Intersect of Social MEdia: 120 Years Ago

As the saying goes, it’s foolish to make predictions – especially about the future.

Nothing is more humiliating than to see village idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.      

Gustave Flaubert

Like a stone dropping into still water, your gift ripples out for years to come, ending poverty, hunger and despair for families ... villages ... perhaps one day even entire countries. That's why we think this is The Most Important Gift Catalog in the World.
-Heifer International, Special Towards 2024 Holiday Edition

Who Runs This Place? is a four-part series on RN presented by Richard Aedy, exploring how power works and how it is changing.

In a blog post, Chappatte wrote, “Political cartoons were born with democracy. And they are challenged when freedom is.”

 

Live Science: “Have you ever constructed a mental image of a person you’ve never seen, based solely on their voice? Artificial intelligence (AI) can now do that, generating a digital image of a person’s face using only a brief audio clip for reference. Named Speech2Face, the neural network — a computer that “thinks” in a manner similar to the human brain — was trained by scientists on millions of educational videos from the internet that showed over 100,000 different people talking. From this dataset, Speech2Face learned associations between vocal cues and certain physical features in a human face, researchers wrote in a new study. The AI then used an audio clip to model a photorealistic face matching the voice.

To board a plane without a ticket, just give up your face — and your privacy Seattle Times. A “convenience trap.”


10 of the most powerful Australians you've likely never heard of - ABC News


My that's a lot of books on blogs! But where would you get this idea:

Many bloggers really don't write much at all. They are more like impresarios, curators, or editors, picking and choosing things they find on line, occasionally slapping on a funny headline or adding a snarky (read: snotty and catty) comment. Some days, the only original writing you see on a blog is the equivalent of "Read this.... Take a look.... But, seriously, this is lame.... Can you believe this?"

120 YEARS AGO TODAY:  They say there are 8 million stories in the Naked City.  The Ukranian-American photographer Weegee (real name:  Arthur Fellig) managed to document a lot of them in black and white.  He was born this day in 1899

MEMO TO GEORGE SOROS AND CHARLES KOCH: FUND CAMPUS DEBATES:  My friend Richard Vedder wrote this last month, but I didn’t see it until today.  It’s not a bad idea.  A conspicuously well-funded campus debate program designed to bring real left-right engagement on campuses could be a good thing. Call it “Safe Spaces for Serious Ideas.”

Is China’s social credit system coming to Australia?
the conversation, 29 May 2019. The City of Darwin is adapting elements of the Chinese social credit system for use in Australia. The Chinese system’s monitoring of citizens’ behaviour is “Orwellian”, with frequent comparisons to the dystopian near-future sci-fi of Black Mirror. But for Australians it’s pitched as progress towards a digitally integrated future, embedded innocuously in the “Switching on Darwin” plans for a smarter city.

Awaiting a review of Gerard Henderson's satirical take on Bob Hawke  by Tony Smith ... 

THE STORY BEHIND GERARD HENDERSON’S 1994 FOUR CORNERS PROGRAM ON BOB HAWKE TITLED “THE LOVED ONE”

There has been considerable interest in Gerard Henderson’s obituary to Bob Hawke which appeared in MWD Issue 451 (17 May 2019). Interest focused on Hendo’s account of the Four Corners’

program he presented – titled “The Loved One” – which went to air on Monday 15 August 1994.  It coincided with the publication of Bob Hawke’s memoirs.  Among those interviewed for the program were Bob Hawke, Hazel Hawke, Blanche D’Alpuget, Susan Ryan, Kim Beazley, Gareth Evans, Jim McClelland, Max Walsh and John Ducker.

The late Ian Carroll was Four Corners’ executive producer at the time – and Mick O’Donnell was the producer of “The Loved One”.

In 1995, Professor Ross Fitzgerald asked Gerard Henderson to write on the topic “Affection” for his edited collection titled The Eleven Saving Virtues (October, 1995). Jackie’s (male) co-owner used the opportunity to describe the making of “The Loved One” – focusing on the affection which Bob Hawke believed Australians had for him – and his reciprocal affection for the Australian people.  Or something like that.

How I Tried to Defy the Facebook Algorithm

The social network is predictable and dreary. My quest to make it random and fun.

• JOE PINSKER

The Eleven Saving Virtues  is out of print and it pre-dated the online era.  Those who are interested in “The Making of the Loved One”, or Gerard Henderson’s interpretation of Bob Hawke, can read the essay here.

By the numbers?

A story claiming that Google profits from journalism to the tune of $4.7 billion a year wasn't music to many ears — especially when crunching the numbers.

Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

A group called The News Media Alliance published a study Monday that estimates Google received about $4.7 billion in revenue from the work of news publishers in 2018 via search and Google News — without paying the publishers for that use. The News Media Alliance President and CEO David Chavern said, “News publishers need to continue to invest in quality journalism, and they can’t do that if the platforms take what they want without paying for it. Information wants to be free, but reporters need to get paid.”

The study got plenty of buzz, including a lengthy piece in The New York Times. Not everyone, however, is convinced that the study’s numbers — especially that $4.7 billion part — add up. Columbia Journalism School professor Bill Grueskin tweeted that “now that the study is out, the number appears to be just as shaky as it initially seemed to a few of us.”

He added, “... there’s no effort made in this study to really determine what Google’s actual revenue from news is nor … what benefit the news business has received from Google referrals.”

Aron Pilhofer, the James B. Steele Chair in Journalism Innovation at Temple University, was more blunt, tweeting, “Oh my god is this nonsense,” while pointing out the flaws in the math because it was partly based on a quote from a decade ago.

There also seems to be a bit of an agenda, as the study comes out in advance of today’s House subcommittee hearing on the relationship between big tech companies (such as Google) and the media.

Columbia Journalism Review’s Mathew Ingram tweeted that not only was the study flawed, but it might have been harmful:

“This point has probably been made, but if you use dubious math to try to promote your lobbying efforts, it makes your argument look worse, not better. It implies you not only misunderstand what is happening, but are prepared to use subterfuge to push your agenda.”