TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Guardian: Facebook labelled ‘digital gangsters’ by report on fake news. “Facebook deliberately broke privacy and competition law and should urgently be subject to statutory regulation, according to a devastating parliamentary report denouncing the company and its executives as ‘digital gangsters’. The final report of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee’s 18-month investigation into disinformation and fake news accused Facebook of purposefully obstructing its inquiry and failing to tackle attempts by Russia to manipulate elections.”

PR Newswire: Iron Mountain Renews Support for Papers of Abraham Lincoln Project, Preserving and Protecting the Writings and Legacy of President Lincoln (PRESS RELEASE). “Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM), the global leader in storage and information management services, today announced it has renewed its support of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation and the Papers of Abraham Lincoln project at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Overseen by the Library, the project is dedicated to identifying, imaging, transcribing, annotating, and publishing all documents written by, or to, Abraham Lincoln during his lifetime. Iron Mountain’s grant is supported through the Living Legacy Initiative, the company’s commitment to preserve and make accessible cultural and historical information and artifacts.”

USEFUL STUFF

CNET: Oscars 2019: How to stream online, start time, nominees, predictions and more. “Oscars 2019 is just a week away. We still don’t know who’s going to host, but here’s what we do know about the 91st Oscar ceremony. We know who’s nominated — and that Black Panther is up for best picture and might even have a slight chance. We also know how, when and where to watch the show online. Here’s everything you need to know.”

Wired: The Wired Guide to Your Personal Data (and Who Is Using It). “Personal data is often compared to oil—it powers today’s most profitable corporations, just like fossil fuels energized those of the past. But the consumers it’s extracted from often know little about how much of their information is collected, who gets to look at it, and what it’s worth. Every day, hundreds of companies you may not even know exist gather facts about you, some more intimate than others. That information may then flow to academic researchers, hackers, law enforcement, and foreign nations—as well as plenty of companies trying to sell you stuff.”

Make Tech Easier: 4 Ways to Block Websites on Chrome . “Google Chrome is great, but it can also get in the way. Whether we’re procrastinating and our hand auto-pilots our mouse to the Facebook bookmark, or if sites show up in our Google search results that we know are probably fake news but click through anyway because the headline told us to, there are plenty of good reasons why we’d want to block websites on Google’s browser. In this article we take you through every way we could think of to bar certain sites for life (or at least until you unblock them again).”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Business Standard: Pre-verification process for political ads being put in place: FB, Google tell HC. “Facebook, Google and YouTube told the Bombay High Court Monday that they are putting in place strict ‘pre-verification processes’ for online political advertisements on their platforms in India ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Yahoo News: New Zealand plans new tax for giants like Google, Facebook. ” New Zealand’s government announced plans on Monday for a new tax targeting online giants like Google and Facebook that earn plenty of money in the country but pay little tax.”

The Verge: Emoji are showing up in court cases exponentially, and courts aren’t prepared. “Bay Area prosecutors were trying to prove that a man arrested during a prostitution sting was guilty of pimping charges, and among the evidence was a series of Instagram DMs he’d allegedly sent to a woman. One read: ‘Teamwork make the dream work’ with high heels and money bag emoji placed at the end. Prosecutors said the message implied a working relationship between the two of them. The defendant said it could mean he was trying to strike up a romantic relationship. Who was right?”

BetaNews: Australian political parties hit by hack orchestrated by ‘sophisticated state actor’. “Australia’s three main political parties — Liberals, Labor and Nationals — as well as the country’s parliament have all been hit by a security breach which Prime Minister Scott Morrison says was carried out by a “sophisticated state actor”.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

BBC: YouTube aids flat earth conspiracy theorists, research suggests. “YouTube is playing a significant role in convincing some people that the Earth is flat, research suggests. A study quizzed people at flat earth conferences and found most cited videos viewed on the site as a key influence. They were won over by videos which claimed to amass evidence proving the Earth was not a spherical planet.”

Chronicle of Higher Education: A Turning Point for Scholarly Publishing. “Debate over the future of scholarly publishing felt remote to Kathryn M. Jones, an associate professor of biology at Florida State University — that is, until she attended a Faculty Senate meeting last year. There she learned that the library might renegotiate its $2-million subscription with the publishing behemoth Elsevier, which would limit her and her colleagues’ access to groundbreaking research. Horror sank in. Like other experimental scientists, Jones regularly skims articles published in subscription journals to plan future experiments. What would happen if she couldn’t access that body of important work with the click of a button?”

Harvard Business Review: AI Needs to Become Less Elitist. “A survey conducted last year by my company, Sage, in partnership with YouGov, found that one in four children aged 8-18 in the UK is interested in pursuing an AI career. What about the rest of them? Well, 20% of kids who were not interested in AI said they did not think they were smart enough. The most common answer (24%) was that they would prefer a more creative career. Both of these results point to an elitist attitude toward AI from government and in the media. That attitude needs to change if we’re going to prepare for a world where lots of jobs involve using or interacting with AI.” Good morning, Internet…

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