NEW RESOURCES

Pro Bono Australia: Free database shows impact venture capital funds around the world. “An open source database of the world’s impact venture capital funds has been created, hoping to help grow Australia’s impact startup ecosystem by connecting impact founders with investors…. More than 480 active funds have been identified so far by reviewing data sources such as Pitchbook and Crunchbase.” I had never heard of impact investing. Investopedia to the rescue!

USEFUL STUFF

Boing Boing: Web tool that generates flowcharts from text. “You type in words; they appear in a flowchart box. To make a new box with a pointer going towards it, you indent the line. You can link back to an earlier box by using its line number.”

Poynter: What you need to know about Section 230, the ‘most important law protecting internet speech’ . “How did Section 230 come to be, and how could potential reforms affect the internet? We consulted the law and its experts to find out. ” A good explainer with lots of background.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Love Factory: The Price of Being a Social Media Star. “Over the past year, as Covid-19 has severely limited our ability to interact with the world beyond our front door, livestreams have helped transport us to places we couldn’t visit, people we couldn’t see and events we couldn’t attend. In China, livestreaming services command an audience of nearly 560 million, with streamers broadcasting to devoted followers who tune in every night. Successful livestreamers can earn thousands of dollars each month in direct donations from fans, and those at the very top earn millions from brand sponsorships and major contracts.” This is a 13-minute video, but every section I spot-checked had captions.

BuzzFeed News: Facebook Helped Fund David Brooks’s Second Job. Nobody Told The Readers Of The New York Times.. “New York Times columnist David Brooks is drawing a second salary for his work on an Aspen Institute project funded by Facebook and other large donors — a fact he has not disclosed in his columns.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NBC News: Ripe for extortion? Navajo Nation hospital targeted by large-scale ransomware hack. “Last year, at least 560 health care facilities were infected with ransomware, according to a survey from the cybersecurity company Emsisoft. In October, amid a particularly brutal wave of attacks, several federal agencies issued warnings of ‘an increased and imminent cybercrime threat’ to hospitals. An advisory from the American Hospital Association laid out how the Covid-19 pandemic had encouraged cybercriminals ‘to exploit, victimize and profit’ from ransomware attacks.”

District of Columbia Courts Newsroom: DC Court Of Appeals Seeks Public Comment On Proposal To Have Documents Available Online. “The DC Court of Appeals is considering putting case documents online to further access to justice for the community, not only during the pandemic, but also to make it easier to access public court documents in the future. The Court has published a notice requesting public comment on a proposal, with comments due by March 12.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CNN: Right-wing misinformation on Facebook is more engaging than its left-wing counterpart, research finds. “According to the research, accounts rated by outside media watchdogs as being far-right and frequent spreaders of misinformation are far more likely to generate likes, shares and other forms of engagement on their respective Facebook pages than right-wing sources of reliable information — which in turn are better at generating engagement than left-wing sources of misinformation.”

USA Today: Looming Trump ban ruling is a distraction from Facebook’s real oversight crisis. “The Facebook Oversight Board’s verdict on whether to reinstate Donald Trump’s account is expected soon. Everyone is weighing in, from Bill Gates to Donald Trump himself. The decision has been breathlessly followed by some journalists as if it were a Supreme Court ruling; which I wish it was, because independent oversight over the outsized power of Facebook is desperately needed. Instead, we are watching a self-regulated facade of accountability. The internal Facebook processes should not distract from the need for independent, external oversight based on democratically mandated rules.” Good evening, Internet…

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