I’m putting this up top because I really want you to read it. Boing Boing: “Mother of all lawsuits” quietly filed against Facebook, Zuck, Sandberg, Thiel, and more. “On Twitter, Jason Kint shares that a massive and damning lawsuit was filed in Deleware last month against Facebook, and many of its executives, and board members relating to what they knew, hid, and lied to congress about relating the Cambridge Analytica ‘hack.’ If you recall, Cambridge Analytica used data that it simply acquired through Facebook’s APIs to target US voters vulnerable to misinformation attacks. Facebook tried to call this ‘a hack’ and has apparently been lying about it ever since.”

NEW RESOURCES

Niagara Gazette: Niagara Falls library announces Gazette digitization. “The Niagara Falls Library has announced the completion of the digitization of the Niagara Gazette from May 1854 to February 1916. This digitization was performed by the Local History Department and funded under the Access and Innovation Grant through a member project grant from the Regional Bibliographic Data Bases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program (RBDB).”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: 8 podcasts to teach kids about history, identity, and current events. “There are many child-friendly podcasts out there that explore topics that aren’t often included in traditional curriculums. You can listen to them in the car on the way to school or sports practices, and they can spark questions around difficult topics like racism or identity — in an age-appropriate way.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Stanford Daily: Concerns over ethics, diversity lead some Stanford students to say no to Silicon Valley. “The number of undergraduate majors in computer science at Stanford has nearly quadrupled since 2010, and hackathons are almost as easy to come by as fraternity parties. When Facebook, Microsoft or Google pay over $12,000 for a table at a Stanford career fair, the return on investment is assured. Their famous brand names — not to mention their six-figure starting salaries and amenities-rich work environments — are certain to attract large crowds of talented job candidates. But there are also students whose appreciation for the technology industry is tempered by concerns over ethics and corporate cultures in the Valley.”

Stuff New Zealand: Photographs of Aotearoa’s bold and beautiful to be digitised. “A huge collection of 250,000 images shot between the 1930s and 1980s is set to be digitised by the country’s national museum after an almost million-dollar lotteries grant helped fund the project.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Epik data breach impacts 15 million users, including non-customers. “Epik is a domain registrar and web services provider known to serve right-wing clients, some of which have been turned down by more mainstream IT providers due to the objectionable and sometimes illicit content hosted by the clients. Epik’s clients have included the Texas GOP, Parler, Gab, and 8chan, among others.”

Tallahassee Democrat: FSU confirms theft of nearly 5,000 rare comics, science fiction digests, from Strozier. “Sometime between March 17, 2020, and Feb. 10, someone stole nearly 5,000 items from the Robert M. Ervin Jr. Collection housed by FSU Special Collections & Archives at Strozier Library, the university confirmed Friday. In all, 4,996 items are missing from the collection that consists of comic books and serials on superheroes, science fiction, fantasy and horror, the university said in an email to the Democrat.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

SiliconRepublic: Alphabet’s high-speed internet project Taara is making waves in Africa. “Project Taara is Alphabet’s attempt to harness wireless optical tech to make fast internet accessible and affordable. In a blog post yesterday (16 September), the project’s director of engineering, Baris Erkmen, said that its wireless optical communications links are now beaming light-speed connectivity across the Congo River…. Erkmen said that after installing links on both sides of the river, Taara’s technology was able to beam across nearly 700TB of data in 20 days with almost 100pc availability.”

Health Information and Libraries Journal: Google is goodish: An information literacy course designed to teach users why google may not always be the best place to search for evidence. “This article describes a course that was developed in response to health sector and local authority workers being reliant on Google and using it for their information needs regardless of whether it was the best place to search. The methodology for developing and structuring the course is explored, including details of the content included. The author concludes by asserting that teaching users about the effective use of Google is an important part of user education.”

Freedom House: The Global Drive to Control Big Tech. “Global internet freedom declined for the 11th consecutive year. The greatest deteriorations were documented in Myanmar, Belarus, and Uganda, where state forces cracked down amid electoral and constitutional crises. Myanmar’s 14-point score decline is the largest registered since the Freedom on the Net project began.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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