NEW RESOURCES

The Calvert Journal: The battle to preserve Uzbekistan’s greatest art collection is moving online. “Claims of mismanagement have dogged the Nukus Museum for decades, as officials and art lovers fight between preserving Igor Savitsky’s avant-garde art collection in the desert, or bringing its masterpieces to a wider audience. Now, a new project is putting tens of Savitsy’s greatest works online — but the battle for the museum’s future is far from over.”

Savannah Now: Savannah archives: Historic postcards of Savannah now online. “A new collection of Savannah-area postcards donated by the city’s deltiologist (a fancy word for postcard collector), Alderman Nick Palumbo, is now open to the public for research. This new addition to the Palumbo collection of Savannah-area materials includes over 600 postcards that show Savannah’s streets, squares, buildings, neighborhoods, historical events, and much more (some images never before seen by Municipal Archives’ staff)!”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Organize Notes on Your iPhone Using Tags. “If you’re an iPhone user, chances are you’ve utilized Notes, Apple’s built-in note-taking tool. It’s a great place to create sketches, jot down ideas, or create lists that you can share with other Apple users. With the release of iOS 15, Apple’s note-taking features got a revamp to include Tags and Smart Folders. Make the most of your iPhone’s Notes app with these handy features.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Washington Post: Five points for anger, one for a ‘like’: How Facebook’s formula fostered rage and misinformation. “The company’s data scientists confirmed in 2019 that posts that sparked angry reaction emoji were disproportionately likely to include misinformation, toxicity and low-quality news. That means Facebook for three years systematically amped up some of the worst of its platform, making it more prominent in users’ feeds and spreading it to a much wider audience. The power of the algorithmic promotion undermined the efforts of Facebook’s content moderators and integrity teams, who were fighting an uphill battle against toxic and harmful content.”

The Atlantic: ‘History Will Not Judge Us Kindly’. “Even for the Americans inured to the president’s thumbed outbursts, Trump’s attack against his own vice president—at a moment when Pence was being hunted by the mob Trump sent to the Capitol—was something else entirely. Horrified Facebook employees scrambled to enact ‘break the glass’ measures, steps they could take to quell the further use of their platform for inciting violence. That evening, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO, posted a message on Facebook’s internal chat platform, known as Workplace, under the heading ‘Employee FYI.’ ‘This is a dark moment in our nation’s history,’ Zuckerberg wrote, ‘and I know many of you are frightened and concerned about what’s happening in Washington, DC. I’m personally saddened by this mob violence.’ Facebook staffers weren’t sad, though. They were angry, and they were very specifically angry at Facebook. Their message was clear: This is our fault.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ZDNet: Microsoft announces security programs for nonprofits as nation-state attacks increase. “Microsoft unveiled a new suite of tools on Thursday built to protect nonprofits as threats against philanthropic organizations globally have skyrocketed, particularly from nation-states. The Microsoft Security Program for Nonprofits has three different components, including free access to the AccountGuard program, free security assessments and free training pathways for IT administrators and end-users.”

New York Times: U.S. Warns of Efforts by China to Collect Genetic Data. “Chinese firms are collecting genetic data from around the world, part of an effort by the Chinese government and companies to develop the world’s largest bio-database, American intelligence officials reported on Friday.”

CNN: Facebook has known it has a human trafficking problem for years. It still hasn’t fully fixed it. “Facebook has for years struggled to crack down on content related to what it calls domestic servitude: ‘a form of trafficking of people for the purpose of working inside private homes through the use of force, fraud, coercion or deception,’ according to internal Facebook documents reviewed by CNN.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Duke Chronicle: What going viral on TikTok taught me about social media consumption. “By incentivizing users to create controversial content, social media platforms like TikTok are doing far more than just maximizing engagement: they’re changing our belief systems and our political systems. I, for one, am complicit in this. Every like, every comment on my TikTok brings forth instant validation. As I am writing this, I’m also brainstorming new ideas to extend my fifteen minutes of fame: should me and my roommate ‘break up’, or should we keep on playing the game? We’ll let the algorithm decide.”

Penn State News: How social media is changing the way people get to know one another. “Social media has the ability to connect us with almost anyone in the world, but it can also change the way brains form new social relationships, maintain current ones and participate in social groups, according to a new book by a Penn State researcher.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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