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Monthly Archives: May 2020

U.S. House approves remote voting, though the tech is unclear

TechCrunch: “Congress will allow remote voting for the first time in its history, after the U.S. House approved Resolution 965 late Friday in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The measure — sponsored by Massachusetts Representative Jim McGovern — authorizes proxy voting by members for renewable periods of 45 days and allows for remote participation in… Continue Reading

Google censored search results after bogus copyright claims

Reclaim the Net – “We recently did a deep-dive for members about how the DMCA and copyright claims are one of the greatest growing threats to free speech online. Now, an investigation has revealed that Google has fallen victim to fake copyright notices and is taking down several legitimate news articles and similar search results.… Continue Reading

The Rise of the Anti-Lockdown Sheriffs

The Marshall Project – Opposition to stay-at-home orders is the latest example of a history of powerful sheriffs, which stretches back to the end of slavery and the settling of the frontier. “…Mike Herrington [Chaves County NM] is one of at least 60 sheriffs nationwide, spread across more than a dozen states, who are publicly… Continue Reading

We Can Prevent a Great Depression. It’ll Take $10 Trillion.

Derek Thomson – The Atlantic – Don’t think of that number as “big” or “bold.” Just think of it as the appropriate dosage for a once-in-a-century economic affliction: “Last week, House Democrats unveiled their latest pandemic-relief package. The bill combines aid for families, a bailout for struggling cities and states, and additional funds for testing,… Continue Reading

China has been trying to avoid fallout from coronavirus

CNN – Now 100 countries are pushing for an investigation: “Russia has joined about 100 countries in backing a resolution at the upcoming World Health Assembly (WHA), calling for an independent inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic. The European Union-drafted resolution comes on the back of a push by Australia for an inquiry into China’s initial… Continue Reading

Developing policies for effective COVID-19 containment: The TRACE model

Brookings – “States across the U.S. are considering paths to re-opening following months of stay-at-home orders and a widespread shuttering of the economy in response to the threat of COVID-19. Policymakers now face the task of crafting strategies that will allow resumption of activity without producing additional waves of infection that could do even more… Continue Reading

The Economist published data and code for mortality tracker

Economist data journalist James Tozer via Twitter – “NEW, FREE DATA: We have just published the code and data behind our excess mortality tracker on Github. We believe this is the first public resource to provide this information, and we hope academics and journalists can use it for their research https://github.com/TheEconomist/covid-19-excess-deaths-tracker. For several weeks @martgnz… Continue Reading

Facebook released dataset of 10,000 hateful memes

Facebook AI Blog: “…In order for AI to become a more effective tool for detecting hate speech, it must be able to understand content the way people do: holistically. When viewing a meme, for example, we don’t think about the words and photo independently of each other; we understand the combined meaning together. This is… Continue Reading