"These examples show that when democracy deteriorates, its fate is not sealed, and democratic institutions can be reclaimed."
Our World in Data
Four countries that have successfully reversed democratic decline in recent years
Several countries have recently managed to stop and even reverse the erosion of their democratic institutions.
 #democracy #autocracy image
"We still have a chance to save our country, and part of that work means showing up and speaking if you have a platform." ✊ https://www.advocate.com/news/chris-kluwe-pride-flag-arrest-update #news #USPol
65% of Wikimedia's most expensive traffic comes from bots. "Since January 2024, we have seen the bandwidth used for downloading multimedia content grow by 50%. This increase is not coming from human readers, but largely from automated programs that scrape the Wikimedia Commons image catalog of openly licensed images to feed images to AI models."
Diff
How crawlers impact the operations of the Wikimedia projects
Since the beginning of 2024, the demand for the content created by the Wikimedia volunteer community – especially for the 144 million images, vid...
 #wikimedia #wikipedia #AI #GenAI
I know we have more important things going on right now, but if you ever wondered about where clip art came from, this video has interviews with the original clip art designers. "Art still exist for us to contribute to. This isn't an invitation to go out and make your own clip art, but it's an invitation to look at it the next time you see it and really appreciate it. Not like a grocery store sticker, but as a piece of art." #art #ClipArt #design #history
Is alt text useful? Should you describe colors in images? Find answers to these questions, and more, with these polls and insights.
Polls and other insights about the use of alt text on social media | Stefan Bohacek
A few polls about alt text.
 #AltText #accessibility #ImageDescription
"At the beginning of 1995, the internet was still largely the domain of academic-minded geeks and Silicon Valley hippies. But the culture at large was increasingly taking notice of cyberspace. Throughout 1995, millions more people went online and thousands of companies bought β€œdot com” domain names. The web was now open for business."
Cybercultural
What the Internet Was Like in 1995
In 1995, Netscape goes public and Microsoft notices the internet β€” the browser wars begin. Also this year, Amazon and eBay launch, JavaScript and...
 #internet #TheWeb #EarlyWeb #cyberculture
"The new feature would likely be an unwelcome one for users who would rather keep comments AI-free on Instagram, especially those who believe their friends deserve genuine comments as opposed to AI slop."
TechCrunch
Meta spotted testing AI-generated comments on Instagram | TechCrunch
In recent years, Meta has introduced many AI features and capabilities to its apps, even going so far as experimenting with AI-generated characters
 #news #technology #TechNews #meta #instagram #SocialMedia #AI #slop
Wait. Is this reading correct? "Under current law, content produced entirely by AI immediately enters the public domain, allowing unrestricted commercial use."
Synthtopia
AI-Generated Works Are Public Domain, Court Affirms
A recent court case affirms that works generated by AI, without human involvement, are not eligible for copyright protection.
 Other news coverage: "Because many of the Copyright Act's provisions make sense only if an author is a human being, the best reading of the Copyright Act is that human authorship is required for registration." https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-appeals-court-rejects-copyrights-ai-generated-art-lacking-human-creator-2025-03-18/ #news #technology #TechNews #copyright #PublicDomain #AI
On this day in 1915, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the "original soul sister" and "Godmother of rock and roll" was born. "Rock 'n' roll was bred between the church and the nightclubs in the soul of a queer black woman in the 1940s named Sister Rosetta Tharpe."
Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Wikipedia
 https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/544226085/forebears-sister-rosetta-tharpe-the-godmother-of-rock-n-roll #music #history #MusicHistory #WomenInMusic #BlackWomen #BlackHistory #RockNRoll #RockMusicΒ #OnThisDay #OTD #SisterRosettaTharpe
"In the summer of 1959, [American NASA astronaut and physicist Ronald Erwin McNair, 8 years old at the time,] refused to leave the segregated Lake City Public Library without being allowed to check out his books. After the police and his mother were called, McNair was allowed to borrow books from the library; the building that housed the library at the time is now named after him." ✊
Ronald McNair - Wikipedia
 #BlackHistory #racism