NEW RESOURCES

Radio Free Asia: Thousands of Articles Restored From Downed Website of Jailed Uyghur Scholar Ilham Tohti. “The former website of jailed Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti containing thousands of articles has been restored seven years after it was shut down by authorities in China ahead of his 2014 arrest and sentencing to life in prison for ‘separatism,’ according to a group that advocates for his release.”

Belfast Telegraph: BBC hits rewind on NI faces and places from past for new website. “…a new website, the first of its kind, is opening up access to a rich treasure trove of footage from BBC Northern Ireland’s archive. Weeks and months of searching through the BBC vaults in London and Belfast has unearthed more than 13,000 broadcasting gems and, as the corporation prepares to celebrate 100 years next year, the new portal is being presented as a fully searchable gift to the public.”

Bungalower: New website brings Horror Nights houses online. “A new website by a former theme park designer and blogger has just been launched to bring the screams of Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights online….Virtual Frights is the first effort by Pseudonym and it shares video walk-throughs of five years of Halloween Horror Nights haunted houses using easy-to-navigate videos sourced from local vloggers and media sites.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Facebook pulled down your post. Here’s how to challenge that decision. “Facebook and its photo service Instagram are rolling out a new way for you to lodge a challenge if you think your content has been wrongly pulled down. The social networks remove millions of posts, photos and videos every quarter for violating their rules against nudity, hate speech and other types of offensive content. If you’re affected, you can ask Facebook and Instagram to review the decision, but that doesn’t guarantee a reversal. Now you have another option.” Oh good, another way to get Facebook to approve innocent content so it can be seen by AN EXTRA FOUR PEOPLE! Thanks, incredibly restrictive organic reach!

Screen Rant: Facebook Watch: How To Follow Topics & Never Miss A Video. “Internet giant Facebook is rolling out new ways for users to find and follow content in Watch, its platform for showcasing videos published on the site. First piloted in 2017 before a wider roll-out, Watch was conceived as a centralized place for people to discover new videos and to access multi-episode shows in the same way they might on other video streaming platforms.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

NPR: ‘Dark Archives’ Explores The Use Of Human Skin In Bookbinding . “Megan Rosenbloom, a young librarian-in-training, wanders through the Mütter Museum’s collection of medical oddities. In an inconspicuous corner, she discovers a display case of leather-bound books with their covers closed — unusual for rare books. The caption explains these books are closed because their binding is more notable than their contents, and that’s because they were made from human skin. This marks the beginning of Rosenbloom’s obsession with ‘anthropodermic bibliopegy’ and the opening scene to Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin…”

The Register: When you tell Chrome to wipe private data about you, it spares two websites from the purge: Google.com, YouTube. “Programmer Jeff Johnson noticed the unusual behavior, and this month documented the issue with screenshots. In his assessment of the situation, he noted that if you set up Chrome, on desktop at least, to automatically delete all cookies and so-called site data when you quit the browser, it deletes it all as expected – except your site data for Google.com and YouTube.com.” Google says this is a bug that will be fixed.

SECURITY & LEGAL

AL .com: Alabama lawsuit hits Apple, Google over gambling games. “Two federal lawsuits filed Wednesday seek refunds for Alabama residents who downloaded games from app stores the plaintiffs say are illegal gambling under state law. The potential class action lawsuits were filed against tech giants Apple and Google by two Shelby County residents who purchased the app-based games and paid money for more playing time.”

Reuters: South Korean antitrust chief says Google has undermined competition. “South Korea’s antitrust chief said on Thursday the agency believes U.S. search engine giant Google has undermined competition, adding that the agency plans to present a case to its review committee this year.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Scientific American: Social Media Restrictions Cannot Keep Up with Hidden Codes and Symbols. “On the same day that President Donald Trump announced his COVID-19 diagnosis, Twitter reminded users of its policy that ‘tweets that wish or hope for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against *anyone* are not allowed and will need to be removed.’ The social media platform soon filled with posts accusing it of hypocrisy: threats targeting women and people of color have accumulated for years without removal, users said. But even as Twitter attempted to enforce its rules more stringently, thinly veiled posts slipped through the cracks.”

The Hutchinson News: Cosmosphere creating digitally interactive 3D model of Liberty Bell 7. “Space students from ages 1 to 101 will be able to get close enough to see rivets on spacecrafts, all from their home computers, thanks to a new 3D imaging project at the Cosmosphere. Last week, the Cosmosphere began creating high-resolution, full-color, digitally interactive 3D models of the space museum’s collection starting with one of its most iconic crafts — the Mercury spacecraft Liberty Bell 7.”

Eurasia Review: ‘Foreign Disinformation’ Social Media Campaigns Linked To Falling Vaccination Rates . “‘Foreign disinformation’ social media campaigns are linked to falling vaccination rates, reveals an international time trends analysis, published in the online journal BMJ Global Health. Every 1 point increase in effort is tied to an average 2% drop in annual coverage around the globe, and a 15% increase in the number of negative tweets about vaccination, shows the study, which forms part of a BMJ Collection on Democracy and Health published for the World Health Summit this weekend.” Good morning, Internet…

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