NEW RESOURCES

FTC: Updated FTC-HHS publication outlines privacy and security laws and rules that impact consumer health data. “Ever wondered about the intersection of some of the health privacy and security-related laws and rules enforced by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Health and Human Services? You’re not alone, which is why FTC and HHS have teamed up to update a joint publication – Collecting, Using, or Sharing Consumer Health Information? Look to HIPAA, the FTC Act, and the Health Breach Notification Rule – that helps businesses learn more about their legal obligations.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Game Rant: Twitch Reveals 2 New Modding Features . “Twitch has announced two moderation features, which are intended to make a live streamer’s community safer. These two features are the ability to share a banned user’s comments and a new ‘shield mode’ alongside the current ‘Mod View’ that is integrated into the streaming platform’s available features. These new Twitch tools are available now for moderators to experiment with and try out.”

Marketing/Beat: Revival strategy: X turns to Google to sell programmatic ads. “X,formerly Twitter, will start receiving programmatic ads for Google as it continues to seek new advertising supply sources to replenish its funds. Google confirmed today that X would use the programmatic ad platform for publishers, Google Ads Manager, to participate in online auctions to sell its inventory.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Markup: Twitter is Still Throttling Competitors’ Links—Check for Yourself. “Twitter continues to slow traffic to competing sites nearly a month after it partially pulled back from such throttling, a Markup analysis has found. Users of the social platform, now officially known as X, are made to wait on average about two and a half seconds after clicking on links to Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, and Substack, the analysis found. That’s more than 60 times longer than the average wait for links to other sites.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: TikTok Rankles Employees With Return-to-Office Tracking Tools. “TikTok employees in the United States expressed frustration and dismay this week after the company introduced a tool for tracking office attendance and threatened disciplinary action for failing to comply with new in-person mandates, in an unusual effort to get workers back into the office with custom data-collection technology.”

Engadget: Billboard’s latest top 50 chart pulls the biggest tracks from TikTok. “TikTok and Billboard are collaborating on a pop music chart. TikTok Billboard Top 50 Chart is a new weekly roundup listing the most popular songs on the social platform in the US. The list debuts with the track ‘SkeeYee’ by Sexyy Red taking the inaugural top spot.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Los Angeles Times: California lawmakers pass bill to make it easier to delete online personal data. “California lawmakers on Thursday passed a bill known as the Delete Act that would allow consumers, with a single request, to have every data broker delete their personal information. Data brokers include a variety of businesses that gather and sell people’s personal information, such as their address, marital status and spending habits. Those companies include credit reporting agencies, people-search sites and data analytic firms that work with political campaigns.”

Boing Boing: Typeface trolls shaking down users of Adobe’s font platform. “Do you use a font through Adobe’s font platform? Is it Proxima Nova? Users of the typeface report being threatened by a foundry that claims to represent its creator, and Adobe isn’t taking calls. The copyright troll business model, where lawyers demand money from people who know that proving their innocence would cost even more, has come to the land of fancy fonts.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington State University: Machine learning innovation reduces computer power usage. “A framework that uses machine learning to make decisions about power usage can reduce energy use by up to 60% without affecting computing performance in multi-core processors used in large servers around the world.”

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: Study: YouTube did not actively direct users toward anti-vaccine content during COVID-19. “New research led by data science experts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and United Nations Global Pulse found that there is no strong evidence that YouTube promoted anti-vaccine sentiment during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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