Brooklyn Public Library Launches Campaign Against State Book Bans
“The Books UnBanned campaign provides youth ages 13 to 21 with online access to banned books.” Just superb. [Link]
Ben Werdmuller
Ben Werdmuller helps leaders at newsrooms, non-profits, and mission-driven organizations to navigate their biggest technology challenges.
Supreme Court Denies Equal Rights To Puerto Ricans — Again
““Equal treatment of citizens should not be left to the vagaries of the political process,” Sotomayor wrote. “Because residents of Puerto Rico do not have voting representation in Congress, they cannot rely on their elected representatives to remedy the punishing disparities suffered by citizen residents of Puerto Rico under Congress’
Planting Undetectable Backdoors in Machine Learning Models
“Given the computational cost and technical expertise required to train machine learning models, users may delegate the task of learning to a service provider. We show how a malicious learner can plant an undetectable backdoor into a classifier. On the surface, such a backdoored classifier behaves normally, but in reality,
On anti-crypto toxicity
“If you feel the urge to “cyberbully” someone in crypto, direct it at the powerful players behind crypto projects that are actively taking advantage of the vulnerable. Or, just as reasonably, direct it at the powerful tech executives, venture capitalists, elected representatives, and lobbyists who have contributed to the untenable
Black principals receive leadership training, support through new initiatives
“Studies link Black principals, especially women, to better academic performance. New initiatives aim to train and support them.” [Link]
Elon, Twitter, and the future of social media
While I don’t think the guy who runs racist factories is necessarily the right person to buy a prominent social media company in order to “save democracy”, he’s right about one thing: if Twitter is to truly be a public square, the algorithm needs to be open sourced.
Reversing hearing loss with regenerative therapy
“In Frequency’s first clinical study, the company saw statistically significant improvements in speech perception in some participants after a single injection, with some responses lasting nearly two years.” [Link]
Ukraine using ClearviewAI facial recognition to identify Russian war dead
“In another conversation, a stranger sent a message to a Russian mother saying her son was dead, alongside a photo showing a man’s body in the dirt — face grimacing and mouth agape. The recipient responded with disbelief, saying it wasn’t him, before the sender passed along another photo
A tattoo is for life
As part of the ongoing mid-life crisis that brought me electric blue hair and a new car, I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo. Of course, if I’m going to mark my body, I’d like it to be the most meaningful (and potentially the nerdiest) image
A Web Renaissance
“So if we have the tech, then why hasn’t it happened already? The biggest thing that may be missing is just awareness of the modern web’s potential. Unlike the Facebooks and Googles of the world, the open, creative web doesn’t have a billion-dollar budget for promoting
How Silicon Valley is helping Putin and other tyrants win the information war
““The power that Facebook has is scary. The way it is using it is even scarier,” a Russian journalist, who did not want to be named due to security concerns, told me. Her account was suspended after she was reported to Facebook by numerous accounts accusing her of violating community
Stop matching lone female Ukraine refugees with single men, UK told
“The UN refugee agency has called on the UK government to intervene to stop single British men from being matched up with lone Ukrainian women seeking refuge from war because of fears of sexual exploitation.” Gross. [Link]