Here are some web trends for 2020:
Responsive web design in 2020 should be a given because every serious project that you create should look good and be completely usable on all devices. But there’s no need to over-complicate things.
Web Development in 2020: What Coding Tools You Should Learn article gives an overview of recommendations what you learn to become a web developer in 2020.
You might have seen Web 3.0 on some slides. What is the definition of web 3 we are talking about here?
There seems to be many different to choose from… Some claim that you need to blockchain the cloud IOT otherwise you’ll just get a stack overflow in the mainframe but I don’t agree on that.
Information on the web address bar will be reduced on some web browsers. With the release of Chrome 79, Google completes its goal of erasing www from the browser by no longer allowing Chrome users to automatically show the www trivial subdomain in the address bar.
You still should target to build quality web site and avoid the signs of a low-quality web site. Get good inspiration for your web site design.
Still a clear and logical structure is the first thing that needs to be turned over in mind before the work on the website gears up. The website structure for search robots is its internal links. The more links go to a page, the higher its priority within the website, and the more times the search engine crawls it.
You should upgrade your web site, but you need to do it sensibly and well. Remember that a site upgrade can ruin your search engine visibility if you do it badly. The biggest risk to your site getting free search engine visibility is site redesign. Bad technology selection can ruin the visibility of a new site months before launch. Many new sites built on JavaScript application frameworks do not benefit in any way from the new technologies. Before you go into this bandwagon, you should think critically about whether your site will benefit from the dynamic capabilities of these technologies more than they can damage your search engine visibility. Well built redirects can help you keep the most outbound links after site changes.
If you go to the JavaScript framework route on your web site, keep in mind that there are many to choose, and you need to choose carefully to find one that fits for your needs and is actively developed also in the future.
JavaScript survey: Devs love a bit of React, but Angular and Cordova declining. And you’re not alone… a chunk of pros also feel JS is ‘overly complex’
Keep in mind the recent changes on the video players and Google analytics. And for animated content keep in mind that GIF animations exists still as a potential tool to use.
Keep in mind the the security. There is a skill gap in security for many. I’m not going to say anything that anyone who runs a public-facing web server doesn’t already know: the majority of these automated blind requests are for WordPress directories and files. PHP exploits are a distant second. And there are many other things that are automatically attacked. Test your site with security scanners.
APIs now account for 40% of the attack surface for all web-enabled apps. OWASP has identified 10 areas where enterprises can lower that risk. There are many vulnerability scanning tools available. Check also How to prepare and use Docker for web pentest . Mozilla has a nice on-line tool for web site security scanning.
The slow death of Flash continues. If you still use Flash, say goodbye to it. Google says goodbye to Flash, will stop indexing Flash content in search.
Use HTTPS on your site because without it your site rating will drop on search engines visibility. It is nowadays easy to get HTTPS certificates.
Write good content and avoid publishing fake news on your site. Finland is winning the war on fake news. What it’s learned may be crucial to Western democracy,
Think to who you are aiming to your business web site to. Analyze who is your “true visitor” or “power user”. A true visitor is a visitor to a website who shows a genuine interest in the content of the site. True visitors are the people who should get more of your site and have the potential to increase the sales and impact of your business. The content that your business offers is intended to attract visitors who are interested in it. When they show their interest, they are also very likely to be the target group of the company.
Should you think of your content management system (CMS) choice? Flexibility, efficiency, better content creation: these are just some of the promised benefits of a new CMS. Here is How to convince your developers to change CMS.
Here are some fun for the end:
Did you know that if a spider creates a web at a place?
The place is called a website
Confession: How JavaScript was made.
2,361 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://go.stripe.global/state-of-checkouts-2020.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://phz.fi/2021/08/17/phzn-juha-heikkinen-ar-360-videoiden-lataus-awssta/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Ultimate Pre- Launch Checklist for WordPress Websites
https://wpengine.com/more/the-ultimate-pre-launch-checklist-for-wordpress/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_campaign=Global_Retargeting_All+Site+Visitors+30day&utm_content=Global_Retargeting_All+Site+Visitors+30day_PreLaunch+Book&fbclid=IwAR2xdDF1uH4mRHIUhy7GgmrPo29bUPV_lzB49coZpMOuwrLm6V4B5r3Tv2s
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.dna.fi/yrityksille/pienen-yrityksen-tietoliikenneyhteydet-ja-palvelut?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=linkad&utm_content=KIKA-opas-pienen-yrityksen-tietoliikenneyhteydet-ja-palvelut&utm_campaign=A_SES_21-31-35_opaskampanja&fbclid=IwAR3oAoeJRHMVNm6DBBpvjcat6DgYsxOqq2d9QouSYUAU8n13I-doJ2L3drk
Tomi Engdahl says:
Blogissa juttua evästebannerin teknisen toteutuksen haasteista, ja siitä miksi moni digitoimisto on päätynyt valitsemaan jonkun saas-työkalun avukseen.
Jos ehdotettu Traficomin linjaus toteutuu, tulee jonkinlaisen saas-työkalun käyttöönotosta melkein pakollista, koska ehdotuksessa edellytetään mm. suostumuksien tallentamista jonkinlaiseksi rekisteriksi. Myös jatkuva skannaaminen on käytännössä lähes välttämätöntä, koska evästeitä voi ”lipsahtaa” sivustolle niin markkinointi-ihmisten kuin sisällöntuottajien toimesta.
https://vierityspalkki.fi/2021/08/17/evastebannerin-tekninen-toteutus-on-usein-haastavaa/?fbclid=IwAR3aacr8eWwIhI8eCSDYa0wm39SDns2cRSAV5tP_mgFrbBgZAb4GbdlTisc
https://statement.fi/evasteiden-hallinta-kuntoon-cookiebotilla/
Tomi Engdahl says:
What Is Gatsby? Is It a WordPress Competitor?
https://www.codeinwp.com/blog/what-is-gatsby/?fbclid=IwAR2X1ypmZmaB9oPfleu6qz1cILGT2OuLUJPzi7__nz7YZ69jC2R_aEapFj8
With so many options to create a blog or a website in 2021 out there, there’s this new thing called Gatsby – the youngest player to the game that might just be a viable alternative to the classic paths of WordPress, Joomla and the lot. Or is it? What is Gatsby, anyway?
The simplest answer to the “what is Gatsby” question is this: Gatsby (aka. GatsbyJS) is a static site generator that is built on ReactJS.
In its simplest definition, a static website is a group of HTML pages, which does not pull any data from a database when a viewer visits it. Thus, a static site looks the same to every visitor. Static sites are faster to load too, as the server sends the same response to every visitor. However, you can not customize content for visitors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
14 of the Best JavaScript Libraries and Frameworks to Try Out in 2021
https://www.codeinwp.com/blog/best-javascript-libraries/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.troot.fi/artikkelit/mika-on-tiktok-ja-miten-luot-tiktokissa-onnistuneen-kampanjan?utm_source=Facebook_Mobile_Feed&utm_campaign=paid_social_helmikuu&fbclid=IwAR3YrqJ8OHJ0s49s9CNfU01jMlhemoQ1iz4fb0OpFAP6mmfWyIsoLdvDW5s
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ethiopia to build local rival to Facebook, other platforms
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/ethiopia-build-local-rival-facebook-other-platforms-2021-08-23/
Ethiopia has begun developing its own social media platform to rival Facebook (FB.O), Twitter (TWTR.N) and WhatsApp, though it does not plan to block the global services, the state communications security agency said on Monday.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Patricia Nilsson / Financial Times:
OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely blames banks, including BNY Mellon, Metro Bank, JPMorgan, for its porn ban, but says Mastercard’s rules had no bearing on the ban — Tim Stokely says Bank of New York Mellon ‘flagged and rejected’ all interbank wires linked to website
OnlyFans founder blames banks for ban on porn
https://www.ft.com/content/7b8ce71c-a87a-440e-9f3d-58069ca0480b
Tim Stokely says Bank of New York Mellon ‘flagged and rejected’ all interbank wires linked to website
Tomi Engdahl says:
Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:
News outlets err by posting anecdotal stories with suggestive headlines that can serve as misinfo, as Chicago Tribune did with Facebook’s top-viewed story in Q1
Facebook sent a ton of traffic to a Chicago Tribune story. So why is everyone mad at them?
Because that story was a hit among anti-vaxxers — showing you don’t have to be a “fake news” outfit to put public health at risk.
https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/08/facebook-sent-a-ton-of-traffic-to-a-chicago-tribune-story-so-why-is-everyone-mad-at-them/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pew Research Center:
About 60% of US adults say social media is not important for vaccine news, but about 60% of those who do use social media for news say it’s an important method
About four-in-ten Americans say social media is an important way of following COVID-19 vaccine news
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/24/about-four-in-ten-americans-say-social-media-is-an-important-way-of-following-covid-19-vaccine-news/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jessica Guynn / USA Today:
Researchers: Trump tweets with fact-check labels spread further on Twitter than those without; messages blocked by Twitter remained popular on Facebook, Reddit — Twitter blocked and labeled some Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud in the run-up and aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
Twitter blocked and labeled Donald Trump’s tweets on election fraud. They spread anyway.
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/08/24/trump-twitter-block-election-fraud-tweets-facebook-instagram-posts/8218382002/
Twitter blocked and labeled some of Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud in the run-up and aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
The tweets spread on and off Twitter anyway.
That’s according to a new study from New York University researchers published Tuesday in Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review and shared exclusively with USA TODAY.
The study is raising questions about the ability of social media companies to halt the flood of falsehoods on mainstream social media platforms during election cycles.
NYU researchers say Trump tweets with fact-check labels spread further on Twitter than those without. And when Twitter blocked engagement with the former president’s tweets, they leaped to Facebook, Instagram and Reddit where they were more popular than tweets that Twitter labeled or did not flag at all.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jessica Guynn / USA Today:
Study details how people use hashtags, video effects, and music on TikTok to promote hate against Asians, women, Muslims, Jews, and Black and LGBTQ people — Despite pledges to crack down on hatred, TikTok is still trafficking in short-form videos that promote white supremacy and anti-Black racism …
It’s not just Facebook and Twitter. TikTok is ‘hatescape’ for racism and white supremacy, study says
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/08/24/tiktok-videos-hate-white-supremacy-racism-terrorism/8249286002/
Tomi Engdahl says:
SQLite On The Web: Absurd-sql
https://hackaday.com/2021/08/24/sqlite-on-the-web-absurd-sql/
Love it or hate it, the capabilities of your modern web browser continuously grow in strange and wild ways. The ability for web apps to work offline requires a persistent local storage solution and for many, IndexedDB is the only choice as it works across most browsers and provides a database-like interface. However, as [James Long] found, IndexedDB is painfully slow on chrome and limited in querying ability. He set out to bring a tool he was familiar with, SQLite, and bring it to the web browser as absurd-sql.
Why absurd? Partially because most browsers (not chrome) implement IndexedDB on top of SQLite. So for many browsers, it is just SQLite on top of IndexedDB on top of SQLite. Luckily for [James] there already was a project known as sql.js that uses emscripten to compile the C-based SQLite into WebAssembly. However, sql.js uses an in-memory storage backing and all data is lost when refreshing the page. [James] tweaked SQLite’s method of reading and writing blocks. Instead of being memory backed, he added a layer to read and write blocks from IndexedDB. This means that only sections of the database need to be read in, bringing in huge performance gains.
So what’s the downside? Other than a somewhat large WebAssembly file that needs to get downloaded (409KB) and cached, there really isn’t. Of course, it’s not all roses when it comes to web development. Native SQLite runs 2-3 times faster than absurd-sql, which demonstrates how slow IndexedDB really is
A future for SQL on the web
https://jlongster.com/future-sql-web
The end result is absurd-sql, and it’s a persistent backend for SQLite on the web. That means it doesn’t have to load the whole db into memory, and writes persist. In this post I will explain the absurdities of the web’s storage APIs (mainly IndexedDB), show how SQLite provides a 10x perf improvement, explain all the cool tricks that make it work, and explain the locking/transactional semantics that make it robust.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Insider:
In an abrupt reversal, OnlyFans suspends its October 1 policy change banning porn after securing “assurances” and aims to provide “a home for all creators” — – OnlyFans is reversing its recent decision to ban porn. — It had planned to prohibit sexually explicit …
OnlyFans no longer plans to ban porn, saying in abrupt U-turn that it wants to be a ‘home for all creators’
https://www.businessinsider.com/onlyfans-reverses-ban-sexually-explicit-content-2021-8?op=1&scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4&r=US&IR=T
Tomi Engdahl says:
Joan E. Solsman / CNET:
YouTube says it has removed over 1M videos related to COVID misinformation since Feb. 2020 and removes 10M videos per quarter, most of which have <10 views — But the 1 million coronavirus-related takedowns since the start of the pandemic are difficult to put in context, because of YouTube's gigantic scale.
YouTube says it's removed 1 million videos for COVID-19 misinformation
https://www.cnet.com/news/youtube-says-its-removed-1-million-videos-for-covid-19-misinfo/
But the 1 million coronavirus-related takedowns since the start of the pandemic are difficult to put in context, because of YouTube's gigantic scale.
Will Oremus / Washington Post:
Researchers say YouTube, which attracts less scrutiny than Facebook or Twitter, is a hard platform to study because video is so difficult to analyze in bulk
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/25/youtube-content-moderation-strategy/
Tomi Engdahl says:
New York Times:
Sources: Facebook has approached experts about forming an advisory body for how it handles global election matters, including political ads and misinformation — The social network has contacted academics to create a group to advise it on thorny election-related decisions, said people with knowledge of the matter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/technology/facebook-election-commission.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
All the most popular posts on Facebook are plagiarized
https://www.platformer.news/p/all-the-most-popular-posts-on-facebook
Being original on Facebook doesn’t pay, according to its own data
The conventional wisdom around the “widely viewed content report” that Facebook released last week is that it obscured more than it revealed. The company’s effort to demonstrate that most users do not regularly see divisive news stories in their feeds received widespread criticism, including here, for offering only the highest-level view of the data possible. The most-shared domain on Facebook is YouTube.com? Great, thanks.
But in the days since I last wrote about the report, I’ve spent more time looking at the data Facebook actually did share.
the report arguably reveals something just as damning: almost all of the most-viewed posts on Facebook over the past quarter were effectively plagiarized from elsewhere. And some of the same audience-building tactics that allowed Russian interference to flourish on the platform in 2016 continue to be effective.
Facebook has come a long way in removing inauthentic people from the platform. But what I would consider inauthentic content dominates the most-viewed posts on the site. In the short term, these posts may prove to be less harmful than the COVID misinformation and Big Lie rabble-rousing that we get worked up about more often.
Over the long term, though, they would seem to provide a motivated adversary with a broad attack surface.
There’s something else in the data that bothers me — something that hints of some of the darker forces in the ecosystem. The plagiarists who dominate Facebook’s top 20 links are likely doing it primarily for clout and ill-gotten audience growth. But some of the other characters here appear to have more direct monetary incentives.
Whatever the case, Facebook’s list of popular posts and links tell the same story: the way to succeed on the platform is by copying someone else’s idea.
And if you’ve studied the history of Facebook, perhaps that won’t come as much of a surprise.
https://medium.com/ljosmyndun/10-times-facebook-copied-a-competitor-bda61d2d5c06
Tomi Engdahl says:
Washington Post:
Analysis: targeted ad campaigns on Facebook, long criticized as invasive, have become powerful tools for health officials to persuade people to get vaccinated
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/24/vaccine-ad-targeting-covid/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple launches News Partner Program, which lowers commissions on in-app purchases to 15% for news publishers who participate in Apple News — Apple today is launching a new program that will allow subscription news organizations that participate in the Apple News app and meet certain requirements …
https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/26/apple-lowers-commissions-on-in-app-purchases-for-news-publishers-who-participate-in-apple-news/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Matthew Gault / VICE:
Reddit CEO responds after calls from users to purge the site of COVID-19 disinformation, saying “dissent is a part of Reddit and the foundation of democracy” — The CEO of Reddit has responded to calls from users to purge the site of disinformation, saying “dissent is a part of Reddit and the foundation of democracy.”
Reddit Responds to Calls From Moderators to Fight Disinformation
https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgx3gw/reddit-responds-to-calls-from-moderators-to-fight-disinformation
The CEO of Reddit has responded to calls from users to purge the site of disinformation, saying “dissent is a part of Reddit and the foundation of democracy.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.troot.fi/artikkelit/mika-on-tiktok-ja-miten-luot-tiktokissa-onnistuneen-kampanjan?utm_source=Facebook_Mobile_Feed&utm_campaign=paid_social_helmikuu&fbclid=IwAR2kDKTZUKjuaqVe76br3MnzYOtuhEVAtBYynlGlmn4mJ8Ft7tr1UnuNDMo
Tomi Engdahl says:
With 9 Words, Tim Cook Just Explained the Biggest Problem With FacebookIt’s about the paradox of privacy and digital technology.
https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/with-9-words-tim-cook-just-explained-biggest-problem-with-facebook.html
Facebook certainly depends on the iPhone considering that mobile represents 98 percent of the social platform’s usage. Sure, a good portion of that comes from Android devices, but in the U.S. at least, the iPhone is probably Facebook’s most important platform.
Now, Cook has another response, this time in an interview with the Australian Financial Review about tech companies and privacy:
Technology doesn’t want to be good. It doesn’t want to be bad; it’s neutral. And so it’s in the hands of the inventor and the user as to whether it’s used for good, or not used for good … The risk of not doing that means that technology loses touch with the user. And in that kind of case, privacy can become collateral damage. Conspiracy theories or hate speech begins to drown everything else out. Technology will only work if it has people’s trust.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Benedict Evans:
Many internet privacy proposals circulating today are in direct conflict with those to increase market competition, as they would further entrench big platforms
Ads, privacy and confusion
https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2021/8/27/understanding-privacy
Privacy is coming to the internet and cookies are going away. This is long overdue – but we don’t know what happens next, we don’t have much consensus on what online privacy actually means, and most of what’s on the table conflicts fundamentally with competition.
The consumer internet industry spent two decades building a huge, complex, chaotic pile of tools and systems to track and analyse what people do on the internet, and we’ve spent the last half-decade arguing about that, sometimes for very good reasons, and sometimes with strong doses of panic and opportunism. Now that’s mostly going to change, between unilateral decisions by some big tech platforms and waves of regulation from all around the world. But we don’t have any clarity on what that would mean, or even quite what we’re trying to achieve, and there are lots of unresolved questions. We are confused.
First, can we achieve the underlying economic aims of online advertising in a private way? Advertisers don’t necessarily want (or at least need) to know who you are as an individual. As Tim O’Reilly put it, data is sand, not oil – all this personal data actually only has value in the aggregate of millions. Advertisers don’t really want to know who you are – they want to show diaper ads to people who have babies, not to show them to people who don’t, and to have some sense of which ads drove half a million sales and which ads drove a million sales. Targeting ads per se doesn’t seem fundamentally evil, unless you think putting car ads in car magazines is also evil. But the internet became able to show car ads to people who read about cars yesterday, somewhere else – to target based on the user rather than the context. This is both exactly the same and completely different.
In practice, ‘showing car ads to people who read about cars’ led the adtech industry to build vast piles of semi-random personal data, aggregated, disaggregated, traded, passed around and sometimes just lost, partly because it could and partly because that appeared to be the only way to do it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bloomberg:
China starts a two-month campaign to crack down on websites and social media accounts that post financial information that “maliciously bad-mouths” its economy — China kicked off a two-month campaign to crack down on commercial platforms and social media accounts …
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-28/china-to-cleanse-online-content-that-bad-mouths-its-economy
Tomi Engdahl says:
What are China’s billion netizens doing on the internet
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202108/1232647.shtml#.YStlWlf5zpc.facebook
The number of internet users in China surpassed 1 BILLION in June 2021.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Viranomainen antaa evästeiden käytölle uudet ohjeet tarkoitettu suositusluonteiseksi dokumentiksi
https://www.tivi.fi/uutiset/tv/257a12d0-e6f1-45e8-8ed6-02a726639afa
Liikenne- ja viestintävirasto Traficom on valmistellut palveluntarjoajille ja loppukäyttäjille tarkoitettuja ohjeistuksia yhteistyössä tietosuojavaltuutetun toimiston kanssa. Hankkiakseen lisäviisautta se pyysi kesän mittaan julkisia kommentteja valmisteilla oleviin ohjeisiin. Ohjeistuksen piti alun alkaen valmistua kesän aikana, mutta vielä ei ole aivan valmista. Kommenttien alkuperäinen määräaika oli elokuun 9. päivä. Osa toimijoista pyysi kesälomien takia lisäaikaa lausunnon toimittamiseen.
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTubers have to declare ads. Why doesn’t anyone else?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-x8DYTOv7w
Around the world, there are regulations for “influencers”. Those regulations make sure that if someone is paid to endorse a product, they have to declare that payment to the people watching. But why does no-one on TV, or film, or anywhere else have to do that?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Psychiatrists Report Mass Outbreak Of Sociogenic Illness Spread Via Social Media Videos
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/psychiatrists-report-mass-outbreak-of-sociogenic-illness-spread-via-social-media-videos/
A team of psychiatrists has reported what they’re calling “the first outbreak of a new type of mass sociogenic illness” that is spread by social media alone.
Published in the journal Brain, the team reports that they have seen a “remarkably high number” of young patients who had been referred to their specialist Tourettes clinic in Hannover, all displaying “nearly identical” movements and vocalizations. The patients not only had similar movements but also said a lot of the same words as each other when experiencing a “tic”, regardless of the language they were speaking it in.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stephen Harrison / Slate:
A look at Wikimedia’s Wikifunctions, expected to launch in 2022, which could help partially unify information across the 323 individual-language Wikipedias
Wikipedia Is Trying to Transcend the Limits of Human Language
https://slate.com/technology/2021/09/wikipedia-human-language-wikifunctions.html?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Welcome to Source Notes, a Future Tense column about the internet’s information ecosystem.
Wikipedia has 323 language editions, and at times, there are huge differences between them.
Why are there such differences? Each language version of Wikipedia has historically been its own project, operating largely independently with the content managed by its own community of volunteer editors. In other words, there is not a singular Wikipedia—there are 323 separate Wikipedias. But at a conference in August, Wikipedia leaders presented a new initiative that could theoretically unify the information presented by all of the other Wikipedias, a proposed language-independent encyclopedia that has been generating buzz and prompting a lot of questions within the free content movement.
“Functions are a type of knowledge, and therefore it’s our job to allow everyone to share in this knowledge,” Denny Vrandečić said while introducing Wikifunctions during Wikimania, the user conference for Wikipedia and the other free knowledge projects hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, which this year had more than 4,000 registered virtual attendees. Wikifunctions is the first new Wikimedia project to be launched since 2012, and although the site itself is not expected to be available until 2022, development has already kicked into high gear.
At heart, Wikifunctions is rather technical: It will let the community create functions—that is, sequences of computer programming instructions. These functions will use data as inputs, apply an algorithm, and calculate an output, which can be rendered into one of the natural human languages to answer questions. That could have enormous implications for what you actually read on Wikipedia. A simple function might involve calculating how many days have passed between someone’s date of birth and date of death. The output would be the person’s lifespan, a fact that could appear in the content of that person’s Wikipedia biography.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Making Web Pages With Word?
https://hackaday.com/2021/09/02/making-web-pages-with-word/
If you’ve ever examined the messy HTML that results from doing a Save As HTML from Microsoft Word, you can appreciate [Jim Yuill]’s motivation for his WordWebNav (WWN) project. [Jim] uses Word to document his technical projects, and wanted an easy way to generate web pages. Not only is Word-generated HTML nearly unreadable, [Jim] notes there are known bugs, as well. His project attempts to solve these shortcomings, and adds new features like a navigation pane and headers, among others. Here is a link to a dummy project which shows off these features.
https://jimyuill.com/software/www/WordWebNav/
https://jimyuill.com/software/www/WordWebNav/demo.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vaikuttajat
https://www.iltalehti.fi/kotimaa/a/b9f83d59-9d7a-4a96-b4b4-8df0100bca72
Kuviin ja juoruiluun keskittyvät somekanavat Instagram ja Jodel ovat viime aikoina antaneet äänen heille, jotka eivät ole tulleet aiemmin kuulluiksi. Nyt puhuvat vammaisaktivisti ja Jodelissa viestinyt Hesburgerin entinen työntekijä.
Kuuleeko kukaan?
Jodel on sosiaalisen median alusta, jossa on mahdollista kirjoittaa viestejä nimettömänä. Viime viikolla eräälle palvelun kanavalle kerääntyi yli tuhat viestiä, jotka kertoivat Hesburgerin kestämättömistä työoloista.
Kun Iltalehti uutisoi elokuun lopussa tiedon viesteistä, Tuuli Aitchison alkoi aavistella, että jotain isoa oli tapahtumassa.
– Tiesin, että kun media saa nämä jutut tietoisuuteen ja alkaa julkaista juttuja, pato niin sanotusti rikkoutuu, hän kertoo.
Hän kertoo olleensa pitkään tietoinen Hesburgerin toimintakulttuurista. Työoloista oli hänen mukaansa puitu jo vuodesta 2013 lähtien henkilökunnan ja esihenkilöiden kesken, ilman tulosta.
Jodelissa kerrottiin, että kiire esti työpaikalla lakisääntöiset tauot. Henkilökunnan resursseja oli myös liian vähän hoitamaan edes tarvittavia töitä, muun muassa korona-ajan tehostetusta hygieniasta huolehtimisen.
Tomi Engdahl says:
After years of inaction against adtech, UK’s ICO calls for browser-level controls to fix ‘cookie fatigue’
https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/06/after-years-of-inaction-against-adtech-uks-ico-calls-for-browser-level-controls-to-fix-cookie-fatigue/?tpcc=ECFB2021
In the latest quasi-throwback toward ‘do not track‘, the UK’s data protection chief has come out in favor of a browser- and/or device-level setting to allow Internet users to set “lasting” cookie preferences — suggesting this as a fix for the barrage of consent pop-ups that continues to infest websites in the region.
European web users digesting this development in an otherwise monotonously unchanging regulatory saga, should be forgiven — not only for any sense of déjà vu they may experience — but also for wondering if they haven’t been mocked/gaslit quite enough already where cookie consent is concerned.
Today the UK’s outgoing information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, stepped into the fray to urge her counterparts in G7 countries to knock heads together and coalesce around the idea of letting web users express generic privacy preferences at the browser/app/device level, rather than having to do it through pop-ups every time they visit a website.
In a statement announcing “an idea” she will present this week during a virtual meeting of fellow G7 data protection and privacy authorities — less pithily described in the press release as being “on how to improve the current cookie consent mechanism, making web browsing smoother and more business friendly while better protecting personal data”
“There are nearly two billion websites out there taking account of the world’s privacy preferences. No single country can tackle this issue alone. That is why I am calling on my G7 colleagues to use our convening power. Together we can engage with technology firms and standards organisations to develop a coordinated approach to this challenge,” she added.
Contacted for more on this “idea”, an ICO spokeswoman reshuffled the words thusly: “Instead of trying to effect change through nearly 2 billion websites, the idea is that legislators and regulators could shift their attention to the browsers, applications and devices through which users access the web.
“In place of click-through consent at a website level, users could express lasting, generic privacy preferences through browsers, software applications and device settings – enabling them to set and update preferences at a frequency of their choosing rather than on each website they visit.”
Of course a browser-baked ‘Do not track’ (DNT) signal is not a new idea. It’s around a decade old at this point. Indeed, it could be called the idea that can’t die because it’s never truly lived — as earlier attempts at embedding user privacy preferences into browser settings were scuppered by lack of industry support.
It’s not clear what consensus — practical or, er, simply pro-industry — might result from this call. If anything.
Indeed, today’s press release may be nothing more than Denham trying to raise her own profile since she’s on the cusp of stepping out of the information commissioner’s chair.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Joskus pitää hutiloida. Silloin kannattaa muistaa yksi asia keskeneräisen verkkopalvelun julkaisusta.
Hutiloida voi hyvin tai huonosti – Case Liiga
https://into-digital.fi/hutiloida-voi-hyvin-tai-huonosti-case-liiga/?utm_source=fbmainos&utm_medium=kuva&utm_campaign=Case+Liiga&fbclid=IwAR3ojX2BHqMDGilRb3JuA6LeZg9oELR_upJelWqP7y1-navKHm07OQKWT0E
Suomen suosituin urheilusarja, jääkiekon Liiga, uudisti verkkosivunsa. Kiekkofanit olivat pettyneitä uudistukseen, ja turhautuminen valui sosiaaliseen mediaan ja iltapäivälehtien sivuille. Miksi keskeneräisen palvelun julkaiseminen on riski? Miten hallita riskiä?
Elokuussa julkaistu Liigan uudistettu verkkosivusto sai kuitenkin turhautuneilta faneilta kritiikkiä heti ensimmäisestä päivästä lähtien. Muun muassa mobiilikäytettävyys ja tilastojen luotettavuus ovat saaneet kylmää kyytiä. Liigan toimitusjohtaja vahvistikin pian, että sivusto on edelleen kesken. Vanhatkin nettisivut ovat edelleen käytössä, ja ilmeisesti osa tiedoista päivittyy sinne uusia sivuja luotettavammin.
Syitä keskeneräisen palvelun julkaisuun voi olla lukuisia, mutta sivustoa selaillessa herää kysymys, onkohan riskejä pohdittu loppuun asti?
Kiukkua ja muita riskejä
Käyttäjät nimittäin ovat armottoman malttamattomia. Jos sivun lataaminen kestää useita sekunteja – siirrytään muualle. Jos olennaisin tieto ei löydy heti etusivulta – takaisin Googleen. Jos sivuston ulkoasu ei näytä luotettavalta – sisältö ei vakuuta. Sivuston vierailijoiden luottamusta ei kannata pettää, koska heidät on vaikea houkutella takaisin.
Keskeneräisyydellä voi tehdä hallaa myös uuden verkkopalvelun näkyvyydelle. Esimerkiksi jos sivuston hakukoneoptimointi jää puolitiehen eikä sivuille ole lisätty kunnon metatekstejä, voi uuden sivuston näkyvyys tipahtaa hakukoneissa nopeastikin.
Jos uutta sivustoa ei ole optimoitu nopeudenkaan suhteen, hakualgoritmien suosio on vieläkin kauempana. Googlen PageSpeed Insights -työkalu on näppärä tapa testata nopeasti sivuston nopeutta.
Viimeistelemättömyydellä voi ampua myös omaa brändiään jalkaan. Me Intolla ajattelemme, että verkkopalvelu on tärkein yksittäinen markkinointiviestinnän väline. Jos verkkopalvelun ilme ja visuaalinen suunnittelu on ristiriidassa muun brändin kanssa, on hankala luoda itsestään vakuuttavaa kuvaa. Puhumattakaan huolimattomasti suunnitellusta käyttökokemuksesta, mikä ei myöskään lisää käyttäjän luottamusta brändiin.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Elizabeth Byrne / ABC:
Australia’s High Court affirms earlier rulings that media companies can be held responsible for Facebook comments posted under stories on their Facebook Pages — The High Court has dismissed an appeal by some of Australia’s biggest media outlets including The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian …
High Court finds media outlets are responsible for Facebook comments in Dylan Voller defamation case
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-08/high-court-rules-on-media-responsibility-over-facebook-comments/100442626
The High Court has dismissed an appeal by some of Australia’s biggest media outlets including The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian, finding they are the publishers of third-party comments on their Facebook pages.
Former Northern Territory detainee Dylan Voller wants to sue the companies in the New South Wales Supreme Court over alleged defamatory comments on their Facebook pages.
But the case had been stalled by a dispute over whether the outlets were the publishers of the material.
The High Court today found that, by running the Facebook pages, the media groups participated in communicating any defamatory material posted by third parties and were therefore responsible for the comments.
Today’s decision cleared the way for Mr Voller to continue his defamation case against some of Australia’s biggest media companies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube’s Copyright System Isn’t Broken. The World’s Is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jwo5qc78QU
No copyright infringement intended.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why You Can’t Trust Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaGTFeibOEk
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bloomberg Green: A multiplatform approach to climate change coverage
https://wan-ifra.org/2021/09/bloomberg-green-a-multiplatform-approach-to-climate-change-coverage/
2021-09-01. Launched in the middle of the pandemic, Bloomberg Green magazine is focused on reporting on the impact of climate change in business, science and technology.
As part of the build-up, Laura Oliver interviewed Aaron Rutkoff, editor of Bloomberg Green, the multiplatform editorial brand launched by Bloomberg in January 2020.
“We’re one of the only – maybe the only – magazines to ever be created from scratch in the middle of a global pandemic,” says Rutkoff.
The pandemic has helped teach the team how to tell stories about global systemic risk and the ways societies are vulnerable to them. For the media company, however, climate change had already become “too big to be contained by one narrow beat” in the newsroom; it had “intruded” into almost every area covered by Bloomberg and a new mode of coverage to match the scale of the story was needed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Odanga Madung / Wired:
Investigation reveals how social media influencers in Kenya are hired to spread disinformation on Twitter against Kenyan journalists, judges, and activists — It’s a lucrative gig for content creators, who can make $10 to $15 a day by smearing journalists and activists on social media.
In Kenya, Influencers Are Hired to Spread Disinformation
https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-in-kenya-influencers-are-hired-to-spread-disinformation/
It’s a lucrative gig for content creators, who can make $10 to $15 a day by smearing journalists and activists on social media.
On May 18 of this year, the insidious hashtag #AnarchistJudges appeared on Kenyan Twitter timelines. Apparently driven by a number of faceless bots, and retweeted by a series of sock puppet accounts, the deluge of tweets cast suspicion on both the competence and integrity of senior High Court of Kenya judges that had just shot down the Constitutional Amendments Bill of 2021. Many falsely claimed the judges were involved in narcotics dealings, bribery, and political partisanship. It quickly became one of the country’s top trending topics.
Such malicious, coordinated disinformation attacks are rapidly growing in Kenya, my Mozilla Foundation colleague Brian Obilo and I have found in a new investigation. Through a series of interviews with influencers involved in these campaigns, we reviewed evidence of a booming, shadowy industry of social media influencers for political hire in Kenya. Members of civil society and journalists alike have increasingly come under disinformation attacks that seek to silence them, muddy their reputations, and stifle their reach.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mainonta TikTokissa – mikä toimii ja mikä ei?
https://www.dingle.fi/blog/mainonta-tiktokissa-mik-toimii-ja-mik-ei?fbclid=IwAR0InBKOr-E6hgfaEqZEzG1D5H8Rz6ZEIPFYQNFs9279hvt6pJpFp7k1OMs
Pähkinänkuoressa: TikTok Suomessa
1,1 miljoonaa kuukausittaista käyttäjää, joista noin 60 % naisia ja 40 % miehiä.
Suomen TikTok-käyttäjät ovat iältään 15–55 vuotta. Suomalaisista käyttäjistä lähes puolet ovat 18–24-vuotiaita.
Käytetään noin 1 tunti per päivä.
75 % ajasta vietetään For You -osiossa eli sinulle suositeltua -osiossa.
Alun perin TikTok tunnettiin nimellä Musical.ly. Nimi muuttui muotoon TikTok vuonna 2017. Kiinassa, josta sovellus on lähtöisin, se kulkee nimellä Douyin.
TikTok vaikuttaa jo nyt isosti ostopäätöksiin
Kuten mainostajat jo tietävät, vaikuttamalla lapsiin ja nuoriin vaikuttaa samalla myös vanhempiin. Esimerkiksi meillä (ja datan mukaan myös monissa muissa kotitalouksissa) on testattu jo ainakin seuraavia:
Blogimaailmasta alkunsa saanut fetapasta kulkee meillä arjessa nimellä ”TikTok-pasta”. Fetapasta nousi TikTokin ansiosta korona-aikana todelliseen maailmanmaineeseen, jonka seurauksena fetapalat on myyty loppuun supermarketeista aina Kainuusta Kaliforniaan. Kodin sisustamisessa puolestaan olemme tehneet marmorikontaktimuovilla koulupöydän kannesta uudenveroisen – TikTokin tuote- ja tekovinkeillä tietenkin. Ja tietyllä valkaisuaineella ja kikalla saa t-paidat taas valkoisiksi.
Näiden kaikkien taustalla on mikäs muukaan kuin hyvin toteutettu TikTok-sisältö. TikTok-sisällöt toimivatkin inspiraationa monille muillekin muksujen päähänpistoille — joita me vanhemmat kiltisti toteutamme.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Texas governor signs bill banning social media companies with 50M+ MAUs from blocking or restricting people or their content based on their viewpoint — The law is an escalation of a conservative critique of Silicon Valley and will likely to face legal challenges from the industry
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/09/govgregabbott-social-media-censorship-bill/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Everything to Our Satisfaction?
http://web.eppendorf.com/off-the-bench/everything-to-our-satisfaction.html?fbclid=IwAR1jVv0ldowtmBjCdDbEX9Jx9gVVd12xVwJja7CRnQnFRXgAbsntxI1WDyQ&utm_campaign=hq%3Bbasicnoise%3Btraffic&utm_content=glo%3Ben%3Bunspecified%3Bunspecified%3Bunspecified&utm_medium=link&utm_source=facebook&utm_term=look%3Bsingle_image%3Bunspecified%3Blead
Sociologist Martin Schröder studies what makes us feel content: he analyzed a huge database, compiled over 34 years. Five findings that resulted from his work will surprise, explain and potentially even induce contentment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
REVEALED: Facebook exempts secret ‘whitelisted’ elite from its rules and allows them to post banned content with special XCheck program: Tech titan is aware its platforms are riddled with flaws that cause harm
https://mol.im/a/9986225
Whistleblower leaks documents about ‘XCheck’ program run by Facebook
Secret program ‘whitelists’ celebrities and VIPs by shielding them from rules
Donald Trump, Neymar, Senator Elizabeth Warren among those ‘whitelisted’
Facebook has a secret program in place that allows celebrities and powerful people to skirt the social network’s own rules, according to a bombshell report.
The Silicon Valley giant’s program, called ‘XCheck’ or ‘cross check,’ created a so-called ‘whitelist’ of celebrities who are immune from enforcement, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The list of protected celebrities and VIPs include Brazilian soccer star Neymar; former President Donald Trump; his son, Donald Trump Jr; Senator Elizabeth Warren; model Sunnaya Nash; and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Avoid talking about the Facebook story and focus on the source being the Daily Mail. NBC is a questionable source too. Maybe it’s fake news.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/13/facebook-shields-millions-of-vip-users-from-moderation-protocols.html
Daily Mail and NBC both have a history of publishing lies, errors and also truths. So what? What part of the actual story is valid and what part isn’t? Weird tunnel vision.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/facebook-files-xcheck-zuckerberg-elite-rules-11631541353
Tomi Engdahl says:
It’s from the Wall Street Journal. Free read here:
https://archive.is/4A6AH
“We are not actually doing what we say we do publicly.”
Facebook Says Its Rules Apply to All. Company Documents Reveal a Secret Elite That’s Exempt.
A program known as XCheck has given millions of celebrities, politicians and other high-profile users special treatment, a privilege many abuse
Mark Zuckerberg has publicly said Facebook Inc. allows its more than three billion users to speak on equal footing with the elites of politics, culture and journalism, and that its standards of behavior apply to everyone, no matter their status or fame.
In private, the company has built a system that has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules, according to company documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The program, known as “cross check” or “XCheck,” was initially intended as a quality-control measure for actions taken against high-profile accounts, including celebrities, politicians and journalists. Today, it shields millions of VIP users from the company’s normal enforcement process, the documents show. Some users are “whitelisted”—rendered immune from enforcement actions—while others are allowed to post rule-violating material pending Facebook employee reviews that often never come.
At times, the documents show, XCheck has protected public figures whose posts contain harassment or incitement to violence, violations that would typically lead to sanctions for regular users.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wall Street Journal:
Internal docs: Facebook’s own research shows Instagram is harmful to a sizeable percentage of users, especially teen girls, but has taken few remedial steps — Its own in-depth research shows a significant teen mental-health issue that Facebook plays down in public
Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-instagram-is-toxic-for-teen-girls-company-documents-show-11631620739?mod=djemalertNEWS
Its own in-depth research shows a significant teen mental-health issue that Facebook plays down in public
She joined the platform at 13, and eventually was spending three hours a day entranced by the seemingly perfect lives and bodies of the fitness influencers who posted on the app.
“When I went on Instagram, all I saw were images of chiseled bodies, perfect abs and women doing 100 burpees in 10 minutes,” said Ms. Vlasova, now 18, who lives in Reston, Va.
Around that time, researchers inside Instagram, which is owned by Facebook Inc., were studying this kind of experience and asking whether it was part of a broader phenomenon. Their findings confirmed some serious problems.
“Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” the researchers said in a March 2020 slide presentation posted to Facebook’s internal message board, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves.”
For the past three years, Facebook has been conducting studies into how its photo-sharing app affects its millions of young users. Repeatedly, the company’s researchers found that Instagram is harmful for a sizable percentage of them, most notably teenage girls.
“We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” said one slide from 2019, summarizing research about teen girls who experience the issues.
“Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression,” said another slide. “This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.”
Among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram, one presentation showed.
Expanding its base of young users is vital to the company’s more than $100 billion in annual revenue, and it doesn’t want to jeopardize their engagement with the platform.
More than 40% of Instagram’s users are 22 years old and younger, and about 22 million teens log onto Instagram in the U.S. each day, compared with five million teens logging onto Facebook, where young users have been shrinking for a decade, the materials show.
On average, teens in the U.S. spend 50% more time on Instagram than they do on Facebook.
“Instagram is well positioned to resonate and win with young people,” said a researcher’s slide posted internally. Another post said: “There is a path to growth if Instagram can continue their trajectory.”
In public, Facebook has consistently played down the app’s negative effects on teens, and hasn’t made its research public or available to academics or lawmakers who have asked for it.
“The research that we’ve seen is that using social apps to connect with other people can have positive mental-health benefits,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a congressional hearing in March 2021 when asked about children and mental health.
The Instagram documents form part of a trove of internal communications reviewed by the Journal, on areas including teen mental health, political discourse and human trafficking. They offer an unparalleled picture of how Facebook is acutely aware that the products and systems central to its business success routinely fail.
The documents also show that Facebook has made minimal efforts to address these issues and plays them down in public.
The company’s research on Instagram, the deepest look yet at what the tech giant knows about its impact on teens and their mental well-being, represents one of the clearest gaps revealed in the documents between Facebook’s understanding of itself and its public position.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kalhan Rosenblatt / NBC News:
Instagram says Saint Hoax, an influencer with 2.8M+ followers, will livestream from this year’s Met Gala red carpet as its first-ever Meme Correspondent
Here’s why you’ll be seeing more memes from this year’s Met Gala
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/here-s-why-you-ll-be-seeing-more-memes-year-n1279003
Saint Hoax, known for his meme account on Instagram, will be the platform’s first-ever ‘Meme Correspondent’ on the Met Gala red carpet.
The Met Gala red carpet has a new addition this year: A meme correspondent.
Saint Hoax, an influencer with more than 2.8 million followers on Instagram, will be live from the event’s red carpet making — you guessed it — memes.
He will be “Instagram’s first-ever Meme Correspondent on the Met Gala red carpet,” the platform said. The event will take place Monday at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art after being canceled last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Saint Hoax’s presence on the carpet is part of a larger push from Instagram — which is the official sponsor of the 2021 Met Gala, exhibitions and catalog — to give fans a more behind-the-scenes look at one of the biggest nights in the fashion world.
“For major cultural moments like the Met Gala, people dive into Instagram to connect with the action,” Ricky Sans, Instagram’s strategic partner manager for memes, told NBC News in an email. “Now, more than ever, we’re seeing an entirely new generation of fashion gurus and culture-shapers emerge on the platform – they also happened to grow up on memes.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
REPORT: TikTok’s algorithm is promoting sex, drug videos to children
https://www.fox26houston.com/video/976353
Do you know what your children are watching on the video-sharing app TikTok. According to a recent report, TikTok’s algorithm has been promoting videos of sex and drugs to minors. For more information, we turn to Alex Hammerstone, Director of Advisory Solutions for with TrustedSEC.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why The Web Is Such A Mess
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFRjZtYs3wY
Tim Berners-Lee envisioned a “universal information system”. What went wrong?
• MORE BASICS:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL96C35uN7xGLLeET0dOWaKHkAlPsrkcha