#informationsilos — Public Fediverse posts

"Spilling data out of silos and consolidating it into a centralized database provides an irresistible honeypot for hackers, thieves, and enemy states. The federal government doesn’t have a great record of protecting sensitive information of late.

Trump’s order does state that consolidation must be “consistent with applicable law.” On its face, the order seems at odds with the 1974 Privacy Act, which specifically limits what it calls “computer matching.” But the order also says that it supersedes any “regulation subject to direct Presidential rulemaking authority.” This president considers that a very broad category. Also, as evidenced by multiple court rulings, Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has been less than meticulous in respecting current law. In more than one example, current agency officials have cited legal barriers to block DOGE’s access to information. As a result, they were placed on leave, replaced by those who were willing to fling open the silos. In addition, on March 25, Trump issued another executive order that dictated that the Treasury Department should have access to other government databases. As legal justification, it cited an obscure passage in the 1974 law that allowed federal computer matching in limited circumstances. Perhaps this loophole will be broadened to justify the massive consolidation envisioned in the silo executive order next.

Oh, and the March 20 order also gives the federal government “unfettered access to comprehensive data from all State programs that receive Federal funding, including, as appropriate, data generated by those programs but maintained in third-party databases.” That seems to mean that not only will the silos between federal and state data be compromised, but the government could get access to some information in private hands too."

https://www.wired.com/story/plaintext-trump-executive-order-information-silos-privacy/

#USA #Trump #Privacy #Surveillance #CyberSecurity #InformationSilos #DataProtection

"There have been concerns that the economic incentives behind these walled gardens may lead newspapers to prioritize content appealing to their core audience (paid subscribers) only, possibly undermining broader public interest journalism and civic accountability. In this context, we investigate how digital paywalls could impact topical content coverage, particularly local and soft news."

#journalism
#InformationSilos

https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/4/1/pgae511/7960035?login=false

We live in strange times. #Twitter is actively alienating its users. #Threads has blocked its own service to most of Europe. #Mastodon is the opposite of user-friendly. And #BlueSky invitations are as rare as hen’s teeth… Aren’t these supposed to be *social* networks? 🤔 #socialNetworking #informationSilos

My new research is on #informationsilos in early American lit and, lemme tell you, while this work is interesting, attempting to avoid being anachronistic with this research is a challenge. Wonder if I can just write "they existed kinda like today but differently." LOL @academicchatter #highered #informationsilo #amwriting #writing #scholarship #vastearlyamerica