Saturday, March 02, 2019

Could social media talk a country into war?
While Two Nuclear Powers Were On The Brink Of War, A Full-Blown Online Misinformation Battle Was Underway
India and Pakistan, both countries that possess over a hundred nuclear warheads each, came close to the brink of war this week. But even as fighter aircraft from both nations invaded each other’s air space, a full-blown misinformation war about the conflict raged on the internet.
Misinformation has been used to start wars throughout history. It would be foolish to think that our time is the exception to the rule,” Aviv Ovadya, cofounder of the Thoughtful Technology Project, a San Francisco–based nonprofit dedicated to preventing harmful misinformation, told BuzzFeed News.
… India and Pakistan have fought wars previously and have been engaged in a decadeslong territorial dispute over the Kashmir Valley. But this conflict is the first one to take place since social media became ubiquitous.
Fact-checkers in India say that the deluge of misinformation around tensions between India and Pakistan that has flooded the internet is “unprecedented.” Also unusual was the fact that official handles run by the Pakistan army shared two videos (one was later deleted) of the Indian pilot captured on Pakistani soil. The deleted video showed the pilot injured and being escorted away from mobs by Pakistan’s army soon after his plane crashed — it was released before the Indian government confirmed that the pilot was now a prisoner of war, and is still being shared by right-wing Indian WhatsApp groups. The second video, which was shared by the Pakistan military’s official spokesperson soon after, had a palliative effect on revenge-thirsty Indian Twitter: After seeing the Indian pilot praising Pakistani officers for being “thorough gentlemen” and drinking their tea, people online slowly began to favor the hashtag #SayNoToWar, as opposed to #SayYesToWar, which had been trending before.




One definition of “vulnerable.”
America’s Cities Are Running on Software From the ’80s
The only place in San Francisco still pricing real estate like it’s the 1980s is the city assessor’s office. Its property tax system dates back to the dawn of the floppy disk. City employees appraising the market work with software that runs on a dead programming language and can’t be used with a mouse. Assessors are prone to make mistakes when using the vintage software because it can’t display all the basic information for a given property on one screen. The staffers have to open and exit several menus to input stuff as simple as addresses. To put it mildly, the setup “doesn’t reflect business needs now,” says the city’s assessor, Carmen Chu.




Privacy (in the abstract) is bipartisan, nothing else is.
James Strawbridge of Covington & Burling writes:
At a February 27, 2019 hearing on “Privacy Principles for a Federal Data Privacy Framework in the United States,” Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Commerce, Science, & Transportation Committee offered different perspectives on whether new federal privacy legislation should preempt state privacy laws.
Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS), who described the hearing as a chance to “set the stage” for bipartisan legislation, stressed the importance of preemption, as did Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). Wicker noted that a national standard would provide greater certainty for consumers, and that a preemptive framework does not necessarily mean “weaker” protections than those included in state privacy laws. Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA), by contrast, said the focus on preemption (rather than new rights for consumers) was “disturbing,” and wondered if U.S. companies were trying to “shut down” the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”). Similarly, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) warned that U.S. companies must convince Congress that they want “something more” than just preemption.
Despite their apparent differences on preemption, committee members broadly agreed that the “notice and choice” approach to privacy protections is insufficient.
Read more on InsidePrivacy.




For the tool kit.
Microsoft Excel will now let you snap a picture of a spreadsheet and import it
Microsoft is adding a very useful feature to its Excel mobile apps for iOS and Android. It allows Excel users to take a photo of a printed data table and convert it into a fully editable table in the app. This feature is rolling out initially in the Android Excel app, before making its way to iOS soon. Microsoft is using artificial intelligence to implement this feature, with image recognition so that Excel users don’t have to manually input hardcopy data. The feature will be available to Microsoft 365 users.


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