NEW RESOURCES

Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue: New Toolkit Offers Social Media Insights To Conflict Mediators. “As digital dimensions reshape the scope and intensity of violent conflicts, a new toolkit helps peacemakers to analyse social media activities and better understand how these insights can complement dialogue and mediation efforts.” This description isn’t as helpful as it could be. The toolkit gives you an overview of acquiring data from social media platforms, from what’s possible to a really nice Case Studies section. Plenty of resources but not as specific as step-by-step instructions.

World Health Organization: WHO’s training for caregivers of children with autism goes online. “The online training includes pre-recorded information sessions on topics such as using everyday routines as opportunities for children to learn, engaging with children through play and problem-solving. Sessions to help caregivers improve their own well-being are another important feature of the course. Quick tip videos, quizzes and reminders are included to support sustained learning. The training has been set up in such a way that caregivers can learn at their own pace, fitting the course into their schedules in a way that works for them.”

Arizona State University: PBS presents ‘The Futures of Democracy’ podcast. “PBS presents ‘The Futures of Democracy’ podcast, launching on March 30 and produced and hosted by Nicole Anderson, director of the Institute for Humanities Research at Arizona State University, and Julian Knowles, professor of media and music, and chair of media and communications at Macquarie University, Australia. In this bi-weekly podcast series, world-renowned experts will examine the emerging challenges of possible futures for democracy in the 21st century. The project reflects upon the health and operation of our democracy as a common good in an environment that has profoundly shifted over the past 20 years. ”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google Search’s new highly cited label helps you get to the source of a story. “Google is adding a new ‘highly cited’ label to search results frequently sourced by other publications, the company is announcing today. Anything from local news stories, to interviews, announcements, and even press releases will be eligible for the new label being added to the search result’s preview image, so long as other websites are linking to it. More info is also being added to Search’s ‘rapidly evolving topics’ and ‘About this Result’ notices.”

Washington Post: The first census records of four American presidents … almost. “On Friday, the Census Bureau released the individual records collected during the 1950 Census. (Bureau policy is to maintain the privacy of census documents for 72 years.) There has probably never been a census release in which so many living Americans can trace their own roots, given the size of the baby boom and the extended life expectancy that boomers enjoy. And that offers us an interesting historical challenge: digging up the first census records of our first three baby-boom presidents.”

USEFUL STUFF

ZDNet: Microsoft To Do vs Google Tasks: The best list manager app for you. “Two of the biggest tech companies in the world have created similar, yet philosophically different solutions to managing your daily tasks. We take a look at which solution is best for the widest variety of users.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Capitol Hill Seattle Blog: Google Street View has gone dark for parts of Capitol Hill. “Maybe it is testament to the area’s nightlife bonafides. Maybe it is a momentary glitch in massive scale tech. But for some reason, large stretches of Capitol Hill are being rendered in fuzzy, overexposed nighttime scenes in the Google Street View system. It’s not an April Fools’ Day prank. The murky scenes appeared in December following an update to the neighborhood’s imagery. A Google spokesperson initially responded to our inquiry about the issue weeks ago but we haven’t heard back from her since.”

BuzzFeed News: YouTube Is Facing An Identity Crisis As Its Creators Burn Out. “In the latter half of the 2010s, to be a prominent YouTuber was to consistently push the envelope of what you could create without getting banned, chasing the glorious high of a video that would get tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of views. YouTube financially rewarded creators who went viral. So creators pushed themselves to do bigger stunts, pull off weirder or more outrageous pranks, and became embroiled in seemingly constant hostile feuds with one another. This created one of the most toxic cultures on the internet.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Google Found to Unfairly Block Rival Payments on India Store. “The Competition Commission of India found Google discriminated against developers in its Play store billing policy, according to documents seen by Bloomberg News. The findings come after a months-long investigation triggered by protests from developers, who’ve complained the U.S. internet giant charges an unfairly high fee in return for using Android app stores and its proprietary payments service.”

SC Media: Cybercriminals target mobile as consumers embrace digital transactions. “With 75% of potential cyberattacks targeting mobile digital transactions, it seems clear that bad actors are going after mobile financial transactions as they see those as easier and more lucrative, according to a cybercrime report from LexisNexis Solutions. The findings were based on an analysis of transaction data from the LexisNexis Digital Identity Network in the second half of last year, which analyzed 35.5 billion transactions.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Baltimore Sun: Last year, Maryland started shielding certain arrest records from view. It’s putting the public in danger.. “Case Search, the Maryland judiciary’s online archive of court cases and ‘the primary way that the public may search for records of court cases,’ according to its website, goes even further to block information from the public. As of January 2021, criminal and traffic cases that prosecutors abandon or dismiss, or the defendant is acquitted or found not guilty, are suppressed from view in the archive, leaving no public record of the arrest. This goes beyond automatic expungement in that (1) a dismissed case instantly disappears and (2) any count not resulting in conviction also disappears.”

Simon Fraser University: Google autocomplete helps mislead public, legitimize conspiracy theorists: SFU study. “Google algorithms place innocuous subtitles on prominent conspiracy theorists, which mislead the public and amplify extremist views, according to Simon Fraser University researchers.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!