Hey y’all, I’ve been chewing through my RSS feeds so hard that I knocked the crown off my back tooth. I’m getting it tended to but updates may be late/missing for a few days.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Axios: Scoop: Facebook’s new moves to lower News Feed’s political volume. “Facebook plans to announce that it will de-emphasize political posts and current events content in the News Feed based on negative user feedback, Axios has learned. It also plans to expand tests to limit the amount of political content that people see in their News Feeds to more countries outside of the U.S.”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: How to reduce lag while livestreaming video. “If you broadcast a show on YouTube or your favorite games on Twitch, you know how a laggy internet connection can ruin the stream. Working from home and meet with colleagues over video chats on Zoom? You know all about lag time, too. It’s annoying! Yet all video streamers have to deal with it. Some issues that cause lag, such as a spotty internet connection, are out of your hands. But, what if I told you that there are some simple things you can do to help minimize and maybe even eliminate lag from most of your livestreams and video chats?”

Bleeping Computer: Customize your Windows 10 experience with these free tools. “Windows 10 comes with built-in personalization settings to help you customize the desktop and it provides plenty of options by default. However, if you want to get the most out of your desktop, we recommend these third-party open-source programs.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The VOU: Retro Futurism Explained: Definition, Aesthetic, Fashion Examples (2021). “Retro-futurism plays a massive role in the contemporary world we live in, from media to design and from technology to fashion. In this comprehensive guide in Retro-futurism, I’ll detail the origin and definition of this current. I’ll then introduce you to the latest Retro-futurism themes, such as the ones described above.”

CNN: The Taliban’s social media dilemma. “…even as the Taliban presses for US forces to leave the country, it remains reliant on American social media companies such as Facebook (FB) and Twitter (TWTR) to get its message out, both within Afghanistan and beyond its borders. On Twitter, for example, multiple Taliban spokesmen, including Mujahid and Suhail Shaheen, have active, unverified accounts, each with more than 300,000 followers. But many of those platforms, including Facebook and its subsidiary WhatsApp, have said they will crack down on accounts run by or promoting the Taliban.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: EU Mission Helps Kosovo With Database on War Crimes. “The European Union’s mission in Kosovo said Monday it has assisted the country’s police in developing a database to help investigate war crimes. The EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, or EULEX, reconfigured its mandate in 2018 and handed over all its files, including around 400 war crime cases, to the government.”

Markets Insider: Apple and Google’s ability to take a cut of every app purchase is in peril due to a new South Korean bill. “Apple and Google are the target of a new South Korean bill that intends to open the smartphone platforms to alternate payment options. South Korea’s parliament on Tuesday approved a bill that bans major app store operators such as Google and Apple from forcing software developers to use their payment systems, effectively stopping them from charging commissions on in-app purchases.”

The Irish News: Tech giant Google will face international businessman in the Irish courts in landmark case. “Defamation proceedings have been issued at Dublin High Court by lawyers on behalf of Kheir Allab, a French-Algerian entrepreneur. Despite having won a court order in Switzerland and instituted criminal libel proceedings in France, Mr Allab says he is continuing to be targeted by detractors on YouTube with videos making false and defamatory claims.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya: Educatool, a tool for identifying the best way to bring up children. “The project is based on a web platform that can be used on any device, including computers, tablets and smartphones. Parents and anyone else interested in knowing ‘whether their parenting is on the right track’ can go to the website, register and answer a free online questionnaire. The results will help each person to understand how correct their approach to parenting is in terms of various aspects.”

Benedict Evans: Ads, privacy and confusion. “Privacy is coming to the internet and cookies are going away. This is long overdue – but we don’t know what happens next, we don’t have much consensus on what online privacy actually means, and most of what’s on the table conflicts fundamentally with competition.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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