Monday, June 01, 2020


Well, that didn’t take long – if it’s a Covid tracing tool. If not, what are they using?
Andy Meek reports:
As the Minnesota protests have spilled across the country, fueled by protestors angered over the police killing of an unarmed Minneapolis man named George Floyd, the protests have morphed into marches and demonstrations that have turned violent everywhere from New York City to Los Angeles. Curfews are being imposed in major cities around the US at the time of this writing, and at least eight states, as well as the District of Columbia, have requested the National Guard to assist local law enforcement.
In some cities like Minneapolis, though, officials are starting to turn to a familiar tool to investigate networks of protestors. The tool is contact-tracing, and it’s a familiar tool in that people have been hearing about it frequently in recent weeks as an important component of a comprehensive coronavirus pandemic response. According to Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner John Harringon, officials there have been using what they describe, without going into much detail, as contact-tracing in order to build out a picture of protestor affiliations — a process that officials in the state say has led them to conclude that much of the protest activity there is being fueled by people from outside coming in.
Read more on BGR.


(Related) Innovation can work two ways...
Lessons in Rapid Innovation From the COVID-19 Pandemic
Solving problems during a crisis demands speeding up innovation by repurposing the knowledge, resources, and technology you already have at hand.




Tools for the digital age.
How to take back the information you’ve given to all your favorite apps and websites
Popular Science: “Social media networks know a lot about you. In fact, that’s their primary job. They want to collect information about you and use that to sell advertisements that you can’t resist. In return for your data, these companies give you a chance to interact with other users and share your life no matter how interesting or banal.
This article provides a quick primer on how to see what data sites have collected about you, as well as how to download and delete it. It’s handy information to have before the next site shuts down or accidentally tells a bunch of bad guys your favorite movie and your cellphone number…”




Might be useful.
EFF’s Guide to Digital Rights During the Pandemic: An eBook
EFF: “As part of EFF’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, we’ve edited and compiled our critical thoughts on digital rights and the pandemic into an ebook: EFF’s Guide to Digital Rights and the Pandemic. To get the ebook, you can make an optional contribution to support EFF’s work, or you can download it at no cost. We released the ebook under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0 ), which permits sharing among users…”




In Australia, everything is upside down.
Media outlets consider High Court appeal over Facebook defamation ruling
Media outlets including Nine and News Corp Australia are considering a High Court challenge after NSW's top court upheld a decision holding media companies legally responsible for "publishing" allegedly defamatory comments posted by readers on their public Facebook pages.
In a decision on Monday, the NSW Court of Appeal said news outlets including the Herald, owned by Nine, and News Corp's The Australian were liable as publishers of readers' Facebook posts because they "encouraged and facilitated" comments by setting up public Facebook pages.
The ruling has implications for other organisations and people with public social media accounts.
In this case, the judges said it was "immaterial" the comments about Mr Voller were "promptly removed" when the outlets became aware of them, because they had "participated in the publication ... from the outset" by inviting comments.
The decision meant "the media cannot share any story via Facebook without fear of being sued" for others' comments.
"It also creates the extraordinary situation where every public Facebook page – whether it be held by politicians, businesses or courts – is now liable for third party comments on those pages," they said.




Perspective. (Why are the ‘reports’ only available as slides?)
The Stitcher Podcasting Report
The report provides a detailed analysis of in-app data, network content and listener demographics as well as an update on changes we’ve been seeing during the coronavirus pandemic.




Might be very handy for researchers. Share lists of your resources.
Every bookmark manager ever made
Bookmarkos – “The following is an attempt to categorize every bookmark manager ever made into the following categories: visual-based, list-based, start pages, search-based, tag-based, tab management, read it later, image bookmarking, privacy focused, sync-based, offline downloadable solutions, and other…”



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