Shows
The Starting BlockThe 64th Block: I spy with my little eyeThis week…These are two of the leading experts in disinformation studies in Malaysia and I am now half-jokingly looking for a co-author:For context, Adham Baba, objectively the most useless health minister Malaysia has ever had, has a whole subsection on his Wikipedia page from all of his COVID-19 misinformation and lies since his illegitimate appointment last year, including claiming he participated in a WHO video conference with “over 500 countries.” Related, former editor of the British Medical Journal, Richard Smith, argues that with about 20 per cent of medical trials being “fatally flawed” or “untrust...
2021-07-2634 min
The Starting BlockThe 63rd Block: The Internet is different over thereThis week…Facebook plans to lure creators with a $1 billion programme. In comparison, YouTube has a $100 million fund for YouTube Shorts, and TikTok has a $200 million creator fund. TikTok also surpassed 3 billion global downloads this week—the first non-Facebook app to do so. The only other apps to have reached that milestone are Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and Messenger. It’s a good time to be a creator, huh?And for our interview segment, I speak with Sheena Baharudin, poet and assistant professor of literature at the University of Nottingham Malaysia about being a multilingual, multimedia creato...
2021-07-1934 min
The Starting BlockThe 62nd Block: Disinformation in diaspora communitiesThis week…The theme is how misinformation travels within diasporas and non-English communities. And for our interview segment, I speak with Clarissa Lee, an art-science creator and researcher at Universiti Malaya and fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, for a sneak peek into her research on Internet trolling and Malay social media. But first, a selection of top stories on my radar, a few personal recommendations, and the chart of the week.Facebook’s failure to pay attention to non-English languages is allowing hate speech to flourishFiona R. Mart...
2021-07-1222 min
The Starting BlockThe 61st Block: The great Insta-conThis week…Instagram is no longer a photo app, Facebook is no longer… whatever it was. Actually, wait. Facebook still is whatever it was: An idea stealer. 🙃 In a response to the growing popularity of newsletters thanks to Substack, Facebook launched Bulletin and recruited high profilers like Malcolm Gladwell and Mitch Albom to launch publications. Facebook also recently launched Live Audio Rooms as its Clubhouse competitor. Meanwhile head of Instagram Adam Mosseri said that “TikTok is huge, YouTube is even bigger” so it’s time for Instagram to focus on creators, videos, shopping and messaging. Please believe that this who...
2021-07-0528 min
The Starting BlockThe 60th Block: Equal to the occasionThis week…We are reminded about how we normalise omitting fact-checks and verifications especially when it comes to feel-good stories:And for our interview segment, I speak with tech and lifestyle-focused content creator Emmanuel Olalere as he mulls over online privacy and digital wills, and describes how the MySejahtera app is symbolic of Malaysia’s current sociopolitics, the same way Nigeria’s Ghana Must Go bag is symbolic of the country’s descent into dysfunction in the 80s. You can find the full transcript at the link below. But first, a selection of top stor...
2021-06-2835 min
The Starting BlockThe 58th Block: Journalism, a poor reflection of our worldThis week…I updated the checklist for fact-checking master post with some open-source tools for fact-checking and verification. Next week, I will be adding another section on some sensible steps to improve online privacy. And for our interview segment, I speak with Tan Su Lin, co-founder of Science Media Centre Malaysia about the tiny, fragmented science communication community in Malaysia and how her organisation is improving the language around science in the media. You can find the full transcript at the link below. But first, a selection of top stories on my radar, a few per...
2021-06-1435 min
The Starting BlockThe 57th Block: Dark patterns on the flat 'netThis week……I am encouraging newsletter engagement. As this one grows, I ask if you could tell me more about your interest in the subjects I work on. And, what do you do for work? What do you do for fun? What would you like to do for the first time? In any case, I would also like to share some of my favourite newsletters, to which I’m subscribed, in case you have an appetite for more. Find the list here. Let me know your favourites too or if you think the newsletter sub-culture is sta...
2021-06-0729 min
The Starting BlockThe 56th Block: Likes, links and liquid coalThis week…The navigation on the main page of The Starting Block gets a minor facelift. All interview transcripts, which are filed under The Sidelines, can be found on the same page. Meanwhile, The Extra Mile will host the rare original long-forms that I occasionally have the time to write, including a new one, A Checklist for Fact-Checking, which expanded the original checklist published on The 25th Block with the inclusion of a step-by-step guide to skimming science papers.And for our interview segment, I speak with filmmaker Ineza Roussille about documentary filmmaking—and how edit...
2021-05-3129 min
The Starting BlockThe 55th Block: Polite, public presentation seldom make historyThis week…I rejoice at the news of the death of Google AMP (Marko Saric, Plausible). Whether it is due to antitrust scrutiny or pushbacks from publishers, I don't really care, because it has made it harder to spot misinformation, among many of its issues (Dan Buben, on Medium). Meanwhile, a rescue mission for Sci-Hub is underway before its death, with the ultimate aim of building a decentralised version (Glyn Moody, TechDirt).And for our interview segment, I speak with writer, actor, and director Jo Kukathas of The Instant Cafe Theatre Company about political satire. Yo...
2021-05-2434 min
The Starting BlockThe 53rd Block: Here for the commentsThis week…On the first anniversary of The Starting Block and in honour of my years covering mainly health news, I thought I should kick off the audio series with one of my favourite people to interview – a professor and physician at the University of Malaya, Sargunan Sockalingam, on public engagement during a pandemic, and the future of healthcare.Twitter’s new feature wants you to reconsider your mean tweetsJaclyn Diaz for NPR:According to Twitter, when prompted, 34% of people revised their initial reply or decided not to send it at all...
2021-05-1025 min
The Starting BlockThe 36th Block: Gotta love American exceptionalism, y'allsEndless game of reactive whack-a-moleFollowing the riot at the US capitol building last week, Trump or Trump-related content have been banned on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Discord, Shopify, Pinterest, and Spotify, while Parler, the social media app for far-right extremists have been suspended from the Google and Apple app stores and Amazon’s web-hosting service. No news yet about MeWe, Gab or Dlive.While deplatforming, even when it’s too little too late, has its merits, the worry, as a few of my colleagues who study and report on extremists have...
2021-01-1102 min
The Starting BlockThe 33rd Block: The MessengerA message in mime and MalayThis week, I spent most of the time writing a long essay in Malay about the COVID-19 vaccine that I am turning it into a few short videos. I mean, look at the raw sketch above. Perhaps I’m making up for the absence of the Malay segment for the last few weeks.Lie of the Year: Coronavirus downplay and denialEvery year, PolitiFact editors review the year’s most inaccurate statements to find and crown the Lie of the Year. From data ‘hijacking’ to Plandemi...
2020-12-2100 min
The Starting BlockThe 32nd Block: Open-access educationLet’s ‘tok EdutokFor the past two months or so I have spent a lot of time on TikTok to study the spread of misinformation there, especially around COVID-19 , and how the science communication community (EduTok, ScienceTok, MedTok) responded. Some of these efforts were made by journalists and scientists, but I think the most effective ones built a foundation around personality-driven content. Essentially, “If you like me, you’ll follow me; and if you follow me, you’ll listen to me.” I know that’s a double-edged sword, and it would take a whole chapter worth of word-count...
2020-12-1401 min
The Starting BlockThe 24th Block: Dude, where's my nude?Create, curate and arbitrate influence* Cristina Tardáguila for Poynter: Without methodology or transparency, Facebook and Twitter become the ‘arbiters of the truth’.* Emily Bell and Sara Sheridan for CJR: Google and Facebook have a news labelling problem.* Amelia Tait for The Guardian: Influencers are turning to unions.* Stephen Gossett for Builtin: The Internet should be more like Wikipedia.Dude, where’s my nude?[Image censored jk – I have a busy week this week]Remember tech journalist Charles Arthur? I had one short interview with him in 201...
2020-10-1902 min
The Starting BlockThe 23rd Block: Cut-and-paste title hereOld Tech is dead, long live Old Tech* Kate Cox for Ars Technica: John McAfee arrested, indicted on tax evasion charges. McAfee founded his eponymous computer security firm in 1987. I remember those pesky McAfee pop-ups.* Jonas Richner: How Flash shaped the video game industry. On December 31st, 2020, Google Chrome will stop supporting Flash Player for good. I remember making Flash games in computer science classes in matriculation college.* Leo Kelion for BBC: Why using Microsoft Excel caused England’s COVID-19 results to be lost. The developers picked an old file format, .xls, to pu...
2020-10-1204 min
The Starting BlockThe 22nd Block: AmplifyOh brother, Big Brother* Michel Martin for NPR: Trump joins Johnson and Bolsonaro in catching COVID-19. What have they learned? (Nothing.)* Justin Ong for Malay Mail: Fury over high ed ministry’s last-minute move to delay university intake. Ordinary Malaysians and former ministers mobilised to assist affected students.* Jerry Choong for Malay Mail: Whole country affected because of special treatment for non-compliant politician returnees from Sabah. Malaysia recorded the highest cases of COVID over the weekend, 293 on October 4th, and 317 on October 3rd. The last time figures were so high was on June 4th...
2020-10-0504 min
AmplifySeason 1 Teaser: How patient groups can help drive change toward personalized careTina Carmillia, a Malaysian multimedia producer and journalist, interviews healthcare professionals, policy makers, and patient representatives from the bleeding disorders community regarding patient advocacy and personalized care.All information is accurate as of September 2020. This podcast series is initiated, funded, and organized by Takeda. Some speakers were paid an honorarium by Takeda for their participation. Copyright 2020 Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited. All rights reserved. Takeda and the Takeda logo are registered trademarks of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited. September 2020 | C-ANPROM/INT//8238 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
2020-09-2200 min
The Starting BlockThe 20th Block: PhosphineRound and round we go* Sarah Manavis for New Statesman: Why Goodreads is bad for books. Launched in 2007 and bought by Amazon in 2013, the book site never had a serious contender.* Kate Klonick for The Atlantic: I study online-speech rules for a living. And then my own account was suspended. What one law professor learned from her time in Twitter purgatory.* Echo Wang and Greg Roumeliotis for Reuters: Oracle beat Microsoft in TikTok deal. It’s not a purchase, it’s a partnership.* Sarah Perez for Tech Crunch: Facebook launched… Facebook? Studen...
2020-09-2103 min
The Starting BlockThe 19th Block: Guardian of theatrical AI coverageGPT-3’s grandpa contributed to this newsletter* Zoe Schiffer for The Verge: Amazon removes 20,000 reviews for fraud.* Daniel Kelley for Slate: Disinformation will come for Animal Crossing.* Daniel Kolitz for Gizmodo: What happens if all personal data leaked at once?The guardian of the theatrical AI coverageThe Guardian, while often one of the best sources of news, did the AI community dirty this week with its publication of an op-ed written by GPT-3, OpenAI’s language model. After reading the piece, you will be informed by a long para...
2020-09-1403 min
The Starting BlockThe 18th Block: Linkedin deserves the same scrutiny as other social platformsWho watches the watchers?* Raphael Satter for Reuters: Mass surveillance exposed by Snowden was illegal.* Adi Robertson for The Verge: FBI worried doorbell cameras could tip owners off.* Emma Copley Eisenberg for Esquire: Fact-checking is the core of nonfiction writing. Why do so many publishers refuse to do it?Linkedin deserves the same scrutiny as other social platformsMy annual LinkedIn Premium account is due for renewal this month. There isn’t a lot of benefits to a premium account, and the only functions I truly have used are se...
2020-09-0703 min
The Starting BlockThe 16th Block: Social warmingYou may misappropriate this newsletter* Kaitlyn Tiffany for The Atlantic: The women making conspiracy theories beautiful. Disguise and repackage QAnon conspiracies with Instagram beauty filters and don’t forget to hashtag #inspo.* Charlotte Jee for MIT Technology Review: Health misinformation pages got half a billion views on Facebook in April, almost four times as many views as information from reliable sources, according to an analysis by Avaaz. Only 16% of the health misinformation it analysed included a warning label.* Leo Benedictus for Full Fact: We don’t know whether misinformation killed 800 people. “This number comes a...
2020-08-2405 min
The Starting BlockThe 15th Block: INSERT 100PT SPLASH HEADING HERENothing is black and white* Joshua Benton for The Atlantic: A Wikipedia war over Kamala Harris’s race is a sign of what’s to come.* Nisha Chittal for Vox: The Kamala Harris identity debate shows how America still struggles to talk about multiracial people.* Faye Flam for Bloomberg: The odds of catching COVID-19 on a flight are slim. Arnold Barnett, a professor of management science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology posted his results as a not-yet-peer-reviewed preprint. But you need your cards – or rather your seat arrangements – dealt the right way.* N...
2020-08-1701 min
The Starting BlockThe 14th Block: Burning bridges, building wallsOh, sheet! The tok is ticking!* Jon Fingas for Endgadget: Scientists rename genes because Microsoft Excel reads them as dates. A guideline has been issued “for naming human genes to prevent Excel’s automatic date formatting from altering data. MARCH1, for example, should now be labelled MARCHF1 to stop Excel from changing it to 1-Mar.”* Cindy Yu for OneZero: Social movements are pushing Google Sheets to the breaking point. Google Sheets are used to organise social movements. But when these resources go viral, high traffic renders the spreadsheets unresponsive.* Gilad Edelman for Wired: Can ki...
2020-08-1003 min
The Starting BlockThe 13th Block: Hey Alexa, do you spy on sellers?Trust me, I’m a professional* Kevin Mayer, CEO of Tiktok: Tiktok to reveal its algorithm to build trust, calls others to do the same. Competitors have long questioned Tiktok’s transparency, and now Tiktok wants them to receive the same scrutiny. Fair game.* Matt Novak for Gizmodo: Who are ‘America's Frontline Doctors,’ the pro-Trump, pro-hydroxychloroquine weirdos banned from social media? For starters, Stella Immanuel received her medical license in November 2019 and believes world leaders are secretly lizards dressed up in human suits. Meanwhile, James Todaro hasn’t seen a patient since 2018 – these days he promotes bit...
2020-08-0303 min
The Starting BlockThe 12th Block: Statistically speaking…In Google we (dis)trust* Ashley Gold and Margaret Harding McGill for Axios: DC’s assault on tech will crest at CEO hearing. Big Tech CEOs testify before US House subcommittee on Monday; lawmakers will grill them on antitrust and market dominance, misinformation and content moderation, China, and data privacy.* Jeffrey A Trachtenberg for Wall Street Journal: WSJ journalists ask publisher for clearer distinction between news and opinion content. “The letter cites several examples of concern, including a recent essay by Vice President Mike Pence about coronavirus infections. The letter’s authors said [it was publis...
2020-07-2702 min
The Starting BlockThe 11th Block: What the hack is going on?NOTE: Last week, I mis-scheduled the publication time for The 10th Block. If that meant that it got buried in your inbox and you never opened it, please find it here.* Raphael Satter for Reuters: Deepfake used to attack activist couple shows new disinformation frontier. “His half dozen freelance editorials and blog posts reveal an active interest in anti-Semitism and Jewish affairs, with bylines in the Jerusalem Post and the Times of Israel. The catch? Oliver Taylor seems to be an elaborate fiction. […] The Taylor persona is a rare in-the-wild example of a phenomenon that has emerged as a...
2020-07-2002 min
The Starting BlockThe 10th Block: This week’s edition is brought to you by the letter CHey, Google, how do I cancel my subscription to the year 2020?* It has begun: Al Jazeera journalists questioned over Malaysia documentary. “The 101 East documentary called, Locked Up in Malaysia’s Lockdown, was broadcast on July 3, and investigated the plight of thousands of undocumented migrant workers arrested during raids in areas under tight lockdowns.”* Chua Minxi, with illustrations by Sharon Chin, for New Naratif: Malaysian cleaners protest amid pandemic. “Some people are saying it’s not a good time to do this. But what else can we do? Cleaners are being bullied so badly by the management...
2020-07-1302 min
The Starting BlockThe 9th Block: Think, but do not overthinkNo talk me im angy* Dan Goodin for Ars Technica: 1,000 phrases that incorrectly trigger Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant. “When devices wake […] they record a portion of what’s said and […] the audio may then be transcribed and checked […] to improve word recognition. The result: fragments of potentially private conversations can end up in the company logs.”* Poppy Noor for The Guardian: New rightwing free speech site Parler gets in a tangle over … free speech. “The social network bills itself as a ‘no censorship’ bastion – but it’s already had to remind users what is and isn’t allowed,” incl...
2020-07-0603 min
The Starting BlockThe 8th Block: An exhausted, annoyed, exoticised generic AsianIf annoyed is a skin tone, it is mine* Karen Hao for Technology Review: AI researchers say scientific publishers help perpetuate racist algorithms. In response, Springer Nature rescinds plans to publish a paper on a face recognition system that predicts whether someone is a criminal based on their image.* Steven Sinofsky writes about some safety and precautionary measures initially facing fierce pushback that later became the standard: helmets, condoms, and the smoking ban. “The uproar in some places about wearing a mask mirrors the uproar over many previous societal changes in the norms of how we...
2020-06-2902 min
The Starting BlockThe 6th Block: QuarantwinsSocial data, sitting duck* By Tanya Basu for MIT Technology Review: How Google Docs become one of the most important tools of the resistance. While social media is useful for publicising the resistance, it is not reliable to store information that people can update and revisit.* Jim Waterson for The Guardian: Microsoft’s plan to replace editors with AI backfires after it confuses mixed-race Little Mix singers in a news story about racism. Yes, tech is racially biased because the industry is predominantly run by white males only, a reminder from Ali Breland. BBC reports th...
2020-06-1502 min
The Starting BlockThe 5th Block: Shorthand, longhand, just write by hand! Algorithm and activism* Emellia Shariff ponders on the politics of calling out and online harassment on Malay Mail.* On Wired, Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch describes how COVID-19 is history’s biggest translation challenge.* Go forth and stan: Police are attempting to use apps and online portals to collect footage of protesters, but Kpop fans are flooding them with fancams instead, reports Seren Morris on NewsWeek. They did the same to drown out #WhiteLivesMatter hashtag, reports BBC.* This is a tool by Everest Pipkin for anonymising photographs taken at protests. It works of...
2020-06-0804 min
The Starting BlockThe 4th Block: On advocacyTrump v Twitter v Tout Le Monde* Twitter fact-checks Donald Trump. No more than a day later, he signs an executive order targeting Big Tech. But Techdirt says: (1) it’s a distraction (2) it’s legally meaningless. Trump also ends US relations with the WHO.* On Wired, Chris Stokel-Walker summarises how OSINT tools catch Dominic Cummings with his pants down – again, and again. “The story reveals how the verification of narratives – previously the preserve of journalists and investigators – can now be done by anyone with a computer, time, and some lateral thinking skills,” says Swansea University’s Yvonne McDermot...
2020-06-0102 min
The Starting BlockThe 3rd Block: A brief history of the #BFMPollShady business, shifting business* The Atlantic launches Shadowland, an immersive series led by Ellen Cushing that explores the history, politics and sociology of conspiracy theories, albeit through an American-centric lens.* The WHO’s 73rd World Health Assembly adopts the resolution on the COVID-19 response. One highlight is the setting up an independent inquiry into “the actions of WHO and their timelines pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic.”* The Guardian and everyone with a five-day working week fawn over Jacinda Ardern as she suggests New Zealand considers a four-day working week, further boosting her global popula...
2020-05-2503 min
The Starting BlockThe 2nd Block: Communication accessibilityDiscrimination, dissociation, disinformation* Sri Lanka-based Indi Samarajiva points out that for the New York Times, only white leaders stand out in the fight against COVID-19. “In its Editorial on leadership, the New York Times devotes exactly one sentence to Asia.”* In an update to last month’s report, Vox says the World Health Organisation finally has a DMARC policy to prevent spoofing. Nonetheless, it is a thorough explainer on how, before May 12th, you might have received scam emails from @who.int, the real domain name of the WHO.* Journalistic ethics and disinformation consul...
2020-05-1801 min
The Starting BlockThe 1st Block: What’s in a name?The ‘rona round-up* BBC’s specialist disinformation reporter Marianna Spring wrote about the seven types of people who start and spread viral misinformation. I wish this was a Buzzfeed quiz so I know which kind I am. * Physician Kat Montgomery’s Facebook post debunking the controversial and grossly inaccurate Plandemic (removed on social media platforms) went viral, for good reasons. * Kavanagh et al. published a paper on COVID-19 response, ethics and politics for African countries on The Lancet. * The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer describes how COVID-19 was an emergency until Trump found ou...
2020-05-1102 min
Front RowSpeak Easy S02E11: Rhyme and ReasonSpeak Easy producer Tina Carmillia joins host Elaine Foster in London for an on-site conversation about poetry and science. Are art and science more alike than different? The duo summarises their recent activities in academic research, public talks and personal readings to discover the natural world in poetry.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
2019-09-0631 min
Front RowSpeak Easy 12: Poetry and SpiritualitySpeak Easy turns one! From biblical psalms to Quranic verses, poetry has helped us explore the meaning of our existence. In the season finale of Speak Easy, Elaine Foster speaks to Sheena Baharudin to examine the role of poetry in spirituality. Together with producer, Tina Carmillia, they also announce future plans for the second season of Speak Easy after a short hiatus.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
2019-09-0638 min
Front RowSpeak Easy S02E11: Rhyme and ReasonSpeak Easy producer Tina Carmillia joins host Elaine Foster in London for an on-site conversation about poetry and science. Are art and science more alike than different? The duo summarises their recent activities in academic research, public talks and personal readings to discover the natural world in poetry.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
2019-07-0231 min