Links

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/11/technology/youtube-fake-view-sellers.html
Aug. 11, 2018
Martin Vassilev makes a good living selling fake views on YouTube videos. Working from home in Ottawa, he has sold about 15 million views so far this year, putting him on track to bring in more than $200,000, records show.
Mr. Vassilev, 32, does not provide the views himself. His website, 500Views.com, connects customers with services that offer views, likes and dislikes generated by computers, not humans. When a supplier cannot fulfill an order, Mr. Vassilev — like a modern switchboard operator — quickly connects with another.
“I can deliver an unlimited amount of views to a video,” Mr. Vassilev said in an interview. “They’ve tried to stop it for so many years, but they can’t stop it. There’s always a way around.”
Devumi’s customers included an employee of RT, a media organization funded by the Russian government, and an employee of Al Jazeera English, another state-backed company. Other buyers were a filmmaker working for Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group, and the head of video at The New York Post. (Al Jazeera and The Post said the workers were not authorized to make such purchases and were no longer employed there.)
Multiple musicians bought views to appear more popular: YouTube views factor into metrics from the ratings company Nielsen and song charts including Billboard’s Hot 100.
YouTube would not disclose the number of fake views it blocked each day, but said its teams worked to keep them to less than 1 percent of the total. Still, with the platform registering billions of views a day, tens of millions of fake views could be making it through daily.


https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/13/politics/dad-hunts-russian-trolls/index.html
Meet the Indiana dad who hunts Russian trolls
Aug. 13, 2018
https://twitter.com/josh_emerson
https://medium.com/@josh_emerson/comprehensive-list-of-internet-research-agency-social-media-groups-58373da895fe


https://jezebel.com/barnes-noble-is-still-struggling-so-congrats-kathlee-1828305289
Aug. 13, 2018
The New York Times reports that sales continue to fall at Barnes and Noble and that the company has no direction, with stock down over 60 percent in the last three years. In the last decade B&N has also closed more than 150 stores and operates just 633 today, and to change course B&N executive chairman Leonard Riggio might close the bigger stores and start opening up smaller ones in “highly trafficked” areas.


https://hillreporter.com/trump-administration-set-to-deport-four-year-old-legally-adopted-by-u-s-citizens-5585
Aut. 12, 2018
Angela Becerra is four years old. Her parents are both legal U.S. citizens. Her adoption is legal, documented, and official. Everything the family has done has been open and through all the correct legal channels. The Trump administration will deport the preschooler in a few short weeks if her parents aren’t able to somehow avert this disaster.


https://www.rawstory.com/2018/08/cnn-host-stomps-bikers-trumps-harley-davidson-boycott-revealing-group-t-shirts-made-haiti/#.W3HWqdmayXM.twitter
Aug. 13, 2018
A member of the group Bikers for Trump tried to explain to CNN on Monday why the group could have T-shirts printed in Haiti but is boycotting Harley-Davidson for making motorcycles overseas.
Bikers for Trump activist Chris Cox told CNN’s Poppy Harlow that his group is supporting a boycott of Harley-Davidson after the company said that it was moving some manufacturing out of the country due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on aluminum and steel.
[The manufacturing that Harley-Davidson is moving is for bikes that are sold overseas. If they can't sell them there because they would cost too much, they're not going to continue to making them here. Also, it seems like it would create less pollution to use less energy for transportation.]


Shane Bauer‏Verified account @shane_bauer
Not only does Fox's coverage of a white nationalist rally in DC focus on antifa, rather than white supremacists, they use footage I shot a year ago in Berkeley of antifa beating up an alt-righter and lead readers to believe it happened in DC.
10:35 AM - 13 Aug 2018


https://www.cjr.org/analysis/tweets-russia-news.php
Mar. 8, 2018
Most major outlets have used Russian tweets as sources for partisan opinion: study
While the articles we identified represent a tiny fraction of all articles produced from the outlets we surveyed during this two-year period, the fact that American-imitating Russian trolls appeared in nearly every outlet we searched is troubling. The presence of these tweets in any news story represents a failure to verify the origin of the views used in news.
It is also critical to note what we did not find. Except for a few cases, we did not find fake news. Instead, the presence of IRA accounts almost always indicated the reproduction and amplification of opinion—often evocative or provocative versions of opinions already in circulation.


https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/08/closing-fossil-fuel-plants-reduces-preterm-births/
Aug. 13, 2018
Coal and oil-burning power plants emit pollutants including lead, mercury, and carbon dioxide. A recent study shows that closing these plants can help protect some of the most vulnerable among us: newborn babies.
Casey: “We looked at eight power plants that shut down and we observed a pretty large reduction in preterm birth, comparing before and after among people living nearby.”
That’s Joan Casey of the University of California-Berkeley. Her team looked at rates of premature births among people living within three miles of these California power plants.
Before the plants closed, about seven percent of babies were born preterm. Afterwards, that rate dropped to about five percent. Reductions among African and Asian Americans were even greater.
The plant closures had more than one benefit, this study shows.
A premature birth increases a baby’s risk for future medical and developmental problems.


http://time.com/5361394/tv-factory-closing-trump-tariffs/?xid=time-amp-fbshare
Aug. 8, 2018
A South Carolina plant that assembles televisions using Chinese parts plans to shut down and lay off nearly all its employees because of new tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration, the company announced this week.
Element Electronics — which describes itself as the only assembler of televisions in the U.S. — plans to lay off 126 of its 134 permanent full-time employees and close the Winnsboro, S.C. plant on Oct. 5. Notably, there are still at least two smaller companies that continue to assemble speciality televisions in the U.S.


https://weather.com/news/news/2018-08-13-wildfire-smoke-western-fires-detected-majority-us-states
Aug. 13, 2018
Dozens of wildfires burning across western North America – including California's Mendocino Complex, Holy Fire, Carr Fire and Ferguson Fire – are sending plumes of smoke across much of the country.
Atlanta residents were treated to a red sunrise Monday morning as a thin band of wildfire smoke drifted into north Georgia.


https://nbcmontana.com/weather/wildfires/evacuation-order-for-howe-ridge-fire-has-been-expanded-to-include-lake-mcdonald-lodge
Aug. 13, 2018
After a slow start, Montana wildfires multiply
A relatively light wildfire season across the Northern Rockies has roared to life as firefighters scrambled to try to stamp out more than 30 new blazes in recent days.
Authorities reported Monday that several new large fires have taken hold in Montana after a recent heat wave brought triple-digit temperatures.