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.
2,194 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Hack the Instagram Reels Algorithm – According to Instagram!
https://later.com/blog/instagram-reels-algorithm/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.talon.one/blog/9-excellent-examples-gamification-retail
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
New York Times:
Elon Musk’s investor pitch deck: grow Twitter revenue 5x to $26.4B, cut ad revenue reliance to <50% by 2028, grow Twitter Blue's users to 69M by 2025, and more
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/technology/elon-musk-twitter-pitch-deck.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dan Mangan / CNBC:
A California federal judge dismisses Donald Trump’s lawsuit seeking to lift his ban from Twitter but may allow an amended complaint to be filed against Twitter
Judge dismisses Trump lawsuit seeking to lift Twitter ban
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/06/trump-lawsuit-asking-to-lift-twitter-ban-is-dismissed.html
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by former President Donald Trump seeking to lift his ban from Twitter.
The social media giant had banned Trump in January 2021, citing the risk of the incitement of further violence on the heels of the Capitol riot by a mob of supporters of the then-president.
Trump had been an avid user of Twitter before being barred by the app.
A judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit by former President Donald Trump seeking to lift his ban from Twitter.
But San Francisco federal district court Judge James Donato left the door open for Trump and other plaintiffs to file an amended complaint against Twitter that is consistent with his written decision Friday to toss the lawsuit in its entirety.
The social media giant had banned Trump on Jan. 8, 2021, citing the risk of the incitement of further violence on the heels of the Capitol riot by a mob of supporters of the then-president two days earlier.
Trump, the American Conservative Union, and five individuals had sued Twitter and its co-founder Jack Dorsey last year on behalf of themselves and a class of other Twitter users who had been booted from the app.
Donato’s ruling comes nearly two weeks after Trump told CNBC he had no interest in returning to Twitter even if his ban were to be lifted by Elon Musk, the Tesla chief whose $44 billion offer to buy Twitter has been accepted by the company’s board.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Client side scanning may cost more than it delivers https://blog.malwarebytes.com/privacy-2/2022/05/client-side-scanning-may-cost-more-than-it-delivers/
On May 11, 2022, the EU will publicize a proposal for a law on mandatory chat control. The European Commission wants all providers of email, chat and messaging services to search for suspicious messages in a fully automated way and forward them to the police in the fight against child pornography.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Twitter announces a “Copypasta and Duplicate Content” policy to clarify how it works to combat spam and duplicative content and what constitutes a violation — Twitter announced today that it’s rolling out a new “Copypasta and Duplicate Content” policy to clarify how the platform works …
https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/10/twitters-new-policy-highlights-its-efforts-to-combat-spam-and-duplicative-tweets/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Via Silja Tenhunen Bloomberg: “Publishers in Germany including ZEIT, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Spiegel, along with others in Hungary, France, Austria, the Netherlands and Ireland have signed up to the agreement with the search engine”.
Google to Pay Over 300 EU News Outlets to Publish Content
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-11/google-to-pay-over-300-eu-news-outlets-to-publish-content
Deals made with ZEIT, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Spiegel
European Copyright Directive came into force in 2019
dimas says:
Thank you for nice information.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Washington Post:
Interviews with 17 Hollywood insiders reveal that celebrities view Twitter as a high-risk, low-reward platform, and why Musk’s ownership might make it worse — Elon Musk was right that Twitter’s most popular accounts have gone quieter over the years. Hollywood insiders explain what happened …
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/12/twitter-celebrities-musk/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Thomas Stackpole / HBR.org:
A Q&A with crypto skeptic Molly White, who runs Web3 Is Going Just Great, on Web3′s problems, cultural draw, privacy and potential harassment issues, and more
Cautionary Tales from Cryptoland
https://hbr.org/2022/05/cautionary-tales-from-cryptoland
All of a sudden, it feels like Web3 is everywhere. The money, the buzz, the name all make it seem like Web3 will inevitably be the next big thing. But is it? And do we even want it to be?
As the hype has reached a fever pitch, critics have started to warn of unintended and overlooked consequences of a web with a blockchain backbone. And while Web3 advocates focus on what the future of the internet could be, skeptics such as Molly White, a software developer and Wikipedia editor, are focused on the very real problems of the here and now.
White created the website Web3 Is Going Just Great, a time line that tracks scams, hacks, rug pulls, collapses, shady dealings, and other examples of problems with Web3. HBR.org spoke to White over email about what people aren’t hearing about Web3, how blockchain could make internet harassment much worse, and why the whole project might be “an enormous grift that’s pouring lighter fluid on our already-smoldering planet.” This interview has been lightly edited.
You make it very clear that you don’t have a financial stake in Web3 one way or another. So what led you to start your project and write about Web3’s problems?
Late 2021 was when I really began to notice a huge shift in how people talk about crypto. Instead of being primarily used for speculative investments by people who were willing to take on a lot of risk in exchange for hopes of huge returns, people began to talk about how the whole web was going to shift toward services that were built using blockchains. Everyone would have a crypto wallet, and everyone would adopt these new blockchain-based projects for social networks, video games, online communities, and so on.
This shift got my attention, because until then crypto had always felt fairly “opt-in” to me. It was previously a somewhat niche technology, even to software engineers, and it seemed like the majority of people who engaged with it financially were fairly aware of the volatility risks. Those of us who didn’t want anything to do with crypto could just not put any money into it.
Once crypto began to be marketed as something that everyone would need to engage with, and once projects began trying to bring in broader, more mainstream audiences — often people who didn’t seem to understand the technology or the financial risks — I got very concerned. Blockchains are not well suited to many, if not most, of the use cases that are being described as “Web3,” and I have a lot of concerns about the implications of them being used in that way. I also saw just an enormous number of crypto and Web3 projects going terribly: people coming up with incredibly poorly thought-out project ideas and people and companies alike losing tons of money to scams, hacks, and user error.
In the examples you’ve collected, what are some of the common mistakes or misapprehensions you see in companies’ efforts to launch Web3 projects, whether they’re NFTs (non-fungible tokens) or something else?
My overwhelming feeling is that Web3 projects seem to be a solution in search of a problem. It often seems like project creators knew they wanted to incorporate blockchains somehow and then went casting around for some problem they could try to solve with a blockchain without much thought as to whether it was the right technology to address it, or even if the problem was something that could or should be solved with technology at all.
Kickstarter might have been the most egregious example of this: Late last year they announced, much to the chagrin of many in their user base, that they would be completely rebuilding their platform on a blockchain.
Companies also seem to announce NFT projects without doing much research into how these have gone for other companies in their sector. We’ve seen enough NFT announcements by video game studios that have gone so badly that they’ve chosen to reverse the decision within days or even hours.
I firmly believe that companies first need to identify and research the problem they are trying to solve, and then select the right technology to do it. Those technologies may not be the latest buzzword, and they may not cause venture capitalists to come crawling out of the woodwork, but choosing technologies with that approach tends to be a lot more successful in the long run — at least, assuming the primary goal is to actually solve a problem rather than attract VC [venture capital] money.
One of the most surprising (to me, anyway) arguments you make is that Web3 could be a disaster for privacy and create major issues around harassment. Why? And does it feel like the companies “buying into” Web3 are aware of this?
Blockchains are immutable, which means once data is recorded, it can’t be removed. The idea that blockchains will be used to store user-generated data for services like social networks has enormous implications for user safety. If someone uses these platforms to harass and abuse others, such as by doxing, posting revenge pornography, uploading child sexual abuse material, or doing any number of other very serious things that platforms normally try to thwart with content-moderation teams, the protections that can be offered to users are extremely limited. The same goes for users who plagiarize artwork, spam, or share sensitive material like trade secrets. Even a user who themself posts something and then later decides they’d rather not have it online is stuck with it remaining on-chain indefinitely.
Many blockchains also have a very public record of transactions: Anyone can see that a person made a transaction and the details of that transaction. Privacy is theoretically provided through pseudonymity — wallets are identified by a string of characters that aren’t inherently tied to a person. But because you’ll likely use one wallet for most of your transactions, keeping one’s wallet address private can be both challenging and a lot of work and is likely to only become more challenging if this future vision of crypto ubiquity is realized. If a person’s wallet address is known and they are using a popular chain like Ethereum to transact, anyone [else] can see all transactions they’ve made.
This point of view seems almost totally absent from the conversation. Why do you think that is?
I think a lot of companies haven’t put much thought into the technology’s abuse potential. I’m surprised at how often I bring it up and the person I’m talking to admits that it’s never crossed their mind.
When the abuse potential is acknowledged, there’s a very common sentiment in the Web3 space that these fundamental problems are just minor issues that can be fixed later, without any acknowledgment that they are intrinsic characteristics of the technology that can’t easily be changed after the fact. I believe it’s completely unacceptable to release products without any apparent thought to this vector of user risk, and so I am shocked when companies take that view.
One of the mainstays of the pitch made by Web3 proponents is that blockchain can democratize (or re-democratize) the web and provide new sources of wealth and opportunity — even banking the unbanked. What’s your take on that?
It’s a compelling pitch; I’ll give them that. But crypto has so far been enormously successful at taking wealth from the average person or the financially disadvantaged and “redistributing” it to the already wealthy. The arguments I’ve seen for how this same technology is suddenly going to result in the democratization of wealth have been enormously uncompelling. The emerging crypto space is very poorly regulated, especially the newer parts of it pertaining to decentralized finance. It’s difficult for me to see a future where poorly regulated technology with built-in perverse financial incentives will magically result in fairer, more accessible systems.
As for “banking the unbanked” and the democratization of the web, people are falling into a trap that technologists have fallen into over and over again: trying to solve social problems purely with technology. People are not unbanked because of some technological failure. People lack access to banking services for all sorts of reasons: They don’t have money to open a bank account to begin with, they’re undocumented, they don’t have access to a physical bank or an internet or mobile connection, or they don’t trust banks due to high levels of corruption in their financial or judicial systems.
These are not problems that can be solved solely through the addition of a blockchain. Indeed, crypto solutions introduce even more barriers: the technological know-how and the level of security practices required to safeguard a crypto wallet; the knowledge and time to try to distinguish “scammy” projects from those that are trying to be legitimate; the lack of consumer protections if something happens to an exchange where you are keeping your funds; and the added difficulty of reversing fraud when it does occur.
In my view, the places where crypto has done some good — and I do openly acknowledge that it has done some good — have primarily been in situations where there are enormous societal and political failings and any replacement is better than what exists. For example, some people have successfully used crypto to send remittances to people under oppressive regimes. These examples are fairly limited
Given all of this, what do you think is the cultural draw of Web3?
The ideological argument for Web3 is very compelling, and I personally hold many of the same ideals. I strongly believe in working toward a more equitable and accessible financial system, creating a fairer distribution of wealth in society, supporting artists and creators, ensuring privacy and control over one’s data, and democratizing access to the web. These are all things you will hear Web3 projects claiming to try to solve.
I just don’t think that creating technologies based around cryptocurrencies and blockchains is the solution to these problems. These technologies build up financial barriers; they don’t knock them down. They seek to introduce a layer of financialization to everything we do that I feel is, in many ways, worse than the existing systems they seek to replace. These are social and societal issues, not technological ones, and the solutions will be found in societal and political change.
Should HBR.org even be doing this package on Web3? Are we buying into — or amplifying — the hype cycle?
I think we are comfortably beyond the “ignore it and hope it goes away” phase of crypto. I know I decided I was beyond that phase late last year. I think the best thing that journalists who report on crypto can do at this stage is ask the tough questions, seek out experts wherever they can, and try not to fall for the boosterism.
Crypto and Web3 are complex on so many levels — technologically, economically, sociologically, legally — that it is difficult for any single person to report on all issues, but there are extremely competent people who have examined crypto through each of these lenses and who are asking those tough questions.
One of the biggest failures of the media in reporting on crypto has been uncritically reprinting statements from crypto boosters with little reflection on the legitimacy or feasibility of those statements. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shraddha Chakradhar / Nieman Lab:
A study finds that installing NewsGuard’s extension increased reliable news consumption among US participants who tended to spend time on unreliable news sites — As more companies and platforms adopt ways to figure out whether fact-checking, flagging questionable content …
Do browser extensions keep anyone away from fake news sites? Maybe a tiny bit
https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/05/do-browser-extensions-keep-anyone-away-from-fake-news-sites-maybe-on-the-edges-a-tiny-bit/
A new study finds that NewsGuard’s credibility ratings for news sites helped steer the most frequent consumers of misinformation towards more reliable outlets.
As more companies and platforms adopt ways to figure out whether fact-checking, flagging questionable content, or some other form of alert works best to dissuade people from consuming misinformation, a new study finds that credibility ratings for news sites may offer a tiny ray of hope — if users actually use them.
Overall, the study found that when people installed the NewsGuard extension — which, when installed, provides people with a “green” or “red” rating for a site, with green indicating a trustworthy site — their tendency to focus on largely reliable news sites didn’t really change over the study duration. The volunteers were asked to install the NewsGuard extension for the study.
For context, sites like CNN and The New York Times have earned “green” from NewsGuard. The Gateway Pundit or DailyKos are rated “red.” (Fox News? Green.) For users who have NewsGuard’s extension installed, these ratings show up as shields embedded directly into users’ search results, social media feeds or in websites that users visit (although it’s unclear how many typical news consumers are actually going to install credibility extensions before reading the news).
The researchers found that the intervention — i.e. installing NewsGuard extensions — also did not change the measure of who believed in misinformation at the end of the study. (The authors didn’t look at the smaller group of the most frequent consumers of misinformation here, either).
Other measures — such as trust in institutions, belief that fake news is a problem in general, and belief that fake news is a problem in the mainstream media — did also not change significantly with the intervention of installing NewsGuard extensions.
Going into the study, “We expected optimistically, that [the intervention] would have a positive effect,” said Kevin Aslett, a post-doctoral associate in computational social science at NYU and lead author of the new study. They thought that being shown credibility ratings “would reduce misperceptions, it would reduce political cynicism, increase trust in media, and [have an impact on] all these downstream effects of exposure to misinformation … obviously that did not happen,” he said.
In the overall sample, the time spent on reliable versus unreliable sites also didn’t change in the group that was asked to install the NewsGuard extension compared to the control group.
However, this lack of change was likely because the people enrolled in the study were by and large already consumers of reliable news sites. Roughly 65% of those in the study already had a news diet made up of “green”-rated sites.
The researchers did notice that the needle for reliable news consumption moved when they looked at the bottom 10% to 20% of people who tended to spend time on unreliable news sites. Among this group, the study found a shift toward more “green”-rated sites being more frequented sources of news by the end of the study.
Gordon Crovitz, co-CEO of NewsGuard (which was not involved in the study) said, “We’re pleased with the confirmation — as we’ve seen in a lot of other research — that if individuals have access to ratings, that they will value those ratings and will appreciate the added information about the source of news.” He asserted, “Nobody wants to rely on or share information from sources that repeatedly publish false content.”
Still, “It’s really rare to find any lasting effects on people’s behavior the way we did here,” said Andrew Guess, an assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University and an author of the study. “For a very subtle intervention of that kind, I think that’s quite remarkable.”
Finally, “A big challenge is finding interventions that actually have lasting effects,” Guess said. For a lot of interventions for combatting misinformation, effects are often fleeting, Guess explained, adding, “The jury’s still out on on what kinds of strategies can actually produce lasting changes.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jättiyllätys: Elon Musk keskeytti Twitter-kaupat
Musk odottaa selvitystä bottitileistä.
https://www.iltalehti.fi/digiuutiset/a/d2af6105-d363-47b2-9a21-5a07fcee22ba
– Twitter-kaupat ovat tilapäisesti pidossa odottamassa yksityiskohtia, jotka tukevat laskemia siitä, että spämmi- ja valetilit edustavat oikeasti alle viittä prosenttia käyttäjistä.
Musk tarjoutui aiemmin ostamaan Twitterin 44 miljardilla dollarilla ja Twitter hyväksyi tämän tarjouksen huhtikuun lopulla.
Musk on aiemmin kertonut, että hänen yhtenä tärkeimmistä tehtävistään Twitter-omistajana olisi päästä eroon juuri boteista ja muusta roskasta, jota palvelussa mellastaa. Twitter arvioi aiemmin, että bottitilit edustavat alle viittä prosenttia sen päivittäisistä käyttäjistä.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Anatomy of a campaign to inject JavaScript into compromised WordPress sites https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/13/wordpress-redirect-hack/
A years-long campaign by miscreants to insert malicious JavaScript into vulnerable WordPress sites, so that visitors are redirected to scam websites, has been documented by reverse-engineers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New York Times:
Live broadcasts and shared videos of mass shootings again raise questions about social networks’ responsibilities in curbing violent and hateful content — Gunmen say they are influenced by online screeds and broadcasts of past shootings. Do social media sites have a responsibility to rein in hateful and violent content?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/15/business/buffalo-shooting-social-media.html
Kellen Browning / New York Times:
Twitch confirms the Buffalo gunman livestreamed Saturday’s attack on its platform, saying it took his channel down within two minutes of the violence starting — Officials said the gunman broadcast the attack live on Twitch, the livestreaming site owned by Amazon that is popular with gamers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/14/nyregion/twitch-buffalo-shooting.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Buffalo mass shooting gunman live-streamed the attack on Twitch
https://www.businessinsider.com/twitch-buffalo-mass-shooting-live-streamed-platform-by-the-gunman-2022-5?r=US&IR=T
A gunman opened fire at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, Saturday, killing at least 10 people.
The suspect live-streamed the attack on Twitch, the platform confirmed.
Officials said the attack was racially motivated and that 11 out of the 13 people shot were Black.
The gunman in a mass shooting that killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday live-streamed the attack on
Twitch
, the platform confirmed.
“We are devastated to hear about the shooting that took place this afternoon in Buffalo, New York. Our hearts go out to the community impacted by this tragedy. Twitch has a zero-tolerance policy against violence of any kind and works swiftly to respond to all incidents. The user has been indefinitely suspended from our service, and we are taking all appropriate action, including monitoring for any accounts rebroadcasting this content,” Twitch said in a statement provided to Insider.
A spokesperson said their investigation found the livestream was removed within two minutes of the start of the violence. They added the company was monitoring the platform for any accounts that may try to reshare the content.
Officials said an 18-year-old white gunman opened fire at a Tops grocery store Saturday afternoon in a racially motivated attack.
Authorities also said the gunman live-streamed the attack using a camera that was attached to the tactical helmet he was wearing.
CNN obtained a portion of the livestream, which it said it will not air, that showed the suspect pulling up to the store and saying “just got to go for it.” The suspect can be seen in the rearview mirror wearing a helmet.
The incident was not the first time Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, was used to live-stream a mass shooting. In 2019, thousands of people watched a Twitch live-stream of a shooting at a synagogue in Germany before it was taken down.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul held a press conference Saturday evening and condemned the social media platforms the gunman used. Though she did not specifically name Twitch, she suggested that all platforms that allowed the suspect to spread his message of racial hatred were complicit in his crime.
“They can be in a sense an accomplice to a crime like this. Perhaps not legally, but morally. They created the platform to allow this hate to be spewed,” Hochul said. “The act of live-
streaming this. The fact that this could even be hosted on a platform. It’s absolutely shocking.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Texas’ content moderation law is clearly unconstitutional and forces social media services to allow a torrent of spam or face a deluge of frivolous litigation
Just How Incredibly Fucked Up Is Texas’ Social Media Content Moderation Law?
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/05/12/just-how-incredibly-fucked-up-is-texas-social-media-content-moderation-law/
So, I already had a quick post on the bizarre decision by the 5th Circuit to reinstate Texas’ social media content moderation law just two days after a bizarrely stupid hearing on it. However, I don’t think most people actually understand just how truly fucked up and obviously unconstitutional the law is. Indeed, there are so many obvious problems with it, I’m not even sure I can do them adequate justice in a single post. I’ve seen some people say that it’s easy to comply with, but that’s wrong. There is no possible way to comply with this bill. You can read the full law here, but let’s go through the details.
The law declares social media platforms as “common carriers” and this was a big part of the hearing on Monday, even though it’s not at all clear what that actually means and whether or not a state can just magically declare a website a common carrier (as we’ve explained, that’s not how any of this works). But, it’s mainly weird because it doesn’t really seem to mean anything under Texas law. The law could have been written entirely without declaring them “common carriers” and I’m not sure how it would matter.
The law applies to “social media platforms” that have more than 50 million US monthly average users (based on whose counting? Dunno. Law doesn’t say), and limits it to websites where the primary purpose is users posting content to the site, not ones where things like comments and such are a secondary feature. It also excludes email and chat apps (though it’s unclear why). Such companies with over 50 million users in the US probably include the following as of today (via Daphne Keller’s recent Senate testimony): Facebook, YouTube, Tiktok, Snapchat, Wikipedia, and Pinterest are definitely covered. Likely, but not definitely, covered would be Twitter, LinkedIn, WordPress, Reddit, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and possibly Discord. Wouldn’t it be somewhat amusing if, after all of this, Twitter’s MAUs fall below the threshold?! Also possibly covered, though data is lacking: Glassdoor, Vimeo, Nextdoor, and Twitch.
And what would the law require of them? Well, mostly to get sued for every possible moderation decision. You only think I’m exaggerating. Litigator Ken White has a nice breakdown thread of how the law will encourage just an absolutely insane amount of wasteful litigation:
As he notes, a key provision and the crux of the bill is this bizarre “anti-censorship” part:
CENSORSHIP PROHIBITED. (a) A social media platform may not censor a user, a user’s expression, or a user’s ability to receive the expression of another person based on:
(1) the viewpoint of the user or another person;
(2) the viewpoint represented in the user’s expression or another person’s expression; or
(3) a user’s geographic location in this state or any part of this state.
(b) This section applies regardless of whether the viewpoint is expressed on a social media platform or through any other medium.
So, let’s break this down. It says that a website cannot “censor” (by which it clearly means moderate) based on the user’s viewpoint or geographic location. And it applies even if that viewpoint doesn’t occur on the website.
What does that mean in practice? First, even if there is a good and justifiable reason for moderating the content — say it’s spam or harassment or inciting violence — that really doesn’t matter. The user can simply claim that it’s because of their viewpoints — even those expressed elsewhere — and force the company to fight it out in court. This is every spammer’s dream. Spammers would love to be able to force websites to accept their spam. And this law basically says that if you remove spam, the spammer can take you to court.
Indeed, nearly all of the moderation that websites like Twitter and Facebook do are, contrary to the opinion of ignorant ranters, not because of any “viewpoint” but because they’re breaking actual rules around harassment, abuse, spam, or the like.
While the law does say that a site must clearly post its acceptable use policy, so that supporters of this law can flat out lie and claim that a site can still moderate as long as it follows its policies, that’s not true. Because, again, all any aggrieved user has to do is to claim the real reason is due to viewpoint discrimination, and the litigation is on.
And let me tell you something about aggrieved users: they always insist that any moderation, no matter how reasonable, is because of their viewpoint. Always. And this is especially true of malicious actors and trolls, who are in the game of trolling just to annoy in the first place. If they can take that up a notch and drag companies into court as well? I mean, the only thing stopping them will be the cost, but you already know that a cottage industry is going to pop up of lawyers who will file these cases. I wouldn’t even be surprised if cases start getting filed today.
I haven’t even gotten to the bit that says that you can’t “censor” based on geographic location. That portion can basically be read to be forcing social media companies to stay in Texas. Because if you block all of your Texas users, they can all sue you, claiming that you’re “censoring” them based on their geographic location.
So, yeah, here you have the “free market” GOP passing a law that effectively says that social media companies (1) have to operate in Texas and (2) have to be sued over every moderation decision they make, even if it’s in response to clear policy violations.
Making it even more fun, the law forbids any waivers, so social media companies can’t just put a new thing in their terms of service saying that you waive your rights to bring a claim under this law. They really, really, really just want to flood every major social media website with a ton of purely frivolous and vexatious litigation. The party that used to decry trial lawyers just made sure that Texas has full employment for trial lawyers.
And that’s not all that this law does. That’s just the part about “censorship.”
There is the whole transparency bit, requiring that a website “disclose accurate information regarding its content management, data management, and business practices.” That certainly raises some issues about trade secrets, general security and more. But, it also is going to effectively require that websites publish all the details that spammers, trolls, and others need to be more effective.
The covered companies will also have to keep a tally over every form of moderation and post it in its transparency report. So, every time a spam posting is removed, it will need to be tracked and recorded. Even any time content is “deprioritized.” What does that mean? All of these companies recommend stuff based on algorithms, meaning that some stuff is prioritized and some stuff is not. I don’t care to see when people I follow tweet about football, because I don’t watch football. But it appears that if the algorithm learns that about me and chooses to deprioritize football tweets just for me, the company will need to include that in its transparency report.
Now, multiply that by every user, and every possible interaction. I think you could argue that these sites “deprioritize” content billions of times a day just by the natural functioning of the algorithm. How the hell do you track all the content you don’t show someone?!
The law also requires detailed, impossible complaint procedures, including a full tracking system if someone follows a complaint. That’s required as of last night. So best of wishes to every single covered platform, none of whom have this technology in place.
It also requires that if the website is alerted to illegal content, it has to determine whether or not the content is actually illegal within 48 hours. I’ll just note that, in most cases, even law enforcement isn’t that quick, and then there’s the whole judicial process that can take years to determine if something is illegal. Yet websites are given 48 hours?
Hilariously, the law says that you don’t have to give a user the opportunity to appeal if the platform “knows that the potentially policy-violating content relates to an ongoing law enforcement investigation.” Except, won’t this kind of tip people off? Your content gets taken down, but the site doesn’t give you the opportunity to appeal… Well, the only exemption there is if you’re subject to an ongoing law enforcement investigation, so I guess you now know there is one, because the law says that’s the only reason they can refuse to take your appeal. Great work there, Texas.
The appeal must be decided within 14 days, which sure sounds good if you have no fucking clue how long some of these investigations might take — especially once the system is flooded with the appeals required under this law.
And, that’s not all. Remember last week when I was joking about how Republicans wanted to make sure your inboxes were filled with spam? I had forgotten about the provision in this law that makes a lot of spam filtering a violation of the law. I only wish I was joking. For unclear reasons, the law also amends Texas’ existing anti-spam law.
So that literally says the only reasons you can “impede” email is if it contains malicious code, obscene material, sexual content, or violates other laws. Now the reference to 321.114 alleviates some of this, since that section gives services (I kid you not) “qualified immunity” for blocking certain commercial email messages, but only with certain conditions, including enabling a dispute resolution process for spammers.
There are many more problems with this law, but I am perplexed at how anyone could possibly think this is either workable or Constitutional. It’s neither. The only proper thing to do would be to shut down in Texas, but again the law treats that as a violation itself. What an utter monstrosity.
Republicans Want To Make Sure Your Inboxes Are Filled With Spam (Unless The Spam Filters Block Democrats’ Emails)
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/05/03/republicans-want-to-make-sure-your-inboxes-are-filled-with-spam-unless-the-spam-filters-block-democrats-emails/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jessica Bursztynsky / CNBC:
DWAC’s SEC filing details Donald Trump’s commitments to Truth Social, including posting there first and waiting six hours before posting to Twitter or elsewhere
Trump’s free to use Twitter if Musk lifts his ban, but he has to post on Truth Social first
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/16/trump-can-tweet-if-musk-lifts-his-ban-but-has-to-post-on-truth-social.html
Donald Trump plans to partially restrict himself on social media like Twitter, according to an SEC filing from the blank-check company taking the former president’s company public.
Trump will be obligated to make any social media post on Truth Social, his social network, and can’t make that same post on another social media site for six hours.
He is still free to post from a personal account about political messaging, political fundraising or get-out-the-vote efforts on any platform at any time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Web3 is a crypto-optimist idea of a decentralized internet built on blockchains and cryptocurrencies
The decentralized web is not decentralized
https://qz.com/2112965/web3-is-not-decentralized/
Cryptocurrency zealots preaching the gospel of Web3 claim everything we do online will be powered by blockchains. Instead of large private companies managing speech and commerce on the internet, Web3 advocates say the next iteration of the internet will hand over much of that power to users.
How we communicate, exchange money, and organize ourselves in a Web3 world could be decentralized across networks of computers, rather than managed on corporate servers. Cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance (DeFi) will give people alternatives to traditional banks and financial institutions. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) will track ownership rights of virtual goods within video games and let digital artists sell their work online. And decentralized social media could prevent content moderation by a top-down authority like YouTube or Twitter deciding what is acceptable.
But even if blockchains are decentralized, the Web3 services that interact with them are controlled by a very small number of privately held companies. In fact, the industry emerging to support the decentralized web is highly consolidated, potentially undermining the promise of Web3.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Musk: Doubt About Spam Accounts Could Scuttle Twitter Deal
https://www.securityweek.com/musk-doubt-about-spam-accounts-could-scuttle-twitter-deal
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says his deal to buy Twitter can’t move forward unless the company shows public proof that less than 5% of the accounts on the social media platform are fake or spam.
Musk made the comment in a reply to another user on Twitter early Tuesday. He spent much of the previous day in a back-and-forth with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who posted a series of tweets explaining his company’s effort to fight bots and how it has consistently estimated that less than 5% of Twitter accounts are fake.
In his tweet Tuesday, Musk said that “20% fake/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be much higher. My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate.”
He added: “Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of 5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
TikTok launches Branded Mission, a product that lets advertisers crowdsource content from creators with 1K+ followers and turn top-performing videos into ads — TikTok announced today that it’s launching a new ad product called “Branded Mission” that will allow creators to connect with brands and possibly receive rewards for videos.
TikTok’s new ad product gives creators a chance to partner with marketers on branded content
https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/18/tiktoks-ad-product-gives-creators-opportunities-partner-marketers-branded-content/
TikTok announced today that it’s launching a new ad product called “Branded Mission” that will allow creators to connect with brands and possibly receive rewards for videos. With the new ad product, advertisers can crowdsource content from creators and turn top-performing videos into ads. Advertisers can launch branded campaigns and encourage creators to take part in them. Brands can develop a brief and release it to the creator community encouraging them to participate in Branded Missions.
Creators can then decide in which Branded Missions they want to participate. All creators who are at least 18 years old and have at least 1,000 followers are eligible to participate in a Branded Mission. TikTok says eligible creators whose videos are selected by brands will “benefit from a cash payment and boosted traffic.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter:
Twitter announces a crisis misinformation policy, including adding a warning to highly visible tweets with misleading information and disabling engagement — Around the world, people use Twitter to find reliable information in real time. During periods of crisis – such as situations of armed conflict …
Introducing our crisis misinformation policy
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2022/introducing-our-crisis-misinformation-policy
Around the world, people use Twitter to find reliable information in real time. During periods of crisis – such as situations of armed conflict, public health emergencies, and large-scale natural disasters – access to credible, authoritative information and resources is all the more critical.
Today, we’re introducing our crisis misinformation policy – a global policy that will guide our efforts to elevate credible, authoritative information, and will help to ensure viral misinformation isn’t amplified or recommended by us during crises. In times of crisis, misleading information can undermine public trust and cause further harm to already vulnerable communities. Alongside our existing work to make reliable information more accessible during crisis events, this new approach will help to slow the spread by us of the most visible, misleading content, particularly that which could lead to severe harms.
Addressing the most severe harms
During moments of crisis, establishing whether something is true or false can be exceptionally challenging. To determine whether claims are misleading, we require verification from multiple credible, publicly available sources, including evidence from conflict monitoring groups, humanitarian organizations, open-source investigators, journalists, and more.
Some examples of Tweets that we may add a warning notice to include:
False coverage or event reporting, or information that mischaracterizes conditions on the ground as a conflict evolves;
False allegations regarding use of force, incursions on territorial sovereignty, or around the use of weapons;
Demonstrably false or misleading allegations of war crimes or mass atrocities against specific populations;
False information regarding international community response, sanctions, defensive actions, or humanitarian operations.
Strong commentary, efforts to debunk or fact check, and personal anecdotes or first person accounts do not fall within the scope of the policy.
While this first iteration is focused on international armed conflict, starting with the war in Ukraine, we plan to update and expand the policy to include additional forms of crisis. The policy will supplement our existing work deployed during other global crises, such as in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and India.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tonya Riley / CyberScoop:
FTC warns edtech companies to not use children’s data for ads and other commercial purposes without parental consent, saying it will “vigilantly enforce” COPPA — The Federal Trade Commission voted 5- on Thursday to issue a policy statement warning education tech companies …
FTC warns it will go after ed tech companies misusing children’s data
https://www.cyberscoop.com/ed-tech-ftc-coppa/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Washington Post:
Republicans, who opposed common carrier status for ISPs in the net neutrality debate, now want social media platforms to be treated like “public utilities”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/19/how-gop-assault-social-media-flipped-net-neutrality-its-head/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Keach Hagey / Wall Street Journal:
A new bipartisan Senate bill would prohibit companies with $20B+ in annual digital ad transactions from participating in more than one part of the ad ecosystem
GOP-Led Legislation Would Force Breakup of Google’s Ad Business
The bill, which has some Democratic support, takes aim at conflicts of interest in advertising technology
https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-led-legislation-would-force-breakup-of-googles-ad-business-11652969185?mod=djemalertNEWS
A bipartisan group of senators led by Utah Republican Mike Lee introduced legislation Thursday that would take aim at conflicts of interest in the advertising technology industry and force Google to break up its dominant online-ad business.
The bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.), is among the most aggressive of the legislative proposals circulating in Congress that aim to rein in the power of Big Tech.
The Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act would prohibit companies processing more than $20 billion in digital ad transactions annually from participating in more than one part of the digital advertising ecosystem.
That would directly impact Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc.
which is the dominant player at every link in the chain that connects buyers and sellers of online advertising. Google operates tools that help companies sell and purchase ads, as well as the auction houses, or exchanges, where transactions happen in split seconds.
Under the legislation, Google wouldn’t be able to stay in all those businesses.
“When you have Google simultaneously serving as a seller and a buyer and running an exchange, that gives them an unfair, undue advantage in the marketplace, one that doesn’t necessarily reflect the value they are providing,” said Mr. Lee in an interview. “When a company can wear all these hats simultaneously, it can engage in conduct that harms everyone.”
In effect, the legislation would likely require Google to divest significant portions of the digital advertising business it built following its 2008 acquisition of DoubleClick Inc., Mr. Lee said. “It’s just a massive, massive business they’ve got going,” he said. Google’s “network” business, which includes tools used by third parties to buy and sell ads, generated $31.7 billion in revenue in 2021.
Companies would have a year from the enactment of the legislation to comply with the new rules.
A Google spokeswoman said: “Advertising tools from Google and many competitors help American websites and apps fund their content, help businesses grow, and help protect users from privacy risks and misleading ads.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitch moved quickly where others faltered. The platform has turned a corner on moderation after a bumpy few years — but there’s room to improve.
How Twitch took down Buffalo shooter’s stream in under two minutes
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/05/20/twitch-buffalo-shooter-facebook-nypd-interview/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook
Last weekend, a gruesome scene unfolded live on Twitch as a shooter opened fire in a Buffalo, New York, supermarket. Ultimately, ten people were killed. Since then, millions have viewed videos of the coldblooded carnage on platforms like Facebook. But at the time, just 22 concurrent viewers tuned in. Twitch pulled the plug less than two minutes after the shooter opened fire.
Twitch managed to move quickly where others faltered — especially the comparably much larger Facebook — on content that was live, rather than prerecorded. Facebook also moved to immediately delete copies of the live-streamed video, but a link to the footage from lesser-known site Streamable garnered 46,000 shares on Facebook and remained on the site for more than 10 hours. In a statement to The Washington Post earlier this week, Facebook parent company Meta said it was working to permanently block links to the video but had faced “adversarial” efforts by users trying to circumvent its rules to share the video.
First and foremost, Hession and Lewington stressed that Twitch’s approach to content moderation centers human beings; while modern platforms like Twitch, YouTube and Facebook use a mixture of automation and human teams to sift through millions of uploads per day, Lewington said Twitch never relies solely on automated decision-making.
“While we use technology, like any other service, to help tell us proactively what’s going on in our service, we always keep a human in the loop of all our decisions,” said Lewington, noting that in the past two years, Twitch has quadrupled the number of people it has on hand to respond to user reports.
This, Hession and Lewington said, is crucial on a platform that, more so than any other, orbits around live content.
Lewington touted an internal stat: 80 percent of user reports, he said, are resolved in under 10 minutes. On a platform with 9 million streamers in total and over 200 million lines inputted into chat per day, that takes a well-oiled machine.
The platform’s current approach to content moderation is, in some ways, a product of several highly public, painful lessons.
Twitch’s reaction to the Buffalo shooting was faster than anybody else’s, but users still managed to record the stream and distribute copies to a multitude of other platforms. The company continues to collaborate with the likes of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter as part of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, which has allowed participating organizations to pool data on different versions of the Buffalo shooting video and remove them quickly. But there are still loopholes bad actors can exploit.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Can anyone please recommend any open source vulnerable web site that I can use to practice web security??
Burp suit academy
tryhackme.com hackthebox.com dwva.co.uk
https://sourceforge.net/projects/websecuritydojo/
Vulnweb
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.suomenuutiset.fi/paljastusvideo-twitterin-vasemmistolaiset-pomot-puolustelevat-oikeiston-sensurointia-ivaavat-elon-muskia-aspegerin-takia-en-siis-voi-ottaa-vakavasti/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/05/google-backtracks-on-legacy-gsuite-account-shutdown-wont-take-user-emails/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Napster joins Limewire and Winamp by jumping on the web3 bandwagon
https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/18/23122179/napster-web3-bought-hivemind-algorand
The music service best known for piracy joins the web trend best known for waffle
Tomi Engdahl says:
Texas law allows users to sue Facebook and Twitter for ‘censoring’ their views
https://www.pcgamer.com/texas-law-allows-users-to-sue-facebook-and-twitter-for-censoring-their-views/
A federal appeals court has lifted an injunction against HB20, which has the potential to throw online moderation rules into chaos.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Firefox 100.0.1 released with improved Windows process isolation
https://www.ghacks.net/2022/05/14/firefox-100-0-1-released-with-improved-windows-process-isolation/
Mozilla Firefox 100.0.1 is a small bug fix release that addresses issues in the browser’s Picture-in-Picture mode and improves process isolation on Windows devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Your life online:
How is the EU making it easier and safer for you?
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/your-online-life-and-the-eu/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=20220513-your-life-online-feature-story&utm_content=card
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://media.sanoma.fi/suunnittelijan-tyokalut/trp-rtb-apv-lyhyt-oppimaara-markkinoinnin-termeihin
Tomi Engdahl says:
A court just blew up internet law because it thinks YouTube isn’t a website
That’s actually not the worst part
https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/13/23068423/fifth-circuit-texas-social-media-law-ruling-first-amendment-section-230
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.vox.com/recode/23132580/google-antitrust-search-android-mobile-ads?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Tomi Engdahl says:
João Carrasqueira / XDA Developers:
Microsoft debuts Power Pages, a low-code website builder, and Power Apps Express Design, which can turn images into an app with controls and data storage — It’s that time of the year again when Microsoft holds its Build developer event, and with it comes a ton of news for all kinds of Microsoft products.
Microsoft’s Power Platform can now build websites and turn images into apps
https://www.xda-developers.com/microsoft-power-platform-build-websites-apps-images/
It’s that time of the year again when Microsoft holds its Build developer event, and with it comes a ton of news for all kinds of Microsoft products. That includes the Power Platform, Microsoft’s low-code development platform meant to make it easier for business to create apps without requiring advanced programming skills. This year, Microsoft is introducing Power Pages, a low-code website builder, as well as Power Apps Express Design.
Power Pages is a brand-new addition to the Power Platform family, and it makes it easier for businesses to create modern and secure websites using the low-code platform. Users can start designing a website from the ground up, adding text, video, images, forms, and so on, or you can use one of the templates Microsoft offers to get started. While it’s meant to be friendly for low-code users, it also integrates with Visual Studio Code, Azure DevOps, and GitHub so you can use these code-first tools for more advanced capabilities.
Another big piece of news is the Power Apps Express Design feature. With this, it’s now possible to feed any design input – such as a PDF file, designs from Figma, or even a hand-drawn design – into Power Apps and see it come to life as a proper app with working controls and data storage. You can add more screens to the app by adding more images. This should make it easier than ever to go from the design stage to having a working app.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google Chrome now lets all desktop users right-click an image and perform a Lens search to translate text, identify an object, get the original source, and more
Google Lens comes to Chrome for searching using images from webpages
Sarah Perez
https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/24/google-lens-comes-to-chrome-for-searching-using-images-from-webpages/
Google has been working to better integrate its visual search tools from Google Lens into its browser to enable new types of searches that can identify what you see, not just search for things you type. Today, Google is rolling out a new way to use Google Lens on the desktop. Instead of opening a new tab to perform a search, you’ll be able to use Lens on the same page in your Chrome browser to do things like translating an image’s text, identifying an object in an image or getting the original source from an image.
Previously, Google had offered Lens capabilities in Image search and Google Photos on the web, but its fullest offering was on mobile devices. This April, Google also rolled out Lens-powered multisearch capabilities on mobile allowing users to search with both text and images combined — hinting at the company’s broader plans to further invest in Lens technology to make searches feel more natural.
Today’s update will allow Chrome browser users on desktop to right-click on any image on a web page, then go to the new menu option “Search image with Google Lens.” This is the same menu where today, you could save or copy the image or open it in a new tab.
This will open a set of search results in a new panel on the side of the web page with more information about the photo. You can then choose to click a button to find the image source, which lets you see other web pages that include that same image. You could also translate text in the image or use Lens to help you identify what’s in the photo.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chromeen on piilotettu tehokas työkalu – voi pelastaa huijaukselta https://www.is.fi/digitoday/art-2000008841829.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sharing Your Projects With The World: How?
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/26/sharing-your-projects-with-the-world-how/
So you just built a super-mega robot project that you want to share with the world. Super! But now you’re faced with an entirely new and different problem: documenting the process for the world to see. It’s enough to drive you back down into the lab.
What software should I use to create my project site?
How deep down the rabbit hole should I go when it comes to documenting the project?
What toppings do I want on my something-to-eat-while-hacking pizza?
We’re not going to get into the age old “pineapple or no pineapple” debate, but it’s important to note that the topic of how to share a project with the world has as many choices as toppings, and just as many opinions. The answer will always be simple: Do what works best for you!
The purpose of this article is to give some options to somebody considering sharing their projects online. There isn’t enough room to talk about every single option available to a hacker, so be sure to fill in your favorite options in the comments below. Let’s dive in!
Considerations Before You Start
Before even beginning to look into all of the options for hosting your projects, there are some basic questions that we need to answer. Consider the following:
Who is your audience, and how will they expect to consume what you present?
How deeply do you want to document your project, and what kind of media will you present?
How will people find your project?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Greg Stohr / Bloomberg Law:
SCOTUS blocks Texas’ social media content moderation law in a 5-4 vote, putting the measure on hold while a constitutional challenge proceeds in a lower court — The US Supreme Court blocked a Texas law that critics say would fundamentally transform Twitter Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook …
High Court Halts Texas Law Targeting Social Media Platforms (2)
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tech-and-telecom-law/supreme-court-halts-texas-law-on-social-media-content-moderation
A divided US Supreme Court blocked a Texas law that critics say would fundamentally transform Twitter Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook by requiring them to allow hate speech and extremism.
Over four dissents, the justices on Tuesday put the measure on hold while a constitutional challenge goes forward in a lower court, granting a request from tech groups that represent the platforms. A federal appeals court let the law, known as HB20, go into effect earlier this month.
The tech groups, which also represent Alphabet Inc.’s Google, said the measure would unconstitutionally bar platforms from removing neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan screeds or Russian propaganda about its invasion of Ukraine.
The Supreme Court order “means that private American companies will have an opportunity to be heard in court before they are forced to disseminate vile, abusive or extremist content under this Texas law,” said Matt Schruers, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, one of the groups pressing the case.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:
A look at Discord’s outsized role in crypto and Web3 communities, as the platform struggles with rampant spam, phishing attacks, scammers, and malware
Discord Is the World’s Most Important Financial Messenger, and a Hotbed for Scammers
https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7n848/discord-is-the-worlds-most-important-financial-messenger-and-a-hotbed-for-scammers
Rampant spam, phishing attacks, scammers, and malware—Discord has a lot of challenges securing crypto projects.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Safarilla nyt yli miljardi käyttäjää
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/13660-safarilla-nyt-yli-miljardi-kaeyttaejaeae
Google Chrome on ylivoimaisesti suosituin internet-selain, mutta GlobalStatsin mukaan Applen Safari on ylittänyt miljardin käyttäjän rajan. Safariin luottaa nyt 1006,2 miljoonaa käyttäjää, mikä on 19,16 prosenttia kaikista internetin käyttäjistä.
AtlasVPN:n kerääminen lukujen mukaan Chrome on omassa luokassaan lähes 3,4 miljardilla käyttäjällä. Microsoftin Edge on saanut taakseen 212 miljoonaa käyttäjää, mitä voidaan pitää vaatimattomana lukemana, kun ottaa huomioon ohjelmistojätin pyrkimykset kasvattaa sen suosiota.
Edge kuitenkin ohitti viime vuonna Firefoxin, johon luottaa 179 miljoonaa käyttäjää, Samsungin omaan selaimeen 149,7 miljoonaa käyttäjää ja norjalaiseen Operaan 108,7 miljoonaa käyttäjää.
Safarin suosion kasvu osoittaa Applen laitemyynnin voiman. Selain asennetaan automaattisesti jokaiseen iPhone- ja Mac-tietokoneeseen.
Viime vuoden tilastoihin verrattuna Microsoft Edge ohitti Firefoxin kolmanneksi suosituimmaksi selaimeksi yli 212 miljoonalla käyttäjällä.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Winnie-the-Pooh and hundreds of other works are now in the public domain
https://news.temple.edu/news/2022-01-24/winnie-pooh-and-hundreds-other-works-are-now-public-domain
Donald P. Harris, associate dean for academic affairs and equity, diversity and inclusion liaison at the Beasley School of Law, explains public domain and the implications for artists and large companies like Disney.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.karhuhelsinki.fi/blogi/sisallonsyotto-verkkosivustolle-vinkit-onnistuneeseen-prosessiin
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://natureworldtoday.com/a-selection-of-maps-is-tw/50/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://suomalainentyo.fi/teemat/suomalainen-verkkokauppa/
Tomi Engdahl says:
24 Lessons, 12 Weeks, Get Started as a Web Developer
https://github.com/microsoft/Web-Dev-For-Beginners
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://lamia.fi/blogi/headless-ratkaisu-hyodyt-vs-haasteet?utm_source=paid_social&utm_medium=fb&utm_campaign=Lamia%20-%20CIO%2FCDO%20-%20Traffic%20-%205%2F2022&utm_content=Lamia%20-%20CMO%20-%205%2F2022__%20-%20growth%20-%20Interest%20-%20Single%20image____tuotefeedit&placement=Facebook_Mobile_Feed&fbclid=IwAR32IpJ8NbTc2y5p5xGZc9vRuqSRcxa4Tf4vI55Q2WT_u4nUE6AHIqQjBuQ
Tomi Engdahl says:
The 5 Different Types of Website Hosting Explained
https://elementor.com/blog/types-of-web-hosting/
If you are looking for a hosting provider, you’ll quickly discover there are different types of hosting with different prices, features, and technical specifications. In this article, we will discuss the most popular types of hosting and help you to decide which is suitable for your website.