eLearning news from e/merge Africa https://emergeafrica.newsblur.com/2019-05-21T13:17:33.720000ZemergeafricaFacebook’s latest account purge exposes Africa’s misinformation problem2019-05-21T13:17:33.720000ZJake Brighthttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/BZ2OtfPAYA8/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<p id="speakable-summary">Facebook last week purged a network of hundreds of pages, groups and Instagram accounts it labeled as producing “coordinated inauthentic behavior” toward Africa.</p>
<p>The activity originated in Israel and was largely targeted toward Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Angola, Niger, and Tunisia.</p>
<p>It was mostly political in nature and primarily paid for by <a href="https://www.ar-gr.com/">Archemedes Group</a>, a global political consulting firm, <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/05/removing-coordinated-inauthentic-behavior-from-israel/">Facebook said</a>.</p>
<p>This isn’t the first case of social media platforms used as vehicles for political manipulation in Africa. Cambridge Analytica, the controversial big-data actor employed in Brexit and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory, was active on the continent before and after both events.</p>
<p>On its recent Africa related deletions, Facebook said:</p>
<blockquote><p>The people behind this network used fake accounts to run Pages, disseminate their content and artificially increase engagement. They also represented themselves as locals, including local news organizations, and published allegedly leaked information about politicians. The Page administrators and account owners frequently posted about political news, including topics like elections in various countries, candidate views and criticism of political opponents.</p></blockquote>
<p>The activity took place over 65 Facebook accounts, 161 Pages, 23 Groups, 12 events and four Instagram accounts. There were 2.8 million accounts that followed one or more of these pages and 5,500 accounts joined at least one of these Groups.</p>
<p>Facebook said more than $800,000 was spent on ads associated with these accounts starting in December 2012 and running as recently as April this year.</p>
<p>Facebook declined to offer TechCrunch additional information on the account deletions beyond their release. But the Atlantic Council’s <a href="https://twitter.com/benimmo/status/1129027958784581632">Digital Forensic Research Lab</a> (DFRL) has been digging deeper and released some initial findings <a href="https://medium.com/dfrlab/inauthentic-israeli-facebook-assets-target-the-world-281ad7254264">in a Medium Post</a>. In addition to connecting the accounts to activity in Ghana — a country not named in FB’s release — DFRL shed some light on fake news targeted at Nigeria’s February 2019 elections.</p>
<p>Examples included a “Make Nigeria Worse Again” trolling initiative aimed at the campaign of Atiku Abubakar, who was challenger to Nigeria’s incumbent president Muhammadu Buhari — who won a second-term.</p>
<p><img alt="" class="breakout alignnone wp-image-1829603" height="535" src="https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Facebook-Africa-Fake-News-Nigeria.png" width="900" /></p>
<p>DFRL also <a href="https://medium.com/dfrlab/inauthentic-israeli-facebook-assets-target-the-world-281ad7254264">shared examples</a> connected to the deleted Facebook accounts aimed at elections in Mali, Tunisia, Niger, Togo, Algeria, and Angola. It noted the ads related to this nexus of activity were paid for in U.S. dollars, Israeli Shekels, and Brazilian reals. “The spending in different currencies suggests how vast the operation was, encompassing multiple regions around the world,” said DFRL’s reporting.</p>
<p>Fake news on social media platforms has reared its head in Africa several times. Cambridge Analytica, backed by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage">U.S. big-data billionaire Robert Mercer</a>, was found to <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/cambridge-analytica-played-roles-in-multiple-african-elections/4309792.html">have been involved</a> in elections in Kenya and Nigeria before its controversial role directing pro-Brexit and pro-Trump online activity in 2016. Facebook later banned Cambridge Analytica from its platform.</p>
<p>Social media driven fake news — <a href="https://portland-communications.com/publications/reality-fake-news-kenya/">primarily on Facebook and WhatsApp</a> — became such an issue in Kenya’s 2017 elections the country’s parliament <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-44137769">passed a bill</a> in 2018, with specific punitive measures, to combat it. An investigation by the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/23/cambridge-analytica-and-its-role-in-kenya-2017-elections.html">UK’s Channel 4</a> later revealed that Cambridge Analytica had advised the 2017 presidential campaign of Kenyan incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta, who won in a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Kenyan_general_election">disputed run-off vote</a>.</p>
<p>Facebook has prioritized growth in Africa, particularly since Mark Zuckerberg <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/03/1379717/">visited the continent’s tech scene</a> in 2016.</p>
<p>The U.S. social media company has grown Africa users to <a href="https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm">over 200 million</a> and Facebook owned chat-tool, WhatsApp, <a href="https://wearesocial.com/blog/2018/01/global-digital-report-2018">is the most downloaded messenger app</a> on the continent.</p>
<p>But Facebook’s recent Africa account purge shows when Facebook travels, so too does its list of pros and cons, including the ability of global actors to use it for nefarious uses in local settings.</p>
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<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content"><p><a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/03/1379717/">Mark Zuckerberg’s Africa tour tracks tech’s growing interests on the continent</a></p></blockquote>
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</div><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~4/BZ2OtfPAYA8" width="1" />FutureLearn announces collaboration with Amity, Asia’s number one online education platform2019-05-21T13:05:17.238000ZRay Schroederhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OnlineLearningUpdate/~3/_5lYkOtxMz4/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<p>by Future Learn<br />
Amity University Online and FutureLearn join forces to allow Indian professionals access to great learning to enhance their careers. Amity University Online, India, today announced a deal with FutureLearn, Europe’s leading social learning platform, to enable the online university to amplify its existing pool of professional courses. Through this formal collaboration with FutureLearn, Amity will be able to offer FutureLearn’s vast portfolio of flexible online courses to professionals, institutes and corporates.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.fenews.co.uk/press-releases/29222-futurelearn-announces-collaboration-with-amity-asia-s-number-one-online-education-platform">https://www.fenews.co.uk/press-releases/29222-futurelearn-announces-collaboration-with-amity-asia-s-number-one-online-education-platform</a></p>
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In Algorithms to Live By, the authors explore an interdisciplinary way of thinking called human algorithm design, which essentially means searching for better solutions to the challenges people encounter every day.<br><br><img src="http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/BdSkmuhmK7FKQSrQ8qDb9E.jpg" />Uganda: Online Mentoring Eases Teaching in Schools2019-03-25T10:48:22.666000Zhttps://allafrica.com/stories/201903250208.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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[Monitor] A total of 120 teachers from schools in Moyo and Adjumani districts have benefitted from a mentoring and online knowledge transfer, with support from the Finn Church Aid (FCA).Kenya: Peter Tabichi Crowned World's Best Teacher2019-03-25T10:48:05.711000Zhttps://allafrica.com/stories/201903250200.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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[Nation] A Kenyan science teacher has been crowned the best in the world after winning the 2019 Global Teacher Prize.Where did social media go wrong?2019-03-25T10:47:27.070000ZJon Evanshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/VfdeRH_dZXc/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<p id="speakable-summary">For most of my life, the Internet, particularly its social media — BBSes, Usenet, LiveJournal, blogosphere, even MySpace, early Twitter and Facebook — consistently made people happier. But roughly 5 years ago it began to consistently make people more miserable. What changed?</p>
<p>I <a href="https://twitter.com/rezendi/status/1107469636155645952">posted that question to Twitter</a> a week ago, and the most notable response was the response that did not exist: not a single person disputed the premise of the question. Yes, Twitter responses are obviously selection bias incarnate — but looking at the opprobrium aimed at social media from all sides today, I’d think that if anything it understates the current collective wisdom. Which of course can often be disjoint from factual reality … but still important. So, again: what changed?</p>
<p>Some argued that new, bad users flooded the Internet then, a kind of ultimate Eternal September effect. I’m skeptical. Even five years ago Facebook was already ubiquitous in the West, and we were already constantly checking it on our smartphones. Others argue that it reflects happiness decreasing in society as a whole — but as far back as 2014? I remember that as, generally, a time of optimism, compared to today.</p>
<p>There was one really interesting response, <a href="https://twitter.com/andkenbr/status/1107612276423622656">from a stranger</a>: “The nature of these social networks changed. They went from places where people debated to places where lonely people are trying to feel less lonely.” Relatedly, <a href="https://twitter.com/rednikki/status/1107475626867478528">from a friend</a>: “The algorithms were designed to make people spend more time on those sites. Interestingly, <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness">unhappy people spend more time on social sites</a>. Is unhappiness the cause, or the result of algorithms surfacing content to make us unhappy?” That’s worth pondering.</p>
<p>Pretty much everyone else talked about money, basically buttressing the argument above. Modern social media algorithms drive engagement, because engagement drives advertising, and advertising drives profits, which are then used to hone the algorithms. It’s a perpetual motion engagement machine. Olden days social media, early Facebook and early Twitter, they had advertising, sure — but they didn’t have anything like today’s perpetual motion engagement.</p>
<p>Even that wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that there’s apparently a whole other perpetual motion machine at work in parallel, too: engagement drives unhappiness which drives engagement which drive unhappiness, because the kind of content which drives the most engagement apparently also drives anxiety and outrage — cf Evan Williams’ notion that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/technology/evan-williams-medium-twitter-internet.html">social media optimizes for car crashes</a> — and arguably also, in the longer run, displace other activities which do bring happiness and fulfillment.</p>
<p>I don’t want to sound like some sort of blood-and-thunder Luddite preacher. There’s nothing automatically wrong with maintaining a thriving existence on Facebook and Twitter, especially if you carefully prune your feeds such that they are asshole-free zones with minimal dogpiling and pointless outrage. (Some outrage is important. But most isn’t.) Social media has done a lot of excellent things, and still brings a lot of happiness to very many people.</p>
<p>But also, and increasingly, a lot of misery. Does it currently bring us <em>net</em> happiness? Five years ago I think that question would have seemed ridiculous to most: the answer would generally have been a quick <em>yes-of-course</em>. Nowadays, most would stop and wonder, and many would answer with an even faster <em>hell-no</em>. Five years ago, people who worked at Facebook (and to a lesser extent Twitter) were treated with respect and admiration by the rest of the tech industry. Nowadays, fairly or not, it’s something a lot more like disdain, and sometimes outright contempt.</p>
<p>The solution is obvious: change the algorithms. Which is to say: make less money. Ha.They could even remove the algorithms entirely, switch back to Strict Chronological, and still make money — Twitter was profitable before stock options before it switched to an algorithmic feed, and its ad offerings were way less sophisticated back then — but it’s not about making money, it’s about making <em>the most money possible</em>, and that means algorithmically curated, engagement-driven, misery-inducing feeds.</p>
<p>So: social media is increasingly making us miserable. There’s an obvious solution, but financial realpolitik means we can’t get to it from here. So either we just accept this spreading misery as a normal, inescapable, fundamental part of our lives now — or some broader, more drastic solution is required. It’s a quandary.</p>
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</div><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~4/VfdeRH_dZXc" width="1" />Report: The Credentials People Get Are Not Always the Ones Companies Want2019-03-25T10:46:21.361000ZRay Schroederhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OnlineLearningUpdate/~3/LkaSATMMb5c/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<p>By Wade Tyler Millward, EdSurge</p>
<p>Almost 30 percent of industry-recognized credentials American students recently earned relate to careers in architecture and construction. Yet just 8 percent of them are in demand by employers. And only .1 percent of students earned a particular credential that could lead to a nearly $82,000 information technology job. These are just some of the findings teased Monday at a SXSW EDU panel on industry-recognized credentials developed or adopted by businesses to verify students have the technical skills needed for certain jobs.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-03-08-report-the-credentials-people-get-are-not-always-the-ones-companies-want">https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-03-08-report-the-credentials-people-get-are-not-always-the-ones-companies-want</a></p>
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</div><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OnlineLearningUpdate/~4/LkaSATMMb5c" width="1" />“Massive Online Courses Are Alive”, Says Pioneer of OMSCS Affordable Degree2019-03-25T10:45:31.149000Zadminhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uis/edtech/~3/RHjJY3uybpU/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<p>by Zoe Mackay, IBL News</p>
<p><em>“MOOCs haven’t died. They are alive,” </em>said Zvi Galil, Dean of the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the pioneer of the Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS), during an interview at the IBL Studios in New York. In today’s job market, continuing education is a lifelong effort. As technology is constantly changing and employment sectors necessitate continuous learning from their employees, online education is an ideal and flexible model. “We are moving into a period where we must have adult education. We must have lifelong learning. And online will be a major tool to do it. Some very capable people can take the time off to move, to go to a place where they can have classes, and some do, but a majority, I believe, will be using online courses or degrees or certificates.”</p>
<p><a href="https://iblnews.org/2019/03/08/massive-online-courses-are-alive-said-pioneer-of-omscs-affordable-degree/">https://iblnews.org/2019/03/08/massive-online-courses-are-alive-said-pioneer-of-omscs-affordable-degree/</a></p>
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<img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/uis/edtech/~4/RHjJY3uybpU" width="1" />From Basic to Advanced Video Projects for Almost Every Classroom2019-03-25T10:45:07.354000Znoreply@blogger.com (Richard Byrne)http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/freetech4teachers/cGEY/~3/v-wnceOVkJk/freetech4teachers.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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emergeafrica
<a href="https://emergeafrica.newsblur.com/story/from-basic-to-advanc/2334901:52dfca">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/2334901.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Free Technology for Teachers.</b>
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<p><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/t/0/_/freetech4teachers/~https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xSGJ_OPhcEY/XJVAt2YARBI/AAAAAAABggU/MYqX_4iDVy8kvwGnRueJSP0t9AJ5jBhGwCLcBGAs/s1600/5%2BVideo%2BProjects%2Bfor%2BAlmost%2BAny%2BClassroom%2B-%2BMACUL.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xSGJ_OPhcEY/XJVAt2YARBI/AAAAAAABggU/MYqX_4iDVy8kvwGnRueJSP0t9AJ5jBhGwCLcBGAs/s200/5%2BVideo%2BProjects%2Bfor%2BAlmost%2BAny%2BClassroom%2B-%2BMACUL.png" width="200" /></a></div>My last presentation of the day the 2019 MACUL Conference was <a href="http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/t/0/_/freetech4teachers/~https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vQQAWrfASxVpNkM4vf6NUXYCVyzwi_Dw-A4H0zb4yiI8XP3qnt6hB_HmbuFQTjKiXNxcTPM4mvzVOre/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000" target="_blank">5 Video Projects for Almost Every Classroom</a>. Before the presentation started I introduced those who came early to <a href="http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/t/0/_/freetech4teachers/~https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA1J-raGinQ" target="_blank">cell phone crashing</a>.<br />
...</p><p style="clear: left;"><a href="https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/599915492/_/freetech4teachers"><b>Read the whole entry at FreeTech4Teachers.com</b></a> <b>»</b><img align="left" alt="" border="0" height="1" hspace="0" src="https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/i/599915492/_/freetech4teachers" style="border: 0; float: left; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 1px!important; height: 1px!important;" width="1" />
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</div><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/freetech4teachers/cGEY/~4/v-wnceOVkJk" width="1" />Could Remixing Old MOOCs Give New Life to Free Online Education?2019-03-25T10:44:19.769000Zhttp://www.downes.ca/post/69292/rd<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<b>
emergeafrica
<a href="https://emergeafrica.newsblur.com/story/could-remixing-old-m/109216:f2091b">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/109216.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily.</b>
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<a href="https://www.downes.ca/author/94" style="text-decoration: none;">Jeffrey R. Young</a>,
<a href="https://www.downes.ca/feed/226" style="text-decoration: none;">EdSurge</a>,
Mar 22, 2019</span>
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</div><p><p>Remixing open educational resources has been invented by a Harvard professor. As EdSurge reports, "The idea comes from Robert Lue, a biology professor at Harvard University who was the founding faculty director of HarvardX, the college’s effort to build MOOCs. He’s leading a new platform called <a href="https://labxchange.org/" target="_blank">LabXChange</a> that aims to let professors, teachers or anyone mix together their own free online course from pieces of other courses." Until this point, we have not really had any idea what to do with our old MOOCs, and could only rebuild them from scratch. Thanks to a $6.5-million grant from the Amgen Foundation, that's all changed.</p>
Web: [<a href="https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-03-20-could-remixing-old-moocs-give-new-life-to-free-online-education">Direct Link</a>] [<a href="https://www.downes.ca/post/69292">This Post</a>]<br />
</span>Meeting Human Needs in the Virtual Classroom2019-03-19T04:30:28.691000ZRay Schroederhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OnlineLearningUpdate/~3/G_Fj00FMLVE/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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emergeafrica
<a href="https://emergeafrica.newsblur.com/story/meeting-human-needs-/32255:0c5f63">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://www.newsblur.com/rss_feeds/icon/32255" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Online Learning Update.</b>
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<p>By Cynthia Clay, TD</p>
<p>Training participants often log into our virtual classrooms ready to passively observe a monologue. It’s up to us to create the kind of learning environment that shifts them from passive to active learners. As you prepare to deliver an online training experience, think about the human needs of your participants: the need to be included, the need to feel safe, the need to be right, the need to be competent, and the need to be appreciated. More importantly, think about what a skilled virtual facilitator should do to meet those needs. Let’s take a closer look at each need.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.td.org/insights/meeting-human-needs-in-the-virtual-classroom">https://www.td.org/insights/meeting-human-needs-in-the-virtual-classroom</a></p>
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</div><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OnlineLearningUpdate/~4/G_Fj00FMLVE" width="1" />Act Fast if You Don't Want Your Google+ Posts Publicly Archived2019-03-19T04:29:37.512000ZBrendan Hessehttp://feeds.kinja.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/f5jTAwZ6B2s/act-fast-if-you-dont-want-your-google-posts-publicly-a-1833382165<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<b>
emergeafrica
<a href="https://emergeafrica.newsblur.com/story/act-fast-if-you-dont/4311755:9ffcf5">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/4311755.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Lifehacker.</b>
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<img src="https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--WCPa-HVl--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/hyapa7lay41zwsxkogxh.jpg" /><p><a href="https://lifehacker.com/what-to-do-before-google-shuts-down-on-april-2-1832298293#_ga=2.71338769.388081514.1552914512-1723114163.1524514905" rel="nofollow">Google+ gets the axe on April 2</a>, but some of your old posts may be sticking around—whether you want them to or not. In an effort to preserve internet content, the <a href="https://archive.org/index.php" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Internet Archives</a> and <a href="https://www.archiveteam.org/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">ArchiveTeam</a> create digital backups of websites and other internet content that would otherwise be lost to time, and their next project…</p><p><a href="https://lifehacker.com/act-fast-if-you-dont-want-your-google-posts-publicly-a-1833382165">Read more...</a></p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/f5jTAwZ6B2s" width="1" />DigiGlot Newsletter: AI innovations bring good news and bad news for indigenous and minority languages2019-03-19T04:28:57.215000ZRising Voiceshttps://globalvoices.org/2019/03/18/digiglot-newsletter-ai-innovations-bring-good-news-and-bad-news-for-indigenous-and-minority-languages/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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emergeafrica
<a href="https://emergeafrica.newsblur.com/story/digiglot-newsletter-/122445:e43165">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/122445.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Global Voices.</b>
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<div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_670303" style="width: 2600px;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-670303" height="1748" src="https://globalvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/33654216623_46148cb7c5_k.jpg" width="2600" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Photo by albyantoniazzi and used under a CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license.</p></div>
<p>There is tremendous interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies that can interpret human language in various ways. Chatbots, translation software, and intelligent assistants like Siri or Alexa all depend on an understanding of how we use language.</p>
<p>A few weeks ago, the non-profit research company <a href="http://openai.com/">OpenAI</a> published <a href="https://blog.openai.com/better-language-models/">a paper</a> demonstrating their new approach to computational modeling of the English language. The authors give a number of examples of computer-generated texts from their new model that they say are indistinguishable from what a human might produce. OpenAI has decided not to release the model for fear that it might be misused, e.g. to create malicious bots on Twitter or other social media platforms.</p>
<p>As always, this could mean both good news and bad news for indigenous and minority languages. The good news is that these models don't require any special data to train; they can be built as long as programmers have a sufficiently large collection of text in the target language (e.g. from Wikipedia). Once a model is created it can be used to develop more advanced AI technologies in that language. </p>
<p>A few bits of bad news: first, these models require a huge amount of text to train, many millions or billions of words, and significant computational horsepower. Second, research in this area continues to focus almost 100% on English and there are no guarantees that the same models will work as well for more complex languages. And it is always important to remember that these technologies can be used as easily to benefit the public interest as they can to facilitate data collection by technology companies. Nevertheless, we hope to see more research in this area for under-resourced languages, and eventually AI technologies that support these languages.</p>
<h4>Listen to the ‘Last Whispers’ of dying languages</h4>
<p>A <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative)#The_Mu-koan">centuries-old Zen riddle</a> asks: What is the sound of one hand clapping? It is intended to free a person from their regular state of mind, in order to allow another way of thinking.</p>
<p>When multimedia visual artist Lena Herzog looked at the world’s linguistic biodiversity, and took measure of the alarming rate at which languages go extinct, she decided to represent endangered languages in a radically different way.</p>
<p>She assembled recordings of nearly or already extinct languages with drone footage of natural sites, to produce what she describes as a “45 minute-long immersive oratorio.” The result, called <a href="http://www.lastwhispers.org/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Last Whispers</a>, is a haunting audio-visual journey in black and white through a forest of sounds articulated in Tehuelche, Nivkh, Nahuatl, Warlpiri, Ainu, Koyukon, Nafsan, Jul’hoan, Surel, Ongota, and Qaqet. When those languages lose their last speakers, listeners find themselves in a dead-silent forest.</p>
<p><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" height="366" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/278089665?dnt=1&app_id=122963" title="Last Whispers / Trailer" width="650"></iframe></p>
<h4>Mapping Australia's first languages</h4>
<p>First Languages Australia recently relaunched their <a href="https://gambay.com.au" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Gambay online resource</a> that displays preferred names of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and their respective locations across the country. The word Gambay means “together” in the Butchulla language. Built on Mapbox, an open-source mapping platform, the map allows users to locate language centers that are on the front lines of language revitalization efforts, along with better options for embedding digital media from a variety of sources.</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_670315" style="width: 800px;"><img alt="" class="size-large wp-image-670315" height="430" src="https://globalvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/screenshotgambay-800x430.png" width="800" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Screenshot of the Gambay map.</p></div>
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<div class="factbox"><a href="https://rising.globalvoices.org/blog/author/kevinscannell/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Kevin Scannell</a>, <a href="https://globalvoices.org/author/filip-noubel/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Filip Noubel</a>, and <a href="https://globalvoices.org/author/eduardo-avila/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Eddie Avila</a> contributed to this report with the editing assistance by <a href="https://globalvoices.org/author/ellery-roberts-biddle" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Ellery Biddle</a>.</div>
<p class="gv-rss-footer"><span class="credit-text"><span class="contributor">Written by <a class="url user-link" href="https://globalvoices.org/author/risingvoices/" title="View all posts by Rising Voices">Rising Voices</a></span></span> · <span class="commentcount"><a href="https://globalvoices.org/2019/03/18/digiglot-newsletter-ai-innovations-bring-good-news-and-bad-news-for-indigenous-and-minority-languages/#comments" title="comments">comments (0) </a></span><br /><a href="https://globalvoices.org/?page_id=54193" title="read Donate">Donate</a>
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<div id="wpp_popup_post_end_element" style="display: block !important; margin: 0 !important; padding: 0 !important;"></div><br><br><img src="https://globalvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/33654216623_46148cb7c5_k-400x300.jpg" />Imaginary dream computer from 19842019-03-19T04:28:22.241000ZMark Frauenfelderhttps://boingboing.net/2019/03/18/imaginary-dream-computer-from.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<p><iframe allowfullscreen="true" class="youtube-player" height="546" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q1JPpi9Wz9E?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent" style="border: 0;" type="text/html" width="970"></iframe></p>
<p>The funny folks at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXA2lepIpHZ24iQU22WgDeA">Squirrel Monkey</a> made a fantasy promotional video for a computer that never existed, called the DC 640. It had a number of cutting edge features, including a built-in LED alarm clock, an FM transmitter (for data and voice communication), and a solderless breadboard.</p>China to Ban Anonymous Online Comments, Blacklist Users2017-08-28T10:40:08.902000ZOiwan Lamhttps://globalvoices.org/2017/08/27/china-to-ban-anonymous-online-comment-blacklist-users/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_413926" style="width: 1000px;"><img alt="The Great Firewall of China. Image from Digital Trends." class="size-full wp-image-413926" height="667" src="https://globalvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Great-Firewall-of-China.jpg" width="1000" /><p class="wp-caption-text">The Great Firewall of China. Image from Digital Trends.</p></div>
<p>As of October 1, 2017, Chinese netizens who have not registered their user accounts with online platforms under a new real name system will not be able to post comments on online content, while bans await trouble-makers.</p>
<p>“<a href="http://www.williamlong.info/archives/5076.html">The Regulation on the Management of Internet Comments</a>” was <a href="http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1063192.shtml">announced</a> by the Cyberspace Administration of China on August 25. The regulation specifies that platforms that provide services for netizens to comment on original content, including films, posts, online games or news, should force users to provide their authentic identity via an individual user account system before posting. Platform operators should not offer such services to those who have not verified their identity.</p>
<p>The regulation will dramatically reduce space for online comments as large number of unauthenticated users will not be able to write original posts and leave comments. Moreover, many platforms will be unable to bear the burden of the identity verification system.</p>
<h3><strong>Real name registration for online comment</strong></h3>
<p>According to Article 2 of the regulation, commenting services refer to websites, mobile applications, interactive platforms, news sites, and other social platforms that allow or facilitate users to create original content, reply to posts, leave comments on news threads or other items in the form of written text, symbols, emojis, images, voice messages or video.</p>
<p>The responsibilities of comment service operators, according to Article 5, include the verification of user identities, the setting up of a comment management system to pre-screen comments on news, preventing the spread of illegal information and reporting comments to the authorities.</p>
<p>Controversially, the regulation also specifies in Article 9 that comment service operators should manage their users by rating their ‘social credit’, an algorithm to measure a person's overall “goodness” as a citizen</p>
<p>Those with low credit should be blacklisted from posting and prevented from registering new accounts to use the service. At the same time, state, province and city-level cyberspace affairs offices will set up a management system to evaluate the overall social credit of comment service operators on a regular basis.</p>
<h3><strong>Goodies and baddies</strong></h3>
<p>The Orwellian <a href="https://advox.globalvoices.org/2016/01/08/orwellian-dystopia-or-trustworthy-nation-get-the-facts-on-chinas-social-credit-system/">social credit system</a> for regulating internet users’ activities was revealed in 2014 and the Chinese government authorized a number of credit service agencies to collect, evaluate and manage peoples's credit information the following year.</p>
<p>According to the Chinese government's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System">Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System</a>, the system aims to measure and enhance “trust” between and among government, commercial sectors and citizens and to “strengthen sincerity in government affairs, commercial sincerity, social sincerity and the construction of judicial credibility.” However, the allocation of individual credit is not transparent and the current regulation on comment services indicates that individual online speech is a key factor in its calculation.</p>
<p>A commentary from the state agency Xinhua <a href="http://www.weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309351000124144993831907305">attempted</a> to justify the government’s new policy by arguing that the regulation is intended to stop the pollution of online spaces with disinformation and pornographic or violent content.</p>
<p>It stated:</p>
<blockquote><p>网络可以无限,跟帖不能无边。没有原则的放纵只会催生可怕的“自由”,没有管理的“任性”必将损害行业的健康发展。若让其“任性”下去,跟帖评论就将成为负能量的“跑马场”,就会成为网络空间里的“毒草”。</p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="translation"><p>The Internet can be borderless, but comments should have boundaries. If there are no principles, freedom can turn into “terror”; without management, indulgence could harm the development of the [online] industry. If we continue to indulge [netizens], online comments might become a swell of negative energy and the “poisonous grass” of cyberspace.</p></blockquote>
<p>Earlier this month, the Cyberspace Administration launched <a href="http://cmp.hku.hk/2017/08/11/chinas-cac-investigate-wechat-weibo-baidu-tieba/">investigations into popular Chinese social networks</a> WeChat, Sina Weibo and Baidu Tieba for suspected violations of China's Cybersecurity Law.</p>
<p>China started to implement real name registration across social media platforms in 2011. But large number of users refused to authenticate their identities prior to the stated deadline of March 2012. Representatives from the Internet business sector negotiated with the government for a more flexible schedule with a clearer legal framework.</p>
<p>Since 2012 a series of <a href="https://www.techinasia.com/history-chinas-campaign-enforce-realname-registration-online"> laws and regulations</a> have been introduced to require Internet service providers, Telecoms, Apps stores and content service providers to adopt real name registration for their services.</p>
<p>Thus far only national and large-scale social media and content service operators have implemented real name registration and they have not introduced measures to penalize unauthenticated users beyond limiting the circulation of their posts.</p>
<h3>‘Banning comment is the objective’</h3>
<p>The majority of small-to-medium-size local websites and forums have not implemented real name registration because they simply don’t have the capital and infrastructure to do so. The new regulation compels such websites to shut down their interactive features.</p>
<p>Tech-blogger William Long who has discussed the issue with regulators in the past <a href="http://www.williamlong.info/archives/5077.html">wrote</a> in his blog:</p>
<blockquote><p>具体小网站怎么实现实名制,我曾经和有关部门交流过,他们的意见是:要么关闭评论,要么评论时候填写手机号码,并且提交手机短信验证码,验证码正确的才能发布评论。</p>
<p>一般小网站的站长就是花几百元租个虚拟主机做个小博客,而手机验证码发送成本,按照一条短信6分钱算,100条评论就6元钱,遇上同行来捣乱的给你刷个几千条,估计没几个小网站能受得了,最后只能禁止评论。</p>
<p>很好,目的就是为了让你禁止评论。</p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="translation"><p>I have discussed with the relevant authorities how small forums and websites can implement real name registration. Their view is, they can either shut the comment section down or ask their users to verify their identity by providing mobile phone verification codes.</p>
<p>Owners of small websites can only afford a few hundred yuan to hire a server. The cost of mobile verification is RMB 6 cents per message. They would have to spend RMB 6 yuan per 100 comments. If their competitors deliberately overload them by posting a few thousand comments a day, they will not be able to afford the cost [of verification]. In the end they will be forced to ban comments.</p>
<p>Good. Because banning comments is the [government's] objective.</p></blockquote>
<p>Most online comments on the regulation have been hidden on social media — some threads show only two comments out of hundreds, while on others the comment section has been shut down. The majority of comments do not appear on a search.</p>
<p>Below are some of the critical comments gathered from various discussion threads on Weibo that have survived the cull:</p>
<blockquote><p>其实你不实名,它们也能查得出你是谁。它们所企图的,无非是,要你有恐惧感。</p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="translation"><p>With or without real name registration, they know who you are. What they intend to do is to make you fearful.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>我一直是实名,倒是你,一直不敢开评论。</p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="translation"><p>I always use my real name. It is you [the authorities] who are afraid of opening up the comment thread.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>为了维稳真是什么不要脸的招数都拿出来了。</p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="translation"><p>[Authorities] are shameless in their desire for stability.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>是不是有病?那么多网站,都要实名制?</p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="translation"><p>This is pathological. With so many websites, they all have to adopt real name?</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>秦始皇时代</p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="translation"><p>Back to the Qin Dynasty.</p></blockquote>
<p class="gv-rss-footer"><span class="credit-text"><span class="contributor">Written by <a class="url user-link" href="https://globalvoices.org/author/oiwan/" title="View all posts by Oiwan Lam">Oiwan Lam</a></span></span> · <span class="commentcount"><a href="https://globalvoices.org/2017/08/27/china-to-ban-anonymous-online-comment-blacklist-users/#comments" title="comments">comments (0) </a></span><br /><a href="https://globalvoices.org/donate/" title="read Donate">Donate</a>
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[Monitor] Kabarole -The minister for Information and Communications Technology and National Guidance, Mr Frank Tumwebaze has said the increasing public abuse of social media is forcing the hands of government to regulate the use of the platforms.Bad news: tech is making us more unequal. Good news: tech can make us more equal.2017-06-01T11:38:29.326000ZCory Doctorowhttp://boingboing.net/2017/05/31/zottas-vs-walkaways.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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My latest Guardian column is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/may/31/technology-is-making-the-world-more-unequal-only-technology-can-fix-this-cory-doctorow">Technology is making the world more unequal. Only technology can fix this</a>; in it, I argue that surveillance and control technology allow ruling elites to hold onto power despite the destabilizing effects of their bad decisions -- but that technology also allows people to form dissident groups and protect them from intrusive states.
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<img alt="" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" height="680" src="https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/battlefield-africa-partnership.png?w=680" width="680" /> This one’s for you, startups in sub-Saharan Africa. TechCrunch is excited to be partnering with Facebook to bring our illustrious startup competition, the Startup Battlefield, to Nairobi, Kenya later this year, and we’re looking for some promising startups to take part in the inaugural Startup Battlefield Africa. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/01/reminder-apply-for-the-techcrunch-battlefield-africa-in-nairobi/?ncid=rss">Read More</a><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~4/VlrYp6lbmlY" width="1" /><br><br><img src="http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/battlefield-africa-partnership.png" /><br><br><img src="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/dac13f3f1335acffbb36ea4beef1a7d1?s=96&d=identicon&r=G" />Tanzania: Govt Gets 63 Billion/ - Taxes From Mobile Money Transactions2017-05-17T13:09:44.092000Zhttp://allafrica.com/stories/201705170257.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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[Daily News] Dodoma -Mobile Money transactions have brought in 63bn/- as taxes to the government coffers for the past four years, thanks to Telecommunications Traffic Monitoring System (TTMS).Nigeria: Cyber-Attacks - Govt Directs Telcos, Banks to Put Backups in Place2017-05-17T13:05:25.610000Zhttp://allafrica.com/stories/201705160653.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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[Daily Trust] As computer malware that has spread across 150 countries appears to be slowing down, with few reports of fresh attacks in Asia and Europe on Monday, the Federal Government has directed all Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and banks to ensure that their backup/ disaster recovery strategies are in place and up to date.Nigeria: Technology Expo and Diversifying the Economy2017-04-03T10:25:57.673000Zhttp://allafrica.com/stories/201704030295.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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[Daily Trust] Abuja. -Until recently, developments of technology and innovation have been restricted to western countries, but with the rising innovations in third world economies, the trend has gradually transcended to the African continent. Nigeria is taking the lead in advancing this developmental drive especially with the sharp drop in prices of crude oil which has plunged the economy into recession.A Brazilian Judge Demands a Blogger's Sources, Testing the Limits of Media Freedom2017-04-03T10:18:11.017000ZJohn Razenhttps://globalvoices.org/2017/04/01/a-brazilian-judge-demands-a-bloggers-sources-testing-the-limits-of-media-freedom/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_609600" style="width: 800px;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-609600 size-featured_image_large" height="450" src="https://globalvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/eduguim-e1490884100105-800x450.jpg" width="800" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Eduardo Guimarães, from Blog da Cidadania, at the II National Conference of Progressive Bloggers — a network in Brazil known to be closely allied to the former Worker's Party government. Photo: Rogério Tomaz Jr./Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0</p></div>
<p>A veteran leftist Brazilian blogger named Eduardo Guimarães has found himself embroiled in a legal case concerning his writings about the landmark <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Car_Wash">Operação Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash)</a> corruption scandal that involved dozens of politicians and tycoons.</p>
<p>Authorities confiscated Guimarães’ <a href="https://www.facebook.com/eduguim/posts/1387292334654840?pnref=story">laptop and two phones </a>and judge Sergio Moro, who is in charge of the Lava Jato investigation, ordered the disclosure of Guimarães’ telephone records, <a href="http://g1.globo.com/sao-paulo/noticia/blogueiro-e-conduzido-coercitivamente-a-pf-em-sp-para-prestar-depoimento.ghtml">summoned him for questioning</a>, and according to Guimarães, attempted to force the blogger to reveal his sources. The judge took these actions despite the fact that Brazil's constitution protects journalists from revealing the identity of their sources.</p>
<p><a href="http://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2017/">Moro later reversed his decision</a>, but the action highlighted the weakness of the legal protection mechanisms of citizen journalists in Brazil.</p>
<p>The prosecutors in the ongoing Lava Jato investigation are currently working to stymie the efforts of a network of civil servants who are leaking confidential information on the probe to the press. They allege that Eduardo Guimarães is among those who have received confidential information.</p>
<p>In March 2016, Guimarães revealed on his blog that Brazil's former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, also of the Worker's Party, would be summoned to testify by the Lava Jato investigators — which indeed happened a few weeks after the story's publication.</p>
<p>Guimarães’ blog, Blog da Cidadania (Blog of Citizenship), is well-known and aligned with the former government of the Worker's Party.</p>
<p>On March 21, Eduardo Guimarães was forcibly taken to testify by the Federal Police in São Paulo, following a court order issued by judge Moro. <a href="http://www.blogdacidadania.com.br/2017/03/como-se-deu-minha-prisao-e-o-interrogatorio/">Guimarães said</a> he was forced to give passwords of his phone and computer to the police agents, who stormed his house in the early hours of the morning, and also that he was questioned at the police headquarters without the presence of his lawyer. He added he was surprised by all this as, according to him, the police already knew who his source was.</p>
<p><a href="http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2017/03/1869394-curtidas-em-rede-social-motivaram-investigacao-da-pf-sobre-blogueiro.shtml">Documents released</a> by the Federal Police on March 23 showed that the investigators checked the social media profiles of the civil servants who had access to the files on Lula last year, and opted to pursue a court order for disclosure of the phone records of those with left-leaning posts and likes. According to the documents, this is how they found Guimarães’ source, before judge Moro ordered that his telephone records also be disclosed.</p>
<p>This triggered <a href="http://www.revistaforum.com.br/mariafro/2017/03/22/48881/">a wave of online protests</a> in the country's blogosphere (including <a href="http://veja.abril.com.br/blog/reinaldo/conducao-forcada-de-blogueiro-petista-constituicao-e-o-que-penso/">from right-wing bloggers</a>) who denounced what looked like a flagrant violation of Brazil's Constitution that enshrines journalists’ rights to protect the identity of their sources. The federal prosecutors then issued an official statement in defense of the measure, saying that the constitutional protection wouldn't apply to Guimarães because his blog was a “platform to present personal opinion and political propaganda.”</p>
<p>The official note of the Federal Justice of Paraná <a href="http://www.conjur.com.br/2017-mar-21/justica-pr-blog-faz-propaganda-nao-sigilo-fonte">states</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Não é necessário diploma para ser jornalista, mas também não é suficiente ter um blog para sê-lo. A proteção constitucional ao sigilo de fonte protege apenas quem exerce a profissão de jornalista, com ou sem diploma</p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="translation"><p>Although a degree in journalism isn't requirement for being a journalist, having a blog isn't enough to be one. The constitutional protection to the confidentiality of sources applies only those who exercise the profession of journalist, with or without a degree.</p></blockquote>
<p>The criticism only intensified after the note's release. The NGO <a href="http://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-39309746">Reporters Without Borders declared</a> that it was worrying that one judge could dictate a definition of journalistic activity based merely on the content of the publication. The National Federation of Journalists and the Union of Journalists of São Paulo <a href="http://fenaj.org.br/nota-oficial-da-fenaj-e-do-sjsp-sobre-conducao-coercitiva-de-eduardo-guimaraes-e-censura-e-ataque-a-liberdade-de-expressao/">co-signed a note</a> condemning the decision, which they consider to be inspired by the times of the military dictatorship.</p>
<p>Even <a href="http://veja.abril.com.br/blog/reinaldo/conducao-forcada-de-blogueiro-petista-constituicao-e-o-que-penso/">Reinaldo Azevedo</a>, who edits Brazil's most popular right-wing blog, defended Guimarães, pointing to the arrest of the blogger as a violation of the constitutional rules that protect journalistic activity. <a href="http://www.redebrasilatual.com.br/cidadania/2017/03/jornalistas-criticam-moro-por-conducao-coercitiva-de-blogueiro">Many journalists and activists</a>, from a wide ideological spectrum, also joined the critics on social media.</p>
<div dir="ltr">After the protests, judge Moro reversed his decision. On March 23, he issued a ruling requesting the exclusion from the investigation of all the information collected on Guimarães’ testimony, as well as from the sweep through his electronic equipment. The prosecutors also stated, in their defense, <a href="http://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2017/03/21/politica/1490133412_640724.html">that the objective of the measure</a> was not to identify the sources of the information published by Guimarães, which they already knew, but to collect additional evidence in relation to all of those involved in the leaks.</div>
<div dir="ltr"></div>
<h3 dir="ltr"><strong>Who gets to be a journalist in Brazil?</strong></h3>
<div dir="ltr">The 1988 Constitution provides for the right of journalists to protect the identity of their sources. But it also lacks a legal definition of who can be considered a journalist.</div>
<div dir="ltr"></div>
<div dir="ltr">The profession was previously regulated by the <a href="http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/L5250.htm">Press Law</a>, edited in 1967 by the former military regime, which defined the journalistic profession as one exercised only by employees and frequent collaborators of communication companies registered with the government, who also had to have obtained a degree in journalism. But in 2009 the<a href="http://www.stf.jus.br/portal/cms/vernoticiadetalhe.asp?idconteudo=107402"> Supreme Court revoked that Law</a>, ruling that it had an ‘anti-democratic inspiration’ and was incompatible with the new Constitutional order instituted in 1988.</div>
<div dir="ltr"></div>
<div dir="ltr">Today — in Brazil and internationally — there is no clear legal definition of the profession of journalism. Neither degrees nor employment by traditional media outlets are criteria for its definition, and the lines are even more blurred with the widespread of alternative media outlets over the internet.</div>
<div dir="ltr"></div>
<p>But the experience of Guimarães may indicate that Brazil's standards of press freedom are decreasing. In the <a href="https://rsf.org/pt/brasil">Reporters Without Borders</a>‘s annual report on media freedom, Brazil fell five positions in a worldwide ranking from 2015 to 2016, now occupying 104th place out of 180 countries. The concentration of media outlets in the hands of a few wealthy families and lack of a national mechanism for the protection of reporters are the main reasons for its current status.</p>
<p class="gv-rss-footer"><span class="credit-text"><span class="contributor">Written by <a class="url user-link" href="https://globalvoices.org/author/johnrazen/" title="View all posts by John Razen">John Razen</a></span></span> · <span class="commentcount"><a href="https://globalvoices.org/2017/04/01/a-brazilian-judge-demands-a-bloggers-sources-testing-the-limits-of-media-freedom/#comments" title="comments">comments (1) </a></span><br /><a href="https://globalvoices.org/donate/" title="read Donate">Donate</a>
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<div id="wpp_popup_post_end_element" style="display: block !important; margin: 0 !important; padding: 0 !important;"></div><br><br><img src="https://globalvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/eduguim-e1490884100105-400x300.jpg" />Coursera’s Rick Levin On the Evolution of MOOCs and Microcredentials2017-04-03T10:13:48.148000Zhttp://www.downes.ca/post/66548/rd<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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emergeafrica
<a href="https://emergeafrica.newsblur.com/story/courseras-rick-levin/109216:5dc643">shared this story</a>
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<a href="http://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.xml"><img alt="files/images/Levin_cropped-1490796945.jpg" src="http://www.downes.ca/files/images/Levin_cropped-1490796945.jpg" style="width: 400px; margin: 5px 15px 5px 0px;" width="400" /></a></div><p> <br />
<a href="http://www.downes.ca/author/639" style="text-decoration: none;">Jeffry R. Young</a>,
<a href="http://www.downes.ca/feed/226" style="text-decoration: none;">EdSurge</a>,
Mar 31, 2017
<hr color="#cccccc" size="1" />
<p>Interview-style article. Coursera CEO Rick Levin really does sometimes sound like he's from another culture. "The quality differential is so striking, I think the faculty and universities will realize they can truly up-level what they're able to do by using materials from the top universities in the world." Up-level?</p>
[<a href="https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-03-29-coursera-s-rick-levin-on-the-evolution-of-moocs-and-microcredentials">Link</a>] [<a href="http://www.downes.ca/post/66548">Comment</a>] <br />Kenya: Surf and Facebook to Officially Launch Express Wi-Fi in Kenya Tomorrow2017-03-30T12:23:02.787000Zhttp://allafrica.com/stories/201703280714.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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[CIO] Surf and Facebook will officially launch Express WiFi by Facebook in Kenya tomorrow in Ongata Rongai, Kajiado County.