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Daily Archives: June 20, 2019

How to battle an octopus: Keynote remarks from this year’s Global Fact-Checking Summit

Poynter: “Peter Cunliffe-Jones is the founder of the fact-checking organization Africa Check. He delivered the keynote address at Global Fact 6, the annual meeting of the International Fact-checking Network. Below is an edited version of his remarks. “I first became interested in the harm done by misinformation because of a false rumor about vaccines that emerged, not online – in a WhatsApp group, or a hidden space on the dark web – but which started in a Nigerian mosque or mosques, spread to local newspapers, was picked up by a prominent local politician, reported as fact by national papers, and, when the false claims when unchallenged, saw him create bad policy — a vaccine ban — in his state of Kano in the north of the country. Misinformation is often described as spreading like a virus… How do we end the harm that that sort of misinformation causes? Rumors that spread in on- and off-line communities, and are turned into bad practice, or — if they make it to politicians — into bad policy? What Bill Adair says is true.

Fact-checking does keep growing. But look at our budgets, our staffing, our resources, and you have to ask, how can we tackle this sort of misinformation – effectively – when we are still so small? Can we do it alone?  Most academic work on fact-checking has been focused, to date, on the question of whether presenting the public with corrective information – a fact-check – will get them to update a false view. There’s a good reason for that. It’s how most of us work. And despite all the gloomy “post truth” headlines of 2016, there is growing evidence that doing this, in the right format, and repeating it, does work, for a while at least, in helping people to update their views…”

Harvard study reveals that open-plan offices decrease rather than increase face-to-face collaboration

Inc.: “…Over the decades, a lot of really stupid management fads have come and gone, including: Six Sigma, where employees wear different colored belts (like in karate) to show they’ve been trained in the methodology. Stack Ranking, where employees are encouraged to rat each other out in order to secure their own advancement and budget.… Continue Reading

Google testing waters for CBD ads with trial program

Morning Consult – “Alphabet Inc.’s Google is taking steps toward ending its prohibition on advertising for cannabidiol products through a trial program that allows select companies in the budding hemp sub-industry to purchase ads on its platform, according to one CBD retailer that was asked to participate. Shedrack Anderson, co-founder of the CBD-infused skincare line… Continue Reading

Technological Convergence: Regulatory, Digital Privacy, and Data Security Issues

EveryCRSReport.com – Technological Convergence: Regulatory, Digital Privacy, and Data Security Issues. May 30, 2019 R45746. “Technological convergence, in general, refers to the trend or phenomenon where two or more independent technologies integrate and form a new outcome. One example is the smartphone. A smartphone integrated several independent technologies—such as telephone, computer, camera, music player, television… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues June 16, 2019

Via LLRX – Privacy and security issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish… Continue Reading

Millions of Business Listings on Google Maps Are Fake and Google Profits

WSJ.com – Google Maps is filled with false business addresses created by firms pretending to be nearby – “Out of habit, Nancy Carter, a retired federal employee, turned to Google for help one August evening. She ended the night wishing she hadn’t. Ms. Carter had pulled into her Falls Church, Va., driveway and saw the garage… Continue Reading

Using CRISPR to resurrect the dead

CNET: “…As we stuff and mount the dead in museum hallways, scientists are working to stop the carnage. One of our most powerful tools to fight biological obliteration is CRISPR, a burgeoning gene-editing technology that acts like a molecular blade, slicing DNA apart and allowing us to add and subtract genes at will. It’s now… Continue Reading

Why do employers keep providing the same ineffective sexual harassment training?

Quartz: “…The revelations of the Me Too movement prompted a national reckoning about the myriad ways that women are mistreated in the workplace. And though many people agree the movement was an important step in acknowledging the severity and pervasiveness of harassment, it hasn’t yet resulted in concrete ways to mitigate the behavior. It doesn’t… Continue Reading

OCLC partners with publishers to make content discoverable through libraries

“OCLC has signed agreements with leading publishers from around the world to add metadata for high-quality electronic and print books, journals, databases and learning materials that will make their content discoverable through WorldCat Discovery. OCLC has agreements in place with 350 publishers and content providers to supply metadata to facilitate discovery and access to key… Continue Reading