This past weekend I started one of my periodic Hell Weeks except it’s going to be Hell At Least Two Weeks. Anticipate shorter or missing issues. Expect spelling and grammar errors as these issues will be written early in the morning and late at night. Complaints about said errors will be torn out and fed to the Discourse Hippos. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES

The government of Japan has set up a new database providing information on female employment in that country. “Data on various companies’ recruitment and promotion of women can now be seen on a government website, following the enforcement of the law to encourage women’s participation and advancement in the workplace. Information on more than 6,000 companies has been made available on the website.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Instagram has launched new tools for business. “Instagram is looking to grab a share of the business market, introducing three new tools for its 200,000 advertisers. Looking to help small businesses utilise the user base of Instagram, the business toolkit includes business profiles, analytics and the ability to promote posts in the UK.”

Meanwhile, Twitter has launched “promoted stickers” for business. “Twitter made its stickers for photos available to everyone at the end of last month, and now the company has quickly followed that up with the launch of its first branded stickers. Twitter calls them ‘promoted stickers’ but essentially they are branded stickers… well subtly branded stickers, at least.”

USEFUL STUFF

This drives me bonkers, how about you? How to Permanently Set Your Facebook Feed to Show Most Recent Instead of Top Stories

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The President of Ghana has promised that Ghana will not ban social media on election day. “President John Mahama has reiterated government decision not to ban social media on elections day. According to him, government has no intention to disrupt the social networking space before, during and after the December 7 polls.”

An online lender in China says that it looks at your social media contacts to decide whether to lend you money. “A leading online lender in China has revealed the unorthodox extent to which the country’s booming fintech sector uses personal information to assess credit risk — including examining social media contact lists. ‘If we find you are [social media] friends with celebrities from the entertainment or finance industries, we think you must be to some extent trustworthy . . . since otherwise you wouldn’t have such friends,’ said Jesse Chen, co-founder of Jubao Internet Technology, one of China’s top three peer-to-peer lending firms.”

What happens when a bunch of professional musicians try out a song generated by Google AI?

New York Times: With N.F.L. Deal, Twitter Live-Streams Its Ambitions. “When Twitter streams its first N.F.L. game on Sept. 15, it will get to assess whether its vigorous pursuit will pay off — and whether live streaming can viably be a linchpin of its future.” It better hurry up.

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Scary, important reading: There’s a strong new influence on the outcome of violent police encounters: Facebook. “Facebook, like AT&T, Verizon, and other communications companies, often provides law enforcement with information, when asked or prompted by a court order or subpoena. But in an era when people are using social media to document their fraught, and even deadly interactions with police, shutting down an account means taking control of the narrative—and inevitably affecting the way events play out on the ground. Facebook has become an arbiter of the outcome, and the stakes could not be higher.” Good morning, Internet…

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