Four short links: 26 February 2019
Cloud Act, Content Moderation, Conference Diversity, and Exposing Secrets
- US Cloud Act (Bloomberg) — nations fight over corporations that are fighting over consumers. A few years ago it was hypothesised that corporations had the advantage in an age of globalisation, but there is still fight left in the nation.
- Facebook Content Moderators (The Verge) — a horrific story about the low-paid traumatic work of moderating user-generated content. Now it’s being done domestically (was, and may still be, primarily in Philippines), but with little concern to the damage done by watching murders and rapes every day. When I ask about the risks of contractors developing PTSD, a counselor I’ll call Logan tells me about a different psychological phenomenon: “post-traumatic growth,” an effect whereby some trauma victims emerge from the experience feeling stronger than before. The example he gives me is that of Malala Yousafzai, the women’s education activist, who was shot in the head as a teenager by the Taliban. Despicable.
- Do Better at Conference Diversity — good to have a single place to point conference organisers who are, let’s put it diplomatically, starting their diversity journey. This is a HOWTO for better events.
- Exposing Company Secrets Through Your API: Part 1 — a lot of companies have private API routes that define their testing infrastructure. The client will request the current tests enabled for the account, and server will reply back, often with a huge list of all the tests the company is running. Below I explored how some of the most popular sites do it. (via Simon Willison)
