home.social

#publicgood — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #publicgood, aggregated by home.social.

  1. Scientific Reports: How to detect information voids using longitudinal data from social media and web searches. “The model of the attention economy, where content producers compete for the attention of users, relies on two key forces: information supply and demand. This study leverages the feedback loop between these forces to develop a method for detecting and quantifying information voids, […]

    https://rbfirehose.com/2026/09/13/scientific-reports-how-to-detect-information-voids-using-longitudinal-data-from-social-media-and-web-searches/
  2. The Guardian: It’s time for Mark Zuckerberg to resign from Meta. “Ushering in hope for the future of technology requires changing Meta’s leadership now, so that the future is collectively imagined and built upon a new reputation and commitment. Zuckerberg does not deserve another chance simply because he can afford it. We as a society ultimately pay for his mistakes. Now is the time for […]

    https://rbfirehose.com/2026/09/05/the-guardian-its-time-for-mark-zuckerberg-to-resign-from-meta/
  3. The Guardian: Key witness in Meta trial says terms of settlement insufficient to halt apps’ harms to teenagers. “The star witness in the US government’s landmark trial against Meta believes that a multibillion-dollar settlement reached on Wednesday does not go far enough to stop the social media giant’s harms to young users. ‘The limitations that are in the agreement are the equivalent of […]

    https://rbfirehose.com/2026/08/30/the-guardian-key-witness-in-meta-trial-says-terms-of-settlement-insufficient-to-halt-apps-harms-to-teenagers/
  4. The Journal (Ireland): Meta, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn didn’t act on 77% of misinformation reported during Áras race. “SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES failed to act on the vast majority of electoral disinformation reported by researchers ahead of last year’s presidential election, a new report shows. The report also criticised the companies for not demonstrating an understanding of the context […]

    https://rbfirehose.com/2026/08/27/the-journal-meta-tiktok-youtube-and-linkedin-didnt-act-on-77-of-misinformation-reported-during-aras-race/
  5. A quotation from Bertrand Russell

    All the governments of the world adopt elaborate methods of concealing truths which they consider undesirable, and inflict various forms of penalty upon those who spread knowledge which is thought bad for the population This applies especially to knowledge of the kind which is considered seditious, and the kind which is considered obscene. I shall not give instances, since, if I did, I should myself fall under the ban of the law.

    Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
    Education and the Social Order [Education and the Modern World], ch. 1 “The Individual versus the Citizen” (1932)

    More about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/853…

    #quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #censorship #control #freepress #freespeech #government #knowledge #obscenity #pornography #publicgood #sedition #suppression #treason #truth

  6. The Conversation: Meta‑backed research finds exposure to ‘untrustworthy’ social media is rare. The fine print is less reassuring. “A new study published today in Science Advances offers the most rigorous answers yet. It comes from a collaboration between Meta and academic researchers who studied the 2020 United States election. It was run from inside the machine – on the live feeds of […]

    https://rbfirehose.com/2026/07/31/the-conversation-meta-backed-research-finds-exposure-to-untrustworthy-social-media-is-rare-the-fine-print-is-less-reassuring/
  7. #Anthropic does not advocate for a ban on #OpenWeightAI, recognising their value as a #publicgood. Instead, the focus should be on preventing #authoritariangovernments from accessing powerful #chips and cracking down on industrial-scale #distillation operations. Additionally, mandatory #safetytesting for all sufficiently capable models, regardless of origin or openness, is crucial to address concerns about misuse and alignment problems. anthropic.com/news/position-op #AIagent #AI #ML #NLP #LLM #GenAI

  8. Watching A #NOAA #Webinar on Flash Droughts
    --
    noaaresearch.webex.com/wbxmjs/ <-- shared NOAA Summer Science Series individual webinar
    --
    drought.gov/what-is-drought/fl <-- shared NOAA overview technical article
    --
    star.nesdis.noaa.gov/star/NOAA <-- subscribe to the NOAA Summer Science Series
    --
    doi.org/10.1038/s41612-024-006 <-- shared paper
    --
    communities.springernature.com <-- shared technical article (derived from paper above)
    H/T @Jeffrey Basara PhD, MBA | Chair and Professor - Department of Environmental, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Massachusetts Lowell | Co-Founder - American Prime Sustainable Solutions
    [Flash floods? not TOO hard to conceptualise.
    Flash drought? harder to 'get my head around', but H/T / presenter does an excellent job!]
    "Not all droughts are the same. In some cases, drought rapidly intensifies at subseasonal to seasonal scales with significant impacts to agriculture and water resources along with the increased propensity for heatwaves and wildfires. Like all droughts, flash drought begins with a precipitation deficit. However, both evaporative demand and soil moisture are critical flash drought variables, and identifying and monitoring the desiccation of the terrestrial surface is key for determining flash drought development and associated impacts. While recent advances in knowledge and monitoring of flash drought have occurred, fundamental questions remain in the state of the science. What are the overall mechanistic relationships between atmospheric demand, evaporative stress, terrestrial desiccation, and precipitation that drive the progression of flash drought? Do regional characteristics of the environment impact the evolution of flash drought? What are the scales of predictability for flash drought? Finally, how will flash drought frequency and intensity evolve in a changing climate system"
    --
    "Flash drought intensifies rapidly due to changes in precipitation, temperature, wind, and radiation. These changes in the weather increase evapotranspiration and lower soil moisture. Flash droughts can cause extensive damage to agriculture, economies, and ecosystems if they are not predicted and discovered early..."
    #water #hydrology #fedscience #publicgood #hydrologicdrought #waterdeficit #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal #watersecurity #risk #hazard #humanimpacts #streamflow #riverflow #groundwater #surfacewater #climate #weather #climatechange #extremeweather #atmosphere #metrology #regional #global #farming #agriculture #fluvial #pluvial #rainfall #precipitation #cloudcover #energy #heat #temperature #ET #evapotranspiration #farming #agriculture #foodsecurity #waterresources #dynamicsystems #watermanagement #flashdrought #drought #susceptibility #monitoring #prediction #model #modeling
    @noaa

  9. If Acts Happened Today, Would We Call It Communism?

    For many, "communism" has become less a political philosophy and more a conversation stopper. But is every effort to use our shared resources to care for the poor, the sick, and the vulnerable really communism? This article examines the difference between political labels and biblical principles, comparing the teachings of the early Church with today's political rhetoric.

    polymathchristian.wordpress.co

  10. National Water Availability Assessment Data Companion Launches Interactive Map
    --
    water.usgs.gov/nwaa-data/ <-- shared USGS resource link
    --
    water.usgs.gov/nwaa-data/inter <-- shared USGS webmap
    --
    H/T @USGS NWDC
    “The National Water Availability Assessment Data Companion (NWDC) delivers national-scale modeled water data underlying the National Water Availability Assessment Report. The NWDC will be continuously updated to include new data used in future National Water Availability Assessment Reports, with planned reports in 2026 and 2030.
    The NWDC also serves information on underlying model methodologies, strengths, and limitations to enable proper use of the data…
    USGS scientific teams develop NWDC models to analyze and represent the complexities of water systems. These models fill gaps where USGS observations are unavailable, covering the conterminous United States (lower 48 states) and soon extending to Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
    All NWDC datasets currently cover past conditions over multiple decades, and are standardized to 12-digit [WBD] hydrologic unit code (HUC12) watersheds and monthly timesteps…”
    #opendata #monitoring #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal #fedscience #publicgood #water #hydrology #waterresources #watermanagement #change #model #modeling #USA #NationalWaterAvailabilityAssessment #NWDC #CONUS #USGS #USGS_water
    @USGS

  11. United Nations: When AI hurts people, who’s to blame? Global experts grapple with accountability. “Who is legally responsible when Artificial Intelligence causes harm? The issue took centre stage on Tuesday – day two of the first ever UN summit on AI governance, where leading experts warned of mounting evidence of human rights violations linked to the revolutionary technology.”

    https://rbfirehose.com/2026/07/08/united-nations-when-ai-hurts-people-whos-to-blame-global-experts-grapple-with-accountability/
  12. Internet Archive Blog: Preserving the First Draft of History: Reflections from the National Summit on Local News Preservation. “According to the Pew Research Center, 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are already gone and nearly a quarter of news webpages contain at least one broken link. The local record of our communities is vanishing in real time. This urgent challenge is what brought two […]

    https://rbfirehose.com/2026/07/01/preserving-the-first-draft-of-history-reflections-from-the-national-summit-on-local-news-preservation-internet-archive-blog/
  13. PsyPost: Updating Wikipedia pages boosts public trust in scientific organizations, study finds. “A recent study published in the journal Anatomical Sciences Education has found that updating Wikipedia pages for scientific organizations improves public access to accurate information.”

    https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/17/psypost-updating-wikipedia-pages-boosts-public-trust-in-scientific-organizations-study-finds/
  14. Influence Of Modeling Assumptions On Pedestrian Evacuation Success For Non-Eruptive Lahar Hazards At Mount Rainier, Washington
    --
    doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.1 <-- shared paper
    --
    sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/6 <-- shared, related open data source
    --
    [I still remember working on and being fascinated by lahars being an engineering geologist in Washington State (and from my time studying in New Zealand), although (of course) not to this level of detail/focus]
    #volcano #lahar #evacuation #exposure #model #modeling #engineeringeology #risk #hazard #naturalhazard #MountRainer #Washington #USA #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal #emergencymanagement #GIS #spatial #mapping #publicsafety #hazardzone #vulcanism #downstream #debrisflow #massmovement #monitoring #detection #geostatistics #demographics #atrisk #fedscience #publicgood #fedservice #opendata
    @USGS

  15. All humanity should benefit from Helium-3, our new 'petroleum.' If, for example, SpaceX became the elite with the infrastructure, they should handle responsibility, accountability, and very high criticism, especially if SpaceX became the sole miner of the Moon because no others did.

    #Helium3 #SpaceX #Moon #Energy #Accountability #Monopoly #Future #Science #Ethics #Policy #Sustainability #SpaceEconomy #Technology #Justice #Resources #Cosmos #Innovation #Society #Global #PublicGood #ClimateChange

  16. Under certain conditions, communities don’t just participate in change — they generate it.

    But that raises a harder question:

    What are those conditions?

    Because “co-owning solutions” sounds simple.
    In reality, it depends on trust, time, and resources many places don’t have.

    Maybe the real divide isn’t people.
    It’s systems that make collective action possible…or quietly block it.

    associationredefine.substack.c

    #Democracy #SocialInnovation #CollectiveAction #Community #CivicEngagement #PublicGood