NEW RESOURCES

International Labour Organization: New ILO Research Repository showcases ILO research and expertise. “The International Labour Organization (ILO) has launched a new Research Repository that provides better access to ILO research, as well as information on the work of ILO experts. The new repository creates a one-stop-shop for ILO research publications and other knowledge assets. It already contains around 20,000 publications, mostly published since 2000.”

NOAA: NOAA unveils new tool for exploring coral reef data. “NOAA’s National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) launched a new data visualization tool today, which will provide free and easy-to-access information on the status of U.S. coral reefs. It is the first tool focusing on shallow tropical coral reef data to be hosted on the NOAA GeoPlatform, which is NOAA’s central hub for geospatial data and tools.”

EVENTS

National Diet Library, Japan: Handing down memories of the earthquake and traditions of the community—the FY2023 Great East Japan Earthquake Archive Symposium will be held on January 8, 2024. “The National Diet Library and the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at Tohoku University (IRIDeS) will cosponsor a symposium on the Great East Japan Earthquake Archive to be held Monday, January 8, 2024, a national holiday in Japan. Interested parties will be able either to attend the event at Tohoku University in Sendai, Miyagi, or to watch a live video stream online.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Change in X’s terms indicate EU researchers will get API access. “After taking over Twitter last year, Elon Musk famously yanked API access from third-party apps and changed API pricing tiers to make it difficult for researchers to access and study the platform’s data. Now the company he’s since renamed X has backtracked in the European Union where legal obligations in the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA) require larger platforms (so called VLOPs) to provide data access to external researchers doing public interest research on systemic risks.”

Gizmodo: Google’s ChatGPT Competitor Will Have to Wait. “Google is having a hard time catching up with OpenAI. Google’s competitor to ChatGPT will not be ready until early 2024, after previously telling some cloud customers it would get to use Gemini AI in November of this year, sources told The Information Thursday.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Jewish Celebrities and Influencers Confront TikTok Executives in Private Call. “More than a dozen Jewish TikTok creators and celebrities confronted TikTok executives and other employees in a private meeting on Wednesday night, urging them to do more to address a surge of antisemitism and harassment on the popular video service.”

404 Media: Users Can’t Speak to Viral AI Girlfriend CarynAI Because CEO Is in Jail for Arson. “People who paid to speak to an AI girlfriend modeled after real life 23-year-old influencer Caryn Marjorie are distraught because the service they paid for, Forever Companions, no longer works. It appears that the service stopped working shortly after Forever Companion CEO and founder John Meyer was arrested for trying to set his own apartment on fire.”

California State Library: More than $1.5 Million in California Civil Liberties Public Education Grants Now Available. (This link goes to a PDF.) “California community groups, artists, authors and filmmakers, can now apply for more than $1.5 million to create educational materials, documentaries, and online exhibits as part of the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program. Applications for grants from the program are now available online and due back January 15, 2024. The civil liberties program pays for projects that educate the public about the history and lessons of civil rights violations and injustices, such as the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, as well as treatment of other communities and populations.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Times of India: Deepfakes: Social media companies summoned over deepfakes. “The Indian government has summoned social media giants, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (now known as X), and YouTube, to discuss the law of deepfakes. This comes in response to a recent controversy overa fake video of actress Rashmika Mandanna.”

Mashable: Elon Musk’s X: Ad watchdog files FTC complaint against it for not clearly disclosing ads. “Elon Musk’s new ad policies for X may cost the company after an online advertising watchdog officially filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Check My Ads, an independent organization that monitors adtech companies, announced on Wednesday that it submitted a formal complaint with the FTC, ‘urging’ for an investigation into X and its ad practices.”

Bleeping Computer: Google: Hackers exploited Zimbra zero-day in attacks on govt orgs. “According to Google’s threat analysts, the threat actors exploited the vulnerability on government systems in Greece, Moldova, Tunisia, Vietnam, and Pakistan to steal email data, user credentials, and authentication tokens, perform email forwarding, and lead victims to phishing pages.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Chapman University: Exposing the Holocaust Lies on the Dark Side of Wikipedia . “Our study, published in February 2023 in the peer-reviewed ‘Journal of Holocaust Research,’ exposed a persistent Holocaust disinformation campaign on English Wikipedia. In 60 heavily footnoted pages, we examined two dozen Wikipedia articles on the Holocaust in Poland and more than 300 back pages (talk pages, noticeboards and arbitration cases — spaces where editors decide what the rest of the world will accept as fact).” Good morning, Internet…

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