NEW RESOURCES

Glamour: This Necessary New Site Helps You Avoid TV and Movies Tainted by Creeps. “It’s a new world out there and one that can be tough to navigate, especially if you’re wary of supporting art that’s now tarnished by the horrible behavior of certain men. Now, that’s not to say that you have to avoid any of it. I, for one, will probably still watch ‘Good Will Hunting’ and ‘Shakespeare in Love’ every time I catch them on TV. And those are some of Weinstein’s most marquee projects. But they also involve a lot of people who weren’t awful monsters. That decision is a personal one. You may feel differently, and now there’s a new website to help guide your way: Rotten Apples.” There is one movie that is marked non-problematic when I believe it is by the standards of the site (The Associate) so don’t take this as foolproof.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Next Web: Twitter now lets you create tweetstorms before tweeting. “Twitter today revealed plans to give users a better way to create threaded tweets. Thanks to a new button in the tweet composer, you can add new tweets to a thread before you publish them.”

Business Insider: Storify, once a hot tool among journalists looking to tell stories using social media posts, is shutting down. “Storify, the digital tool that lets users string together stories and timelines using social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, is shutting down.”

Search Engine Land: Microsoft adds Reddit data to Bing search results, Power BI analytics tool. “Microsoft is bringing the self-proclaimed ‘front page of the internet’ to the pages of its search results. Microsoft has struck a deal with Reddit to pipe data from the social network into Bing’s search results, as well as Power BI’s analytics dashboard, the companies announced on Wednesday.”

The Verge: New Instagram test adds posts your friends like into your feed. “Instagram has started testing a new “recommended for you” section within the feeds of a small group of users. The new section will show you Instagram posts that your friends have liked or that the algorithm thinks will appeal to you directly in your feed, which could mark another major shift for the photo sharing service if the feature is officially rolled out.” So if I like a page on Facebook, I have approximately a snowball’s chance in hell of seeing that page’s post on my feed. Meanwhile, Instagram is going to insert images of people I don’t even follow. WHAT KIND OF STUPID ISH IS THIS.

USEFUL STUFF

District Dispatch: Keeping public information public: an introduction to federal records laws. “The federal government generates an almost unimaginable quantity of information, such as medical research, veterans’ service records, regulations and policy documents, and safety inspection records, to name just a few examples. For decades, ALA has advocated for policies that ensure government information is appropriately managed, preserved and made available to the public, including through libraries. Federal records laws play important roles in those processes. This series will introduce those laws and highlight two current issues that impact public access to government information: the management of information on federal websites and the preservation and destruction of government information.”

PR Newswire: Color Palette Generator Allows Digital Artists to Pull a Full Color Scheme from Any Artwork (PRESS RELEASE). “After providing a number of web-based tools such as Dirty Markup – an HTML code beautifier well-known among developers across the internet, 10 Best Design has crafted a new design-oriented tool for those looking to directly apply their real-world inspirations in their digital design.” I tried it and it was free as far as I could tell.

Fast Co Design: Here’s An Internet Off Button For When You Just Can’t Take It Anymore. “It’s a little black box that sits in the top right corner of your browser. And when you click it, it turns any page on the internet into a serene tabula rasa with no text and no images.” Sounds like a useful tool for exploring Web design – or a really, really mean prank.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

BuzzFeed: This Is How Steve Bannon And Breitbart Tried To Sabotage Twitter. “For more than a year before he became Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Steve Bannon sought to wage war against Twitter, tasking Milo Yiannopoulos and other Breitbart News employees to look into editorial, financial, and legal ways they could harm the Jack Dorsey–led social network.” Trying to sabotage Twitter is like trying to keep an elephant from flying.

BBC News: Inside the world of Brazil’s social media cyborgs. “‘I used to spend the whole day in front of the computer, starting early in the morning,’ says 21-year-old Pedro from the city of Vitoria, in south-eastern Brazil….It might sound like an average day for an ordinary young social media user, but Pedro (not his real name) is actually describing his time as a ‘cyborg’, someone who is paid to run fake social media accounts to influence public opinion.

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Extended Validation (EV) Certificates Abused to Create Insanely Believable Phishing Sites. “New research published yesterday reveals that putting your trust in Extended Validation (‘EV’) SSL certificates will not safeguard you from phishing sites and online fraud.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Business Review Asia: Alphabet’s Google to launch AI research centre in China. “Alphabet Inc’s Google has stated it will open a new AI research centre in China even though its main web platform offerings remain blocked in the country. The centre will be the first in Asia and will include a small team operating out of Google’s existing location in Beijing.” Good morning, Internet…

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