NEW RESOURCES

The Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration: New Tool Launches: “Undocumented Student Communities of Practice” Network and Directory. “‘Undocumented Student Communities of Practice’ [is] a new online tool and directory that aims to share effective practices, host topic-specific meetings and working groups, and facilitate connections for those who work with undocumented immigrant students. More than 100 experts from more than 25 states have already joined the network.”

The Print (India): 80 years of qawwali in Bombay cinema — one man is archiving Hindi music’s crown jewel. “Much before Indians started grooving to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, qawwalis were a jewel in the crown in scores of Bollywood movies through five decades. It featured Muslim characters, showcased the lyricist’s poetry and quickened the pace and plot twists in the storylines. And then the qawwalis in Hindi films started to dwindle. Now, it is largely a phenomenon that has moved on to the realm of scholarly research and study. And Yousuf Saeed, has done just that with The Cinema Qawwali Project.” . I didn’t know what qawwali was, so I checked MegaGladys. The response, sourced from Wikipedia, was “Qawwali is a form of Sufi Islamic devotional singing, originating in South Asia.”

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation: Luandino Vieira’s Prison Papers gathered in a new digital archive. “Most of José Luandino Vieira’s fictional work was written during the 12 years in which he was imprisoned following his political activity in pursuit of Angolan independence…. During his imprisonment, Luandino Vieira produced 17 notebooks composed of diary entries, correspondence, postcards, drawings, popular songs, literary sketches, translation exercises, sayings, texts in Kimbundu, news clippings and notes.” Direct link to the archive because I had a hard time finding it: https://luandino.ces.uc.pt/index.php?&id_lingua=2 . (This link goes to the English version of the site.)

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

i-D: Find My Friends is becoming another form of toxic social media. “…as many continue to share their location with more friends and checking in more often themselves, the tracking app can take on a whole new role in modern relationships. With people openly admitting to keeping track of their friend’s locations multiple times a day, Find My has become an unexpected social media app in its own right.”

The Independent: Autistic teenager attempted suicide after social media sites refused to take down viral video. “An autistic teenager tried to take his own life after a video of him spread online and social media platforms refused to take it down, a former victims’ commissioner has said.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NPR: Congress is holding hearings on how to regulate emerging AI technology. “Another thing lawmakers are focused on today – how to regulate artificial intelligence. After a dinner with members of the House, the CEO of the company behind ChatGPT, Sam Altman, is appearing before a Senate Judiciary panel. We called up Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who chairs that subcommittee.”

Krebs on Security: Re-Victimization from Police-Auctioned Cell Phones. “Countless smartphones seized in arrests and searches by police forces across the United States are being auctioned online without first having the data on them erased, a practice that can lead to crime victims being re-victimized, a new study found.”

Ars Technica: Twitter sued over Saudi spying that allegedly landed popular user in prison. “While based in the United States from 2008 to 2014, human rights activist Abdulrahman Al-Sadhan tweeted critically about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to more than 160,000 followers. After he returned to Saudi Arabia in 2015, his anonymous account allegedly became unmasked by former Twitter employees who were charged with conspiring with the Saudi regime to silence dissidents. Now, his sister, Areej Al-Sadhan, is suing Twitter for allegedly violating its terms of service and giving her brother’s ‘identifying information to the government of Saudi Arabia’ when his Twitter speech should’ve been protected.”

Bleeping Computer: New ZIP domains spark debate among cybersecurity experts. “Cybersecurity researchers and IT admins have raised concerns over Google’s new ZIP and MOV Internet domains, warning that threat actors could use them for phishing attacks and malware delivery.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

African Business: Social media puts pressure on African e-commerce platforms. “A new study reveals that MSMEs in six African countries are increasingly choosing social media to engage in e-commerce, putting pressure on dedicated e-commerce platforms.”

Virginian-Pilot: NASA releases exposure tracker tool for War on Terror veterans. “A new tool, called Source-Differentiated Air Quality System, will help researchers who can then help clinicians in treatment, according to NASA and researchers. It can create charts and files of air pollution concentration at 1,200 bases in Southwest Asia since 2002 for each month. The tool can also provide data about type, severity and length of exposure veterans to pollutants faced by veterans with their exact deployment history.”

Tech Transparency Project: YouTube Leads Young Gamers to Videos of Guns, School Shootings. “YouTube’s algorithms are pushing boys interested in video games to scenes of school shootings, instructions on how to use and modify weapons, and even a movie about notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, according to a study by the Tech Transparency Project (TTP).”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

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