NEW RESOURCES

From the US Treasury: Treasury Unveils New Website to Track Federal Spending. “Federal spending flows through hundreds of federal agencies and programs to thousands of companies and nonprofits and millions of individual citizens. Visitors to the site can search by location, federal agency or by keyword for a specific program or type of spending. They can also search for a specific recipient of federal funds, such as a business or university.”

China Post: Over 260,000 files on Chiang Kai-shek released online. “According to Academia Historica, the files, 61.65 percent of which were formerly listed as confidential, were uploaded to the archive in several batches between January and April this year, after they were individually audited and declassified between August and December 2016. They represent 98.8 percent of all existing documents related to Chiang, the institute said.” I mentioned this in early January as a work in progress, if it’s ringing a bell in your mind.

TechCity (Nigeria): Nigeria’s First Search Engine For Universities – University Compass . ” University Compass, Nigeria’s first University search engine…recently launched their website which provides you facts about Universities in Nigeria at-a-glance as well as, more detailed facts such as a list of courses, tuition fee, accommodation plans, location and directions etc per selected university. However, that is not the interesting part.”

Flagler College: Flagler College makes public old photographs, catalogs on new digital archive site. “More than 1,000 archival items, from yearbooks and college catalogs to historic and college photographs are now available to the public, thanks to a new digital archives project by the college’s Archives Specialist Jolene DuBray. These relics of the past — formerly viewable only during in-person visits — became available online May 5, during Alumni Weekend, when DuBray launched the project.”

Broadway World UK: Wilton’s Music Hall To Be Added To Google’s Digital Archives. “Today Wilton’s Music Hall launched their digital archive in partnership with Google Arts and Culture, giving unprecedented access to the legendary Grand Music Hall’s heritage through its collections and via a new virtual reality tour.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Digital Trends: Google Home Can Play Soothing Nature Sounds To Help You Stay Productive. “Google Home, Google’s artificial intelligence-imbued smart home speaker, can walk you through recipes, place restaurant reservations, start your car, and recap the day’s most significant events. But that is not all it can do. Thanks to a recent update, Google Home can serve up soothing ambient sounds that reduce stress and aid in concentration.” It’s going to be funny if this ends up being Google Home’s killer app.

EFF: Launching DearFCC: The Best Way to Submit Comments to the FCC about Net Neutrality. “Today, we’re launching a new tool that will help you craft a unique comment to the FCC: DearFCC.org. Using custom-generated text, we help Internet users develop and submit personal comments to the official docket with just two clicks.”

USEFUL STUFF

From the LSE Impact Blog: Using Twitter as a data source: an overview of social media research tools (updated for 2017). “Following his initial post on this topic in 2015, Wasim Ahmed has updated and expanded his rundown of the tools available to social scientists looking to analyse social media data. A number of new applications have been released in the intervening period, with the increasing complexity of certain research questions also having prompted some tools to increase their data retrieval functionalities. Although platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp have more active users, Twitter’s unique infrastructure and the near-total availability of its data have ensured its popularity among researchers remains high.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Medium / Glitch: Creator Spotlight: Building Twitter Bots with Stefan Bohacek. “Twitter’s history with developers has been a rocky one, to say the least. But like the on-again, off-again relationships of our teenage years, it seems despite this tumultuous past we just can’t get the love for creating Twitter apps out of our system. The French (of course!) have a term for this at times tortuous and all-consuming desire — ‘amour fou’. Insane love. And nowhere does this fiery passion for Twitter development burn stronger than on Glitch.”

Bangkok Post: Facebook to block local content. “Facebook Inc has agreed to continue to consider the Thai government’s requests to restrict local access to content on its site found to be in violation of the country’s laws. The US internet giant replied to the Thai Internet Service Provider Association (Tispa) after a group of local internet service providers (ISPs) belonging to the association emailed an official request to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Schools punish kids for crude social media posts and parents sue . “A lawsuit against a San Francisco area school that disciplined students after an offensive racist post highlights the challenges educators face in policing social media. Parents whose children are being bullied expect schools to take the lead, but the courts have given mixed signals on whether schools can punish students for ugly but constitutionally protected speech.”

Reuters: Austrian court rules Facebook must delete ‘hate postings’. “Facebook must remove postings deemed as hate speech, an Austrian court has ruled, in a legal victory for campaigners who want to force social media companies to combat online ‘trolling’. The case – brought by Austria’s Green party over insults to its leader – has international ramifications as the court ruled the postings must be deleted across the platform and not just in Austria, a point that had been left open in an initial ruling.” Good morning, Internet…

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