EFF:”…In documenting social movements we must remember social media is not an archive, and platforms will only store (and gate keep) user work insofar as it’s profitable, just as they only make it accessible to the public when it is profitable to do so. But when platforms fail, with them goes the history of everyday voices speaking to… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: January 2024
Elon Musk Is Spreading Election Misinformation
The New York Times – but X’s Fact Checkers Are Long Gone “Civil rights lawyers and Democrats are sounding alarms about Mr. Musk’s claims about voting. The Biden campaign called his posts “profoundly irresponsible.”…This month, Elon Musk, who has since bought Twitter and rebranded it X, echoed several of Mr. Trump’s claims about the American… Continue Reading
Cooked
“Cooked summarizes web pages into a short recipe version which you can save and read while cooking. Organizes your recipes automatically. Its a breeze to find your old favorites and share them with your friends. More than just a cookbook. Cooked understands your recipes and simplifies your everyday shopping and cooking. Smart shopping lists. Cooked… Continue Reading
Gigafact equips newsrooms to counter misinformation, protect the democratic process
“Online misinformation is rampant. At the same time, the supply of factual and well-sourced knowledge has never been greater nor easier to access. Gigafact’s goal is to empower credible sources to counter the unsupported claims that are undermining democratic society, and provide a process for rebuilding our factual foundations. We believe that fact checks published… Continue Reading
“We Buy Ugly Houses” Company Overhauls Policies in the Wake of ProPublica Investigation
ProPublica: “HomeVestors of America, the self-described largest home buyer in the country, is continuing to reform some of its business practices in the wake of a ProPublica investigation last year that revealed predatory tactics used by the company’s franchises toward homeowners in vulnerable situations. The company’s 1,100 “We Buy Ugly Houses” franchises will now be… Continue Reading
Inside a Global Phone Spy Tool Monitoring Billions
404 Media: “Hundreds of thousands of ordinary apps, including popular ones such as 9gag, Kik, and a series of caller ID apps, are part of a global surveillance capability that starts with ads inside each app, and ends with the apps’ users being swept up into a powerful mass monitoring tool advertised to national security… Continue Reading
Police Data Accessibility Project
Data is Plural: “The Police Data Accessibility Project is compiling a meta-dataset of police records: where to find them online, what time period they cover, how often they’re updated, and other characteristics. The searchable, downloadable dataset includes links to 1,700+ resources, such as traffic stop datasets, crime maps, use-of-force reports, contract and policy listings, and… Continue Reading
PFAS Maryland Fish Consumption Advisory Map
“Brent Walls, Upper Potomac Riverkeeper, has become an expert on the growing issue of PFAS – toxic “legacy” chemicals – which we are finding in more and more places. He has created a map which identifies monitoring locations where Maryland’s Department of the Environment (MDE) collected fish tissue samples from various species, oyster sampling and… Continue Reading
Buried But Not Forgotten: Coal Ash in the Chesapeake
Waterkeepers Chesapeake – “The Chesapeake Bay region has a problem it thought it could bury and forget. But the solution for coal ash is not so simple. Coal ash, also referred to as coal combustion residuals or CCRs, is produced primarily from the burning of coal in coal-fired power plants. Coal ash contains hazardous pollutants… Continue Reading
How Walmart’s Financial Services Became a Fraud Magnet
ProPublica: “Scammers have duped consumers out of more than $1 billion by exploiting Walmart’s lax security. The company has resisted taking responsibility while breaking promises to regulators and skimping on training…America’s largest retailer has long been a facilitator of fraud on a mass scale, a ProPublica investigation has found. For roughly a decade, Walmart has… Continue Reading
Ring Will No Longer Facilitate Police Requests for Footage from Users
EFF: “Amazon’s Ring has announced that it will no longer facilitate police’s warrantless requests for footage from Ring users. This is a victory in a long fight, not just against blanket police surveillance, but also against a culture in which private, for-profit companies build special tools to allow law enforcement to more easily access companies’… Continue Reading
Return-to-Office Mandates
Ding, Yuye and Ma, Mark (Shuai), Return-to-Office Mandates (December 25, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4675401 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4675401 “Using a sample of Standard and Poor’s 500 firms, we examine determinants and consequences of U.S. firms’ return-to-office (RTO) mandates. Results of our determinant analyses are consistent with managers using RTO mandates to reassert control over employees and… Continue Reading
