Savings of £3.6bn could be made by turning off 1.5 million streetlights which are no longer needed. CC-licensed photo by Stephen Bowler on Flickr.
A selection of 10 links for you. Brightly lit. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. Observations and links welcome.
‘It’s important to talk about online abuse’: Marianna Spring on trolls, conspiracy theorists – and positivity • The Guardian
Eva Wiseman:
»
In the first five months of 2023, the BBC received 14,488 messages abusive enough to be escalated by their system designed to detect hate; 11,771 of those, around 80%, were about Spring. Due to her reporting on conspiracy theories she’s regularly targeted with death threats and harassment, both on and offline. For a while, a man camped in a tent outside the BBC’s New Broadcasting House shouting “disinformation agent” in her face as she left work. Which means, while I can say Spring welcomes me with a hug and invites me into her front room for a conversation that will span murder and Kate Middleton and teenage boys, I can’t describe the city she lives in, or who she lives with, or if she lives with anybody else at all, or give any personal details that might put her in danger.
“It’s quite a big deal for me this,” she says nervously, as we settle on her sofa. “I keep so private, because I know that the world I investigate has attracted this group of trolls who will stop at nothing to figure out literally everything about me and then use it in some way.” She once mentioned that her dad was a doctor, which led to strangers suggesting this connection is why she is invested in killing people with the Covid vaccine. Once she shared a picture online of her family’s 19-year-old cat and she was accused noisily of animal cruelty. “They also called her Chairman Miaow,” Spring adds, “which was actually quite funny.”
…What might surprise readers, she says, is that most of the conspiracy theorists she’s met aren’t bad people. She sits with them at home, like we’re doing now. They have tea together. Biscuits. “Often they arrive at these places from really legitimate points. They really care, they’re very worried about other human beings who are being hurt, or powerful people doing bad stuff. But they are themselves being exploited by other people on social media. They’re being pushed that kind of content and others benefit from their attention.”
«
Amazingly, given what she goes through, she says she is “fundamentally hopeful about people”.
unique link to this extract
The ‘Black Insurrectionist’ was actually white. The deception did not stop there • AP News
Brian Slodysko:
»
“Black Insurrectionist,” the anonymous social media persona behind some of the most widely circulated conspiracy theories about the 2024 election, can be traced to a man from upstate New York.
He’s also white.
With a profile photo of a Black soldier and the tagline “I FOLLOW BACK TRUE PATRIOTS,” the account on the platform X amassed more than 300,000 followers while posting dubious claims about Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Some were amplified by former President Donald Trump, his running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and their Republican allies in Congress. The most salacious claims have come in the closing weeks of the campaign.
Last month, the account posted what Black Insurrectionist claimed was an affidavit from an ABC News employee, alleging Harris was given questions in advance of the network’s debate with Trump — which ABC News vigorously disputed. Trump approved, though, declaring, “I love the person.” More recently, Black Insurrectionist posted a baseless claim alleging inappropriate behavior between Walz and a student decades ago, a falsehood that U.S. intelligence officials said sprang from a Russian disinformation campaign.
The reach that the Black Insurrectionist account attained with assistance from Trump and his allies demonstrates the ease with which unverified information from dubious sources can metastasize online to shape public opinion.
«
People are so easily fooled by things like this: you attach a name to an account, you start pushing a certain sort of message, and they think it’s legitimate. Credit to Slodysko for getting to the bottom of this.
unique link to this extract
‘We don’t know where the tipping point is’: climate expert on potential collapse of Atlantic circulation • The Guardian
Jonathan Watts:
»
The dangers of a collapse of the main Atlantic Ocean circulation, known as Amoc, have been “greatly underestimated” and would have devastating and irreversible impacts, according to an open letter released at the weekend by 44 experts from 15 countries. One of the signatories, Stefan Rahmstorf, an oceanographer and climatologist who heads the Earth system analysis department at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, explains here why he has recently upgraded his risk assessment of an Amoc breakdown as a result of global heating – and what that means for Britain, Europe and the wider world.
What is Amoc?
Amoc, or the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, is a system of ocean currents that brings heat into the northern Atlantic. Warm surface water from the tropics flows north and releases its heat in the subpolar Atlantic, south of Greenland and west of Britain and Ireland. Then it cools and sinks to a depth of between 2,000m to 3,000 metres before returning south as a cold current. Amoc is one of our planet’s largest heat transport systems, moving the equivalent of 50 times the human energy use, and it has a particularly strong impact on the climate in Europe, affects the ocean’s CO2 uptake and oxygen supply, as well as rainfall patterns in the tropics.How is Amoc different to the Gulf Stream?
They are connected because the northwards flow of Amoc goes via the Gulf Stream, which is a warm and swift Atlantic Ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico, then flows through the Florida straits, up the coast of the US and then across towards Europe. Amoc contributes just 20% to the Gulf Stream water flow but most of the heat transport, since Amoc’s deep return flow is very cold. It works like a central heating system.What is happening to Amoc?
There are indications that Amoc has been slowing down for the last 60 or 70 years due to global heating. The most ominous sign is the cold blob over the northern Atlantic. The region is the only place in the world that has cooled in the past 20 years or so, while everywhere else on the planet has warmed – a sign of reduced heat transport into that region, exactly what climate computer models have predicted in response to Amoc slowing as a result of greenhouse gas emissions.«
Why? Because there’s more freshwater, which is less dense, and doesn’t sink. This looks more like when than if. And when that happens, it’s going to have dramatic effects on all sorts of things.
unique link to this extract
As bird flu spreads, additional human infection is reported in Missouri • The New York Times
Apoorva Mandavilli and Emily Anthes:
»
A Missouri resident who shared a home with a patient hospitalized with bird flu in August was also infected with the virus, federal officials reported on Thursday.
But symptomatic health care workers who cared for the hospitalized patient were not infected, testing showed. The news eased worries among researchers that the virus, H5N1, had gained the ability to spread more efficiently among people.
Still, the number of human cases is rising in the United States. California said this week that it had confirmed 15 human cases of bird flu. Washington State has reported two poultry workers who are infected and five others presumed to be positive.
There are 31 confirmed cases in the country, but experts have said the figure is likely to be an undercount. “Additional cases may be found as investigations continue,” Dr. Nirav Shah, the principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a news briefing on Thursday.
“The identification of these additional cases of H5 in people with exposures to infected animals does not change CDC risk assessment for the general public, which continues to be low,” he said.
The poultry workers in Washington State were infected with a version of the virus that is distinct from the one circulating in dairy cattle, he added.
«
Ehhh that last little remark doesn’t fill me with joy in this watching brief. (Thanks Joe S for the link.)
unique link to this extract
The inside story of the Transport for London cyberattack • London Centric
Jim Waterson:
»
Publicly, the handling of the immediate aftermath of the attack was a mess. TfL initially put out a statement saying it was confident that no customer data had been compromised, before having to backtrack and admit that the bank details of around 5,000 Oyster card users who had applied for refunds had been accessed, although there is no indication anything was done with this data.
While most Londoners were still able to tap in and use transport services as usual, behind the scenes it was chaos. The booking system for Dial-a-Ride buses, used by the disabled, was also shut down, leaving vulnerable people in the lurch. Data on live tube times — fed into apps such as TfL Go and Citymapper — was taken offline.
Staff at TfL’s HQ were unable to log on to the IT network and the WiFi networks taken down. Office-based staff were sent to work from home for the whole of September, although most have now returned to the office. Every single TfL staff member was required to travel into the office to have their password and login details reset. Even now, many basic office tasks remain a struggle. Rebuilding and restoring these systems is a tedious, time-consuming task.
The biggest financial impact has been on the city’s neediest: the young, the old, and those with issues tapping in and out of stations.
People turning 60 have been unable to apply for Oyster cards giving them free travel. Individuals from all age groups have been unable to apply for legitimate refunds after being charged the maximum fare because they were unable to tap out at the end of a journey. Hundreds of thousands of sixth formers and new university students have been unable to apply for their 16+ Zip Oyster card, with the official TfL guidance being that they should make a note of each full-fare journey then reclaim the difference later in an as-yet-unclear manner.
When talking to London Centric, one TfL staffer involved in the recovery process cast doubt on the idea that every 17-year-old student in London is able to carefully note down their journeys and putting them in a spreadsheet for reclaiming at a later date.
«
London Centric aims to be what the London Evening Standard has abandoned being – a publication with stories about and for Londoners.
unique link to this extract
Britain to axe up to 1.5m lampposts • The Times
Nicholas Hellen:
»
Around 1.5 million of Britain’s 7.2 million lampposts could be removed to save money and reduce carbon emissions and replaced with lighting that will make it safer for pedestrians.
Under existing rules, there is no requirement to light pavements for pedestrians. They are only lit because light spills over from lampposts, which were principally installed to make it safer for motorists.
But today’s cars have such effective headlights that lampposts, which are generally 10m tall on A-roads and 6m tall on residential roads, are not necessary in many parts of Britain. Lampposts will remain in place in many locations where they are necessary, such as in cities where CCTV cameras rely on good lighting.
The first ones scheduled to be removed are in Hayton, a small Yorkshire village on the A1079 road between York and Hull. Starting in December, 30 street lights on each side of the main road are to be switched off and later removed. Around 300 more will be switched off and removed on a 19-mile (30km) stretch of the road.
Rather than plunge the village into complete darkness, the pavements that run alongside the road will be fitted with dedicated footway lights for the first time. On one side they will be on bollards with lights attached. On the other side, they will be on 3m-high columns, also with lights attached.
It is all part of a new strategy by the Department for Transport (DfT) aimed at fundamentally rethinking the purpose of spending £3.5bn each year on the 7.2 million street lights. Around £1bn goes on the energy bill, and the remainder is spent on maintaining them and replacing them at the end of their 40-year life cycle.
Karl Rourke, the street lighting service manager at East Riding of Yorkshire council, who is overseeing the project for Live Labs 2, a £30 million decarbonisation research and innovation programme funded by the DfT, said: “This is about common-sense lighting, not lighting removal at all costs.”
«
This sustainable tiny home is made out of an old wind turbine • Fast Company
Grace Snelling:
»
The prototype, which features around 387 square feet (36 sq m) of interior space, is the product of a collaboration between the European renewable power company Vattenfall and the architecture collective Superuse Studios.
The turbine-turned-tiny house is also an experiment in material reuse that could become more critical as wind turbines across the globe reach the end of their life cycles.
Vattenfall has a few near-future sustainability goals. In 2023, 87% of Vattenfall’s electricity production came from renewable sources. The company aims to close that gap and become fossil-free by 2040, and it’s also thinking about how to make its existing material usage more circular.
One major consideration for the company is its wind turbines, which typically have a lifespan of around 20 years. Once a turbine reaches the end of its utility, Vattenfall has to determine what will be done with its component materials.
That’s a tall order, considering that turbines typically stand at over 300 feet and include a nacelle (the control box that houses the generator, brakes, and other components) as well as three large blades. But the need to address that challenge is climbing. While there are no official decommissioning stats available, Vattenfall estimates that 5,000 wind turbines worldwide will need to be decommissioned annually over the next couple of years, as turbines across the globe begin to age out of their two-decade use window.
On a macro-level, that’s because the first boom of large-scale wind farming infrastructure is reaching the end of its life cycle. While the first electricity-generating wind turbine traces back to the late 19th century, large-scale wind farms have become much more commonplace over the past 30 years or so. In fact, global windpower grew from about 6,100 megawatts to 197,039 megawatts between 1996 and 2010. And that means that now is the time to “find better alternatives of making use of the resources that were developed, and making sure that we get the most out of them,” says Thomas Hjort, Vattenfall’s director of innovation.
«
The photos suggest something that could just about suffice for a short holiday, but you might go a little mad living there for a long time: there’s only one window, which is the door.
unique link to this extract
Who gets the TikTok in the divorce? The messy fight over valuable social media accounts • WSJ
Katherine Hamilton:
»
When Kat and Mike Stickler filed for divorce, their lawyers had a math problem.
Among the couple’s biggest assets was MikeAndKat, a channel on TikTok and YouTube in which they shared their lives with about four million followers. No one knew how to evenly split MikeAndKat between Mike and Kat.
“The judge was like, ‘what?’” Kat said last month during a podcast interview with Northwestern Mutual. “It’s a whole new terrain.”
Social media pays the bills for millions of Americans. But making a living online is more financially complicated than working a 9-to-5. Influencers need an audience to win advertising deals, and changing what they post risks turning followers away. Couples who showcase their love life online face an existential threat to the family business when they split.
For the lawyers charged with pinning a dollar value to the accounts to divide them fairly, it’s way harder than assessing a house or car. Fortunes can swing depending on which ex has the keys to the account. That was Kat’s argument in fighting for control of the TikTok channel.
“If the TikTok account was left to me, it would keep growing, but if it wasn’t, it would stop,” said Kat, 29, in the podcast interview.
She was right. Kat got the TikTok, changed that handle to KatStickler and now has almost 10.5 million followers. She has another three million across Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. The channels, where Kat posts skits impersonating her mother and snippets of her everyday life, have earned her enough to buy a condo and become a small business investor. Mike ended up with the YouTube account, which is now defunct. He now works in sales and declined to comment.
There are 27 million paid content creators in the US, and 44% of them say social media is their full-time job, consultant The Keller Advisory Group found.
The big bucks don’t come from views or followers. Brands pay influencers to recommend a product or service to their audience. US advertisers paid content creators $26bn in 2023, according to Statista.
«
Former OpenAI researcher says company broke copyright law • The New York Times
Cade MEtz:
»
“With a research project, you can, generally speaking, train on any data,” [former OpenAI staffer Suchir] Balaji said. “That was the mind-set at the time.”
Then OpenAI released ChatGPT. Initially driven by a precursor to GPT-4 and later by GPT-4 itself, the chatbot grabbed the attention of hundreds of millions of people and quickly became a moneymaker.
OpenAI, Microsoft and other companies have said that using internet data to train their A.I. systems meets the requirements of the “fair use” doctrine. The doctrine has four factors. The companies argue that those factors — including that they substantially transformed the copyrighted works and were not competing in the same market with a direct substitute for those works — play in their favor.
Mr. Balaji does not believe these criteria have been met. When a system like GPT-4 learns from data, he said, it makes a complete copy of that data. From there, a company like OpenAI can then teach the system to generate an exact copy of the data. Or it can teach the system to generate text that is in no way a copy. The reality, he said, is that companies teach the systems to do something in between.
“The outputs aren’t exact copies of the inputs, but they are also not fundamentally novel,” he said. This week, he posted an essay on his personal website that included what he describes as a mathematical analysis that aims to show that this claim is true.
Mark Lemley, a Stanford University law professor, argued the opposite. Most of what chatbots put out, he said, is sufficiently different from its training data.
«
I’m not an expert on copyright law – especially US law – but Balaji’s essay doesn’t entirely persuade me. But I recognise that I’m biased; I already think the use is OK.
unique link to this extract
X’s new block function will make people mad. That’s exactly what X wants • The Globe and Mail
Phoebe Maltz Bovy:
»
Social-media users block one another all the time, for many reasons unrelated to deterring obsessives. Maybe you’ve blocked someone because they made one annoying post, or were rude to your friend, or are associated with someone you dislike. Maybe you block everyone with certain politics. Or maybe you hit “block” by accident. It is an entirely normal part of online life to be blocked by people you not only have never harassed, but have never interacted with or even heard of.
But under the new order, you might come across a funny or wise post, reply in good faith or even with praise, and then learn that this person has blocked you. That would be maddening. Who wants that?
Which leads me to my theory. It’s not exes who benefit from this change; it’s X. The new block function will raise blood pressure – and thus drive engagement.
To be confronted with someone’s posts and the fact that they blocked you would feel like being taunted, even if it was by no means intended that way. As it currently stands, someone blocking you is a prompt to think about that person less, if indeed you knew who they were to begin with. It is a tranquility- and sanity-preserving system.
Muting, a function that already exists, allows for plausible deniability. Maybe someone didn’t get around to your doubtless brilliant retort because they were busy, not because they’ve hidden your posts because they think you’re a harmless bore. All the new form of blocking amounts to is a form of muting where the muted individual knows what’s up.
«
This is a good point. Blocking as a silencing mechanism, in both directions, is underrated.
unique link to this extract
| • Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more. |
Errata, corrigenda and ai no corrida: none notified
You can sign up to receive each day’s Start Up post by email. You’ll need to click a confirmation link, so no spam.
The Overspill: when there's more that I want to say 