NEW RESOURCES

WTVQ: New website helps students research college majors and salaries. “Students have a new interactive tool to research degree programs at Kentucky’s public colleges and universities, allowing them to compare tuition, student debt and salaries for hundreds of occupations before choosing a major. The tool, called the Kentucky Students’ Right to Know website, offers extensive data on all of the state’s public universities and the Kentucky Community and Technical College System.”

Exact Editions: The full digital archive of The Baffler is now available. “The Baffler 1988 was first established in the summer of 1988, initially introduced as a punk literary magazine in its very first issue. The founders, Thomas Frank and Keith White, were recent graduates of the University of Virginia and named their journal as a joke on academic fads like undecidability, then in fashion.”

State of North Carolina: New landslide website provides critical hazard data for North Carolina communities. “The Landslides in Western North Carolina Project website allows users to explore current and historical information about landslides in North Carolina. Users can access resources to help them plan for and build resilience to landslide hazards. The new ‘Western North Carolina Landslide Hazard Data Viewer’ will make it easier for various audiences to access, interact with and understand landslide hazard data.”

Culture Map Houston: Smokin’ new website makes it easy to explore Houston’s barbecue scene . “A new website wants to help Houstonians eat better barbecue. Created by the founders of the Houston BBQ Festival, the Houston BBQ Guide offers readers the ability to search for restaurants based on a wide range of criteria, including location, parking, and whether a restaurant is likely to sell out of food.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Politico: Trump’s fundraising arm is back advertising on Facebook. “Former president Donald Trump’s fundraising arm is once again advertising on Facebook after the social media giant banned the ex-president from using the site. Starting late last week, Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, a joint venture between Trump’s Save America leadership PAC and his Make America Great Again PAC, has spent $3,506 on Facebook ads promoting Trump’s upcoming rally outside Cleveland, Ohio and calling for donations to his fund.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Marketplace: What the authoritarian crackdown on social media means for global activism. “It’s been more than a decade since the revolution that came to be known as the Arab Spring, when protesters across the Middle East challenged — and in some cases overthrew — authoritarian governments. Social media played a central role in helping activists organize and build support. Now, autocratic leaders around the world have been stifling dissent on these platforms or banning them altogether. Russia, China, India and Nigeria are some recent examples. Could social media play the same role today that it did in 2010?”

CNN: How Russian threats in the 2000s turned this country into the go-to expert on cyber defense. “When people like the German Chancellor Angela Merkel or the King of Belgium want to learn more about cybersecurity, they go to Estonia. The Baltic country runs on the internet. From filing taxes and voting, to registering the birth of a new baby, nearly everything a person might want or need from the government can be done online. It’s an approach that’s incredibly convenient for Estonia’s 1.3 million people — but it also requires high level of cybersecurity.”

Bloomberg: Facebook on blockchain? A real estate mogul is pouring US$100 million into decentralising social media. “Frank McCourt, the billionaire real estate mogul and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is pouring US$100 million into an attempt to rebuild the foundations of social media. The effort, which he has loftily named Project Liberty, centers on the construction of a publicly accessible database of people’s social connections, allowing users to move records of their relationships between social media services instead of being locked into a few dominant apps.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: EU court rules in Telenet copyright case: ISPs can be forced to hand over some customer data use details. “Europe’s top court has ruled ISPs can be forced to hand over the details of customers who are alleged to have downloaded material illegally online – but only if they meet certain criteria. That’s the latest judgement in another case involving Cyprus-based Mircom International Content Management Consulting, and Belgian ISP Telenet.”

Department of the Interior: Secretary Haaland Announces Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative. “The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative will serve as an investigation about the loss of human life and the lasting consequences of residential Indian boarding schools. The primary goal will be to identify boarding school facilities and sites; the location of known and possible student burial sites located at or near school facilities; and the identities and Tribal affiliations of children interred at such locations.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

BBC: Political trolling twice as popular as positivity, study suggests. “Social media posts are twice as likely to go viral if they are negative about politicians they oppose rather than positive about those they support, a Cambridge University study suggests.”

EFF: The New ACCESS Act Is a Good Start. Here’s How to Make Sure It Delivers.. “The ACCESS Act is one of the most exciting pieces of federal tech legislation this session. Today’s tech giants grew by taking advantage of the openness of the early Internet, but have designed their own platforms to be increasingly inhospitable for both user freedom and competition. The ACCESS Act would force these platforms to start to open up, breaking down the high walls they use to lock users in and keep competitors down. It would advance the goals of competition and interoperability, which will make the internet a more diverse, more user-friendly place to be.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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