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This was taken at the last show of Metallicas Black Album tour, in Belgium on 1 July 1993. James Hetfield, the singer and guitarist, had walked to the very edge of what they called their ego ramp [the walkway into the audience]. Because they were touring The Black Album, I was shooting a lot in black and white. I noticed him, with the sunset behind him and the arms coming up, and it became one of my most famous Metallica pictures. It shows the connection between Metallica and their audience its as if they are almost dragging him in. The time of day was important: most bands dont like daylight, they want it dark. This was shot at twilight, which gives you the perfect balance and that sense of moment. Five minutes later, it would have been dark, and the shot would have looked nothing like that.

My aim when shooting a show is to give somebody something they would not normally have seen. And to create an image that is unusual or exciting, so when people who went to the show look at it, they see something thats special. People who shoot shows tend to panic, but if you do that, you get nothing. Stand back and wait. Think about what youre doing I learned that from Fin Costello. I dont find it hard to get original images from live shows, because I know what Im doing Ive done it for so long. Nowadays, a lot of bands want to control everything and they ban photographers from shows. Yet theyre quite happy, having thrown out the people doing it properly, to let anybody take bad pictures or film it on an iPhone.

Nowadays a lot of bands ban photographers from shows. And yet theyre quite happy to let anybody take bad pictures or film it on an iPhone

I first shot Metallica in 1984. Their drummer, Lars Ulrich, would call me me up, and I kept avoiding him. Id seen pictures of him, and I thought he was just this Danish guy who looked like a complete idiot. But then Metallicas manager, Peter Mensch, called me and said: Listen, stop being such an asshole. Go to San Francisco and shoot my new band. So I did, and that was the start of my relationship with them. In fact, the only reason I ended up shooting Metallica was because they wanted Iron Maidens photographer I was working for them at the time. To Metallica, Led Zeppelin (who I also worked with) meant nothing. But Iron Maiden meant something and Metallica wanted their photographer. Ive worked with them ever since. Ill give the group their due: they are very conscious of who they are, what they do and how they want to be photographed. But they are also very open to doing different things.

I am a rock photographer, not just hard rock or metal. I am particularly known for metal because I worked for Kerrang! magazine in the 80s, but that was more because instead of going to Leeds to shoot the Pet Shop Boys, I could go to Hawaii to do Aerosmith. Where would you rather go? And at the time the National Union of Journalists made sure that if you shot colour you were paid twice as much as for black and white, and Kerrang! was full colour.

The worst photoshoot I ever did was the first time I worked with Led Zeppelin in 1979. I was young, and really impressed. Robert Plant walked up to me and said: Do you know how to take a Robert Plant photo? He poked me in the chest and said, quite nastily: Quickly. I was shooting a cover for Sounds magazine, and I did the shoot, but I was so nervous that I did Plants photoshoot, not mine. I did what he wanted, which resulted in a very boring picture. I came away and I thought: I will never let anyone do that to me again, and I never have. I was so naive that he completely threw me. Dont let them do that to you, because if you do, you are just going to get a boring portrait.

Born: London, 1957.

Training: A course in fine art at Wimbledon College of Art.

Influences: Fin Costello.

High point: My Jimmy Page picture getting displayed in the National Portrait Gallery.

Low point: Shooting the first Spice Girls US tour. The band were OK, it was everyone around them.

Top tip: Always take control. Never let the subject take control.

Ross Halfin was due to speak on the Super Stage at The Photography Show in Birmingham, which has been postponed until September.

Link:
Metallica out on the 'ego ramp': Ross Halfin's best photograph - The Guardian

JUPITER, Fla. Responding to the concern about the potential spread of the coronavirus, Major League Baseball joined other professional sports leagues on Tuesday by closing team clubhouses to all but players and other essential personnel.

Among the concerns of Cardinals players was if more actions will follow.

Whats next? asked third baseman Matt Carpenter. Are they going to cancel the season? I dont know if keeping the media out is going to save us all from the coronavirus.

The answer to Carpenters question, at least at the moment, is no. A statement on Monday night from MLB said spring training games will go on as scheduled and there are no current plans to delay the start of the regular season, as will happen in the professional leagues in Japan and Korea.

The immediate effect of closing major-league clubhouses is that media members will at least temporarily not be allowed in the locker rooms to interview players. All of those interviews must now be done outside or in a designated interview room.

I heard about that when I got here today, said pitcher Adam Wainwright. Everybody knows the media is carrying the coronavirus.

On a serious note, Wainwright said, They are just trying to control it as much as they can. Do we know yet what it does to people our age? I know they said the elderly folks, and guys in the clubhouse were looking at me.

Its something you just dont want to spread. We want to be able to play a season without having to worry about the fans. Controlling it now seems to make sense.

If you look at how numbers are projected to spike, just from my limited exposure of watching the news about it, I dont think its a bad thing to be cautious. It looks like we are going to see a lot more cases here, now that they have started testing for it. People just need to be careful.

Wainwright noted that he had heard one of the recommendations for controlling the virus was to have people stay away from venues that attract a large crowd.

I cant think of any place that draws a bigger crowd than a 50,000 -seat baseball arena, he said.

There have been games played before empty or virtually empty stadiums in the past. One recent occurrence came during riots in Baltimore a few years ago.

Wainwright hopes the situation does not reach the point where that becomes necessary.

Its harder for me to play in front of small crowds than large crowds, he said. Well see. I cant speculate about what I dont know.

Another concern, at least among the media, is that players might actually enjoy not having reporters in the clubhouse and this might create a movement to install that policy going forward, with or without a threat of spreading a disease.

Sometimes it can be a little uncomfortable in there, Wainwright said.You cant have the same conversations you might otherwise.

Carpenter said banning the media from the clubhouse will have at least one other effect.

Its going to make your jobs harder, he said. And you are going to find out which guys want to talk to you.

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Cardinals and MLB close clubhouses to media in effort to control spread of coronavirus - KSDK.com

SAN FRANCISCO First, there were conspiratorial whispers on social media that the coronavirus had been cooked up in a secret government lab in China. Then there were bogus medicines: gels, liquids and powders that immunized against the virus.

And then there were the false claims about governments and celebrities and racial unrest. Taiwan was covering up virus deaths, and the illness was spiraling out of control. Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder who now runs a philanthropic organization, was behind the spread of the virus. Italians were marching in the streets, accusing Chinese people of bringing the illness to their country. None of it was true.

As the coronavirus has spread across the world, so too has misinformation about it, despite an aggressive effort by social media companies to prevent its dissemination. Facebook, Google and Twitter said they were removing misinformation about the coronavirus as fast as they could find it, and were working with the World Health Organization and other government organizations to ensure that people got accurate information.

But a search by The New York Times found dozens of videos, photographs and written posts on each of the social media platforms that appeared to have slipped through the cracks. The posts were not limited to English. Many were originally in languages ranging from Hindi and Urdu to Hebrew and Farsi, reflecting the trajectory of the virus as it has traveled around the world.

Security researchers have even found that hackers were setting up threadbare websites that claimed to have information about the coronavirus. The sites were actually digital traps, aimed at stealing personal data or breaking into the devices of people who landed on them.

The spread of false and malicious content about the coronavirus has been a stark reminder of the uphill battle fought by researchers and internet companies. Even when the companies are determined to protect the truth, they are often outgunned and outwitted by the internets liars and thieves.

There is so much inaccurate information about the virus, the W.H.O. has said it was confronting a infodemic.

I see misinformation about the coronavirus everywhere. Some people are panicking, and looking to magical cures, and other people are spreading conspiracies, said Austin Chiang, a gastroenterologist at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

In Taiwan, virus-related misinformation on social media has fed concerns that China might be using the crisis to undermine the government of the self-ruling island.

In recent weeks, there have been posts on Facebook and other sites claiming that Taiwan has concealed large numbers of coronavirus infections. There have been fake but official-looking documents promising giveaways of face masks and vaccines. A screen capture from a television news broadcast was doctored to say that President Tsai Ing-wen had contracted the disease and was in quarantine.

In a statement to The Times, Taiwans foreign minister, Joseph Wu, blamed Chinas internet armies for the deluge of falsehoods, though his office declined to elaborate on how he came to that conclusion. Chinas Taiwan Affairs Office didnt respond to a faxed request for comment.

The Communist Party claims Taiwan as part of Chinas territory, and Taiwanese officials have long accused Beijing of manipulating both traditional news media and social platforms to turn Taiwanese citizens against President Tsai, who opposes closer ties with China.

Summer Chen, the editor in chief of Taiwan FactCheck Center, a watchdog group that debunks online rumors and hoaxes, said her team had been busier since the outbreak began than it was ahead of Taiwans presidential election in January, when the island was on high alert for potential Chinese meddling.

Throughout this whole epidemic, people have really liked conspiracy theories, Ms. Chen said. Why is it that during epidemics people dont choose to believe accurate scientific information?

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter all said they were making efforts to point people back to reliable sources of medical information, and had direct lines of communication to the W.H.O. and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Facebook said it bans content that could cause people harm, such as claims that discourage treatment or taking appropriate precautions against the coronavirus. Posts and videos that shared conspiracy theories were clearly marked as false, once they had been reviewed by fact checkers.

When Facebook users attempt to share them, a message pops up alerting the user that the post includes information that has been deemed false by fact checkers.

Those measures, however, have not stopped people in private Facebook groups from linking to and sharing misinformation surrounding the virus. In private Facebook groups, including one that totals over 100,000 members, conspiracy theories spread that the coronavirus was an invention of the pharmaceutical industry, intended to sell the public on more expensive drugs and more vaccines.

While many posts simply encouraged people to take vitamins and eat a balanced diet to boost their immune system, others offered promises of immunity or cures if certain combinations of powders and drinks were consumed. Some were even more dangerous. The Food and Drug Administration referred to one miracle mineral solution posted many times on Facebook and Twitter as the same as drinking bleach.

Dr. Chiang, the gastroenterologist, recently helped start the Association for Healthcare Social Media, a group dedicated to encouraging more health care professionals to post on social media so that they can dispel some of the misinformation.

People are looking for good sources of information because a lot of what they see, when they log into their social media platforms, is just scaring them, he said.

While Twitter acknowledged the presence of some of this content on its network, Del Harvey, Twitters vice president of trust and safety, said the company has not seen large-scale, coordinated efforts to misinform people about the coronavirus. After The New York Times contacted Twitter with examples of tweets containing health misinformation about coronavirus, some owners of the accounts were suspended for spam.

Facebook said that in addition to working closely with health organizations, it was offering W.H.O. free ad space to try and point people toward accurate information on the coronavirus. The company said that it was removing posts that discouraged people from seeking treatment or suggested remedies that could cause physical harm and that it was placing warning labels on posts that were rated false by their fact checkers.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, also said it was working closely with W.H.O. to help combat misinformation. YouTubes spokesman, Farshad Shadloo, said the company had policies that prohibited videos that promoted medically unsubstantiated methods to prevent the coronavirus in place of seeking medical treatment.

Dozens of YouTube videos, however, included titles that suggested the video offered a cure for the virus. In others, the comment sections below the videos included links to pages offering a range of alternative, unsubstantiated treatments.

In some cases, those links have led people to websites that lure people in with the promise of a cure, but actually steal credit card information and other personal details.

The cybersecurity firm Check Point said more than 4,000 coronavirus-related websites that include words like corona or covid have been registered since the beginning of the year. Of those, 3 percent were considered malicious and another 5 percent were suspicious.

Research by Sophos, a cybersecurity company, has shown an uptick in these so-called spear-phishing messages targeting people in Italy, where coronavirus infections have surged in recent weeks. Those messages included a link to a Microsoft Word document that claimed to list cures for the virus. When downloaded, it installed malicious malware on peoples computers.

Last month, W.H.O. also put out a warning about fake emails from apparent W.H.O. representatives. The emails carried malicious code aimed at breaking into someones computing device.

John Gregory, the deputy health editor for NewsGuard, a start-up that tries to stop false stories from spreading on the internet, said the medical element to coronavirus misinformation made it different from other conspiracies the public has dealt with.

Because the information about the virus is playing out in real time, its always going to be easier for someone to make a false claim, Mr. Gregory said. Then, theres a separation of a few days before anyone with a scientific background, or journalists, are able to debunk the claim.

Sheera Frenkel reported in San Francisco and Davey Alba reported in New York. Raymond Zhong reported from Beijing. Chris Horton contributed reporting from Taipei, Taiwan.

More here:
Surge of Virus Misinformation Stumps Facebook and Twitter - The New York Times

As cases of the new coronavirus increase in the United States, a relentless news cycle and false information are spiking fears, leading people to take extreme measures to regain a sense of control over their health. Health experts explain how to keep yourself calm.

Our analysis: The 'recurring themes' of disease outbreaks

Reports of the new coronavirus, which causes a disease known as COVID-19, first surfaced in early December 2019 in Wuhan, China. As of Wednesday morning, officials reported more than 121,800 cases of COVID-19 globally. Officials said as of Wednesday morning there had been at least 4,381 deaths linked to the new coronavirus, and all but 1,219 occurred in mainland China.

In China, the number of newly reported cases of COVID-19 has slowed. But the number of newly reported cases outside of China has more than tripled over the past week and a half. In the United States, state and federal officials as of Wednesday morning reported 1,015 confirmed or presumed positive cases of COVID-19, up from 231 on Friday. So far, 31 U.S. deaths have been linked to the new coronavirus.

As the number of COVID-19 cases grow, the global economy has tanked, stores have been ransacked, and people are hoarding medical supplies.

Given the situation, it's "understandable that people would be frightened," according to Quartz. COVID-19 is spreading, there is no treatment or vaccine, and its true mortality rate is still unclear.

However, while older people and those with certain existing medical conditions have a reason to be concerned, the anxiety spreading among the general population is "disproportionate to the risk posed by COVID-19 as we understand it today," according toQuartz.

Health experts have noted that the vast majority of people who are diagnosed with COVID-19 will develop mild symptoms that won't require hospitalization and others will be asymptomatic.

According to psychologist David DeSteno, the reason people are so afraid of the new coronavirus, despite the limited risk, is a "mix of miscalibrated emotion and limited knowledge" about the virus.

The "non-stop media cycle" surrounding the virus isn't helping to quell people's fears, according to Quartz, especially given that people are prone to "availability bias," meaning we give more weight to the information we can immediately recall.

"As news about the virus's toll in China stokes our fears, it makes us not only more worried than we need [to] be about contracting it, but also more susceptible to embracing fake claims and potentially problematic, hostile or fearful attitudes toward those around usclaims and attitudes that in turn reinforce our fear and amp up the cycle," DeSteno explained.

A general lack of knowledge surrounding the disease impacts our perception of risk, as well. People are likely struggling to assess the risk of COVID-19 because even researchers are still learning about the virus. In response, people will sometimes act erratically in response to a "perceived lack of control," according to Dorothy Frizelle, a consultant clinical health psychologist in the United Kingdom.

Metin Basoglu, a professor of psychiatry and founder oftheIstanbul Center for Behavior Research & Therapy,has researched how people cope behaviorally with traumatic events such as earthquakes. A key lesson, he says, is that you need to accept that some risks are out of your control. "You cannot control every single risk that comes your way in life, and lead a meaningful, reasonable, and productive life at the same time," he told Quartz.

To be sure, it's important to take basic risk-mitigation steps, including following public health guidance around handwashing and self-isolating where appropriate. But people who are prone to anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder might go overboard with what Basoglu calls "extensive, unrealistic avoidance."

Some people, for instance, might wash their hands to excess, which can actually be counterproductive. As bioethicist Kelly Hills told Vox, "If you are washing your hands so much that they are raw or chafed, you are washing your hands too much"and potentially increasing your risk of infection.

It's also important for people who are prone to anxiety to manage their news consumption. It may be tempting to stay glued to the TV or the internet around the clock for the latest developments, but that can make anxiety worse. "Too much media exposure, we know, can heighten one's anxiety," said Alison Holman, associate professor in the school of nursing at theUniversity of California, Irvineand expert in health psychology.

A better approach, according to Hills, is to read coronavirus news once per day from a credible source. "If you don't need to stay on top of this for your job or your academic work, don't," Hills said.

Finally, as anxiety and even panic around COVID-19 continues to spread, it's important to lean on trusted social support networks. I would recommend that people who tend to be more anxious connect in a safe way with people in their lives who they trust; who can help them calm down; and who they can turn to for support," Holman said (Timsit,Quartz, 3/9; Kucharski,The Guardian, 2/8; DeSteno,New York Times, 2/11; Alptraum, Vox, 3/10; New York Times, 3/11; Smith et al., New York Times, 3/11).

See the original post:
Is your coronavirus anxiety spinning out of control? Here's how to handle it. - The Daily Briefing

Last week, as COVID-19 began its spread around the globe, I noted here that the epidemic had prompted a notable change in the big tech platforms. Where they were once loath to intervene in the affairs of their own algorithms, even when the potential harms to public health were clear, the arrival of a novel coronavirus put them in a newly interventionist mindset.

Today I want to highlight another tech giant coming around, belatedly, to the idea of editorial intervention in a crisis. The giant is Google, and while the company had previously begun directing COVID-19 queries on YouTube to the World Health Organization, it has since gone further. Here are Mark Bergen and Gerrit De Vynck in Bloomberg:

Google searches related to the virus now trigger an SOS Alert, with news from mainstream publications including National Public Radio, followed by information from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization displayed prominently. In contrast, a recent search for flu season showed the website verywellhealth.com at the top, while another search for flu produced tweets, including one from U.S. President Donald Trump comparing coronavirus to the common flu. [...]

On YouTube, Googles video service, the company is trying to quickly remove videos claiming to prevent the virus in place of seeking medical treatment. And some apps related to the virus have been banned from the Google Play app store, prompting complaints from developers who say they just want to help. An Iranian government app built to keep track of infections was also removed from the Play Store, ZDNet reported.

The company is also giving up revenue. Pichai said in another recent memo that Google has blocked tens of thousands of ads capitalizing on the virus. Its also pulled ads from YouTube videos that discuss Covid-19, while giving governments and NGOs free ad space on the video service.

As with the changes I highlighted last week Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest have taken similar steps nothing described here is extraordinary. But it is responsible, and represents a departure from the Google of even two years ago. You can attribute it to a years-long public pressure campaign from academics, activists, lawmakers, employees, or journalists. Or you could credit heightened sensitivities given that a number of tech workers are already among those who have been afflicted by the disease. Whatever the case, the important thing is that Google and others are getting their hands dirty.

Even outside the current crisis around the outbreak and I understand that that vast majority of peoples focus is on that, as it should be you see signs of this new interventionist mindset. I was moderately surprised over the weekend when Twitter applied a manipulated media tag to a doctored video and one retweeted by President Trump, no less.

The video was deceptively edited to make it appear that Joe Biden had endorsed Trumps reelection. (It has also been uploaded to Facebook and TikTok, among other places.) Last Thursday, Twitter instituted a new policy of labeling tweets that contained deceptive or synthetic media. But policy, as I like to say, is what you enforce, and given Twitters historical aversion to enforcement, there was reason to wonder how aggressively it would apply the new mandate. To the companys credit, it enforced the policy right away.

Of course, the move had its critics and not just among aggrieved Republicans. Many noted that the label was small and easy to miss. Theres also the question of whether such labels inform users effectively about the nature of the post. Is it clear that manipulated media is deceptive, potentially harmful media? Might it not be better if it took the form of a pre-roll warning, at least for deceptive videos?

These are questions worth asking. But in the meantime its notable that the conversation has shifted entirely from should tech companies intervene? to what interventions are most effective? Its a shift that were all likely to benefit from.

I got mixed feedback on yesterdays column arguing that Jack Dorseys days might still be numbered following the companys deal with activist investor Elliott Management. A few folks wrote in to tell me that the deal had, in fact, saved Dorseys job, and that he was here to stay. One person told me this after speaking with another member of Twitters board.

On the other hand, having reviewed the agreement between Twitter and Elliott, Steven Levy take had all the same thoughts I did. And Matt Levine makes a strong numerical case for Dorseys relative weakness: for a big tech CEO, Dorsey simply doesnt own very much of his own company.

Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.

Trending up: Amazon executives approved a $5 million fund to support small businesses around its Seattle headquarters struggling with a dramatic slowdown since the company instructed its employees to work from home if they could.

Trending up: Google established a fund so hourly workers can take paid sick leave if they experience coronavirus symptoms. The policy also applies if people cant come to work because theyre quarantined.

Trending up: Apple is giving hourly employees, including retail workers, unlimited sick leave if they experience coronavirus symptoms. They wont be required to submit a doctors note.

Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden canceled planned rallies today to reduce the risk of virus transmission. (Makena Kelly / The Verge)

Two people who attended the popular RSA security conference in San Francisco last month contracted the disease, and one is in a coma. (Jeran Wittenstein and Kartikay Mehrotra / Bloomberg)

Flattening the curve, explained. (Eliza Barclay and Dylan Scott / Vox)

Are open floor-plan offices making the virus spread worse? (Konrad Putzier / Wall Street Journal)

A Fox Business host denounced COVID-19 concerns as an impeachment scam, in the latest example of Fox News promoting dangerous misinformation. (Matt Stieb / Intelligencer)

Heres a running list of the worst things President Trump has said in an effort to downplay the crisis. (Daily Edge)

On the office front:

Amazon is relaxing its attendance policy for warehouse workers due to the spread of the coronavirus. The company told employees that it will not count any unpaid time off if they need to take it during the month of March. (Annie Palmer / CNBC)

Google now recommends that all of its North American employees work from home. (Rob Price / Business Insider)

Contractors at Google and Facebook are worried they might not get the same access to sick leave and remote work benefits that the companies extend to their full-time employees. (Nitasha Tiku and Elizabeth Dwoskin / The Washington Post)

Also: The coronavirus outbreak is prompting many people to start working from home. And while that makes sense during a pandemic, its not necessarily good for their creativity or health. As a remote work skeptic, I thank Kevin for writing this column! (Kevin Roose / The New York Times)

The Game Developers Conference, which was canceled, will instead stream some planned sessions on Twitch. (Megan Farokhmanesh / The Verge)

On the economy:

Costco is getting a bump from coronavirus panic shopping. The companys February sales were up 12.4 percent from a year ago. (Nathaniel Meyersohn / CNN)

Broadway is slashing ticket prices to boost demand. Great time to see The Book of Mormon! Actually probably not. (David Rooney / The Hollywood Reporter)

Heres how the coronavirus outbreak could impact the future of tech, particularly the sharing economy and the big tech companies. (Sam Lessin / The Information)

Elsewhere:

The American sports world is dragging its feet on COVID-19. While the big tech conferences are all canceled and companies make employees work from home, Major League Baseball continues to hold 15 spring-training games a day in Florida and Arizona, two of the states with confirmed cases of the virus. (Will Leitch / Intelligencer)

Coachella was postponed until October. (Gabe Meline / KQED)

The Senate Judiciary Committee pressed Google on antitrust issues during a Tuesday hearing. Among other things, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) announced a bill to limit the ability of big companies to lock out smaller competitors. Adi Robertson explains at The Verge:

Klobuchar described her bill, known as the Anticompetitive Exclusionary Conduct Prevention Act, as an across-the-board reform. It increases the burden of proof on monopolists to prove theyre not suppressing competition, and it discourages courts from granting immunity from antitrust enforcement. We have a major monopoly problem in this country, which harms consumers and threatens free and fair competition across our economy, she said in a statement. Companies need to be put on notice.

But she promoted it during a Senate hearing on digital platforms, one of several events sparked by the backlash against large tech companies. The hearing covered the tactic of self-preferencing where a company uses dominance in one area to privilege its other services, whether or not theyre the best option for consumers. Depending on the circumstances, these types of practices can have a devastating effect of competition, said Klobuchar.

Federal judge Patricia Campbell-Smith said Amazon is likely to succeed on a key argument in the Pentagon cloud lawsuit. Campbell-Smith sided with Amazons contention that the Pentagon made a mistake in evaluating prices for competing proposals from Amazon and Microsoft, under pressure from President Trump. Aaron Gregg at The Washington Post has the story:

In a blow to Microsoft and the Defense Department, Campbell-Smith ordered the Pentagon to halt work on JEDI. In a lengthy opinion explaining her reasoning, she sided with Amazons contention that the Pentagon made a mistake in evaluating prices for competing proposals from Amazon and Microsoft. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

She also said the mistake is likely to harm Amazon materially, an important qualifier for government contract bid protests. She rejected arguments raised earlier by Microsoft and the Defense Department that Amazon should have raised its concerns sooner.

Russia has stepped up its efforts to inflame racial tensions in the United States as part of its attempt to influence Novembers presidential election. The strategy involves trying to incite violence by white supremacists and to stoke anger among African-Americans. (Julian E. Barnes and Adam Goldman / The New York Times)

Last year, the knitting site Ravelry banned all pro-Trump content. The situation caused an uproar among older women on the site, who struggled to contend with issues of censorship and hate speech. (Tanya Basu / MIT Technology Review)

Twitter rewrote its developer policy in an effort to recognize good bots and make it easier for academics to use. Heres Sarah Perez in TechCrunch:

Twitter data is used to study topics like spam, abuse, and other areas related to conversation health, the company noted, and it wants these efforts to continue. The revised policy now allows the use of the Twitter API for academic research purposes. In addition, Twitter is simplifying its rules around the redistribution of Twitter data to aid researchers. Now, researchers will be able to share an unlimited number of Tweet IDs and/or User IDs, if theyre doing so on behalf of an academic institution and for the sole purpose of non-commercial research, such as peer review, says Twitter.

Scientists say that lurking on social media probably wont destroy your brain. Unless youre a teenager, in which case it might. (Katie Notopoulos / BuzzFeed)

Facebook is testing out letting users cross-post their stories to Instagram, instead of just the other way around. The feature could save people time while allowing them to get more views on their stories. On the other hand, who cares. (Josh Constine / TechCrunch)

Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos are among the investors in a secretive robotics startup known as Vicarious. Its robots are now assembling sampler packs for Sephora. (Tom Simonite / Wired)

The secret-sharing app Whisper left years of users most intimate confessions exposed on the internet. The messages were tied to peoples age and location, raising concerns that the information could have been used to dox or blackmail people. (Drew Harwell / The Washington Post)

The smart tech label, applied to everything from toothbrushes to TVs, masks the data collection and surveillance capabilities embedded into the design of the devices. (Jathan Sadowski / OneZero)

A man Gainesville, Florida was using an exercise app to track his bike rides. The app fed his location to Google, which then placed him at the scene of a crime he didnt commit, thanks to a geofence warrant. These warrants, which allow police to sweep up Google location data, have increased dramatically over the past two years. (Jon Schuppe / NBC)

Fast Company names Snap the most innovative company of 2020. Mark Wilson gets an interview with CEO Evan Spiegel out of the deal. Spiegel says: I mean . . . people come up and thank me. Like, random people. Hey, thanks for not selling to Facebook. Thats bizarre, right? Thats super bizarre. (Mark Wilson / Fast Company)

Eugene Wei gives us the Heisenberg Certainty Principle of Social Media:

online, everyone sounds more certain than they actually are.

Tinder Has Become A News Service About Coronavirus, Which Is Not What God Intended

Im sorry, Cameron Wilson, but what?!

Despite Tinder being banned in China, users say theyre having luck setting their location to Wuhan, allowing them to match with and chat to residents to hear their perspective on the global story.

US-based Twitter user @drethelin tweeted Setting my tinder to Wuhan so I can get the real scoop on whats going on on Jan. 28 just before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 was a public health emergency.

Wuhan has enough on its plate without having to talk to this guy. Let Tinder be Tinder!

Send us tips, comments, questions, and quarantine recipes: casey@theverge.com and zoe@theverge.com.

Originally posted here:
Google has been unusually proactive in fighting COVID-19 misinformation - The Verge