Daily Beast: Feds Nab Louisiana Woman Who Tried to Rent a Hitman on RentAHitman.Com. “A Louisiana woman found herself on the wrong end of an FBI sting operation after attempting to hire a contract killer via a parody website ‘linked directly’ to the bureau’s internet crime squad, according to a federal complaint first obtained by The Daily Beast.”
The Verge: Your internet life needs a Feeds Reboot — here’s how to do it. “Odds are, some of what’s in your feeds — the creators on YouTube, the out-there old friends on Facebook, the inescapable dance crazes on your TikTok For You page — is the result of something you commented on, liked, or just happened to watch many months or years ago. The reboot gives you a chance to start fresh, to declare to the internet that you are no longer the person you once were, and to take more control over the algorithms that run so much of your life.”
Search Engine Journal: W3C Announces Major Change. “The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C), the standards body in charge of web standards such as HTML and browser privacy, announced a significant change in how it will operate. Beginning on January 2023, the W3C will become a new public-interest non-profit organization.”
WKBW: Governor Hochul’s office unveils interactive broadband service map. “The state’s new interactive broadband service map is part of a $1 billion initiative called ConnectAll. The map provides detailed information on the broadband infrastructure of neighborhoods around the state by allowing users to search their addresses and see which providers are available, the technology those providers use and what speeds are available in their area.”
WIRED: Russia Is Taking Over Ukraine’s Internet. “WEB PAGES IN the city of Kherson in south Ukraine stopped loading on people’s devices at 2:43 pm on May 30. For the next 59 minutes, anyone connecting to the internet with KhersonTelecom, known locally as SkyNet, couldn’t call loved ones, find out the latest news, or upload images to Instagram. They were stuck in a communications blackout. When web pages started stuttering back to life at 3:42 pm, everything appeared to be normal. But behind the scenes everything had changed: Now all internet traffic was passing through a Russian provider and Vladimir Putin’s powerful online censorship machine.”
PsyPost: People attribute information they found online to their own memory instead of the internet. “Human cognition is now so intertwined with the internet, a knowledge-sharing system that can be accessed any time anywhere, that the boundaries between individual knowledge (i.e., personal memory) and collective knowledge (i.e., external online information) are becoming increasingly blurred. In other words, people may mistakenly believe that information they found online is from their personal memory.”
WIRED: The Internet Needs You-Are-Here Maps . “Research we conducted with colleagues suggests that reflective data visualizations designed to show people which social network communities they are embedded in might make them more aware of fragmentation in their online networks—and in some cases prompt them to follow a more diverse set of accounts.”
New York Times: 6 Podcasts About the Dark Side of the Internet. “Despite the connectedness and convenience it allows, the internet’s tightening grip on every aspect of life isn’t without costs, like when a young man turned to YouTube for direction and found himself pulled into the far-right, as shown in The Times’s narrative audio series Rabbit Hole. These six shows tap into some of those dangers, exploring cybercrime, cryptocurrency and the many flavors of horror that lurk on the dark web.”
Techdirt: The Internet Has Opened Up The Creator Economy To New Heights. “Until recently, writers, musicians, artists and filmmakers collectively formed a relatively select group that was hard to enter as a professional. Today, anyone with an Internet connection can spread the word about their work and make money from it. In effect, everyone who is online, to a greater or lesser degree, is a digital creator – even with the most ephemeral of posts on social media.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison: UW Study: Most Teens Actually Have Healthy Relationship With Digital Technology. “The large, nationwide study was led by Dr. Megan Moreno, professor of pediatrics and head of the Social Media and Adolescent Health Research Team at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and adolescent health physician, UW Health Kids. Researchers looked at the digital media use and family dynamics of nearly 4,000 pairs, each consisting of a parent and a teen. They found that about 63% of teens fell into the ‘family engaged’ group and had a healthy relationship with technology. The other 37% were categorized as ‘at risk.’”
WIRED: The Infinite Deaths of Social Media. “Hyperbole is instinctual on Twitter. So it was not surprising to hear of an apocalypse foretold: that the eccentric and polarizing billionaire planned to transform the site into a troll’s paradise under the guise of free speech (one with better tools and unencumbered by moderators), creating a domino effect that would spark a mass exodus of the Twitter faithful. Prognosticators warned of a migration so impactful that the very site would lose what has made it an essential resource for untold communities of people. But endings can also be an animating force. In fact, endings are a primary context in which the social web should be understood.”
Mashable: Want to know more about LGBTQ history? Follow these accounts.. ” Digital divides still exist for many, but it’s now easier than ever to access knowledge that would have been nearly impossible to find just a few decades ago. And that’s incredibly important to communities that have had their histories systematically ignored, especially LGBTQ people and LGBTQ people of color. So, on top of all the political organizing, nonprofit support, and social media engagement you put into bolstering LGBTQ communities, dive into the troves of LGBTQ history floating around the internet.”
CNET: US Pledges to Keep an Open Internet With Dozens of Other Countries. “The United States, along with 60 other countries and partners, have pledged to keep an open internet in the face of ‘rising digital authoritarianism’, the White House said in a statement Thursday. The Declaration for the Future of the Internet includes commitments to protecting human rights, making internet connections ‘inclusive and affordable,’ and promoting the free flow of information.”
Polygon: I Marie Kondo’d my entire internet presence, one account at a time. “At first, each deletion was its own satisfaction, representative of taking back some parcel of attention I had thoughtlessly handed out. But the effort to extricate myself wasn’t always easy or satisfying. So many companies make it enormously difficult to delete your account. At its easiest, it meant navigating through obfuscating design to finally locate a ‘delete’ form. At its most frustrating, it meant numerous help desk tickets and phone calls, countless versions of ‘we’d hate to see you go,’ and disputes with my bank. Over time, the process morphed into more of a meditative ritual.” This was a great read. Nicole Clark was honest about the human foibles of her past self, which is not unusual, but she was also kind to her past self (instead of snarky or impatient or disbelieving), which is unusual. and […]
