NEW RESOURCES

Now available: a digital archive for Lucy Maud Montgomery. “KindredSpaces, as it’s called features more than 400 pieces published by Montgomery in periodicals throughout North America, Europe and Australia. The documents are part of the Ryrie-Campbell Collection housed at the University of Prince Edward Island’s L.M. Montgomery Institute, which is dedicated to researching Montgomery’s life and work.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WordPress 4.7 Beta 2 is now available. There are several things upgraded according to the blog post, but it doesn’t look like there was much of anything security-oriented.

Periscope is offering selfie masks. Guess which ones they’re offering right before the election. GO ON GUESS. (Sorry, we’ve had people knocking on the door all day about political candidates and I’m getting testy.) “Periscope is following Snapchat and Facebook’s lead by creating its own animated augmented reality selfie masks. The first ones can make you look like Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, and will be available for the next week for the election.”

Facebook will start selling TV advertising. “Facebook has been marginally successful in eating into TV ad budgets with its super-targeted but mostly direct-response ads. Now, the social network is taking a more straightforward approach to that market. The social network has a plan to start selling video ads to set-top services like Roku and Apple TV through its third-party ad network.”

USEFUL STUFF

Watching the election Tuesday night? You’ve got lots of options for following along online. “…this year, election day coverage will be available more ubiquitously than ever on internet platforms, including on the two biggest video players — Facebook and YouTube — without the need for a TV set at all. Scores of other online outlets will be trying to grab their share of eyeballs, too. Twitter, for example, is hoping to build momentum in its live-video push by carrying an exclusive election-night broadcast from BuzzFeed, marking BuzzFeed’s most ambitious live TV-style production to date.”

MakeUseOf: Snapchat Stories vs. Instagram Stories: What’s the Difference? “So, let’s say you want to post a picture on social media. But you only want it to be visible for 24 hours. And you kind of want there to be some fun designs on it. Maybe you have a couple more pictures that kind of go along with it too. Also a video. After 24 hours? That series of pictures needs to be gone… except you’d kind of like to save a copy to your phone first. And also you’d like to add a filter, too. Would you believe that there are not just one, but two different apps out there ready to let you fill this void in your life?”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Ever wonder why there’s so much controversy over what Google pays in tax outside the US? Here ya go. “Google’s controversial advertising sales business in Dublin earned revenues of €22.6bn (£20.1bn) from Europe, the Middle East and Africa last year but paid just €47.8m in tax, according to company filings in Ireland. Revenues at Google Ireland Limited rose 23% in 2015, to €22.6bn, and were equivalent to a third of the search group’s global income. Of this Irish income, more than $7bn (£5.6bn) is thought to have come from transactions with advertisers in the UK.”

CNET: Is Facebook secretly building a phone? “On a cloudy day this May, in the dull fluorescent light of a plain white Google conference room, Rafa Camargo, Richard Wooldridge and Blaise Bertrand told CNET their plan to disrupt the phone market. Ara, a Lego-like phone with modular parts, would let buyers snap on a better camera, additional batteries or any other creative hardware a developer might dream up. It was set to be the first phone entirely designed by Google, the three men claimed. Then the Ara project was abruptly shelved.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

It should come as no surprise that Facebook is being sued for offering advertisers the ability to exclude audiences based on “ethnic affinity.” “A lawsuit seeking class action status filed in California federal court on Thursday alleges that Facebook’s ad targeting options violate federal fair housing and civil rights laws, which make it illegal to show a preference for certain groups of people in housing and employee recruitment advertisements.”

I know most of y’all aren’t lawyers, but if you want an overview of where the law is on social media as evidence, this is a great article from the ABA: How to get social media evidence admitted to court. “As technology continues to influence the practice of law, court cases are increasingly turning on social media. But unlike other forms of evidence, social media is fleeting – and, if you can get the data, questions of authenticity arise when you seek to admit it as evidence. In a recent ABA CLE, ‘Acquiring, Preserving and Authenticating Websites and Social Media,’ Jennifer Ellis of Lowenthal & Abrams PC, and Michael Maschke of Sensei Enterprises, Inc., share how you can obtain and use social media and other forms of digital evidence in your cases.”

Reuters: German prosecutors investigate Facebook over hate postings. “German prosecutors are investigating Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives, a spokesman for the Munich prosecutor’s office said on Friday, following a complaint alleging the company broke national laws against hate speech and sedition by failing to remove racist postings.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

NBC News: Study Finds People Like the Wrong Stuff on Social Media Better. “Social media is an important source of news for many Americans, but the health stories that are most popular may also be the least accurate, a study of Facebook posts about Zika virus finds. In May and June 2016, a period of heavy media coverage of the Zika virus epidemic spreading in the Americas, about four out of five popular posts on Facebook about Zika contained accurate information, researchers found. But those containing inaccurate information or conspiracy theories were far more popular on the social networking website.” Good morning, Internet…

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