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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici

Librarians Face a Crisis of Violence and Abuse

The New York Times [unpaywalled] – As libraries become public stages for social problems – homelessness, drug use, mental health – the people who work there are burning out: “…Like Mr. [Mychal] Threets. [a supervisor at the Fairfield Civic Center Library in Solano County, Calif], librarians around the country are struggling to reconcile their desire… Continue Reading

Exploiting Meta’s Weaknesses, Deceptive Political Ads Thrived on Facebook and Instagram in Run-Up to Election

ProPublica: Reporting Highlights Deceptive Political Ads: Eight deceptive advertising networks have placed over 160,000 election and social issues ads across more than 340 Facebook pages in English and Spanish. Harmed Users: Some of the people who clicked on ads were unwittingly signed up for monthly credit card charges or lost health coverage, among other consequences.… Continue Reading

Prebunking Elections Rumors: Artificial Intelligence Assisted Interventions Increase Confidence in American Elections

Mitchell Linegar, arXiv:2410.19202. 24 Oct 2024 – Large Language Models (LLMs) can assist in the prebunking of election misinformation. Using results from a preregistered two-wave experimental study of 4,293 U.S. registered voters conducted in August 2024, we show that LLM-assisted prebunking significantly reduced belief in specific election myths,with these effects persisting for at least one… Continue Reading

What is Causing Our Epidemic of Loneliness and How Can We Fix It?

Harvard Graduate School of Education – Researchers share what Americans have to say about social disconnection and potential solutions – “U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy placed a spotlight on America’s problem with loneliness when he declared the issue an epidemic last year. Murthy explained, in a letter that introduced an urgent advisory, that loneliness is… Continue Reading

LinkedIn sued for tracking user health data

ALM Benefits Pro: “Business-focused social media platform LinkedIn has been slapped with three digital privacy class actions contending that it illegally intercepted users’ sensitive health care information to use in targeted advertising. All three cases, filed by Bursor & Fisher in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and the Santa Clara County… Continue Reading

The Verge’s guide to the 2024 presidential election

The Verge: “A presidential campaign is an expression of ideology, often vocalized as a number of promises. Sometimes, those promises are made even when they’re outside the scope of what a president can enact. With Vice President Kamala Harris taking on former President Donald Trump, The Verge’s election guide attempts to cut through the noise… Continue Reading

LinkedIn launches its first AI agent to take on the role of job recruiters

TechCrunch: “LinkedIn, the social platform used by professionals to connect with others in their field, hunt for jobs, and develop skills, is taking the wraps off its latest effort to build artificial intelligence tools for users. Hiring Assistant is a new product designed to take on a wide array of recruitment tasks, from ingesting scrappy… Continue Reading