Comcast data cap blasted by lawmakers as it expands into 12 more states from r/technology
Comcast data cap blasted by lawmakers as it expands into 12 more states
Data cap harms poor people and isn’t needed to manage network, Mass. reps say.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/comcast-data-cap-blasted-by-lawmakers-as-it-expands-into-12-more-states/
Comcast charges an extra $30 per month for unlimited data, or $25 for the “xFi Complete” add-on package that includes the Comcast gateway device and unlimited data. Customers who don’t upgrade to unlimited data and exceed the 1.2TB cap must pay $10 for each additional block of 50GB, up to a maximum of $100 each month. Comcast is phasing in the charges gradually, so customers in newly capped areas could start getting overage charges for their April 2021 usage.
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more on netneutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality
“As I create and modify my course syllabi, I want to make sure my students use APA 7th ed. when writing their formal assignments. For those of you who also use APA, what do you say in your syllabi? What matters to you with your students giving proper credit to sources, images, or videos? I’m trying to do better and expect better”
I never assume the they learned the format, and I build in an APA workshop. I use OWL Purdue and go over a sample paper first, then the APA PowerPoint. Then I give them a low stakes assignment (like a discussion post) to practice.
I talk about documentation more as a convention of their discourse community, not just citations. There is a certain structure and way of writing in APA, that along with citations, represent the values of a particular discourse community. Those are the things that matter to me. (I also get more buy in from students.)
I was happy to discover that APA now has decent examples online, free, at their website. So in my instructions to students, I linked to the main page and also 3 specific pages with commonly used items, such as newspaper articles online, and YouTube videos. So step 1 is providing tools. Step 2 is clearly expressed grade penalties.
I actually don’t say anything my syllabus. What I do is in my LMS: give them a template and links to the Purdue OWL and other relevant websites. I have also written a “Dr. Kaminski’s APA 7th Ed Guide”. It’s more of my pet peeves and what they should be focusing on that students often miss. I give a lot of grace on the first (low stakes) written assignment, with more focus on the APA portion than the actual content. After that, I’m expecting them to have it down.
I say it (and link to resources) in my assignment sheets and have a spot in my rubric to reflect what I am asking of my students.
I post resources to our LMS. Mostly the usual subjects (APA, Purdue OWL, etc). I often add a short video on the bias-free writing chapter because that’s often not covered in their intro to research writing courses. For citations, I’m more a stickler for complete information than semicolons and whatnot. I don’t feel good about deducting points for anything that students were taught with APA 6 that is different in 7 since we changed the rules on them.
I provide a free workshop at the beginning of the semester to explain the ‘why’ and provide practice. It carries a rather high weighting in our rubrics so…some understanding and ‘free points’ if they use it appropriately.
I have a different document I refer to in the syllabus titled “Writing Expectations”. I briefly explain the importance of using APA and the characteristics of academic writing (e.g. paraphrasing, avoiding over usage of direct quotes, and other things I see in student writing). The second page is an APA job aid that shows the basics for citations, reference lists, and leveled headings.
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more on APA 7th edition in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=apa+7
Internet propaganda is becoming an industrialized commodity, warns Phil Howard, the director of the Oxford Internet…
Posted by SPIEGEL International on Friday, January 15, 2021
Posted by SPIEGEL International on Friday, January 15, 2021
Can We Develop Herd Immunity to Internet Propaganda?
Internet propaganda is becoming an industrialized commodity, warns Phil Howard, the director of the Oxford Internet Institute and author of many books on disinformation. In an interview, he calls for greater transparency and regulation of the industry.
Platforms like Parler, TheDonald, Breitbart and Anon are like petri dishes for testing out ideas, to see what sticks. If extremist influencers see that something gets traction, they ramp it up. In the language of disease, you would say these platforms act as a vector, like a germ that carries a disease into other, more public forums.
at some point a major influencer takes a new meme from one of these extremist forums and puts it out before a wider audience. It works like a vector-borne disease like malaria, where the mosquitoes do the transmission. So, maybe a Hollywood actor or an influencer who knows nothing about politics will take this idea and post it on the bigger, better known platform. From there, these memes escalate as they move from Parler to maybe Reddit and from there to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. We call this “cascades of misinformation.“
Sometimes the cascades of misinformation bounce from country to country between the U.S., Canada and the UK for example. So, it echoes back and forth.
Within Europe, two reservoirs for disinformation stick out: Poland and Hungary.
Our 2020 report shows that cyber troop activity continues to increase around the world. This year, we found evidence of 81 countries using social media to spread computational propaganda and disinformation about politics. This has increased from last years’ report, where we identified 70 countries with cyber troop activity.
identified 63 new instances of private firms working with governments or political parties to spread disinformation about elections or other important political issues. We identified 21 such cases in 2017-2018, yet only 15 in the period between 2009 and 2016.
Why would well-funded Russian agencies buy disinformation services from a newcomer like Nigeria?
(1) Russian actors have found a lab in Nigeria that can provide services at competitive prices. (2) But countries like China and Russia seem to be developing an interest in political influence in many African countries, so it is possible that there is a service industry for disinformation in Nigeria for that part of the world.
Each social media company should provide some kind of accounting statement about how it deals with misuse, with reporting hate speech, with fact checking and jury systems and so on. This system of transparency and accountability works for the stock markets, why shouldn’t it work in the social media realm?
We clearly need a digital civics curriculum. The 12 to 16 year olds are developing their media attitudes now, they will be voting soon. There is very good media education in Canada or the Netherlands for example, and that is an excellent long-term strategy.
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more on fake news in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=fake+news
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/oculus-quest-education-dave-dolan/
The Go had to be paired with a phone to enable it to work. How can that possibly be an option in a school with many dozens of headsets? Content had to either go through the Oculus Go Store, which is being shut down at this very moment, or side-loaded through an odd “Developer Mode” access, which is extremely difficult when dealing with large numbers of headsets. Even something as mundane as printing the serial number of that VR device on the headstrap, which can easily be mixed up with other headsets, is a troubling and odd choice to make. Those serial numbers are very important when bulk loading content onto a number of devices at a time, which is the only way they can be managed by school IT departments, and once again shows a lack of understanding of the needs from within schools.
Of course, there is also the elephant in the room… Facebook.
This mandatory attachment to a for-profit, social media behemoth, currently facing antitrust litigation [ Facebook Halts Sale of Rift & Quest in Germany Amid Regulatory Concerns ] should be reason enough to seriously question its inclusion into an academic institution.
Personal identifiability of user tracking data during observation of 360-degree VR video ]
Facebook is not content to use the contact information you willingly put into your Facebook profile for advertising. It is also using contact information you handed over for security purposes and contact information you didn’t hand over at all, but that was collected from other people’s contact books, a hidden layer of details Facebook has about you that some have come to call “shadow contact information.”
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more on quest in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=oculus+quest
Leaked Documents Show How China’s Army of Paid Internet Trolls Helped Censor the Coronavirus from r/worldnews
https://www.propublica.org/article/leaked-documents-show-how-chinas-army-of-paid-internet-trolls-helped-censor-the-coronavirus
At a time when digital media is deepening social divides in Western democracies, China is manipulating online discourse to enforce the Communist Party’s consensus. To stage-manage what appeared on the Chinese internet early this year, the authorities issued strict commands on the content and tone of news coverage, directed paid trolls to inundate social media with party-line blather and deployed security forces to muzzle unsanctioned voices.
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more on trolls in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=trolls
In 2021, we need to fix America’s internet: We pay twice as much as Europe for high speeds, assuming we can even get them from r/technology
IN 2021, WE NEED TO FIX AMERICA’S INTERNET
We pay twice as much as Europe for high speeds, assuming we can even get them
https://www.theverge.com/22177154/us-internet-speed-maps-competition-availability-fcc
Across the country, the FCC and internet service providers are pretending there’s competition in an unimaginable number of places where it doesn’t actually exist.
As FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel wrote for The Verge last March, as many as one in three US households doesn’t have broadband internet access, currently defined as just 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up — which feels like the bare minimum for a remote learning family these days.
early 12 million children don’t have a broadband connection at home, the Senate Joint Economic Committee reported in 2017. And the “homework gap” hits harder if you’re poor, of course: only 56 percent of households with incomes under $30,000 had broadband as of last February, according to the Pew Research Center.
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more on netneutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality
Zoom Shared US User Data With Beijing from r/news
https://www.ntd.com/zoom-shared-us-user-data-with-beijing_544087.html
Former Zoom executive Jin Xinjiang worked with Chinese authorities to provide data on users outside of China. Court documents say this allowed Zoom to keep market access in China.
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more on Zoom in this iMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=zoom
“Rudderless” QAnon may reinvent itself after US election, warn experts – Trump’s defeat hurts movement, but influencers continue to hype conspiracy theory. from r/politics
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/rudderless-qanon-may-reinvent-itself-after-us-election-warn-experts/XEPR5CB7IVUVK4ZUHROBKY4HLU/
https://www.ft.com/content/357272df-46a1-4ed9-88b2-f5188d624e62
https://www.fr24news.com/a/2020/12/qanon-rudderless-could-reinvent-itself-after-us-election-experts-warn.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network)
the managing director of the right-wing social network Gab described the conspiracy theory as a “new decentralized media network that surfaces, distributes and verifies information in real time.”
Meanwhile, a core of QAnon influencers who have built their careers on conspiracy theory – selling products like health supplements and healing rituals – are unlikely to give up their meal ticket. ”
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more on QAnon in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=qanon