NEW RESOURCES

Just discovered South Carolina’s new Web site for its water trails and now learn that Alabama has a site for its canoe trails (PRESS RELEASE). “The Alabama State Lands Canoe Trails website showcases more than 170 miles of trail located along the Bartram Canoe Trail in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and the Perdido River Canoe Trail, allowing paddlers the opportunity to explore the state’s unique natural resources with more ease than ever. The Bartram Canoe Trail offers the option of camping on floating platforms and pile-supported camp shelters or primitive land-based sites with trail access starting from the 5 Rivers Delta Resource Center or at one of many local landings; the Perdido River Canoe Trail offers land-based shelters and allows for primitive camping at several sandbars.”

Library of Congress: Ahead of July 4, a Unique Birthday Card to America Goes Online. “In 1926, America celebrated the 150th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence. To mark the occasion, citizens of Poland – more than 5.5 million of them – signed a unique birthday card, The Polish Declarations of Admiration and Friendship. Now, all 111 volumes containing more than 30,000 pages – many beautifully illustrated or accompanied by photographs – are digitized and accessible on the Library of Congress website.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Sain Records, in partnership with the Library of Wales and other institutions, has added a bunch of items to Wikimedia Commons. “In partnership with Wicipedia Cymraeg editors, Wikimedia UK, the Welsh Government and the National Library of Wales, Sain (Records) (www.sainwales.com) have opened up some of their content on a Creative Commons open licence, in order to share with a wider audience. Over 7,000 audio clips and 498 album covers are now available on the Wikimedia Commons website.” Clips are in English and Welsh.

CNET: Google News facelift focuses on showing you the facts. “Google News got a redesign this week that’s more about facts than fonts. As with any redesign, the aim is to present a cleaner, uncluttered page that makes content easier to find and digest. The desktop News page has adopted a card format intended to help you browse for stories, which will generally be labeled with publisher names and tags such as Local Source, Most Referenced or Opinion to provide more context about the issues represented.”

Variety: Comic-Con 2017: Twitter to Live-Stream Coverage From IGN. “Twitter has expanded its partnership with IGN Entertainment to serve as the official live-streaming platform for the video-game publisher’s coverage of 2017 San Diego Comic-Con next month.”

The Next Web: Instagram is now using AI to fight trolls and spammers. “Using social media comes with the unfortunate risk of encountering hate speech and offensive comments. The companies behind them are constantly looking for new ways to combat hate speech and now Instagram is turning to the logical next step: Artificial intelligence.”

USEFUL STUFF

From the most excellent Larry Ferlazzo: The Best Resources For Learning About The 2017 Total Solar Eclipse. “You’ve probably already heard about the upcoming Total Solar Eclipse that will take place on August 21st and be viewable in the United States. I thought it would be useful to collect a few related resources.” Not a ton here yet, but Larry being Larry I suspect it’ll get a lot of updates.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

WFMY: Social Media Prenups Are A Thing Now. “…some couples are taking that prior approval to the next level with a social media prenup. You sign a contract about what your spouse can and can’t post about you in case of a divorce. Then if they put up something online that makes you want to hit the angry reaction, it could cost them sometimes up to $50,000 bucks per post. Attorney Adam Arthur has even written them right here in the Triad.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Digital Trends: Congress Is Considering A New Bill That Would Outlaw Doxxing And Swatting. “A number of tools of online harassment could well become illegal under federal law if a newly proposed bill in Congress is passed. Called the Online Safety Modernization Act of 2017, it would make revenge porn, swatting, and doxxing illegal at the federal level, in an effort to improve online safety, particularly for women.”

US News & World Report: German Parliament Votes to Fine Social Media Over Hate Speech. “The German parliament on Friday approved a plan to fine social networks up to 50 million euros ($57.04 million) if they fail to remove hateful postings quickly, despite concerns the law could limit free expression.”

The Register: UK.gov leaves data dashboard users’ details on publicly accessible site. “Users of the government’s data dashboard have been asked to change their passwords after their information was made public. According to an email seen by The Register, a file containing the names, emails and hashed passwords for the data.gov.uk site was left on a third-party system.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Net Monitor: The Shifting Landscape of Global Internet Censorship. “Since 1999, the Berkman Klein Center has been part of independent academic efforts to enumerate the shaping and filtering of Internet content, and in particular that found on the web, by national governments. In research conducted over a decade and a half, we carried out tests for Internet filtering and documented content restriction practices in 75 countries. Today we release an update, based on research methods designed to evolve along with the web itself, that shows increasing sophistication by those who place content online, by those who provide content hosting platforms, and by those who wish to stop their citizens from finding and experiencing it…. In one major difference from 1999, users are increasingly turning to a handful of aggregating platforms to learn about the world and to engage in dialogue with one another. How those platforms choose to structure their services, in turn, results in an outsized impact in the ongoing tug of war between those who wish to get to a particular destination online and those who wish to prevent them from doing so.” This is a dense but interesting read. Good morning, Internet…

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