NEW RESOURCES

Found on Reddit: The 13th Edition of Encyclopedia Britannica just entered the public domain! I uploaded it to Archive.org.. “Three new volumes published in 1926 replaced the 12th edition as a supplement to the 11th edition. The new volumes, together with the reprinted 11th edition, constituted the 13th edition. The new volumes were numbered 29 to 31, the 29th volume of the 11th edition becoming the 32nd volume of the 13th edition.”

BellingCat: Launching an Open Source Flight Database for Kazakhstan in Wake of Protests. “Military planes from neighbouring Russia have also headed towards Kazakhstan in recent days as part of an agreement struck by the regional Collective Security Treaty Organisation to help regain order, something which can again be monitored and tracked by flight monitoring platforms. Bellingcat has thus launched an open source database of noteworthy flights to and from the country’s airports in a bid to better understand the recent and evolving dynamics in Kazakhstan. The database, entries for which start on January 3, is open to use and continues to be updated at the time of publication.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

FossBytes: Twitter Will Soon Allow You To Retweet With TikTok-Like Reaction Videos . “Twitter is testing a new limited feature available to its iOS users. The new Twitter feature lets users retweet another tweet and add their TikTok-like reaction video. Likewise, some Twitter app users on iOS can find a new option when they try to retweet a tweet.”

Popular Science: Android’s Recorder app makes it easy to post audio to social media. “After years of focusing on images, social media is expanding beyond photos and video. The new belles of the ball are apps like Clubhouse and features such as Twitter’s Spaces, where audio is king. But if you want to bring that voice-only style to posts on more traditional platforms like TikTok and Instagram, you’ll need to pair it with a video. This usually requires skill and access to video editing tools, but if you have an Android, Google just made things a little easier for you.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Washington Post: Rolling Stones Altamont concert footage found in Library of Congress archives. “When Library of Congress film expert Mike Mashon heard about newly found reels of Rolling Stones concert footage, he thought they were copies from a show the band did in London in 1969…. The footage was not from the London concert that July. It was from the notorious show five months later at the Altamont Speedway near San Francisco, where one fan was killed, three others died and, many believe, the social revolution of the 1960s began its end.”

PCMag Australia: These Countries Ask Google to Remove the Most Content. “Every year, governments around the world ask Google to remove content from its many platforms on the web. The reasons are many, ranging from national security to defamation to copyright to fraud. But which countries make the most requests? According to Surfshark, Russia submitted 123,606 requests over the last decade—31,384 in 2020 alone—making it far and away the biggest content-removal requester. The most common stated reasons fall into the national security and copyright categories.”

NPR: Kicked off Facebook and Twitter, far-right groups lose online clout. “It’s been called the Great Deplatforming. In the hours and days after the U.S. Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube kicked off then-President Donald Trump as well as many involved in planning the attack. Since then, far-right groups that had used the big tech platforms to spread lies about the 2020 U.S. presidential election, stoke conspiracy theories and call for violence have been scrambling to find new homes on the internet.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: Illegal movie streaming service Popcorn Time shuts down. “Popcorn Time, the app that was once popular for making pirating movies as easy as watching Netflix, has shut down. Its original developers took the service down and abandoned the project merely a few days after it launched in 2014. But since the project was open source, other developers were able pick up where they left off, and it’s been killed and revived a few more times ever since. It remains to be seen whether Popcorn Time is now gone for good, but it looks like the biggest contributor to its most recent demise is the dwindling interest in the app.”

Reuters: Google faces probe in India after news publishers complain of unfair conditions. “India’s competition watchdog has ordered an investigation into Alphabet Inc’s Google following allegations from news publishers, saying its initial view was that the tech giant had broken some antitrust laws. In its order, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) said Google dominates certain online search services in the country and may have imposed unfair conditions on news publishers.”

FBI: FBI Launches Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection. “The FBI announces the official launch of the Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection (LESDC), which took place on January 1, 2022. The LESDC provides a mechanism for law enforcement agencies to report suicides and attempted suicides of law enforcement personnel, as defined within the LESDC Act, for the purpose of compiling national statistics on these tragedies. As of January 1, 2022, law enforcement agencies can submit data to the LESDC about their current or former officers who die by or attempt suicide on that date and forward.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Verge: A chatbot could help prevent eating disorders, new study finds. “A chatbot may help reduce the likelihood a person develops an eating disorder, according to a new study. For women at a high risk for an eating disorder, going through a dialogue with a bot developed by researchers reduced concern over body weight and shape — a factor that contributes to their risk.”

UGA Today: Leveraging social media during a disaster. “During a disaster, many people turn to social media seeking information. But communicating during disasters is challenging, especially using an interactive environment like social media where misinformation can spread easily. Now, University of Georgia researchers have developed a social media tool to better help local emergency managers disperse information to community members during a disaster.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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