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TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Guardian: Facebook teams with rightwing Daily Caller in factchecking program . “Facebook’s controversial factchecking program is partnering with the Daily Caller, a rightwing website that has pushed misinformation and is known for pro-Trump content.”

BetaNews: Ubuntu Linux 19.04 ‘Disco Dingo’ is finally available for download. “Today, Linux users around the world should celebrate, as Ubuntu 19.04 ‘Disco Dingo’ is finally here! Following the Beta release, the stable version is now available for download. Keep in mind, version 19.04 is not LTS (Long Term Support), meaning it is only supported until January 2020.” Eight months or so? I think I’ll stick to the LTS releases.

CNET: More than a month later, Facebook, Instagram host New Zealand shooting videos. “It’s been over a month since a gunman opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 50 people and livestreaming the massacre on Facebook. It appears the social network, as well as Facebook-owned Instagram, is still showing videos of the attack, according to a Friday report by Motherboard.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Use Your iPhone as a Webcam: 5 Methods That Work. “Did you know it’s possible to use your iPhone as a webcam? It’s never going to quite mimic a webcam in the traditional sense, but there are a few apps that’ll record the phone’s camera and send it to a Mac, a Windows PC, another mobile device, or even to the web.”

ZDNet: 10 best free video streaming services for cord cutters. “When cord-cutting became a thing, it was all about saving money. Today, cord-cutting costs are catching up with cable. Indeed, with Disney Plus coming, with its must-watch package of Marvel Universe, Star Wars, and Disney films, plus internet TV streaming services like AT&T DirecTV Now drastically raising its prices, I can easily see a cord cutter’s total viewing bill crossing the $100-a-month barrier. Fortunately, there are some answers.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Ars Technica: Facebook’s auto-captions for a recent launch video are hilariously bad. “An Antares rocket built by Northrop Grumman launched on Wednesday afternoon, boosting a Cygnus spacecraft with 3.4 tons of cargo toward the International Space Station. The launch from Wallops Island, Virginia, went flawlessly, and the spacecraft arrived at the station on Friday. However, when NASA’s International Space Station program posted the launch video to its Facebook page on Thursday, there was a problem. Apparently the agency’s caption service hadn’t gotten to this video clip yet, so viewers with captions enabled were treated not just to the glory of a rocket launch, but the glory of Facebook’s automatically generated crazywords.”

Nieman Lab: Is it okay for a journalist to block a critic — not a troll, just a critic — on Twitter?. “Blocking and muting on Twitter are common ways for users to deal with the less pleasant elements of the medium: trolls who attack, Nazis who incite, misinformation peddlers, and garden-variety jerks. And that’s certainly true of journalists, who come under far more abuse than the media Twitter user. But is blocking someone who is a respected member of the commentariat — and a frequent source for your news organization — okay if he’s tweeted something critical of you or your work?”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: Security flaw in French government messaging app exposed confidential conversations. “The French government just launched its own messaging app called Tchap in order to protect conversations from hackers, private companies and foreign entities. But Elliot Alderson, also known as Baptiste Robert, immediately found a security flaw. He was able to create an account even though the service is supposed to be restricted to government officials.”

The Ringer: A Brief History of Facebook’s Party Lines on Privacy. “Recently, it was revealed that the company ‘mistakenly deleted’ years of Zuckerberg’s public posts on the platform. But luckily, we have the Zuckerberg Files, a digital archive of the CEO’s statements. The archive, created by privacy and internet ethics scholar Michael Zimmer, is run by the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. It includes everything Zuckerberg has publicly said or posted about a wide range of topics—and here, we are highlighting his comments over the years on the issue of user privacy. It’s quite a journey, beginning with young bluster and ending with cagey lawyer-speak.”

Techdirt: Sixth Circuit Court Dumps Lawsuit Seeking To Hold Twitter Responsible For The Pulse Nightclub Shooting. “Another one of 1-800-LAW-FIRM’s lawsuits has been tossed for a second time. After being shut down at the district level for attempting to hold social media companies responsible for the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, the law firm asked the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to take another look at its dubious legal theories.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Science|Business: Two different phases of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Landscape” discovered thanks to a UniBo team. “One of the best-known drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, the ‘Landscape’, is the result of two different phases, as the artist appears to have added some details at a later stage. The discovery was possible thanks to a new high-resolution digital scan performed by a team of researchers of the Department of Architecture of the University of Bologna.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Red Ferret: Death Metal AI – this neural network wants to rock. “We’ve seen a lot of interesting AI projects from romance novels to scripts. For your music fans there’s a new bot on the horizon. Relentless Doppelganger is the Death Metal rocker a neural network dreamed up. And it’s streaming 24/7.” Good morning, Internet…

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