics, Its Newest Target Is Social Media. “This crackdown on social media is relatively new, but is of a piece with a broader campaign to silence, sideline or co-opt those who publicly question or criticize the government. That wider effort traces its roots to the months of demonstrations in 2019 and 2020, when young Iraqis poured into the streets demanding an end to corruption, a reduction in Iranian influence in Iraq and a new era of openness.”
Toronto Star: Big Tech’s hands are on the throat of democracy. “I remember thinking years ago that whoever owns and controls the media has their hands around the throat of our democracies. And so, the perilous decline of traditional media marches on. Professional, experienced and accountable journalists are being drowned out by global tech companies who do not respect the law or the truth, while resisting accountability for their disinformation.”
MIT News: How an “AI-tocracy” emerges . “Caption:MIT economist Martin Beraja is co-author of a new research paper showing that China’s increased investments in AI-driven facial-recognition technology both help the regime repress dissent and may drive the technology forward, a mutually reinforcing condition the paper’s authors call an ‘AI-Tocracy.’”
Associated Press: Biden administration can resume contact with social-media platforms ‘until further orders’: appeals court. “A federal appeals court Friday temporarily paused a lower court’s order limiting executive branch officials’ communications with social-media companies about controversial online posts. Biden administration lawyers had asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to stay the preliminary injunction issued on July 4 by U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty. Doughty himself had rejected a request to put his order on hold pending appeal.”
The Conversation: Transportation apps can help people with disabilities navigate public transit but accessibility lags behind. “Many people with disabilities rely on public transit as many do not have a driver’s licence. Planning trips, getting to and from transit stops successfully and navigating transit systems is important. My research has shown that smartphone app technology can encourage inclusion by helping people with disabilities better navigate transport systems.”
Route Fifty: Cities extract mobility insights from ride-hailing company data. “With access to real-time mobility data from a variety of sources, cities can improve transit efficiency and meet sustainability, accessibility and equity goals.”
Governor of California: Governor Newsom Announces Statewide Expansion of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to Provide Universal Access to Free Books for Young Children. “The expansion, made possible by bipartisan legislation SB 1183 (Grove) — which was signed into law by Governor Newsom last year — allows all California children under the age of five to be eligible to enroll in the program to receive a free book every month in the mail.”
SolarPower Europe: New EU27 Country Level Solar Target Database. “SolarPower Europe has launched a National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) database. Our interactive tool sets out the true scope for solar ambition in the EU, country by country.”
Disruptive Library Technology Jester: Congressional Research Service Syndication Feed. “Use your favorite search engine to look for ‘Congressional Research Service RSS or Atom’; you’ll find a few attempts to gather selected reports or comprehensive archives that stopped functioning years ago. And that is a real shame because these reports are good, taxpayer-funded work that should be more widely known. So I created a syndication feed in Atom.”
BBC: Venezuela: ‘I’m paid to tweet state propaganda’. “Every day, Venezuela’s ministry of communications tweets a ‘hashtag of the day’, which is repeated not only by elected officials’ accounts and state sympathisers but also by ‘digital troops’ like Rafael, who are paid to share propaganda.’
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