NEW RESOURCES

Illinois State University: The Vidette Digital Archives at Milner Library now available. “Through the efforts of the Milner Library’s Digital Collections department and in cooperation with Veridian, The Vidette Digital Archives are now available online. The archive currently holds approximately 75 volumes—from the first edition dating back to February of 1888 to May of 1963. Within those 75 volumes, there are 2,621 issues and over 21,300 pages. The Vidette Digital Archives plan to continue adding more volumes in the future.”

New-to-me: Crypto Scam Checker. “The most up-to-date and comprehensive database of every crypto-related website on the web.” I took a look at this very easy to navigate list of over 5000 Web sites; most of the ones I saw were delineated as scams.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Facebook: News Feed FYI: More Local News on Facebook. “People tell us they come to Facebook to connect with friends. They also say they want to see news about what’s happening in the world and their local community. This month, we’ve announced changes to prioritize posts from friends and high-quality news sources. Today, we’re updating News Feed to also prioritize local news so that you can see topics that have a direct impact on you and your community and discover what’s happening in your local area.”

The Register: Firefox to show ‘occasional sponsored story’ in ads test. “Some users who bravely test betas of Mozilla’s Firefox browser will soon also test an ‘occasional sponsored story” as the browser-maker tries to re-invent web ads. This story starts with Mozilla’s February 2017 acquisition of web-clipping app Pocket.”

USEFUL STUFF

TechRadar: The best free privacy software 2018: top tools for anonymous browsing. “If you’re looking for the best free privacy software to help you browse the web anonymously, then you’ve come to the right place, as we’ve listed the top choices to help protect your privacy.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Voice of America: New York to Probe Firms that Sells Fake Social Media Followers. “New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has launched an investigation of a firm that allegedly sold millions of fake followers to social media users. The company, Devumi, sold more than 200 million fake followers, or bots, to celebrities, sports stars, and politicians, The New York Times reported.”

Vanguard: Social media posts lands 311 people in Turkey prison. “Police in Turkey have detained 311 people over social media posts related to Turkey’s military operation in a Kurdish-held enclave in northern Syria. State-run Anadolu news agency on Monday quoted the Interior Minister, Suleyman Soyl, saying those detained were accused of spreading terrorist propaganda.” The Vanguard is a Nigerian publication. The comments are interesting!

Slate: Twitter’s Fake Follower Controversy Exposes Social Media’s Underlying Economies of Shame. “Twitter is a machine designed to generate ugly feelings. Here everything is subject to quantification: the number of people who like the things you tweet, the number who share your words with their own followers, and, perhaps most of all, the number who follow you. If you spend too much time on the platform, those numbers quickly become an index of your own self-worth, and no matter how high they get, they will always be too small.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: You publish 20,000 clean patches, but one goes wrong and you’re a PC-crippler forever . “Security software maker Malwarebytes has emitted two product updates and apologised to users – after its code turned their machines into near-bricks. The problem started with a production update the company pushed out last Friday, which sent users to their keyboards complaining of excessive RAM and CPU consumption.”

The Guardian: Fitness tracking app Strava gives away location of secret US army bases. “Sensitive information about the location and staffing of military bases and spy outposts around the world has been revealed by a fitness tracking company. The details were released by Strava in a data visualisation map that shows all the activity tracked by users of its app, which allows people to record their exercise and share it with others.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Next Web: Sorry Snapchat, it’s time to say goodbye. “Instagram holds attention now. Back when Snapchat was a thing, I was excited to see new snaps from friends. What are they doing? What random-ness are they fitting in thirty seconds? What’s my favorite YouTube celeb up to today? Now when I open the app, I’m greeted by two snaps from the same people, and they both contain the same message, “streaks” — one snap that’s sent back and forth every day, just for the sake of saying you and a friend have X streak. And when I swipe left to check out the recent Story updates 一 all of the snaps are random, behind the scenes looks at moments that were already beautifully captured on Instagram.”

Ubergizmo: Facebook Looking To Give Chatbots A ‘Consistent Personality’. “In a recently published paper by researchers at Facebook’s FAIR lab (via The Verge), the researchers are hoping to solve some of the problems with chatbots, such as by giving them a ‘consistent personality’, as well as making them remember conversations that they might have had with you several sentences ago.” Good morning, Internet…

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