Reuters Investigates: “Wheels falling off cars at speed. Suspensions collapsing on brand-new vehicles. Axles breaking under acceleration. Tens of thousands of customers told Tesla about a host of part failures on low-mileage cars. The automaker sought to blame drivers for vehicle ‘abuse,’ but Tesla documents show it had tracked the chronic ‘flaws’ and ‘failures’ for… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
Protecting Students from Faulty Software and Legislation: 2023 Year in Review
EFF: “Lawmakers, schools districts, educational technology companies and others keep rolling out legislation and software that threatens students’ privacy, free speech, and access to social media, in the name of “protecting” children. At EFF, we fought back against this overreach and demand accountability and transparency. Bad bills and invasive monitoring systems, though sometimes well-meaning, hurt… Continue Reading
The Atlas of Surveillance Hits Major Milestones: 2023 in Review
EFF: “If you haven’t checked out the Atlas of Surveillance recently, or ever before, you absolutely should. It includes a searchable database and an interactive map, and anyone can download the data for their own projects. As this collaboration with the University of Nevada Reno’s Reynolds School of Journalism (RSJ) finishes its fifth year, we… Continue Reading
Want to go plastic-free in 2024?
Fast Company: Want to go plastic-free in 2024? Here’s the realistic way I’m cutting out single-use plastic – “Heading into 2024, living without plastic feels as impossible as living without water, medicine, or clothing. Plastic is everywhere—from the depths of the oceans to our blood-brain layers. Despite needing ~1,000 years to decompose, we rely on… Continue Reading
How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7
The New York Times, December 28, 2023. ‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7. A Times investigation uncovered new details showing a pattern of rape, mutilation and extreme brutality against women in the attacks on Israel…A two-month investigation by The Times uncovered painful new details, establishing that the attacks against women… Continue Reading
52 things I learned in 2023
Kent Hendricks · December 28, 2023 – This is such an interesting list with so many subjects covered. Some are whimsical and many others are a fact checkers delight. Enjoy and hope you will click and read the links to articles referenced. From the list: Twelve plant species and five animal species are responsible for… Continue Reading
Massive Spikes In Antisemitic Google Searches Across the Globe
Mid East Journal, December 27, 2023: Quantifying the rise in global antisemitism by evaluating the increase in antisemitic Google search queries since the events of October 7. Google searches drive more than 50% of web traffic, with estimates putting the number of searches per day at more than eight billion. The search terms people use… Continue Reading
The World’s Top Thinkers 2024: ideas for a world on the brink
Prospect: “As a planet and a civilisation we are approaching tipping points—some frightening, others freeing—that will transform life as we know it. Here, we present our annual list of intellectuals—from priests and strategists to neuroscientists and historians—who will help us navigate the world in the year ahead.” Continue Reading
Non-Sketchy News Search
“Find News Sources on Wikipedia and Search Them Via Google With Non-Sketchy News Search. When you search Google News, you’re trusting that all the sources included in your results are legitimate. Often that’s the case, but there are a lot of bad actors trying to poison Google’s search results with disinformation, propaganda sites, and other… Continue Reading
Misinformation Monitor: December 2023
News Guard Misinformation Monitor: December 27, 2023: “The rise of artificial intelligence in 2023 transformed the misinformation landscape, providing new tools for bad actors to create authentic-looking articles, images, audio, videos, and even entire websites to advance false or polarizing narratives meant to sow confusion and distrust. NewsGuard monitored and exposed how AI tools are… Continue Reading
An Exhausting Year in (and Out of) the Office
The New Yorker [read free]: After successive waves of post-pandemic change, worn-out knowledge workers need a fresh start. “It’s been almost four years since the coronavirus pandemic inaugurated a period of sustained upheaval for knowledge workers. The first wave of change came in early 2021, with the Great Resignation—a mass exodus from the workforce that… Continue Reading
International Threats to Freedom of Expression: 2023 Year in Review
EFF: “2023 has been an unfortunate reminder that the right to free expression is most fragile for groups on the margins, and that it can quickly become a casualty during global conflicts. Threats to speech arose out of the ongoing war in Palestine. They surfaced in bills and laws around the world that explicitly restrict… Continue Reading
