Before anyone outside her hometown knew her name, Disha Ravi spent four years raising awareness among young people in Bangalore about the effects of climate change. Now the 21-year-old activist is jailed in New Delhi. The allegation: She distributed a “tool kit” in the form of a Google Doc containing talking points and contact information for influential groups to drum up…
Tag: Voices
Coursera partners with Howard University, expands social justice content, and collaborates with Facebook to offer scholarships to Black learners
By Betty Vandenbosch, Chief Content Officer at Coursera At Coursera, we believe that learning is the source of human progress — that it has the power to transform our world. In 2020, we strengthened our commitment to address systemic racism through learning. We focused on creating social justice and anti-racism content and elevating Black voices […]
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Myanmar’s New Military Government is Now Blocking Twitter and Instagram
Myanmar’s new military government has ordered local telecom operators, internet gateways, and other internet service providers to block Twitter and Instagram in the South Asian country days after imposing a similar blackout on Facebook to ensure “stability” in the Southeast Asian nation. From a report: Norwegian telecom giant Telenor, which is one of the largest telecos in Myanmar, said the government…
Two Google Engineers Resign Over Firing of AI Ethics Researcher Timnit Gebru
An engineering director and a software developer have quit Alphabet’s Google over the dismissal of AI researcher Timnit Gebru, a sign of the ongoing conflicts at the search giant over diversity and ethics. From a report: David Baker, a director focused on user safety, left Google last month after 16 years because Gebru’s exit “extinguished my desire to continue as a…
How can people hear the voices of the dead ?
Scientists have been attempting to find out what makes a person more likely to hear voices from beyond the grave. The idea of communicating with the d… Source: https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/343123/how-can-people-hear-the-voices-of-the-dead…
Edward Snowden Urges Donations to the EFF
In October, Edward Snowden was granted permanent residency in Russia. A new web page by the EFF applauds his past activities as a U.S. whistleblower. “His revelations about secret surveillance programs opened the world’s eyes to a new level of government misconduct, and reinvigorated EFF’s continuing work in the courts and with lawmakers to end unlawful mass spying.” And then they…
Famous Earthrise photo taken on Christmas Eve
A Christmas Eve photograph showed humans their home world from a whole new perspective. This is the photo that’s said to have launched the environmental movement. It’s “Earthrise,” the iconic photo taken by astronaut William Anders on the 4th orbit of the moon aboard Apollo 8 on December 24, 1968. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/apollo-8-earthrise-december-24-1968-new-simulation…
How Prestige Journals Remain Elite, Exclusive And Exclusionary
An anonymous reader shares a report: Last week, Nature journals unveiled their “landmark” open-access option. Nature journals will charge authors, starting in January 2021, up to $11,400 to make research papers free to read, as an alternative to subscription-only publishing. Scientists from around the world received this news with outrage and disappointment on social media. Nature’s announcement comes on the heels…
What Hunting Bigfoot Taught a Republican Congressman about Misinformation, Political Extremists, and Grift
Republican congressman Denver Riggleman was once a defense contractor for America’s National Security Agency. But in 2004, he paid more than $5,000 to join an amateur expedition searching for Bigfoot. Not because he believed in the mythical ape-like creature said to live in the woods, according to the Washington Post, but “to indulge a lifelong fascination: Why do people — what…
Stripe, Mozilla, Dropbox, Spotify, Others Form Tech ‘Challenger Group’ To Sway European Policy
Mark Di Stefano, reporting for The Information (paywalled): A few years back, two Brussels-based lobbyists from midsize tech companies were out for drinks, and in the course of the conversation they realized they had a common problem. Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook were sucking all of the oxygen out of European debates about regulating the internet, leaving out the voices of…