Before you e-mail me telling me I should have said “female” instead of “women” – I was going to but I thought in this case “female” might be construed as pejorative. So I used “women” instead. I’d much rather you slag me for bad grammar than for being offensive.

NEW RESOURCES

PR Newswire: New Website Shines Light on Women of Color in the Digital Art Space (PRESS RELEASE). “In the world of digital art, women of color are largely underrepresented. A 2017 study conducted by The City University of New York, Guttman College, notes that in New York City alone, one of the most highly populated cities for artists, women of color made up less than six percent of artists represented by top galleries. One minority-owned organization seeks to change that. Launching today, Electric Women highlights the work of women of color in the digital arts space through a collection of profiles that highlight the work of these accomplished artists.” There’s about 30 artists listed here at the moment. I like the design.

Innovators Magazine: Circular economy database launched. “A new global database drawing on information from 60 countries has been launched to support the growth of the circular economy. Compiled by the Circular Economy Club (CEC), on the back of its international Mapping Week project the open-source database is designed to accelerate the impact of circularity.” I didn’t know what a circular economy referred to; the Ellen MacArthur Foundation helped me out: “Looking beyond the current ‘take, make and dispose’ extractive industrial model, the circular economy is restorative and regenerative by design. Relying on system-wide innovation, it aims to redefine products and services to design waste out, while minimising negative impacts.”

PR Newswire (again, sorry, but this looks really good): ParkServe Database and Interactive Mapping Website Unveiled by The Trust for Public Land (PRESS RELEASE). “Today, The Trust for Public Land launched http://www.ParkServe.TPL.org, providing free, easy-to-navigate access to the most comprehensive database on parks ever assembled. The site includes information for 14,000 cities with a combined population of more than 260 million. The national nonprofit organization is leading a movement to put a park or natural area within a 10-minute walk of every American, a goal which has been endorsed by more than 200 U.S. mayors.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Guardian: Amid privacy scandal, Facebook unveils tool that lets you clear browsing history. “Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a new Facebook privacy control called ‘clear history’ at the social media company’s annual developer conference, and admitted that he ‘didn’t have clear enough answers’ about data control when he recently testified before Congress.”

Santa Fe Institute: New online class offers tools for tackling fundamental questions. “For more than a century, scientists have been using probability and statistics to measure the natural world. They want to make sense of data and find meaningful signals in the noise. But in the last few years, classical statistics have started to seem a little threadbare. Researchers now have access to large datasets, which are driving new insights in disciplines ranging from biology to ecology to economics…. The data have changed. Maybe it’s time our data analysis tools did, too. That’s one of the core ideas behind ‘Algorithmic Information Dynamics,’ a new online course offered through SFI’s online education portal, Complexity Explorer.” The course is not free, but it only costs $50 and that includes a textbook.

USEFUL STUFF

Motherboard: Motherboard Made a Tool That Archives Websites on Demand. “Archiving services, such as the Wayback Machine, may be a staple of online journalism, but they sometimes have a problem. While, say, Archive.is might preserve one particular webpage, perhaps the Wayback Machine can’t, depending on what sort of restrictions the website developer has put in place. For example, someone stopped copies of MSNBC host Joy Reid’s blog, which hosted a stream of homophobic comments, from displaying in the Wayback Machine. With that in mind, I made a quick tool that can push a single webpage or URL to multiple archiving sites at once, and fire back the newly minted digital copies in response. Hopefully it will help reporters and researchers more efficiently figure out which service will work best for that particular site.”

Tom’s Guide: How to See Everything Apple Knows About You. “As Facebook continues to face ire for its handling of user information, Apple has been pushed by new European Union regulations to join its fellow tech titans in allowing you to download a copy of the information the company has retained about you.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Gizmodo: China Bans Peppa Pig Videos on Social Media for Being Associated With Gangster Culture. I 100% cannot even. “Few people would think of the British cartoon character Peppa Pig as a subversive icon. But don’t tell that to the Chinese government. China has started to ban Peppa Pig from social media for being too ‘gangster,’ deleting over 30,000 videos of the cartoon pig on one platform alone.”

The Art Newspaper: Scotland Yard joins global crackdown on looted pharaonic antiquities. “Scotland Yard is working with the British Museum and the governments of Egypt and Sudan to tackle the looting of pharaonic antiquities. The plan is to create a publicly available database of 80,000 objects that have been identified as having passed through the trade or have been in private collections since 1970, the year of the Unesco convention on cultural property. The scheme is being funded with a £1m grant from the British government’s Cultural Protection Fund, administered by the British Council.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Asia Times: India’s ambitious digital ID project faces new security nightmare. “India’s all-pervasive digital identity programme Aadhaar appears to be facing a fresh security scare. The concern may also have national security implications, as suggested by material accessed by Asia Times. The key to the latest security breach comes from a modified Aadhaar enrolment software, known as ECMP, which is being distributed illegally for a cost ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 2,000.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Wired: Data Protection Standards Need To Be Global . “WHETHER IT IS Cambridge Analytica gaining access to private information on up to 87 million Facebook users, or the large-scale data breaches at Equifax or Yahoo, alarmingly loose standards for the use and protection of customer data continue to fuel a backlash against large tech companies. More importantly, these events demonstrate the need for a global set of consumer data principles.”

Modern Diplomacy: A New Facebook Psychology: How to Account for Violating Public Trust. “Technology has become society’s answer for everything. The internet has virtually replaced brick-and-mortar libraries, has infiltrated most aspects of research, and has become the largest means by which people communicate and share information. However, information is not always accurate. Worse, information is often edited to purposefully alter perception. A lack of accountability further encourages erroneous internet content as there are few regulations and fewer methods for enforcement due to vague laws. Monopolies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft benefit from the current unregulated structure, as they profit off the consumers’ inability to hold them accountable for violations. This presents a conflict of interest to consumer privacy, as people allow access without understanding what they’ve allowed and how the information can be used.”

Pew (pew pew pew pew pew!): Declining Majority of Online Adults Say the Internet Has Been Good for Society. “…Americans have grown somewhat more ambivalent about the impact of digital connectivity on society as a whole. A sizable majority of online adults (70%) continue to believe the internet has been a good thing for society. Yet the share of online adults saying this has declined by a modest but still significant 6 percentage points since early 2014, when the Center first asked the question.” I can’t even imagine what the response is going to be to this question this time next year. Good morning, Internet…

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