NEW RESOURCES

Arab News: New partnership aims to push boundaries of science for young Arabic speakers. “King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia teamed up with a leading academic publisher for the recent launch of the Arabic version of Frontiers for Young Minds, an open-access educational resource through which young Arabs worldwide can access a library of child-friendly scientific articles in their own language.”

Deseret News: This tool shows you the smoke forecast for Utah and the West. “The New York Times has a new tool that will help you see the forecast for wildfire smoke in the coming days. The tool — which you can find here — tracks wildfires across the West. Right now, it shows three major fires in California.” I tried opening this in an incognito window and I was not paywalled.

Pacific Business News: New website connects Native Hawaiians in the tech industry. “In April, [Emmit] Parubrub encountered a like-minded individual in Taylor Ho, a 31-year-old principal designer at Twitch, who like Parubrub grew up in Windward Oahu and was a transplant to California… They pooled their knowledge to launch Hawaiians in Technology, a digital directory for Native Hawaiians in tech jobs or those aspiring to get one. They also created a Hawaiians in Tech Discord channel for basic introductions. Requirements are fairly straightforward: people of Native Hawaiian ancestry, and people with tech jobs or tech aspirations.”

USEFUL STUFF

CNN: How to encourage family and friends to stop spreading misinformation on social media. “Your cousin knows for a fact that coronavirus vaccines have mind-controlling microchips. ‘Stop the steal’ conspiracy theories maybe flooded your social media feeds during and after the 2020 US presidential election. Your friend shares an article about why 5G technology will harm everyone’s health.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Toronto Star: Certain ‘Indian’ day school records off-limits to public while province conducts investigation. “After committing to investigate the history of New Brunswick’s infamous day schools for Indigenous children, the New Brunswick government is now calling on the province’s museum, archives and ‘other institutions’ to make records of the schools available to First Nations communities.” The headline is confusing. What I get from the article is that records are temporarily unavailable while they are being digitized for broader access.

The Moscow Times: Russia’s Drive to Replace Foreign Technology Is Slowly Working. “The relentless Russian offensive against global online platforms doesn’t show any sign of slowing down. That poses a question: Is Russia preparing to get rid of global platforms by the end of the year? Such a development now seems highly likely, given the scale of the Russian import substitution effort in technology — a campaign which is much more important than learning how to produce Russian parmesan in the Moscow suburbs.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Daily Hive: Blogger to pay $30k after negative reviews of breast augmentation surgery. “British Columbia’s Supreme Court has ordered a woman to pay tens of thousands of dollars in damages after posting defamatory reviews after her breast augmentation surgery.”

Law Street Media: Judge: Clearview AI Cannot Use First Amendment as Defense in ACLU’s Privacy Suit. “Late last week, an Illinois state court ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other advocacy rights groups in their fight against Clearview AI Inc. over its unauthorized collection of Illinois residents’ faceprints. According to the order, the court has jurisdiction over the matter and the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) claims will proceed, despite Clearview’s proffered free speech defense.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Times Higher Education: The push for open access is making science less inclusive. “To avoid publishing becoming economically prohibitive, the push for open access above all other publication priorities must be substituted by a push for true inclusiveness. Required measures include, at the minimum, the extension of full waivers to lower-middle-income countries and the extension of substantial automatic discounts to upper-middle-income countries such as ours. The scientific community must also ensure fair practice and pricing in academic publishing. Consortia of national funding agencies could collect and analyse publishers’ budgets, comparing them with estimated publishing costs and deciding on a maximum fair price that they are prepared to pay.”

The Nation: Can We Live Without Twitter? Oh, probably. My cat won’t get most of my jokes, though. “The platform has become an important space for political conversations; it is also run by a for-profit private enterprise and full of cruel trolling. Is there a way to have the good without the bad?” Good evening, Internet…

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