Mediaboss Marketing

April 7, 2017 The researchers conclude that there is significant potential for social media monitoring to be included in mainstream disease surveillance and response systems. Credit: DENYS Rudyi / 123rf

That social networking sites are a pervasive force won't come as a surprise to the billions of users worldwide. But how effective are they when it comes to informing the public health response to disease outbreaks? To answer this question and provide clear, quantitative data on how social media supports disease monitoring and response, a joint study between the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Institute of High Performance Computing and Singapore's Ministry of Health examined the 2013 avian flu outbreak in China.

Avian influenza A (H7N9) is a severe viral infection characterized by pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome. China announced its first three human cases in March 2013. International concern about the impact of this infection on global health and security grew quickly. Obtaining documented information on cases is key to limiting disease spread. To assess the efficacy and accuracy of social media in reporting incidents, researchers compared the timing of reporting new cases by means of conventional news agencies, public health agency reports (like the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China and the World Health Organization), and posts from Sina Weibo, a popular social networking site with more than 500 million registered users at the time of the outbreak.

Their results illustrate that Weibo was significantly faster in reporting new cases of infection than conventional reporting sites and public health agency reports. Weibo also provided access to additional crowdsourced information, such as updates on patients' health conditions, exposure history and family contacts, which were not readily available through official sources. This rapid disclosure of information helped accelerate official responses and recording by Chinese health authorities. In addition, the authorities were able to leverage Weibo as an interactive platform for risk communication to the general public, by holding, for example, real time question and answer sessions.

The researchers conclude that there is significant potential for social media monitoring to be included in mainstream disease surveillance and response systems. Their research also indicates that it could provide an early warning system for unusual public health events abroad.

Explore further: Bird-flu deaths rise in China, shutting poultry markets

More information: Zhang, E. X., Yang, Y., Shang, R. D., Simons, J. J. P., Quek, B. K. et al. "Leveraging social networking sites for disease surveillance and public sensing: the case of the 2013 avian influenza A (H7N9) outbreak in China." Western Pacific Surveillance and Response Journal. (2015).

China is experiencing its deadliest outbreak of the H7N9 bird-flu strain since it first appeared in humans in 2013, killing 79 people in January alone and spurring several cities to suspend live poultry trade.

The World Health Organization says an increase in bird flu cases in China this year has not shown sustained human-to-human transmission, but it vows to remain "vigilant" over the puzzling outbreak in which affected fowl don't ...

When epidemiological data are scarce, social media and Internet reports can be reliable tools for forecasting infectious disease outbreaks, according to a study led by an expert in the School of Public Health at Georgia State ...

Nine people have died of bird flu in China this year, state media reported Wednesday, after the World Health Organization (WHO) urged all countries to promptly report human infections.

Weibo Corp.'s shares are rising in the Chinese social media company's debut in the U.S.

A popular social networking service used by Chinese people to vent their anger over a deadly July train crash now has more than 200 million users, owner Sina.com said Thursday.

Uber is scoffing at claims that its expansion into self-driving cars hinges on trade secrets stolen from a Google spinoff, arguing that its ride-hailing service has been working on potentially superior technology.

A sci-fi staple for decades, laser weapons are finally becoming reality in the US military, albeit with capabilities a little less dramatic than at the movies.

Facebook on Thursday launched its digital assistant named "M" for US users of its Messenger application, ramping up the social network's efforts in artificial intelligence.

YouTube TV, Google's new streaming package of about 40 television channels, is the tech industry's latest bid to get cable-shunning millennials to pay for live TV over the internet. It offers intriguing advantages over rivals, ...

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have found an innovative new use for a simple piece of glass tubing: weighing things. Their glass tube sensor will help speed up chemical toxicity tests, shed light on ...

Proteins are the most abundant substance in living cells aside from water, and their interactions with cellular functions are crucial to healthy life. When proteins fall short of their intended function or interact in an ...

Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more

Visit link:
Social networking sites could be used to monitor and respond to global disease outbreaks - Phys.Org

Dominic Tarr is a developer who lives on a self-steering sailboat in New Zealand; he created Scuttlebutt, a secure messaging system that can run without servers, even without ISPs.

Scuttlebutt users host append-only, cryptographically signed logs of all the public messages they've seen in their journeys, and when they meet, they sync up these messages, using their local network, or even by exchanging USB sticks of cryptographically signed files.

Thought Scuttlebutt doesn't require an ISP or servers, it can supercharge its throughput and synchrony by connecting to public servers (called "pubs") that act as clearinghouses: but taking down all the pubs will not destroy the network, only slow it down as it falls back on slower, higher-latency, lower-reliability P2P meshes.

It reminds me a lot of Fidonet, Tom Jennings' classic BBS networking infrastructure that linked millions of people around the world by programming local dial-up BBSes to call one another during off-peak/low-tariff hours and swap messages destined for one another, or more distant nodes. Fidonet eventually got a bridge into Usenet (thanks to The Little Garden, John Gilmore's trailblazing San Francisco ISP) that supercharged it in much the way of Scuttlebutt's pubs.

In Scuttlebutt, the mesh suffices. With simply two computers, a local router, and electricity, you can exchange messages between the computers with minimal effort and no technical skills. Each account in Scuttlebutt is a diary (or log) of what a person has publicly and digitally said. As those people move around between different WiFi / LAN networks, their log gets copy-pasted to different computers, and so digital information spreads.

What word of mouth is for humans, Scuttlebutt is for social news feeds. It is unstoppable and spreads fast. Once the word is out (just an arbitrary example) that Apple is releasing a new iPhone model, there is no way to restrict that information from spreading. A person may tell that piece of information to any of their friends, and those friends may in turn spread that information onwards.

With typical gossip, however, information deteriorates as it spreads and eventually becomes harmful rumor. Scuttlebutt on the other hand makes word of mouth secure with cryptography. Each Scuttlebutt account is comprised of simply two things: an append-only diary and private/public asymmetric crypto keys. An accounts identity is its public key. There are no unique usernames, because you cant guarantee two people in separate places from choosing the same username, much like you cannot forbid the name John Smith to be given to a newborn in Canada if it is already taken by another person in Australia.

All information a person has published is registered in their diary. Public messages (like in Twitter) are the most common type of message in a diary, but youll also see I am friends with that person type of messages. To send a private message to someone, I simply record a message in my diary, but encrypt it first, so the message isnt plainly readable by anyone who gets their hands on a copy of the diary. Authenticity of diaries is preserved in that all diary entries reference the message that was written before, and then is signed. This prevents tampering and makes replication easier.

Scuttlebutt

AN OFF-GRID SOCIAL NETWORK [Andre Saltz]

(via 4 Short Links)

report this ad

The latest crayon-scrawled, unconstitutional, sure-to-be-challenged plan from the Trump White House for Americas borders would require visitors to the US to reveal their social media passwords so CBP officers could read their private messages and look at their friends lists; they will also have to answer questions about their political beliefs the plan would []

This web page needs to be interrupted by a lightbox effect and a modal dialog asking me to sign up for a mailing list, said no one ever.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail; when all you have is clip art of a hooded hacker figure

Blue Apron delivers perfectly portioned ingredients so you can cook beautiful homemade meals easily, with subscription plans that match size of your household . Or appetite.If you want to wrangle in your restaurant habit and start cooking at home, Blue Apron eliminates the time-intensive trips to the grocery store to ensure that you have fresh, []

Just ask this guy! The G-BOOM Wireless Bluetooth Boomboxdelivers 10W of balanced sound in a package that was built to live on your shoulder. Its like the loudest, most in-tune mechanical parrot youve ever owned.Bluetooth audio has vastly simplified the search for the right sound system. Many people dont have the need or the space []

Perhaps your pockets might be the easiest place to store cash and other loose objects. But unless youre a big fan of cargo pants, keeping your personal items, especially little ones,organized without some kind of bagis a tough task. This Key Safe keeps important odds-and-ends separate from lint and wadded-up receipts.With its screw-top design, you []

report this ad

Read the original here:
Scuttlebutt: an "off-grid" P2P social network that runs without servers and can fall back to sneakernet - Boing Boing

Social networks that fail to remove defamatoryfake news, hate speech and otherillegal content will be fined up to 50m (43m) under new plans agreed by the German government.

Angela Merkels cabinet voted on the measures amid concerns over free speech, with campaigners, technology firms and journalists raising fears that tightened regulations could restrict expression.

Heiko Maas, the German justice minister, vowed to push for similar rules Europe-wide, adding: There should be just as little tolerance for criminal incitement on social networks as on the street.

Trump calls leak fake newsand something that Nazi Germany would have done

We owe it to the victims of hate crime to manage this better.

The bill strengthens Germanys existing laws covering hate speech, slander, defamation, threats and incitement, adding to prison sentences already enforceable for Holocaust denial or inciting hatred against minorities.

The issue has taken on increasing urgency ahead of the countrys federal elections in September, with concerns the proliferation of fake news and racist content online could affect the outcome.

Fears over terror attacks claimed by Isis have been a point of contention, as has the reaction to the arrival of more than 1 million refugees in Germany over the past two years.

Facebookwon a court case last month after a Syrian refugee falsely accused of being a terrorist and attempted murderer in a series of xenophobic posts attempted to sue the social networking giant for damages.

Anas Modamani, whose chance selfie with Ms Merkel is one of a series of images seized upon by far-right groups, argued that failure to remove the posts put him at risk.

His lawyer pointed out that Facebooks community standards violations did not include libel, which is a criminal offence in Germany, the UK and elsewhere.

A photo of Anas Modamani taking a selfie with Angela Merkel went viral after it was used by news organisations around the world (Getty)

The new law would give social networks 24 hours to delete or block criminal content and seven days to deal with less clear-cut cases, with an obligation to report back to the person who filed the complaint about how it was handled.

Failure to comply could see a company fined up to 50m (43m), with its chief representative in Germany handed an additional penalty of 5m (4.3m).

The Digital Society Association was among the groups opposing the move, with its head Volker Tripp saying: It is the wrong approach to make social networks into a content police.

Bitkom, an association that represents digital companies, said the government should build up specialist teams to monitor online content for potential infringements, rather than expect social networks to do it themselves.

Given the short deadlines and the severe penalties, providers will be forced to delete doubtful statements as a precaution,said Bitkom manager Bernhard Rohleder.

That would have a serious impact on free speech on the internet.

Since it was unveiled last month, the draft law has been amended to include new categories of content, such as child pornography and now allows courts to order social networks to reveal the identity of the user behind criminal posts.

To address concerns over free speech, the legislation was tweaked to make clear that a fine would not necessarily be imposed after just one infraction, and still needs to be approved by the Bundestag.

Mr Maas said freedom of expression was of huge importance in Germany, but that freedom of expression ends where criminal law begins.

The justice ministry said research showed that Facebook deleted just 39 per cent of content reported by users and Twitteronly 1 per cent, despite signing a code of conduct in 2015 that included a pledge to delete hate speech within 24 hours.

The cabinet also approved a new law cracking down on the recognition of child marriage among arriving refugees on Wednesday.

It proposes automatically declaring certificates void if one of the partners was under the age of 16 when they wed, despite concerns that the move would leave young female asylum seekers and those with children vulnerable.

In principle, marriages involving under-18s will also not be recognised, but courts will be allowed to decide whether to annul them on a case-by-case basis after receiving advice from youth protection agencies.

Cabinet members agreed the measure as a newspaper report claimed that about 270,000 Syrians living in Germany have the right to bring their family members into the country.

Bilds report could add fuel to the raging debate about migration less than six months before national elections, where Ms Merkel is seeking a fourth term as Chancellor.

Her conservative bloc faces opposition from the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which haslost support in recent months amid improving poll performances by the centre-left Social Democrats.

Continued here:
Germany to fine social networks up to 50m for not taking down illegal 'fake news' posts - The Independent

Naked Security

The coder who built Mastodon is 24, fiercely independent, and ... Mashable Mastodon, that giant cartoon mammal that's been rampaging across the internet this week, is not the product of a Silicon Valley start-up. Instead, the social ... Mastodon: new beast to challenge Big Social, or another white elephant?Naked Security Mastodon, the social network that wants to crush TwitterBlasting News Mastodon's sudden popularity should serve as Twitter's wakeup callEngadget The Verge -Patreon all 44 news articles »

Read the rest here:
The coder who built Mastodon is 24, fiercely independent, and ... - Mashable

Facebook today introduced new tools designed to help victims of so-called revenge porn.

Going forward, if you happen to come across an intimate image on Facebook that you believe was shared without permission, it will be easier to report it. To do so, just tap on the downward arrow or "" next to a post and click "Report."

Once you report it, "specially trained representatives" from Facebook's Community Operations team will review the image and, if it's found to be in violation of the social network's Community Standards, will take it down.

"In most cases, we will also disable the account for sharing intimate images without permission," Facebook's Head of Global Safety Antigone Davis wrote in a blog post. "We offer an appeals process if someone believes an image was taken down in error."

The company also plans to use "photo-matching technologies" to prevent any subsequent attempts to share the same image on not only Facebook but also Messenger and Instagram. If someone tries to share the image after it's been reported or removed, Facebook won't allow it and the person will get a notification stating that the image violates the social network's policies.

Finally, Facebook is partnering with safety organizations to offer revenge porn victims resources and support.

"These tools, developed in partnership with safety experts, are one example of the potential technology has to help keep people safe," Davis wrote. "We look forward to building on these tools and working with other companies to explore how they could be used across the industry."

According to a recent study from the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, 93 percent of US revenge porn victims suffer "significant emotional distress" as a result of the abuse, while 82 percent report "significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas" of their life.

Continue reading here:
Facebook Introduces New Tools to Fight Revenge Porn - PCMag India