Good Monday morning. It’s October 19th. The World Series starts Tuesday night and hopefully provides a little normalcy during this topsy-turvy time. 

Today’s Spotlight is 1,621 words — about a 6 minute read.

1. News to Know Now

a. Amazon Prime Day was a $3.5 billion event for the company’s independent third-party sellers. The company didn’t release overall sales volume although Amazon has said in the past that third party sellers account for nearly 60% of sales. The top selling items in the U.S. included automated vacuums and garage door openers, water filters, and the Kids Against Maturity card game. (Amazon)

b. More self-driving cars will be on public streets soon. Separately, Alphabet’s Waymo unit announced it will begin regular driverless taxi service in Phoenix while GM subsidiary Cruise has received permission to do the same in San Francisco. There will be no human driver acting as a safety backup in these programs. (Wired)

c. Businesses on Yelp accused of racist behavior will now be flagged by the platform. The program is part of a new initiative that also flags suspicious review activity and public threats from a business to a consumer. One issue Yelp says it experiences is an influx of noncredible reviews after a business is involved in public controversies. The new flags also suspend all new review posting. (Yelp)

2. COVID-19 Online Resources and News

Great Trackers
Johns Hopkins Dashboard or Animations
COVID-19 Forecast Hub
Google County Level Mobility Reports
Long-Term Care COVID Tracker

COVID-19 Tech News
Amazon to Launch Reserve Grocery Slots — Recode 
New Algos Help Gov’t Fight COVID Misinformation — Gov Tech
Tools to Deal with COVID Information Overload — Quartz
When False Info Goes Viral, Patient Groups Fight Back — NPR
Zoom’s Revenue Skyrockets On Pandemic Boost — Statista

3. Search Engine Optimization News

Your brand names and industry jargon may not be as prevalent as you think. One change Google announced this week is a new spelling algorithm because 10% of all search queries are misspelled.

We also learned that ranking of a passage on a webpage will be more prevalent in the future. Google says that it will rank “not just the overall page, [but] we can find that needle-in-a-haystack information.” The company says that results will improve for 7% of all search queries as a result. You may have already seen versions of this type of logic that point you to a specific moment in a video rather than the entire video. Google has been testing that functionality for months and expects it to affect 10% of searches.

Google will now also post answers from verified data sets directly in search. This program is called Data Commons and extracts facts from organizations like The World Bank or the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Google’s example: asking “how many people work in Chicago” creates this result directly in the results. Note that there are comparisons and multiple sources.

That’s a good thing for searchers, but not so good for website managers.

4. Also in the Spotlight — Disinformation Campaigns 

Big Tech critics continue accusing Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other companies of censorship, which is fair, since they are censoring content. They’re allowed to do so, and as we often say, you should ask Twitter or Facebook for a refund of your membership fees if you don’t like using them.

There is no free speech issue. These private entities are allowed to make their own rules. Break a company’s rules, and they can simply remove your content or permanently ban your account. Twitter has long been under fire for treating content on President Donald Trump’s account more leniently than other accounts. Twitter said in 2018 that blocking a world leader or removing their content would hide important information.

What few predicted was the president’s behavior in 2020. He has routinely amplified disinformation campaigns and false information that could cause harm to people or suppress votes. Politicians understand that platforms can do as they like regarding content on their site, but that hasn’t stopped Republican senators this week from calling for testimony from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. 

The president and his allies are not only amplifying disinformation campaigns, but creating their own deliberate misinformation. Presidential adviser Scott Atlas tweeted yesterday a false claim that face masks don’t prevent the spread of COVID-19. Twitter removed the information as it has removed or blocked other false claims, including when the president has touted false COVID-19 cures.

In addition to rules about false claims that can cause physical harm, the platforms also now ban explicit physical threats and hate speech. Facebook, for example, recently announced that it will no longer allow content to be posted promoting the false Q-Anon conspiracy theory or claims denying that the Holocaust occurred. 

Disinformation campaigns are growing and can be run by unethical agencies. Facebook banned an Arizona marketing firm and its political candidate CEO following a Washington Post expose about Turning Point Action. The conservative political organization hired the firm that then created hundreds of accounts and dozens of Facebook pages to function as a Donald Trump-supporting troll farm in Arizona. 

Facebook and Twitter have removed doctored video posted by the president and his allies in recent weeks, creating concerns that the period leading up to and following the presidential elections will be marred by disinformation campaigns. Facebook has taken the extreme step of halting all political and issue advocacy advertising after the polls close on Election Day. The company is also locking down advertising content beginning the week before the election and will not allow new advertising to be submitted.

Please verify everything with at least two trusted nonpartisan sources during this time when even U.S. politicians are promoting disinformation campaigns, doctored video, and false conspiracy theories. One of the most recent is a Donald Trump tweet that accused his political rival of orchestrating the murders of Navy Seal Team Six, the U.S. Special Forces troops who killed Osama bin Laden.

The president told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie about that tweet, ” … that was an opinion of somebody, and that was a retweet. I put it out there, people can decide for themselves, I don’t take a position.”

Disinformation Campaign Smartlinks
Candidate for Legislature gets suspended and firm gets banned from social media — AZ Central
Facebook bans marketing firm running ‘troll farm’ for pro-Trump youth group — The Washington Post
Facebook bans QAnon across all its platforms — Axios
Facebook removes Trump post falsely saying flu is more lethal than Covid — CNN
Facebook to ban content that denies or distorts the Holocaust — The Guardian
Facebook bans ads supporting QAnon and militarized social movements — CNBC
Trump Promotes Seal Team Six Conspiracy Theory — Snopes
Twitter Explains Why It Still Hasn’t Banned President Donald Trump — The Verge
Twitter removes tweet from top Trump Covid-19 adviser saying masks don’t work — NBC News

5. Following Up: Belarus Protesters Use AI to Identify Riot Police

We wrote about the state of law enforcement technology last month and its increasing reliance on algorithms, biometrics, and other nontraditional policing methods.

There’s news about a U.S. based digital artist who is attempting to create a facial recognition system using only a person’s eyes, which are often the only visible part of of an officer’s face behind a shield.

See it here because genies don’t go back in bottles.

6. Debugging: Go Viral Game

The University of Cambridge has a new simulator that allows you to take the reins of a social media account and attempt to go viral with disinformation campaigns.

Play for free in about 5 minutes.

7. ProTip: Fantastic Keyboard Shortcuts

This is where you fall in love with Spotlight all over again. Using a PC? Control+L sends your browser’s cursor to the address bar without you touching the mouse. Have a Mac? Substitute the Command key.

You’re welcome. Read the rest here.

8. Spotlighters Ask: Facebook Posts without Comments

Don’t forget to send us your Spotlighters Ask questions. We answer them all via email and post one each week. 

If you post on your Facebook profile or a business page, there is no way for you to stop comments although you can delete them. Facebook group administrators have some different functionality, including the ability to turn off comments for a specific post. 

A neat trick you may not know: a Facebook business page administrator can hide your comment so that it is only visible to you and people who are connected to you as a friend. Let us know if you run a Facebook page and want to learn how to do that.

Screening Room: Snickers & The First Visitors

10. Coffee Break: Pandas on the Slide

You deserve a reward after reading so much about disinformation campaigns, Enjoy these four roly-poly critters on their slide. 

It will keep looping if you’re having that kind of day.

Good Monday morning. It’s October 5th. Today is the 26th anniversary of the first World Teacher Day. Here is a PDF agenda with clickable links for the free online activities occuring all week.

Today’s Spotlight is 1,185 words — about a 4 minute read.

1. News to Know Now

a. The Russian hackers responsible for a major 2016 election disinformation campaign are now targeting conservative social media users while posing as a media outlet, according to Reuters.

b. Thousands of Tribune Publishing employees are angry after the company sent an email that said they would receive a $10,000 bonus for their hard work after they clicked a link. The link was a test to see if they would fall for a phishing attempt that had misspellings and other clues. Employees at the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, and other newspapers are livid and many noted online that the company has endured recent layoffs. Read more at The Washington Post.

c. “Alexa, join our conversation,” is a new command Amazon has introduced to reduce the number of times you have to use the activation word. Apple and Google have also already introduced their 2020 holiday product lines. CNET has coverage.

2. COVID-19 Online Resources and News

Great Trackers
COVID Tracking Project
Johns Hopkins Dashboard or Animations
COVID-19 Forecast Hub
Google County Level Mobility Reports
Long-Term Care COVID Tracker

COVID-19 Tech News
DFW Airport to Install Ultraviolet Technology — NBC Dallas
Facebook pulls Trump ads tying refugees to COVID — The Hill
Govs. Cuomo and Murphy Launch Exposure Apps — New York
Rural Schools Struggle With Distanced Learning — NPR
Website offers place to grieve COVID-19 victims — Boston 25 News

3. Search Engine Optimization News

Google confirmed Thursday that two separate indexing issues affected its database beginning September 20. One dealt with mobile-indexing and the other with different versions of the same content. We saw one website of a couple dozen we monitor have issues that pretty neatly fit this timeline.

In other words, these little mishaps you read about almost never impact your sites, but with a couple of billion pages potentially affected, it’s bound to happen sooner or later, even if many of those pages are PTA Meeting Minutes from 2014.

Changing a website’s layout can also affect rankings even if the page’s content and URLs remain the same, said Google’s John Mueller in his weekly live chat. Any changes might be positive because the new layout provides better context to the content or negative because something isn’t properly configured. Don’t forget that Google now uses page speed and factors such as how a page updates as it loads to rank that page.

4. Also in the Spotlight — Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware attacks had already hit Baltimore and Atlanta when we wrote about it last year. Small cities and organizations were also falling prey to what we called an insidious problem.

Ransomware attacks occur when hackers are able to take control of a computer system. To regain control, organizations will often pay what were once minor ransoms of several tens of thousands of dollars. Those payments can now reach several million dollars. One of the most famous ransomware attacks took place against Sony Pictures in late 2014 when salacious and embarrassing details from private emails and files were leaked by hackers believed to be sponsored by the North Korean government.

The Trump administration warned financial institutions last week that paying those ransoms may violate federal regulations related to money laundering and economic sanctions. Financial institutions are required to notify authorities if they have reason to believe that a transaction exceeding five thousand dollars is related to illegal activity.

The FBI had previously urged organizations to report all ransomware attacks while acknowledging that some entities chose to pay the ransom in order to immediately secure their data.

A ransomware attack on eResearchTechnology reported this weekend by The New York Times has slowed the clinical trials for a COVID-19 virus among others because the company sells software used in those trials. 

Researchers also learned last week that personal information about Las Vegas area students including their birth dates and grades were published online after the Clark County School District refused to pay a ransomware demand in September. Nearly 600 school districts have been attacked. Data was published online in five instances just last month.

If you run an organization, you need a computer security plan and the appropriate insurance. This problem isn’t going away soon and may now be more complicated than ever if organizations can’t simply pay after a ransomware attack.

Smartlinks
Clinical Trials Hit by Ransomware Attack — The New York Times
Ransomware Victims Could Face Steep Fines — Krebs on Security
Sony Hackers Were Causing Mayhem Years Before — Wired
Students’ Personal Data Leaked, Post-Attack — Threatpost
U. S. Warns Insurers Against Paying Ransomware — Insurance Journal

5. Following Up: Apple vs. Epic

We’ve told you about Epic Games taking on Apple over its commission requirement that 30% of all revenues generated by apps are paid to Apple (or Google for Android apps). Now there’s news that Spotify, Epic, and Match Group have formed a coalition to fight those charges.

Read about the Coalition for App Fairness.

6. Debugging: Share Verified

“This is a time for science and solidarity,” says UN Secretary-General António Guterres in a video appearing on the UN’s Share Verified website. Go there now to sign up for daily or weekly briefings with nonpartisan information about the pandemic.

Most of the world won’t allow U.S. visitors. Let’s join them in beating back the pandemic.

Sign up here

7. ProTip: Amazon Prime Credits

Next week will feature the collision of Amazon Prime Days with Walmart’s new “Big Save Event” and Target’s “Deal Days” so plan on spending quality time seeing advertisements between now and then. Meanwhile the friendly folks at Tom’s Guide have a list of Amazon Prime Day credits you can qualify for before the shopping mayhem begins.

Credits, not coupons

8. Spotlighters Ask: Are Refurbished PCs Good?

Don’t forget to send us your Spotlighters Ask questions. We answer them all via email and post one each week. 

Yes, they’re sometimes a great deal. Major manufacturers and retailers refurbish devices and sell them at substantial savings. Any of those brand-name companies is a reputable source to buy from. Likewise a local shop with a good reputation may provide even better pricing or stay on the lookout for specific device types.

This Wirecutter buying guide for used PCs is excellent.

9. Screening Room: Nike Meets eSports

10. Coffee Break: Threes

The best online games and time wasters are easy to learn and play in a few minutes. Or you might play a bunch of rounds during the slow part of movie. It could happen. What an addictive game.

Here’s the web version. There are also mobile versions. 

Good Monday morning. It’s September 28th. Yom Kippur began last night at sundown and ends today at sundown.

Today’s Spotlight is 1,280 words — about a 4 1/2 minute read.

1. News to Know Now

a. A picture cropping algorithm used by Twitter and Zoom may be removing the faces of black people. aaSimilar racial bias has been detected for years in algorithms used by other large companies including IBM, Amazon, and Facebook. (NBC News)

b. Amazon Sidewalk’s reintroduction last week may have found the right time for its close-up. The company plans to use its Echo and Ring devices to extend the distance of a network signal to an area surrounding your home so that your smart home devices work outside.

“It’s great to get an alert your dog left the yard, but those devices could also send data to Amazon like the frequency, duration, destination and path of your dog walk,” says Forester analyst Jeff Pollard. (CNET)

c. Password manager 1Password rolled out a new function to create a single use virtual credit card for online purchases. This video shows how it works.

2. COVID-19 Online Resources and News

Great Trackers
COVID Tracking Project
Johns Hopkins Dashboard or Animations
COVID-19 Forecast Hub
Google County Level Mobility Reports
Long-Term Care COVID Tracker

COVID-19 Tech News
How to Track COVID-19 Trends on Google Maps — Lifehacker
Instagram’s Founders Explain Their Covid-Charting Obsession — Wired
Mayo launches nationwide COVID-19 predictions — Duluth News Tribune
What if All COVID-19 Deaths Happened in Your Neighborhood — Wash. Post

3. Search Engine Optimization News

Search engines often rely on a hidden sentence or two to help them understand a web page’s content. Called the meta description, you’re used to seeing it repurposed as the descriptive portion of a search engine snippet. Writing excellent descriptions that meet search engine needs and that generate clicks from searchers is an art. 

Now the smart folks at the Portent agency have released a study called “How Often Google Ignores Our Meta Descriptions” and the answer is about 70% of the time. The data is relatively consistent among devices, but shows an interesting uptick when a page’s snippet is displayed at the fourth result or lower.

Unlike many things, search is a zero-sum game that has at most only one winner per search. But we all need to understand that Google’s algorithms are rewriting the meta description to challenge the top three results. When we explain to business people that search engine optimization isn’t static, this is the kind of behavior that we mean. Not only are the people involved with websites targeting the top results, but Google will use lower ranked sites as a stalking horse to continue to push click through rates higher.

That’s not a bad thing for searchers or for Google because higher click rates mean higher satisfaction if all other things are equal. But if it’s your marketing budget, you need to understand that you’ll need ongoing SEO efforts to remain competitive.

You can see the data here.

4. Also in the Spotlight — Insured Resilience

Environmentalist and philanthropist Chandran Nair wrote this week about insured resilience for the World Economic Forum. Nair warns that society must develop the ability to withstand and recover from the shocks of overexploitation, consumption-led capitalism, biodiversity losses, and climate change. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is showing us that insured resilience, not technology, is what will allow society to prioritize important issues like climate change and social equality as it resets after extreme weather, pandemic, and economic catastrophes.

Technology organizations are trying to help, but aren’t the answer as they address only symptoms and their presence is sometimes complicating. Earlier this year, Facebook inadvertently wiped out an entire language spoken by two percent of the population in Myanmar who are already in a battle over what observers believe is ethnic cleansing.

MIT Technology Review reports that only three U.S. companies crawl the entire web: Google, Microsoft, and Diffbot. The latter company provides commercial-level knowledge graphs, those boxes of information seen on the right side of search result pages. Financial issues are a significant reason for the limited number of companies, but that means that the information can be potentially limited. 

“The pandemic shows that we need to reset our priorities toward better serving the global majority with limited access to basic needs, and doing that by respecting limits,” Nair wrote Friday. 

And while many of us are blessed with technological solutions to weather part of the pandemic, the Benton Institution reported this week that the digital divide is extreme in many areas of the United States. 

One in four K-12 households in California do not have a computer and high-speed Internet connection. The same is true throughout rural and urban settings, representing tens of thousands of students in Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia, as well as 99% of students in one rural Alabama county, and 30% in rural Virginia.

Heeding Nair’s advice, one might ask what else those U.S. homes are lacking and how to create insured resilience.

Smartlinks

Closing the Digital Divide — Benton Institute
Facebook Accidentally Blacked Out A Language — The Verge
Know-it-All AI Reads the Web Nonstop — MIT Tech
Why Resilience is the Answer — World Economic Forum

5. Following Up: GPT-3 & Google Political Ads

We’ve written a lot about Open AI’s GPT-3 program and its ability to beat previous benchmarks. Microsoft announced last Tuesday that it has exclusively licensed GPT-3 for its own AI applications. 

“Directly aiding human creativity and ingenuity in areas like writing and composition, describing and summarizing large blocks of long-form data (including code), converting natural language to another language — the possibilities are limited only by the ideas and scenarios that we bring to the table,” said Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott in a statement.

We’ve also told you a lot about political advertising during this election cycle and the criticism leveled at Google for not banning political ads. Google will now block election ads following Election Day, Axios scooped Friday. The move will hopefully limit some of the misinformation and disinformation regarding election results that experts expect to be circulating in early November.

6. Debugging: 2020 Ballots Were Not Discarded

The Sonoma County (CA) government had to take to social media to combat a rumor spread online and amplified this weekend by President Donald Trump that ballots were thrown away. Here is their post.

7. ProTip: Virtual Backgrounds on Android Zoom

No more house background envy. Here’s how to enable virtual backgrounds on Android phones. 

Only Android and make sure your app is updated.

8. Spotlighters Ask:  More Zoom

Remember: press reply and email a question about integrating the online world into your life. We research and answer them all. We also publish one each week, but you’ll get an answer first.

Can you call in on a phone using Zoom and watch on a PC?

You can absolutely use phone audio and another device’s video.  Here are links showing you how to do that using Zoom, Webex, and Blue Jeans. 

Screening Room: Skywalker Meets Picard

10. Coffee Break: Geo Guessr

This fun web game dumps you somewhere in the world on Google Maps. Your job is to figure out where using Google Street View. Setting up a free account lets you play the timed Daily Challenge for points and try your hand at Country Streak.

One hint only: go find commercial areas and search for clues on signage.

Here are three ways that we can help you:

1. Get a free SEO audit on our website.

2.  Have a simple, fact-based question about digital marketing? Reply & ask George for free.

3. If your organization needs help with search, social media, or advertising, have a look at what we do.