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By 1690, Jamaica was the jewel of Britains American possessions. An economy largely based on the production of sugar brought wealth and led to the beginnings of an imperial system.

But that system was built on the almost unimaginably brutal reality of slavery, enforced by almost equally unimaginable cruelties and daily punishments and control.

The system was ruthless and relentless. In the mid-18th century one plantation in Westmoreland Parish, site of the most serious slave revolt in 1760, recorded twice as many deaths as births, many from pure overwork. Importation of fresh slaves, often from the Gold Coast of Africa, filled the gap and reinforced the system yet contained the seeds of the systems eventual destruction.

Vincent Browns Tackys Revolt: The Story of An Atlantic Slave War, places the Jamaican revolts of 1760 firmly within the broader history of the time, notably the Seven Years War, for which Brown comments that historians have barely noticed that the Jamaican insurrection was one of its major battles. The judgment is correct when one remembers that the Caribbean, not just Quebec, was key to British strategy.

This is not popular history, perhaps in either sense of the word. But it is important history

War suffuses this book: wars among African polities, wars between the European powers such as the War of Jenkins Ear and the Seven Years War, war and violence on the daily life of the plantation between master and enslaved. These wars within wars, Brown writes, ensured that slaverys violent conflicts integrated Europe, Africa, America, and the Atlantic ocean.

Brown endorses the phrase of freed slave and soldier Olaudah Equiano: that slavery was itself a state of war. Overseer and diarist Thomas Thistlewood chronicled the inhumanity of slavery, including his own brutalities. The daily violence of plantation life was a war for control no less than the broader contest in the Caribbean between Britain, France and Spain.

It is thus a small step for Brown to conclude that recognizing slave revolt as a species of warfare is the first step toward a new cartography of Atlantic slavery.

African commanders including Tacky, who had probably held a royal office or lineage in one of the Gold Coasts eastern kingdoms, and Apongo, a leader among the Akan-speaking peoples in both Africa and Jamaica, brought knowledge of military strategy and tactics.

Brown studies the movements of the insurrection closely and draws conclusions about its military and political aims. With experience of African political and economic life, the slaves sought something more than freedom alone. As Brown writes, their pattern of warfare indicates an attempt at territorial and political control, a strategy of maneuver rather than of retreat, evasion, or escape.

The revolt of the title was put down suddenly and fiercely. It began on 7 April 1760 in St Marys Parish but was possibly premature. A larger conflict, which the British called the Coromantee war, was timed for the Whitsun holidays and for when the merchant fleet sailed to Britain, leaving the island less defended. It continued for months.

After initial success in Westmoreland Parish and retreat into the mountains and forests from which they conducted skirmishes and other tactics largely derived from African warfare, the Coromantee rebels succumbed to overwhelming British power.

The Navy brought the full resources of transatlantic empire to bear against the rebels, Brown writes, articulating the local conflict to the wider war.

Dense, closely argued and meticulously researched, this is not popular history, perhaps in either sense of the word. But it is important history. Historians have long recognized the Seven Years War as a global conflict but this book brings the role of Africa and Africans fully into the struggle.

As Brown writes in conclusion: The Coromantee war was at once an extension of the African conflicts that fed the slave trade, a race war among black slaves and white slaveholders, an imperial conquest, and an internal struggle between black people for control of territory and the establishment of a political legacy.

The economic, political and cultural consequences of this war within wars reverberated out from Jamaica to other colonies, across the ocean to Great Britain and back again to the island, where the revolt reshaped public life and lodged deeply in collective memory.

The Jamaican revolts influenced, sometimes in subtle ways, the movement for abolition of the slave trade, and eventually slavery itself, on both sides of the Atlantic. To correct a victors perspective and recover lost history and the dignity of the enslaved, Brown has written a 21st-century military history one which takes full account of all the combatants and those for whom they fought.

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Tacky's Revolt review: Britain, Jamaica, slavery and an early fight for freedom - The Guardian

A senior State Department official said Tuesday that Xinhua, China Global Television Network, China Radio International, China Daily and People's Daily will be designated as "foreign missions," effective immediately, in accordance with the Foreign Missions Act.

The change in designation means these companies will now need US government approval to buy or lease office space and will have to register personnel changes, including new hires and staff departures, with the State Department just as foreign diplomatic missions do.

The official justified the step by saying the outlets are owned and effectively controlled by the government in Beijing and that each meets the definition of a foreign mission.

"They are part and parcel of the People's Republic of China propaganda machine," the official said. "The fact of the matter is each and every single one of these entities does in fact work 100% for the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party," the official added. "These guys are on the organizational chart."

None of the media outlets responded to CNN's requests for comment. The Chinese Embassy also did not immediately return requests for comment.

But on Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang condemned the US decision and accused Washington of prejudice and hypocrisy.

"We deplore and reject the wrong decision of the US," Geng said, adding that media facilitate communication between different countries. "The US touts its press freedom. However, it is wantonly restricting and thwarting Chinese media outlets' normal operation there. This is totally unjustified and unacceptable. We urge the US to discard its ideological prejudice and Cold War zero-sum game mentality and stop ill-advised measures that undermine bilateral trust and cooperation."

Geng added that China would "reserve the right to take further measures in response."

In the same briefing, Geng announced that China is revoking the press credentials for three Wall Street Journal journalists in Beijing in retaliation for the paper's recent op-ed titled "China is the real sick man of Asia."

The State Department official, speaking on background, said the move was not meant to "put any constraint" on the work done by employees of the five firms, or change how they operate, but was intended to create some transparency. A second senior State Department official said the Chinese entities were informed Tuesday.

The Trump Administration is acting now, the first official said, because Chinese leadership has tightened its control over these media outlets while it has expanded their global reach in recent years. State control "has gotten stronger over time, and it's far more aggressive, their activities outside of China including here in the United States," the first official said. "Based on that, we decided it was time to act," they said.

This official also pointed to the 2017 National Security Strategy, which identified great power competition as a central focus and China as one of the US' main competitors, along with Russia.

No move against Russian outlets

Neither official could explain why Russian state-owned media outlets operating in the US were not being designated as well.

The move on the media companies comes as senior US officials have turned up the volume on their criticism of China on the world stage, even as they seek Beijing's cooperation on foreign policy issues from Iran to North Korea and wants its help in understanding and containing the novel coronavirus.

In Washington on Tuesday, the first State Department official said they would not speculate on China's response or possible retaliation against American journalists working in the country. "Western journalists already suffer very severe restrictions," the official said.

Neither official offered an answer when asked if the information about personnel could be used in counterintelligence efforts against China, a recent administration focus. The second official said that making the media entities register as foreign missions "helps improve our understanding of how these entities do operate in the United States." This official added that the administration doesn't currently have a list of the media companies' employees.

Guidelines about the the way information about the media outlets' foreign and American employees will be used will be laid out in a System of Records Notice on the State Department website and a notice about the change will be published in the Federal Register on Thursday, the second official said.

Asked what happens if the entities do not comply and provide the required information, the second official said, "We don't expect them not to comply."

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US to treat Chinese state media like an arm of Beijing's government - CNN

The news that the watchdog Ofcom will have increased powers over social media platforms to act over harmful content has been met with a mixture of excitement and concern in the UK. Users, advertisers and social media firms themselves are asking how these powers will impact the platforms, the content shared on them, and how we interact with them every day. Right now we have no answer to that question.

However, we can begin to think hard about what the impact of Ofcoms regulatory powers over social media might be be that on users, advertisers, or public safety.

Over the last few years, we have seen social media firms take significant steps to eliminate bad actors, manipulative political content, and hate speech from their platforms. From Twitter experimenting with new solutions to remove toxicity from the platform to Instagram and Facebooks experiments to hide likes, the platforms have shown how serious they are about making their environments healthier and happier for their users.

Recently, Facebook stated that it has an army of digital police, made up of algorithms and AI, working alongside humans to create a safer and more transparent online environment. While this all sounds like a lot, its clearly not enough. Thats why Ofcom taking a more powerful role in keeping people safe online determining what content is harmful and how it should be handled can only be a positive step as part of a shared responsibility model.

Many politicians and business owners have been asking how big the role of regulators should be in determining what content is harmful and what is merely controversial. While its hard to define clear cut lines when it comes to how harmful a piece of content is, it is possible to educate users and the public as a whole about behaviours on social media. While technology and regulation can help, its only by teaching people to use social media responsibly that we stand a chance of limiting harmful content in the online world for good.

The platforms themselves could be the place to start. Gently educating users, particularly younger users, about how to behave on social media is a step in the right direction. Putting their money where their mouth is and launching a global campaign on this could be a big push that the industry badly needs. But the onus isnt on the platforms alone. Education initiatives do exist, for example, Safer Internet Day. A European initiative celebrated annually, Safer Internet Day aims to teach users about topics from cyberbullying to social media. Education systems, if they arent already, should also be including social media behaviour in their curriculum and governments should be encouraging this. In short, collaboration between the platforms, the educators and the governments is the right way forward.

Unlike with media such as radio, TV and print, the attempts made to regulate the early days of the internet didnt meet with much success. Even today innocent searches on the internet can expose users to content that makes them feel upset and confused, or has even worse effects.

Given the scale and open nature of the internet, cracking down on harmful content is an uphill battle for regulators and for users. However, where we have seen some success is in the implementation of greater user controls. By giving users control over the content they see, whether, through ad blockers, parental controls or URL filtering, the internet has become a safer, healthier place for users.

The same could easily be true for social media. If users were given more control over the content they and their children can see, the social world would undoubtedly feel like a safe place to inhabit. This shouldnt negatively impact brands rather, it would encourage brands to be more careful and inclusive with the content they share. Harmful stereotyping could be one example of creative advertising that this level of user control could stamp out. This can only be a good thing.

Yih-Choung Teh, group director of strategy and research at Ofcom, said that for most people the risks of social media "are still outweighed by the huge benefits of the internet. And while most internet users favour tighter rules in some areas, particularly social media, people also recognise the importance of protecting free speech which is one of the internets great strengths."

The move to give Ofcom greater power has the potential to see governments and platforms working hand-in-hand to remove harmful content and toxicity from the social sphere. We work with many of the largest brands in the world, and we know they get value from social media for reaching and engaging with their audiences. It has a positive impact on their business in countless ways, but no brand wants this to come at a cost of their brand reputation, customer loyalty, or worse. Brands want to be sure that they are investing their ad budgets into safe and trustworthy platforms, which are free from harm and toxicity.

While we shouldnt expect anything to change overnight, this move by Ofcom is a step in the right direction for both users and advertisers. Anything that makes social media platforms safer and more engaging is a win-win, both for the people using them and for businesses advertising on them.

Yuval Ben-Itzhak is chief executive officer of Socialbakers.

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Safer social media means putting control in the hands of users - The Drum

Facebook's infamous News Feed algorithm has helped the platform maximize engagement, and boost time spent in-app - but it's also long been a major bugbear for many users.

The complex algorithm, which aims to show users more content that they're likely to be interested in, uses a range of factors in its equations, including when something is posted, how often you interact with the creator, what type of post it is, and more.

That means that users generally see posts that are seeing higher levels of engagement appear closer to the top of their feeds. But is that a better experience?

Would you be better off just seeing a feed of allthe posts from all the people and Pages that you've chosen to follow in reverse chronological order - ala Facebook pre-2013?

You might soon be able to get a better perspective on this - this week, reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong has uncovered a new Facebook test which would provide a simplified toggle that you could use to switch across to different variations of your News Feed.

As you can see in these images, the test provides three different variations of the News Feed in separate tabs, which you would be able to access along the top of the feed list.

Those three versions are:

To be clear, the new listing options would not add anything to Facebook, functionally. Users can already access a reverse chronological News Feed by switching to most recent via the 'More' listing in the app (left image below) or clicking on the three dots beside 'News Feed' in the right-hand column on desktop.

Those setting can't be saved, however, so whenever you do switch this, it will default back to the algorithm feed next time you log-in.

You can also view your 'Already Seen' listing via this URL:http://www.facebook.com/seen

This new option would make it easier to access both, which could be a welcome change. Facebook has confirmed that the option is being tested internally, though it says it has no plans to roll it out to the public at this stage.

But then again, it might not be as great as many users would hope.

While calls for less algorithm intervention constantly resonate through every platform which uses such, when people have been provided with the capacity to switch the algorithm off, most users haven't bothered to do so.

Twitter announced an option to easily switch between 'Latest' and 'Top' tweets back in November 2018, enabling users to essentially turn off its algorithm sorting (which it rolled out in 2016). But Twitter says that even with the option, most users have stuck with the algorithm-defined listing, while on-platform engagement has continued to rise, underlining its beneficial impact.

Facebook, too, has experimented with alternate feed options. Back in 2016, Facebook tried a similar process of tabbed News Feed listings, separated by topic, in order to boost engagement.

That didn't really work out, and Facebook abandoned the experiment before it got too far.

As noted, while the rumblings of dissatisfaction with algorithm-defined feeds are ever-present on every network which has implemented such, when provided with an alternative, most users don't bother changing their behavior.

Maybe, a reverse-chronological feed switch on Facebook would be different -but I wouldn't count on it.

Still, it is interesting to note that this is an aspect that Facebook is exploring, which would suggest that this is still an element where it believes it can generate more engagement. The introduction of an alternate, chronological feed also aligns with the broader social media shift towards giving users more control, and enabling them more specific choice over their feeds, as opposed to hiding the back-end processes and showing them what the system thinks they'll want - even if they don't realize it.

For example, Instagram recently rolled out a new option which enables users to see which accounts they interact with the least, which could show them which people and profiles they should unfollow to improve their experience.

That's almost like a new level of trust from the platform - in the past, the apps have taken much of this type of control away, or hidden such insight from view, with the implication seemingly being that the algorithm knows better, and you should just trust that.

Now, with people more educated on how social platforms work, and what following certain people and pages means for their feeds, users are a little more discerning in their following habits. You can see this specifically on Instagram - the old 'follow for follow' trick, for example, isn't as effective on 'the gram' because people don't as readily add others on the platform as they did on Facebook and Twitter.

And because people are now more discerning, and more conscious of what they're allowing into their feeds, the need for algorithm dictation reduces - which is why platforms may now feel more comfortable allowing users access to tools like this, because the impact of them making such a switch is less than it would have been in the past anyway.

Or, as noted, they know that most people simply won't bother.

Either way, it's an interesting experiment, and it could change Facebook usage habits, if implemented. We'll keep you updated on any progress.

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Facebook Tests Easier Access to Chronological News Feed and Other Feed Sorting Options - Social Media Today

In less than two months, the coronavirus has spread from the Chinese city of Wuhan to 25 countries, prompting the World Health Organization to declare a global health emergency. In reaction, the Chinese Communist Party swiftly restricted travel and shut down major transportation systems a feat many believe possible due to the authoritarian control the government has over its citizens.

While these efforts are aggressive and undemocratic, they fall within the scope of fairly well-known epidemic planning. However, many new data-driven techniques that could have stemmed, or at least slowed, the spread of the coronavirus has not been deployed. One reason for this is these methods rely on crowd-sourcing data, which to be accurate, often depends on public trust in the governments use of citizen information. Something absent in China.

For example, New York University professor Daniel B. Neill, and MIT Lincoln Labs researcher, Mallory Noble, have developed a new tool called pre-syndromic surveillance that uses machine learning to comb through the de-identified emergency room and social media data to discover outbreaks that do not correspond with known illnesses. Recently, the team successfully piloted the technique in New York Citys Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Neill refers to the system as a public health safety net because by aggregating and analyzing the actual description of new symptoms from patients, first responders, and citizens, they are better able to identify and manage new disease patterns.

Traditional epidemiologists rely on past cases and patterns to make public health decisions, but some new diseases behave differently, comments Neill. This technique allows us to identify and respond to something new.

Similarly, tools like Flu Near You and Pandemic Pulse developed by Boston Childrens Hospital integrate Twitter and Google Search data to detect biothreats. Like Neill and Nobles pre-syndromic surveillance approach, these tools utilize natural language processing engineering lingo that just means reading what people actually say or write down.

Both teams won the Department Homeland Securitys 2018 Hidden Signals Challenge to use public data to identify emerging biothreats.

But for any of this to work, citizens must trust these digital platforms wont be used to harm them.

If a patient believes what they tell an emergency room attendee or what they say on social media may lead to aggressive quarantines or other harmful actions by their government, its less likely they will be honest. And without reliable information, none of these new systems work.

The "New York Times" reported that Chinese authorities went to great lengths to hide the disease from the public by silencing doctors and others for raising red flags and even closed a food market thought to be the source of the outbreak but told residents it was due to renovations.

While those activities surely slowed authorities ability to work with citizens to respond to the disease, the new machine learning techniques outlined by Neill and others work illuminates an even more important flaw in the Chinese strategy the possibility that some new technologies may be democracy-oriented in that they simply work better in open societies.

At a minimum, the demand for trust and transparency with citizen data represents an irony for the Chinese Communist Party. The governments expansive powers are often seen as a scary but effective vehicle to monitor citizens, such as through new facial recognition technologies.

But there is another way to look at it: If advances in crowd-sourced, citizen communication depend on accurate and complete information, which in turn relies on public trust, then places like China will struggle to fully take advantage of these technologies.

The coronavirus spread so quickly because it is a new virus that behaves differently than what weve seen before and known methods of disease control were caught off-guard. But new crowd-sourced technologies can help us adapt quicker. Lack of public trust hurts those efforts.

Coronavirus is the latest global epidemic, but it wont be the last. The lack of greater trust and transparency from the government of the worlds most populated country risks lives in China and across the globe.

Scott Andes is the executive director of theBlock Center for Technology and Societyat Carnegie Mellon University. Scott was a Fellow at the Brookings Institution and his research focuses on the economic and social impact of new technology.

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Public trust in data could have helped China contain the coronavirus | TheHill - The Hill