NEW RESOURCES

International Journalists’ Network: New data storytelling tool available for journalists [Asia]. “Kontinentalist, a Singapore-based media that tells data stories about Asia, is launching Lapis, a no-code data storytelling tool that facilitates real-time collaboration and long-term community building, in December. The tool aims to spearhead data storytelling excellence in Asia and beyond, with support from the 2022 Google News Initiative (GNI) Challenge. Interested journalists can sign up to be one of the first on the new platform or help shape the tool as an alpha tester.”

National Security Archive: Henry Kissinger’s Documented Legacy. “To contribute to a balanced and more comprehensive evaluation of Kissinger’s legacy, the National Security Archive has compiled a small, select dossier of declassified records—memos, memcons, and ‘telcons’ that Kissinger wrote, said and/or read—documenting TOP SECRET deliberations, operations and policies during Kissinger’s time in the White House and Department of State.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

India Today: Google Maps Street View now available across India, even small village and town roads mapped and photographed. “The Google Maps Street View feature appears to be available in most Indian cities, letting users experience a ‘virtual representation’ of their surroundings. Google announced Street View for Maps in India last year, though it was initially launched in Bengaluru on a pilot basis.”

PC Magazine: YouTube Stories Heading for the Google Graveyard. “YouTube’s answer to Instagram stories, YouTube Stories, is being killed off. In a blog post(Opens in a new window) announcing the move, Google said that starting June 26 users will no longer be able to post Stories, and their existing posts will expire seven days after that.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Screen Rant: Shonen Jump Develops AI Manga Writing Tool, Steps Into Controversy. “Shonen Jump+’s Deputy Editor-in-Chief Yuta Momiyama tweeted out a link to the company’s new AI tool Comic-Copilot (or Comicopa for short), which is intended to help mangaka with simple tasks like refining dialogue and creating character names. Mangakas can ask the AI a question or give it a request and Comicopa will attempt to help them the best it can. The website stresses that the tool is meant to be used as an aid for mangakas and not their replacement and as of now this certainly rings true.”

CNN: Google removes ‘Slavery Simulator’ game from store following a wave of criticism in Brazil. ” A game entitled ‘Slavery Simulator,’ where players can ‘buy and sell’ enslaved Black characters, has been taken down from Google’s app store after widespread criticism from Brazilian social media users.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: The cyber gulag: How Russia tracks, censors and controls its citizens. “Rights advocates say that Russia under President Vladimir Putin has harnessed digital technology to track, censor and control the population, building what some call a ‘cyber gulag’ — a dark reference to the labor camps that held political prisoners in Soviet times. It’s new territory, even for a nation with a long history of spying on its citizens.”

The Hacker News: Severe Flaw in Google Cloud’s Cloud SQL Service Exposed Confidential Data. “A new security flaw has been disclosed in the Google Cloud Platform’s (GCP) Cloud SQL service that could be potentially exploited to obtain access to confidential data.”

NPR: TikTok sues Montana over its new law banning the app. “TikTok has filed a federal lawsuit against Montana after the state passed a law last week intended to ban the app from being downloaded within its borders. The widely expected lawsuit argues that banning a hugely popular social media app amounts to an illegal suppression of free speech tantamount to censorship.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Columbia Journalism Review: How the media is covering ChatGPT. “In order to better understand how ChatGPT is being covered by newsrooms, we interviewed a variety of academics and journalists on how the media has been framing coverage of generative AI chatbots. We also pulled data on the volume of coverage in online news using the Media Cloud database and on TV news using data from the Internet TV News Archive, which we acquired via The GDELT Project’s API, in order to get a sketch of the coverage so far.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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