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Daily Archives: August 1, 2019

This Tool Lets You See Facebook’s Targeted Political Ads All Over the World

Vice – Facebook has failed to be fully transparent with data concerning political advertising, so two researchers collected the data themselves.”A team of two researchers has created the most comprehensive visualization of Facebook’s political advertisements. Detailing hundreds of thousands of ads across 34 countries by more than 150 political actors, ad.watch is a new tool aimed at providing transparency to political advertisements on the platform.Three years after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which user data was used to target political ads, someone has finally made a way for ordinary people to learn which political campaign ads are being posted on Facebook all around the world. “With ad.watch, you can explore both country-specific contextual issues and political strategies, as well as broader questions about the power of persuasion that the use of personal data facilitates,” the website notes. “Through our interfaces, you can understand targeting and optimization, compare monetary investment, and trace the timelines of ads.”…”

Edward Snowden memoir to reveal whistleblower’s secrets

The Guardian – In Permanent Record, the former spy will recount how his mass surveillance work eventually led him to make the biggest leak in history – “After multiple books and films about his decision to leak the biggest cache of top-secret documents in history, whistleblower Edward Snowden is set to tell his side of the… Continue Reading

Public Libraries Respond to the Opioid Crisis in Collaboration with Their Communities: An Introduction

Public Libraries Respond to the Opioid Crisis in Collaboration with Their Communities: An Introduction By Michele Coleman and Lynn Silipigni Connaway. “The nation is experiencing an opioid epidemic. As communities across the country feel the epidemic’s impact, public health and human service organizations are implementing responses that include healthcare, education, law enforcement and the judicial system,… Continue Reading

Originalism and Stare Decisis in the Lower Courts

Blackman, Josh, Originalism and Stare Decisis in the Lower Courts (July 22, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3424348 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3424348 “The tension between originalism and stare decisis is well known. Many of the Supreme Court’s most significant constitutional decisions are completely unmoored from the original public understanding of the Constitution. A Supreme Court Justice may recognize… Continue Reading

Museums Need to Step Into the Future

The New York Times – “America’s museums are more than repositories of ancient Greek statues and Renaissance paintings. They are guardians of a fading social and demographic order. On Thursday, Warren Kanders resigned from the board of the Whitney Museum of Art, after protests over his company’s sale of tear gas grenades that were reportedly… Continue Reading

California privacy act interpretation could make common newsgathering practice unlawful

Reporters Committee for Freedom of Information – ” The California court of appeal is considering an expansive interpretation of state privacy law — in a pending lawsuit pending involving Yelp — that would make it unlawful to take notes during telephone conversations. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a coalition of 17… Continue Reading

Your Job Will Be Automated—Here’s How to Figure out When A.I. Could Take Over

Fortune – “Automation is increasingly making its way into the workplace, raising concerns among employees about the ways technology will change their jobs—or eliminate them entirely. A June 2019 report by Oxford Economics predicts that 8.5% of the world’s manufacturing positions alone—some 20 million jobs—will be displaced by robots by 2030. But that’s the wrong… Continue Reading