NEW RESOURCES

Detroit Free Press: New Wayne County Jail dashboard offers statistics, charts in push for transparency . Wayne County is the most populous county in Michigan, with just under 1.8 million people. Its county seat is Detroit. “The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office and the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network on Thursday morning announced the launch of a free, online database providing demographic figures, mental health data and other information on the county jail population.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Al Jazeera: Fake Trump, Bush, Tesla storm Twitter after verification dropped. “Fake Twitter accounts have exploded across the platform after new owner Elon Musk scrapped the site’s verification policies as trolls impersonate famous figures and companies including the billionaire’s carmaker Tesla. The flood of impersonator accounts, including fake profiles for former United States President George W Bush and NBA star LeBron James, follows Musk’s decision to offer the platform’s blue check mark to any user for a $7.99 monthly subscription, instead of only verified accounts that are of public interest.”

TechCrunch: Google is launching cross-platform features to make it easier to follow the FIFA World Cup . “Google is rolling out a bunch of updates across platforms making it easier for fans to follow the FIFA World Cup starting November 20. These include a daily highlights video from TV networks, customized notifications, a dedicated section on Google TV and a multiplayer game.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Two Weeks of Chaos: Inside Elon Musk’s Takeover of Twitter. “The order for immediate layoffs, the ensuing panic and the about-face reflect the chaos that has engulfed Twitter since Mr. Musk took over the company two weeks ago. The 51-year-old barreled in with ideas about how the social media service should operate, but with no comprehensive plan to execute them. Then he quickly ran into the business, legal and financial complexities of running a platform that has been called a global town square. The fallout has often been excruciating, according to 36 current and former Twitter employees and people close to the company, as well as internal documents and workplace chat logs.”

The Verge: Elon Musk learns the hard way that being a Twitter troll is way more fun than being a mod. “Shenanigans are fun, but here’s the thing to keep in mind: Twitter is loaded with debt from the acquisition and needs to pay roughly $1 billion a year on it. In 2021, Twitter made $5 billion in revenue and did not turn a profit…. So Musk has to figure out how to make money while people scream at him and impersonate him. Fun job!” If you’re interested in the Twitter situation but you don’t have much inside baseball, this is a good overview. Lots of swearing.

Robb Report: Over 90 Museum Leaders Are Asking Climate Protestors to Stop Throwing Soup on Their Artworks. “The International Council of Museums (ICOM), a prominent industry group, has released a statement signed by more than 90 museum leaders decrying actions by climate activists that involve targeting artworks.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Bankman-Fried’s Assets Plummet From $16 Billion to Zero in Days. “The downfall of his crypto exchange and its trading house, Alameda Research, means assets owned by the mogul once likened to John Pierpont Morgan have become worthless. At the peak, the 30-year-old was worth $26 billion, and he was still worth almost $16 billion at the start of the week.” I think cryptocurrency as it exists now is a negative-sum thing and I do not intensely follow news about it. However, I get enough by newsreading osmosis to believe that this is one domino. And this single domino alone has wiped out billions and billions in wealth. What next?

ABC News: Animals trafficked in Mexico on social media sites: report. “A new report suggests that trafficking of wild and endangered species is common in Mexico and occurs largely online, where traffickers contact potential customers on social media like Facebook.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of New Mexico: First-of-its-kind Indigenous Child Language Research Center launched. “Thanks to a $250,000 grant, this virtual center will be the first of its kind in the country. It will document Indigenous language development with a strong focus on producing Navajo speakers at the most critical period of time for acquisition–childhood.”

The New Republic: Well, Twitter Looks Doomed!. “In sum, Musk is facing a real and precipitous loss in the already insufficient advertising dollars which accounted for most of Twitter’s revenue throughout its history. He is throwing his weight behind a hastily designed subscription service that currently provides few tangible benefits for users, appears unlikely to become a stable revenue stream in the near or long term, and undermines Twitter’s basic utility for everyone. And most of his other potential ideas so far—like turning the platform into a payments processor, to name one example—are outlandish and unlikely at best.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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