Decrypted: DEA spying on protesters, DDoS attacks, Signal downloads spike

This week saw protests spread across the world sparked by the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis last month.

The U.S. hasn’t seen protests like this in a generation, with millions taking to the streets each day to lend their voice and support. But they were met with heavily armored police, drones watching from above, and “covert” surveillance by the federal government.

That’s exactly why cybersecurity and privacy is more important than ever, not least to protect law-abiding protesters demonstrating against police brutality and institutionalized, systemic racism. It’s also prompted those working in cybersecurity — many of which are former law enforcement themselves — to check their own privilege and confront the racism from within their ranks and lend their knowledge to their fellow citizens.

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THE BIG PICTURE

DEA allowed ‘covert surveillance’ of protesters

The Justice Department has granted the Drug Enforcement Administration, typically tasked with enforcing federal drug-related laws, the authority to conduct “covert surveillance” on protesters across the U.S., effectively turning the civilian law enforcement division into a domestic intelligence agency.

The DEA is one of the most tech-savvy government agencies in the federal government, with access to “stingray” cell site simulators to track and locate phones, a secret program that allows the agency access to billions of domestic phone records, and facial recognition technology.

Lawmakers decried the Justice Department’s move to allow the DEA to spy on protesters, calling on the government to “immediately rescind” the order, describing it as “antithetical” to Americans’ right to peacefully assembly.

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PEGASUS: A State-of-the-Art Model for Abstractive Text Summarization

Posted by Peter J. Liu and Yao Zhao, Software Engineers, Google Research

Students are often tasked with reading a document and producing a summary (for example, a book report) to demonstrate both reading comprehension and writing ability. This abstractive text summarization is one of the most challenging tasks in natural language processing, involving understanding of long passages, information compression, and language generation. The dominant paradigm for training machine learning models to do this is sequence-to-sequence (seq2seq) learning, where a neural network learns to map input sequences to output sequences. While these seq2seq models were initially developed using recurrent neural networks, Transformer encoder-decoder models have recently become favored as they are more effective at modeling the dependencies present in the long sequences encountered in summarization.

Transformer models combined with self-supervised pre-training (e.g., BERT, GPT-2, RoBERTa, XLNet, ALBERT, T5, ELECTRA) have shown to be a powerful framework for producing general language learning, achieving state-of-the-art performance when fine-tuned on a wide array of language tasks. In prior work, the self-supervised objectives used in pre-training have been somewhat agnostic to the down-stream application in favor of generality; we wondered whether better performance could be achieved if the self-supervised objective more closely mirrored the final task.

In “PEGASUS: Pre-training with Extracted Gap-sentences for Abstractive Summarization” (to appear at the 2020 International Conference on Machine Learning), we designed a pre-training self-supervised objective (called gap-sentence generation) for Transformer encoder-decoder models to improve fine-tuning performance on abstractive summarization, achieving state-of-the-art results on 12 diverse summarization datasets. Supplementary to the paper, we are also releasing the training code and model checkpoints on GitHub.

A Self-Supervised Objective for Summarization
Our hypothesis is that the closer the pre-training self-supervised objective is to the final down-stream task, the better the fine-tuning performance. In PEGASUS pre-training, several whole sentences are removed from documents and the model is tasked with recovering them. An example input for pre-training is a document with missing sentences, while the output consists of the missing sentences concatenated together. This is an incredibly difficult task that may seem impossible, even for people, and we don’t expect the model to solve it perfectly. However, such a challenging task encourages the model to learn about language and general facts about the world, as well as how to distill information taken from throughout a document in order to generate output that closely resembles the fine-tuning summarization task. The advantage of this self-supervision is that you can create as many examples as there are documents, without any human annotation, which is often the bottleneck in purely supervised systems.

A self-supervised example for PEGASUS during pre-training. The model is trained to output all the masked sentences.

We found that choosing “important” sentences to mask worked best, making the output of self-supervised examples even more similar to a summary. We automatically identified these sentences by finding those that were most similar to the rest of the document according to a metric called ROUGE. ROUGE computes the similarity of two texts by computing n-gram overlaps using a score from 0 to 100 (ROUGE-1, ROUGE-2, and ROUGE-L are three common variants).

Similar to other recent methods, such as T5, we pre-trained our model on a very large corpus of web-crawled documents, then we fine-tuned the model on 12 public down-stream abstractive summarization datasets, resulting in new state-of-the-art results as measured by automatic metrics, while using only 5% of the number of parameters of T5. The datasets were chosen to be diverse, including news articles, scientific papers, patents, short stories, e-mails, legal documents, and how-to directions, showing that the model framework is adaptive to a wide-variety of topics.

Fine-Tuning with Small Numbers of Examples
While PEGASUS showed remarkable performance with large datasets, we were surprised to learn that the model didn’t require a large number of examples for fine-tuning to get near state-of-the-art performance:

ROUGE scores (three variants, higher is better) vs. the number of supervised examples across four selected summarization datasets. The dotted-line shows the Transformer encoder-decoder performance with full-supervision, but without pre-training.

With only 1000 fine-tuning examples, we were able to perform better in most tasks than a strong baseline (Transformer encoder-decoder) that used the full supervised data, which in some cases had many orders of magnitude more examples. This “sample efficiency” greatly increases the usefulness of text summarization models as it significantly lowers the scale and cost of supervised data collection, which in the case of summarization is very expensive.

Human-Quality summaries
While we find automatic metrics such as ROUGE are useful proxies for measuring progress during model development, they only provide limited information and don’t tell us the whole story, such as fluency or a comparison to human performance. To this end, we conducted a human evaluation, where raters were asked to compare summaries from our model with human ones (without knowing which is which). This has some similarities to the Turing test.

Human raters were asked to rate model and human-written summaries without knowing which was which. The document is truncated here for illustration, but raters see the full text.

We performed the experiment with 3 different datasets and found that human raters do not consistently prefer the human summaries to those from our model. Furthermore, our models trained with only 1000 examples performed nearly as well. In particular, with the much studied XSum and CNN/Dailymail datasets, the model achieves human-like performance using only 1000 examples. This suggests large datasets of supervised examples are no longer necessary for summarization, opening up many low-cost use-cases.

A Test of Comprehension: Counting Ships
Following this post is an example article from the XSum dataset and the model-generated abstractive summary. As we can see, the model correctly abstracts and paraphrases four named frigates (HMS Cumberland, HMS Campbeltown, HMS Chatham and HMS Cornwall) as “four Royal Navy frigates”, something an extractive approach could not do since “four” is not mentioned anywhere. Was this a fluke or did the model actually count? One way to find out is to add and remove ships to see if the count changes.

As can be seen below, the model successfully “counts” ships from 2 to 5. However, when we add a sixth ship, the “HMS Alphabet”, it miscounts it as “seven”. So it appears the model has learned to count small numbers of items in a list, but does not yet generalize as elegantly as we would hope. Still, we think this rudimentary counting ability is impressive as it was not explicitly programmed into the model, and it demonstrates a limited amount of “symbolic reasoning” by the model.

PEGASUS code and model release
To support on-going research in this field and ensure reproducibility, we are releasing the PEGASUS code and model checkpoints on GitHub. This includes fine-tuning code which can be used to adapt PEGASUS to other summarization datasets.

Acknowledgements
This work has been a collaborative effort involving Jingqing Zhang, Yao Zhao, Mohammad Saleh, and Peter J. Liu. We thank the T5 and Google News teams for providing datasets for pre-training PEGASUS.

• Four ships (original)
  
  The decommissioned Type 22 frigates
  HMS Cumberland, HMS Campbeltown, HMS Chatham and HMS Cornwall
  are currently moored in Portsmouth Harbour.
  Bidders had until 23 January to register an interest in the former Devonport-based ships. The BBC understands no proposals to preserve the ships have been submitted. Those who have registered an interest are finalising their bids with viewings set to take place in late February and March. A final decision is not expected until the spring. The government's Disposal Services Authority, which is handling the sale, wants to award at least one of the frigates to a UK ship recycler to determine the capacity of the UK's industry in the field. Penny Mordaunt, Conservative MP for Portsmouth North, said it was important UK recyclers had the chance to prove themselves in the field but she was also keen to see at least one of them saved from the scrapyard. She added: "For anyone that has served on a ship it's your home, you've literally been through the wars with it... and you want them to have a noble second life. "My preference is to go for the reef and diving attraction. "We've got to get best value for the budget but a reef would also generate income for part of the country through tourism." The Ministry of Defence has previously said it will "consider all options" for the frigates to ensure "best financial return for the taxpayer". A spokeswoman would not comment on the number or nature of the bids received due to "commercial sensitivity". Originally designed as a specialist anti-submarine ship, the Type 22 frigate evolved into a powerful surface combatant with substantial anti-surface, anti-submarine and anti-aircraft weapons systems. They were also known for having excellent command and control, and communication facilities, making them ideal flagships on deployments, with a complement of about 280 crew. Last year, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was sold as scrap for £3m.
  
  

  ---

  Model Summary: No proposals have been submitted to preserve four Royal Navy frigates for reuse, the BBC has learned.
• Five ships
  
  The decommissioned Type 22 frigates
  HMS Cumberland, HMS Campbeltown, HMS Chatham, HMS Google and HMS Cornwall
  are currently moored in Portsmouth Harbour.
  Bidders had until 23 January to register an interest in the former Devonport-based ships. The BBC understands no proposals to preserve the ships have been submitted. Those who have registered an interest are finalising their bids with viewings set to take place in late February and March. A final decision is not expected until the spring. The government's Disposal Services Authority, which is handling the sale, wants to award at least one of the frigates to a UK ship recycler to determine the capacity of the UK's industry in the field. Penny Mordaunt, Conservative MP for Portsmouth North, said it was important UK recyclers had the chance to prove themselves in the field but she was also keen to see at least one of them saved from the scrapyard. She added: "For anyone that has served on a ship it's your home, you've literally been through the wars with it... and you want them to have a noble second life. "My preference is to go for the reef and diving attraction. "We've got to get best value for the budget but a reef would also generate income for part of the country through tourism." The Ministry of Defence has previously said it will "consider all options" for the frigates to ensure "best financial return for the taxpayer". A spokeswoman would not comment on the number or nature of the bids received due to "commercial sensitivity". Originally designed as a specialist anti-submarine ship, the Type 22 frigate evolved into a powerful surface combatant with substantial anti-surface, anti-submarine and anti-aircraft weapons systems. They were also known for having excellent command and control, and communication facilities, making them ideal flagships on deployments, with a complement of about 280 crew. Last year, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was sold as scrap for £3m.
  
  

  ---

  Model Summary: No bids have been submitted for the sale of five Royal Navy frigates, the BBC understands.
• Two ships
  
  The decommissioned Type 22 frigates
  HMS Google and HMS Alphabet
  are currently moored in Portsmouth Harbour.
  Bidders had until 23 January to register an interest in the former Devonport-based ships. The BBC understands no proposals to preserve the ships have been submitted. Those who have registered an interest are finalising their bids with viewings set to take place in late February and March. A final decision is not expected until the spring. The government's Disposal Services Authority, which is handling the sale, wants to award at least one of the frigates to a UK ship recycler to determine the capacity of the UK's industry in the field. Penny Mordaunt, Conservative MP for Portsmouth North, said it was important UK recyclers had the chance to prove themselves in the field but she was also keen to see at least one of them saved from the scrapyard. She added: "For anyone that has served on a ship it's your home, you've literally been through the wars with it... and you want them to have a noble second life. "My preference is to go for the reef and diving attraction. "We've got to get best value for the budget but a reef would also generate income for part of the country through tourism." The Ministry of Defence has previously said it will "consider all options" for the frigates to ensure "best financial return for the taxpayer". A spokeswoman would not comment on the number or nature of the bids received due to "commercial sensitivity". Originally designed as a specialist anti-submarine ship, the Type 22 frigate evolved into a powerful surface combatant with substantial anti-surface, anti-submarine and anti-aircraft weapons systems. They were also known for having excellent command and control, and communication facilities, making them ideal flagships on deployments, with a complement of about 280 crew. Last year, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was sold as scrap for £3m.
  
  

  ---

  Model Summary: Two Royal Navy frigates set to be sold as scrap are unlikely to be preserved, the BBC understands.
• Three ships
  
  The decommissioned Type 22 frigates
  HMS Cumberland, HMS Campbeltown and HMS Cornwall
  are currently moored in Portsmouth Harbour.
  Bidders had until 23 January to register an interest in the former Devonport-based ships. The BBC understands no proposals to preserve the ships have been submitted. Those who have registered an interest are finalising their bids with viewings set to take place in late February and March. A final decision is not expected until the spring. The government's Disposal Services Authority, which is handling the sale, wants to award at least one of the frigates to a UK ship recycler to determine the capacity of the UK's industry in the field. Penny Mordaunt, Conservative MP for Portsmouth North, said it was important UK recyclers had the chance to prove themselves in the field but she was also keen to see at least one of them saved from the scrapyard. She added: "For anyone that has served on a ship it's your home, you've literally been through the wars with it... and you want them to have a noble second life. "My preference is to go for the reef and diving attraction. "We've got to get best value for the budget but a reef would also generate income for part of the country through tourism." The Ministry of Defence has previously said it will "consider all options" for the frigates to ensure "best financial return for the taxpayer". A spokeswoman would not comment on the number or nature of the bids received due to "commercial sensitivity". Originally designed as a specialist anti-submarine ship, the Type 22 frigate evolved into a powerful surface combatant with substantial anti-surface, anti-submarine and anti-aircraft weapons systems. They were also known for having excellent command and control, and communication facilities, making them ideal flagships on deployments, with a complement of about 280 crew. Last year, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was sold as scrap for £3m.
  
  

  ---

  Model Summary: No proposals have been submitted to preserve three Royal Navy frigates for reuse, the BBC has learned.
• Six ships
  
  The decommissioned Type 22 frigates
  HMS Cumberland, HMS Campbeltown, HMS Chatham, HMS Google, HMS Alphabet and HMS Cornwall
  are currently moored in Portsmouth Harbour.
  Bidders had until 23 January to register an interest in the former Devonport-based ships. The BBC understands no proposals to preserve the ships have been submitted. Those who have registered an interest are finalising their bids with viewings set to take place in late February and March. A final decision is not expected until the spring. The government's Disposal Services Authority, which is handling the sale, wants to award at least one of the frigates to a UK ship recycler to determine the capacity of the UK's industry in the field. Penny Mordaunt, Conservative MP for Portsmouth North, said it was important UK recyclers had the chance to prove themselves in the field but she was also keen to see at least one of them saved from the scrapyard. She added: "For anyone that has served on a ship it's your home, you've literally been through the wars with it... and you want them to have a noble second life. "My preference is to go for the reef and diving attraction. "We've got to get best value for the budget but a reef would also generate income for part of the country through tourism." The Ministry of Defence has previously said it will "consider all options" for the frigates to ensure "best financial return for the taxpayer". A spokeswoman would not comment on the number or nature of the bids received due to "commercial sensitivity". Originally designed as a specialist anti-submarine ship, the Type 22 frigate evolved into a powerful surface combatant with substantial anti-surface, anti-submarine and anti-aircraft weapons systems. They were also known for having excellent command and control, and communication facilities, making them ideal flagships on deployments, with a complement of about 280 crew. Last year, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was sold as scrap for £3m.
  
  

  ---

  Model Summary: Seven Royal Navy frigates are set to be put up for sale.

Does tech have the guts to deploy its resources against police brutality?

The protests and unrest of the last week have produced enormous volumes of footage documenting police brutality and other crimes. Where is the platform for this important evidence to be collected, collated, and made public? If a major tech company doesn’t step up to the plate soon it can only be attributed to hypocrisy and cowardice.

Right now the world’s largest, most capable tech companies are deploying their immense computing and product resources towards myriad consumer, enterprise, and increasingly government and military needs. Live video and unlimited storage, image analysis, indexing and sorting of complex data streams — these are services being offered for a huge variety of purposes.

It’s striking that one thing that cannot be found among those purposes is systematized documentation of citizen-collected video of violent incidents like police brutality. Despite their leadership blithely repeating slogans, sliding into hashtags, and making the occasional donation, these companies are not taking one potentially transformative action that only they can take.

Asymmetric warfare

Axon Evidence being used in a promo image.

One can see a sort of mirror image of how such a platform would look in the video evidence management services of Axon (formerly Taser), which provides body cameras and media management for police departments around the country. Video is ingested, tagged, and automatically processed — for instance, blurring the faces of bystanders unrelated to an incident in a clip that could be released publicly.

Systems like Axon’s, though they can in some ways advance accountability, also place the immense resources of modern technology firmly in the hands of the authorities. All state-gathered evidence of an incident is in one place, processed, audited, and ready to be deployed or suppressed as needs dictate, in a streamlined purpose-built suite of tools.

There is no such system available to people on the other side of the law. Once gathered by witnesses, footage may be scattered across a dozen sites and services, subject to as many license agreements or media restrictions. It may be stripped of metadata, have details lost in re-encoding, be reposted or edited by others, and so on.

(To be clear, there are multiple efforts to surface other official information, like written police reports, complaints, training methods and regulations, and so on, but the increasingly important video evidence of improper use of force has no high-profile champion.)

Venture firms rush to find ways to support Black founders and investors

For those on the receiving end of state violence, technology is available to them but disorganized and unreliable. It has been organized and weaponized by authorities in ways that make it easy for them to leverage technology against their chosen targets, and as has been proven repeatedly they cannot be trusted to exercise that power fairly or justly. And this is all in addition to the already overpowering protections and resources, formal and informal, inherent to being a part of law enforcement.

What is needed is a counterweight. A site or network of compatible sites where:

• Video can be uploaded freely and, if desired, anonymously
• Proof of origin and chain of custody is reasonably established
• Uploaded videos are arranged by geotag and timestamp
• Tags and annotations can be proposed by the community
• This data and metadata is systematically analyzed and indexed

It’s worth noting that none of these capabilities is anything new or special. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Amazon, Snapchat, all these and more employ some or all of these already, at scale, for ordinary everyday purposes in their apps and services.

Features like Snap Map were established (and in some cases dropped due to privacy fears) years ago.

A simple example of how this might be used in the context of police brutality is the following.

In an altercation between police and protestors, the police have body cameras rolling. By selecting which footage they make public, the police can advance the preferred, official narrative, such as that police were responding to violence from the crowd. Their evidence is secure, well-organized, and homogeneous — and like all other evidence collected by the state is intended for deployment against its enemies.

Ordinarily, any documentation collected by the protestors would be, at best, organized by hashtag but more likely scattered across a number of services and difficult to find after the fact. Here was the scene in Seattle last night, a screenshot of a live stream with no timestamp or credit. If it was important, how would I find the original video, if it even exists, contact the creator, link it to other angles?

If there was a site like the one described above, dozens of people could upload their videos to it (streams could archive automatically to it), with timestamps and geotags to provide a basis for their presence there, and cues visible in the video (street signs and buildings) that can confirm it. If people in the crowd want to present evidence that the police provoked the crowd rather than vice versa, they have more than their own tweet, screen grabs from a live stream, or a video being passed around on a Telegram or Discord group.

Anyone can go to the site, pick a time and place, and see videos verified within reason to have originated there and then. This invites the viewing of different perspectives on the same events and better visibility for media that may not have been shared as widely in the moment.

This system doesn’t take sides and doesn’t need to. It is not there to advance one particular narrative over another but to correct an asymmetry of resources in the ability to present and support a narrative in the first place.

Who dares, loses

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives to testify before a joint hearing of the US Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill, April 10, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Why don’t we have a system like this? The two usual reasons: money and politics.

In the first place, building and maintaining even the simplest version of such a system would be expensive — likely millions of dollars in initial costs and a fair amount for upkeep, moderation, and so on.

Axon’s system (Evidence.com and its related brands) is a successful business because its customers, usually city and state governments, have deep pockets and plenty of motives to use body cameras (these motives, it must be said, are not always shared by individual officers). An analogous system designed to be deployed against the government will almost certainly not be self-sufficient.

So this is a money pit to begin with, although the magnitude of that pit, compared to the ordinary waste in spending produced by misguided Silicon Valley endeavors, is hard to say. (My guess is that when placed next to extraordinary boondoggles like Magic Leap or Google Plus, the cost of the proposed platform will seem trivial.)

The second problem is that building a resource to combat police brutality is, unfortunately, a politically charged act. It is an endorsement of the view that not only is state violence a problem, it’s enough of a problem that private companies need to step in to mitigate it.

Alexis Ohanian steps down from Reddit board, asks for his seat to go to a black board member

Despite the last few days demonstrating that this is in fact the case beyond a reasonable doubt, it is still politically risky for companies to take a step like this. They risk disfavor in government contracts, alienation of certain political groups, and invite legal complications from hosting controversial videos.

The simple truth here is that a platform for tracking police brutality, however useful or needful, will make no money and expose its creators to unknown liabilities. The companies with the resources to create such a platform didn’t get where they are by biting the hand that feeds them — and by relying on the custom of the establishment, they have gradually become it.

These companies often emit noises resembling sympathy, and on occasion sponsor uncontroversial social movements as they reach the mainstream. But their posturing only serves to highlight their reticence to take direct action.

Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and their like marshal truly enormous sums of money, create and control some of the most advanced technologies on the planet, and employ a large proportion of the smartest (and often most progressive) people in the industry. They are in a unique position of empowerment to create the change they ostensibly champion, but prefer to contribute the corporate equivalent of a golf clap rather than roll up their sleeves.

Does any one of these companies have the guts to take action and put their bottom line at risk the way protestors are putting their lives at risk fighting against police brutality every day? I suspect it’s a foregone conclusion, but it would be nice for once to be pleasantly surprised.

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Businesses on Facebook can now respond to customers in Messenger

Facebook is launching a new inbox on Messenger today to make it easier for business owners to respond to incoming customer messages from the same app they use to message friends and family. The update will allow businesses to manage all their communications from a single app, instead of having to toggle back and forth between apps in order to write and respond to customer inquires — A process many business owners said they found frustrating.

According to research conducted by Facebook, over 90% of business admins were already using the Messenger app to chat with their friends and family. It made sense to offer the option to communicate with customers there, too, the company realized.

Facebook had announced its plans to launch a dedicated inbox in Messenger back in May, but today the feature is actually becoming available.

The new feature arrives at a time when there’s an influx in customer inquiries and, sometimes, impatience with a slow response. Prepandemic, 90% of customers said an “immediate” response was important when they had a customer service question, according to Hubspot data. But now, customers have a range of new questions to ask businesses, beyond the usual. Consumers want to know if the business is still open, for starters, and if it has modified its store hours, if products are in stock, if the business offers curbside pickup or delivery and more.

One customer who tested the business inbox before launch, Matt Volpert, owner of Kern River Outfitters, said he had seen a 250% increase in customer inquiries related to COVID-19 impacts. This made it difficult for staff to keep up with messages.

For small businesses, especially those who have already had to layoff additional staff amid coronavirus lockdowns, being able to rapidly respond to customers’ incoming inquires is critical in terms of not losing sales.

Facebook notes that the new inbox in Messenger for business users won’t replace the functionality found in Facebook’s Page Manager app. Business users can still use the latter to manage their Facebook posts, create ads, view their Page insights and respond to messages, if they choose. Instead, the Messenger business inbox gives the business owner a different way to respond — and from an app they already often have open to keep up with friends and family.

Businesses don’t have to make any changes to take advantage of the new feature, Facebook says. It will roll out automatically as long as their personal Facebook account is connected to their business’s Facebook Page. When responding to a message, the business owner can then choose whether they’re answering as themselves or the business.

The new inbox is one of several new tools Facebook has introduced since the COVID-19 crisis. It also recently rolled out new additions to its Community Help hub that allowed people to support local businesses, offered small business grants and launched tools that allow businesses to sell gift cards and vouchers and more.

The business inbox is available today on iOS and will arrive on Android in the next few weeks.

 

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Twitter brings Fleets, its version of Stories, to India

Twitter said Tuesday it is bringing Fleets, its version of Stories that lets users post ephemeral content to its social network, to India. The company says it is still testing the feature, which is also available to users in Brazil and Italy.

Fleets aren’t private stories, but it’s Twitter’s way to allow users to share things that are less accessible to the world. As my colleague Sarah Perez described recently, anyone can visit someone’s public Twitter profile and tap to view their Fleets, which, like Stories on other platforms, sit at the top of the screen. But Fleet won’t circulate on Twitter’s network, show up in Search or Moments, and it can’t be embedded on a third-party website.

“We’re testing a way for you to think out loud without the Likes, Retweets, or replies, called Fleets! Best part? They disappear after 24 hours,” Twitter India said in a tweet.

Namaste! Starting today, Fleets are coming to India. If you’re in India, check it out and let us know what you think! #FleetsFeedback pic.twitter.com/U6QiHynm1U

— Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) June 9, 2020

India, the world’s second-largest internet market, is a key overseas nation for several American technology companies. Twitter had about 55 million active users in India in the month of April, according to mobile insight firm App Annie and shared by an industry executive. In comparison, Facebook has over 350 million monthly active users in India, and Google reaches just as large audience.

This is the first time in several years that Twitter is timely bringing a feature to India — or doing anything noteworthy in this Asian market, where its platform has been scrutinised for not taking swift action on spread of misinformation and abusive messages.

“India is important for Twitter since it is one of our largest and fastest-growing audience markets globally. We are excited to bring the Fleets experiment to India and make it one of the first three countries in the world to experience this new product,” said Manish Maheshwari, Managing Director at Twitter India, in a statement.

“From the test in India, we’ll learn how adding a new mode of conversation changes the way Indians engage on Twitter. It’ll also be interesting to see if it further amplifies the diversity of usage by allowing people to share what they’re thinking in a way that is light-touch and light-hearted,” he added.

Twitter is perhaps the last major social platform to explore Stories, a feature conceptualised by Snapchat. Stories format has since replicated by Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube. Spotify also recently announced that it was testing a Stories-like feature and even Skype, Match and Bumble tried their hand.

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How flags unite (and divide) us | Michael Green

How flags unite (and divide) us | Michael Green

Flags are one of the simplest yet most powerful pieces of design ever conceived. They can make us swell with pride, burn with hatred -- and even inspire people to die or kill in their name, says vexillologist Michael Green. Take a brief walk through history as Green explores the symbolic fervor behind flags that unify and divide, inviting us to imagine a future where we can come together under one collective identity: humanity.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

WhatsApp resolves issue that exposed some users’ phone numbers in Google search results

WhatsApp has resolved an issue that caused phone numbers of some of its users to appear in Google search results.

The fix comes days after a researcher revealed that the phone number of WhatsApp users who created a simplified link to allow others to chat with them or join a group appeared in search results.

In a statement, a WhatsApp spokesperson said that this feature, called Click to Chat, is designed to help users, especially small and microbusinesses around the world connect with their customers.

“While we appreciate this researcher’s report and value the time that he took to share it with us, it did not qualify for a bounty since it merely contained a search engine index of URLs that WhatsApp users chose to make public. All WhatsApp users, including businesses, can block unwanted messages with the tap of a button,” the spokesperson added.

The Click to Chat feature allows users to create a short URL — wa.me/<phoneNumber> — that they can share with their friends or customers to facilitate quick conversation without having to first save their phone number to their contacts list.

India-based researcher Athul Jayaram, who revealed this issue, called it a privacy lapse. He claimed that as many as 300,000 phone numbers appeared in Google search results if someone looked up for “site:wa.me”.

Jayaram said the phone numbers appeared in search results because WhatsApp did not direct Google and other search engines to ignore indexing these links — a feature that search engines provide to any web administrator.

He confirmed on Tuesday that WhatsApp had made some change to inform web crawlers to not index certain links.

But Jayaram isn’t the first person to report that WhatsApp phone numbers were visible in Google search results. WaBetaInfo, a website that tracks changes in WhatsApp, reported this behaviour in February this year.

And as Jayaram points out, many WhatsApp users he contacted whose numbers appeared in Google search results were surprised to learn that this sensitive information was accessible on the public internet.

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Collab Capital launches with a $50 million target and a mission to help Black entrepreneurs

The three founders of Collab Capital, the newly launched Atlanta-based fund with a $50 million target and a mission to help Black entrepreneurs, are intimately aware of the struggles that Black founders face — because they are all Black founders themselves.

Managing Partners Jewel Burks, Justin Dawkins, and Barry Givens have all founded companies, have backgrounds in coding and engineering, and know the struggles Black entrepreneurs face when they sit across the table from (predominantly) white investors writing checks.

As the US continues to grapple with its history of systemic racism in the wake of the Memorial Day murder of George Floyd, the financial industry which operates at the engine of commerce and wealth creation is having its own reckoning.

And although the venture capital industry represents a small cog in the greater machine of finance that moves the world’s wealth, given the industry’s outsized role in creating companies that represent a large fraction of the trillions of dollars flowing through the global economy, it’s no surprise that investors are taking stock of their own roles in perpetuating injustices (whether through myopia or malignance).

Venture capital’s diversity disaster

 

As the co-founder of Goodie Nation, Dawkins has already helped to build one successful entrepreneur development program focused on social good; while Jewel Burks co-founded Partpic, an object recognition company sold to Amazon in 2016 and the tech behind Amazon’s Part Finder service, and serves as the current Head of Google for Startups in the US. Last but not least is Barry Givens, the founder and developer of the robotic bartender startup, Monsieur (a TechCrunch Battlefield alumnus), and the managing director of Techstars’ Social Impact Accelerator (whose first virtual Demo Day TechCrunch covered here).

How Monsieur Shook Up Disrupt SF With Its Bartending Robot

“We all started our companies in 2012, and we all went through our own difficult journeys,” said Givens. “We started coming together and having these meetings with each other as we were getting ready to exit and we decided we wanted to do something for the next set of Black entrepreneurs.”

Those meetings began in 2017, after Burks had already sold her company and as Dawkins and Givens were moving on to other roles. Initially, the founders of Collab started out with a studio program designed to work with emerging entrepreneurial talent in the Atlanta area that may not have had access to mentors providing the same kind of advice on the basic blocking and tackling of starting a business.

The studio provided resources and tools on the pre-capital side of the business, while the newly launched fund, with its $50 million target, is designed to help those early entrepreneurs get the capital they need to truly launch their businesses.

First-time fund managers typically raise from a relatively tight network of smaller family offices and high net worth individuals, and for Black investors launching a first fund, that circle can be even tighter — and may be coming from a set of wealthy individuals and investors who aren’t as well-versed in the world of venture capital finance, the Collab Capital founders said.

So in addition to setting up a new fund, the founders have launched a new kind of investment vehicle, modeled after the Simple Agreement for Future Equity popularized by the Silicon Valley-based accelerator Y Combinator.

The Collab team’s portfolio companies ink something that the firm calls a SPACE deal, which stands for shared profit agreement with a collaborative endorsement. Since many of Collab’s investors, to-date, are high net worth individuals coming from the worlds of sports and entertainment, who may not have as much familiarity with the concept of venture capital investing, these collaborative endorsement agreements bridge the gap between an equity deal and a more typical endorsement contract that these athletes, entertainers or even many corporate executives might not be familiar with, according to Givens.

While the firm is heading toward a $50 million hard target, it’s launching with a more modest $2 million capital commitment (roughly the same initial amount that Andreessen Horowitz raised internally for its donor-advised non-profit fund targeting underserved founders).

Like every other initiative planned for 2020, Collab Capital’s fundraising faltered as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the world. “We lost several [limited partners] that first weekend when the stock market crashed,” said Givens. “Other LPs came back and said we need to wait until Q3 and Q4.”

Many of the young firm’s early investors come from the entertainment community and had to put their commitments on hold thanks to shortened or canceled seasons and the loss of touring revenues.

Still, Collab has managed to move ahead, and has committed its first capital to a new investment, the consumer focused rain hat company, Hairbrella.

And the spotlight that George Floyd’s murder has put on racial injustice in the US has proven to be a spark for change across America’s social and economic landscape.

“The murder of George Floyd has turned the spotlight on [racial injustice] a little brighter,” said Dawkins. “[But] this is not the first time that you have seen a Black man or Black woman abused or murdered by police…What happens in the industry isn’t going to change by having a Black male get killed on the street.”

The industry needs to change by investing in more Black entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, and as the industry changes, the access to that engine of wealth creation can have huge implications for disenfranchised communities, the Collab Capital co-founders said.

“If you want to make a difference this is how you make a difference,” said Givens. “[And] because of the way the system has worked you may need to change the rules a little bit.”

Arguably, the system hasn’t worked in the way it was intended. Givens pointed to fundraising meetings from his days as an entrepreneur where he spent the first twenty minutes assuring investors that he — an engineering graduate from Georgia Institute of Technology (one of the nation’s best research universities) — had actually built the technology he was pitching.

Collab Capital isn’t the first fund founded by Black entrepreneurs to try and tap into the depth of capital, technological talent pool and startup ecosystem that exists in Atlanta. Last year, Clifford Harris Jr. (better known as T.I.) and partner Jason Geter launched Tech Cypha, which wanted to take the syndicate model for investing and form a quasi-institutional vehicle around it. The firm’s first (and only?) deal was in the Los Angeles and Atlanta-affiliated startup, Culture Genesis.

Backing Culture Genesis, T.I. launches Tech Cypha, an investment syndicate for tech deals

For Givens, the example of Tech Cypha is indicative of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for investors. “There are a lot of people that recognize that tech is a way to build wealth in our community,” he said. “[But] you need so much money… You need to make 15 investments, not one.”

Collab’s initiative is also tapping into some of the geographic discrepancies that have limited the tech industry’s growth and now present still another opportunity for savvy investors.

“If you’re in Hollywood you see Hollywood problems. If you live in the Valley you’re seeing solutions to Valley problems. What was missed in the last couple of decades is that a lot of innovators have been grossly overlooked because investors did not see the talent in other geographies,” said Dawkins.

 

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Apple adds anonymous symptom and health info sharing to its COVID-19 app and website

Apple has updated its own COVID-19 iOS app and website with new features to allow users to anonymously share info including their age, existing health conditions, symptoms, potential exposure risks and the state in which they’re located. This info, which is not associated with any of their personal identifying data in any way according to the company, will be used in an aggregated way to help inform the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and improve the organization’s COVID-19 screening protocol.

The app will also use the aggregated data to assist public health agencies and the CDC in their efforts to help the public with the best available information about potential risk factors around COVID-19, and around what constitutes exposure and exposure risk.

Apple launched its coronavirus screening app and website back in March, providing not only screening tools to help provide users with guidance on whether or not they should seek testing, but also tips on preventative measures including hand-washing and best practices for sanitization.

This app and website should not be confused with Apple and Google’s collaborative COVID-19 Exposure Notification API, which is a developer tool that the two made available to public health agencies and their partners in order to build apps that can provide anonymized, privacy-friendly notifications to users who may have come in contact with someone who has COVID-19 and might’ve been exposed to infection. Apple’s app is an informational resource and screening tool only, though with this most recent update it also becomes a resource for public health agencies and the CDC to better understand the spread of COVID-19 through aggregated, anonymized data collection.

Despite what it may feel like, COVID-19 still hasn’t been around all that long, and it’s still not super well understood by scientists and researchers. Gathering and studying more data and information about affected populations is a key way that the health community can learn more about the novel coronavirus and how best to mitigate the threat it poses.

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Apple could reportedly announce Mac shift to its own ARM-based chips this month

For years now, analysts and unconfirmed reports have suggested Apple was working on transitioning its Mac line of computers away from Intel-based chips, and to its own, ARM-based processors. Now, Bloomberg reports that the company could make those plans official as early as later this month, with an announcement potentially timed for its remote Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) happening the week of June 22.

Apple has historically made a number of announcements at WWDC, including providing forward-looking information about its software roadmap, like upcoming versions of macOS and iOS, in order to help developers prepare their software for the updates’ general public availability. WWDC has also provided a venue for a number of Mac hardware announcements over the years, including reveals of new MacBooks and iMacs.

Bloomberg says that this potential reveal of its plan to transition to ARM-based Macs would be an advance notice, however – it would not include a reveal of any immediately available hardware, but would act as an advance notice to developers to give them time to prepare their software for ARM-based Macs to be released in 2021. The report cautions that the timing of the announcement could change, however, given that there are no plans to actually introduce any ARM-based Mac hardware for many months at least.

This isn’t the first major processor architecture switch that Apple’s Mac lineup has undergone; the company moved from PowerPC-based CPUs to Intel in 2006. That switch was originally announced in 2005, at Apple’s WWDC event that year – giving developers around half-a-year advance notice to ready themselves for the transition.

Bloomberg reported in April that Apple was planning to start selling ARM-based Macs by next year, and was developing three different in-house Mac processors based on the architecture to power those machines. Apple has made its own ARM-based processors to power iOS devices including the iPhone and iPad for many generations now, and its expertise means that those chips are now much more power efficient, and powerful in most respects, than the Intel chips it sources for its Mac line.

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Intraday Trading Calls for 10-June-2020

Intraday Trading Calls for 10-June-2020

Please click on the following link to view full post.

https://marketctl.blogspot.com/2020/06/intraday-trading-calls-for-10-june-2020.html

Via https://marketctl.blogspot.com/

5 Free Resume Apps to Maximize the Chances of Hiring Managers Reading Your CV

To get a job, you need to get an interview. And to get an interview, you need a resume. These free apps will help job applicants make a professional CV or resume that catches the eye of recruiters and hiring managers anywhere.

These aren’t the typical free CV apps to create resumes with a template of questions to answer. Some of these apps will help you create a digital CV, which looks great to present to hiring managers. Others will ensure your resume has the right keywords that the recruiter is looking for. And if you’re out of your depth or have a question, there’s even a forum to get help from others.

1. Persona (Web): Free Digital Resume to Impress Recruiters

Persona is the free modern CV that every candidate is looking for. It’s your own digital portfolio with all salient details. It perfectly blends the old-school resume with modern design and needs, helping you present a better case for hiring yourself.

You will need a standard CV to use Persona. When you create a profile, add your contact details and upload that resume. Then the app asks you to record three videos, like introduction, your experience, and your future. For people who are better at speaking than writing, this is a fantastic way to connect with potential recruiters and let them get to know you better.

Persona also places an emphasis on future plans. You need to talk about your interests, like where you’d like to work, what roles and industries you’re looking for, and how actively you’re seeking new jobs. These tags help employers zero in on you and paint you as a potential long-term hire.

The app is completely free and requires no technical expertise. When you’re shooting the videos, make sure you use a good camera (like your phone) and that you shoot in landscape mode (widescreen). It’ll help you look more professional, and phone cameras are generally much better quality than webcams.

2. Get In Touch (Web): Digital Cover Letter for Social Job Hunting

You see people asking for job leads on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks. You need to stand out in this crowd. Recruiters recommend having a good cover letter to go with your CV so that the hiring manager has a brief idea about who you are before diving in. Get In Touch is a digital cover letter for job hunting on social media.

Sign up with your Google or Facebook account, add a photo, and a brief update about your most recent job post. Use the “Tell us about yourself” box to lay out a solid case for yourself. Remember, this isn’t a space to rehash your resume.

If you’re unsure of what to say, check out Big Interview’s three-step formula on how to answer that question and what to avoid.

Then add links to your work and upload your CV. Get In Touch makes a professional landing page for your job hunt, which you can then post on social media. Your friends can then safely re-share it without having to answer questions from their followers as anyone can click the link, find out a bit about you, and download the full resume if need be.

3. Freesumes Examples (Web): Sample CVs for Every Job Type

You can get templates easily on the internet, but how do you know what works and what you should really write? One way is to check out what a job-landing resume looks like. You can find a collection of these CV samples at Freesumes, a repository of free resume templates.

Freesumes creates a collection of best-looking, filled up resume examples for all types of job positions: manager, internship, teacher, executive, sales, customer service, etc. Click any to see what you should and shouldn’t include in it, and what a recruiter is looking for in that role. For example, references are more important in an internship while past experience is more important for managerial roles.

The entire Freesumes examples page offers several other tips on how to write CVs that will get a hiring manager to notice you. Once you’ve gone through that and found the right sample for your CV, browse the collection of free templates on the website to match your skills.

4. Skillsyncer (Web): Compare Job Posting to Resume for Greater Success

In case you didn’t know, recruiters often use computers to scan your resumes. You often need to pass the applicant tracking system (ATS) to have your CV read by a human. And then the human has their own checklist in their head which they scan your resume for, often only looking at it for less than ten seconds. There is so little time to make an impression, so Skillsyncer ensures your CV has the right words to make it pop out.

The app asks you to add the job posting and your resume, and then compares them both. It will generate a job match report where you need to get your score above 80 to get noticed.

There are five categories the app tests: hard skills, soft skills, job title, educational qualifications, and other keywords.

For each category, you’ll see side-by-side numbers for how many times the job posting mentioned a word that’s in your resume. It highlights which keywords are entirely missing, so you can add them. The app even creates graphs, but those seem merely ornamental.

Finally, Skillsyncer also scans other elements of your resume to ensure they are filled, like the ideal word count, formatting, personal details, etc. These might seem like small things, but recruiters appreciate an overall refined package with attention to detail.

The free version of Skillsyncer allows for one comparison per week, and misses a few features like word choice, pronoun usage, etc. Nonetheless, it’s a fantastic product that covers all the basics.

5. r/Resume (Web): Resume Help From Real People

Apps aren’t going to give you the back-and-forth help that a real human will. The subreddit r/Resume has a community of people giving advice and feedback on resumes.

After you create a resume or a cover letter, create a new post, and ask for advice. The more specific you are, the better the advice will be. There are posts where random Redditors have stepped forward to completely rewrite someone’s CV and made it better.

Remember to update your resume and repost it in the same thread, don’t create new posts each time. It’s a faux pas that makes the community mad or gets your post deleted.

Keep in mind, these are people on the internet, not experts. They’re well-meaning and helpful, but if some advice doesn’t make sense to you, you don’t have to take it on board.

The Cheat Sheet of Resume Essentials

It’s best if you use a combination of the above free resume apps to create your own. You need advice from Reddit, samples to create the CV, Skillsyncer to test it, and a digital page to host it.

No matter which app you use, you need to know some of the basics about what to do and what to avoid. That’s why we have a quick cheat sheet on the essential tips for writing a winning resume or CV.

Read the full article: 5 Free Resume Apps to Maximize the Chances of Hiring Managers Reading Your CV

Lemonade Is Using Technology to Bring Insurance Into This Century, and You Need to Try It

Very few people would suggest that insurance is an innovative, disruptive industry. If not for creative television ads, we may not even think about insurance companies at all except as an occasionally necessary pain point in our lives. From applying for coverage to filing a claim after suffering an accident, dealing with insurance companies is typically a long-winded, exhausting, frustrating affair.

And yet, it’s all wholly necessary to protect yourself and the people you love from financial ruin in the event of an unforeseeable accident. Fortunately, there are some changes coming to the renters’ and homeowners’ insurance industry, thanks to the pioneering spirit of companies like Lemonade.

Lemonade is a technology-powered platform that aims to reduce the red tape and bureaucracy typically associated with insurance. Lemonade simplifies your interactions with insurance companies, from getting insured in the first place to receiving reimbursement.

At launch, Lemonade set out to understand why insurance companies have a hard time providing quality claims services. They discovered that insurance companies, by and large, are driven by manual labor, with tens of thousands of people simply filling out forms, faxing documents, and making phone calls. Worse yet, the companies themselves are committed to paying out less for claims. Lemonade turned that model on its head.

Instead of feeding off of premiums, Lemonade charges a flat fee off the top, using the rest of your premiums to fund reinsurance, surplus payments, taxes, and their Giveback program. Better yet, by creating their AI bot Jim, they’ve made a claims system that is available 24/7/365 and that automates the process. With Lemonade, you can get insured in as little as 90 seconds and get paid out for a claim in just three minutes. If for any reason, Jim’s algorithms can’t help you, the algorithm is programmed to alert a human who will give you a call ASAP.

Lemonade is using technology to make renters’ and homeowners’ insurance more affordable and more accessible than ever. Policies start as low as $5/month for renters and $25/month for homeowners. Get a quote today to see how much you could be saving.

Read the full article: Lemonade Is Using Technology to Bring Insurance Into This Century, and You Need to Try It

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5 Free Resume Apps to Maximize the Chances of Hiring Managers Reading Your CV

To get a job, you need to get an interview. And to get an interview, you need a resume. These free apps will help job applicants make a professional CV or resume that catches the eye of recruiters and hiring managers anywhere.

These aren’t the typical free CV apps to create resumes with a template of questions to answer. Some of these apps will help you create a digital CV, which looks great to present to hiring managers. Others will ensure your resume has the right keywords that the recruiter is looking for. And if you’re out of your depth or have a question, there’s even a forum to get help from others.

1. Persona (Web): Free Digital Resume to Impress Recruiters

Persona is the free modern CV that every candidate is looking for. It’s your own digital portfolio with all salient details. It perfectly blends the old-school resume with modern design and needs, helping you present a better case for hiring yourself.

You will need a standard CV to use Persona. When you create a profile, add your contact details and upload that resume. Then the app asks you to record three videos, like introduction, your experience, and your future. For people who are better at speaking than writing, this is a fantastic way to connect with potential recruiters and let them get to know you better.

Persona also places an emphasis on future plans. You need to talk about your interests, like where you’d like to work, what roles and industries you’re looking for, and how actively you’re seeking new jobs. These tags help employers zero in on you and paint you as a potential long-term hire.

The app is completely free and requires no technical expertise. When you’re shooting the videos, make sure you use a good camera (like your phone) and that you shoot in landscape mode (widescreen). It’ll help you look more professional, and phone cameras are generally much better quality than webcams.

2. Get In Touch (Web): Digital Cover Letter for Social Job Hunting

You see people asking for job leads on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks. You need to stand out in this crowd. Recruiters recommend having a good cover letter to go with your CV so that the hiring manager has a brief idea about who you are before diving in. Get In Touch is a digital cover letter for job hunting on social media.

Sign up with your Google or Facebook account, add a photo, and a brief update about your most recent job post. Use the “Tell us about yourself” box to lay out a solid case for yourself. Remember, this isn’t a space to rehash your resume.

If you’re unsure of what to say, check out Big Interview’s three-step formula on how to answer that question and what to avoid.

Then add links to your work and upload your CV. Get In Touch makes a professional landing page for your job hunt, which you can then post on social media. Your friends can then safely re-share it without having to answer questions from their followers as anyone can click the link, find out a bit about you, and download the full resume if need be.

3. Freesumes Examples (Web): Sample CVs for Every Job Type

You can get templates easily on the internet, but how do you know what works and what you should really write? One way is to check out what a job-landing resume looks like. You can find a collection of these CV samples at Freesumes, a repository of free resume templates.

Freesumes creates a collection of best-looking, filled up resume examples for all types of job positions: manager, internship, teacher, executive, sales, customer service, etc. Click any to see what you should and shouldn’t include in it, and what a recruiter is looking for in that role. For example, references are more important in an internship while past experience is more important for managerial roles.

The entire Freesumes examples page offers several other tips on how to write CVs that will get a hiring manager to notice you. Once you’ve gone through that and found the right sample for your CV, browse the collection of free templates on the website to match your skills.

4. Skillsyncer (Web): Compare Job Posting to Resume for Greater Success

In case you didn’t know, recruiters often use computers to scan your resumes. You often need to pass the applicant tracking system (ATS) to have your CV read by a human. And then the human has their own checklist in their head which they scan your resume for, often only looking at it for less than ten seconds. There is so little time to make an impression, so Skillsyncer ensures your CV has the right words to make it pop out.

The app asks you to add the job posting and your resume, and then compares them both. It will generate a job match report where you need to get your score above 80 to get noticed.

There are five categories the app tests: hard skills, soft skills, job title, educational qualifications, and other keywords.

For each category, you’ll see side-by-side numbers for how many times the job posting mentioned a word that’s in your resume. It highlights which keywords are entirely missing, so you can add them. The app even creates graphs, but those seem merely ornamental.

Finally, Skillsyncer also scans other elements of your resume to ensure they are filled, like the ideal word count, formatting, personal details, etc. These might seem like small things, but recruiters appreciate an overall refined package with attention to detail.

The free version of Skillsyncer allows for one comparison per week, and misses a few features like word choice, pronoun usage, etc. Nonetheless, it’s a fantastic product that covers all the basics.

5. r/Resume (Web): Resume Help From Real People

Apps aren’t going to give you the back-and-forth help that a real human will. The subreddit r/Resume has a community of people giving advice and feedback on resumes.

After you create a resume or a cover letter, create a new post, and ask for advice. The more specific you are, the better the advice will be. There are posts where random Redditors have stepped forward to completely rewrite someone’s CV and made it better.

Remember to update your resume and repost it in the same thread, don’t create new posts each time. It’s a faux pas that makes the community mad or gets your post deleted.

Keep in mind, these are people on the internet, not experts. They’re well-meaning and helpful, but if some advice doesn’t make sense to you, you don’t have to take it on board.

The Cheat Sheet of Resume Essentials

It’s best if you use a combination of the above free resume apps to create your own. You need advice from Reddit, samples to create the CV, Skillsyncer to test it, and a digital page to host it.

No matter which app you use, you need to know some of the basics about what to do and what to avoid. That’s why we have a quick cheat sheet on the essential tips for writing a winning resume or CV.

Read the full article: 5 Free Resume Apps to Maximize the Chances of Hiring Managers Reading Your CV

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The ACLU's call to defund the police | Anthony D. Romero

The ACLU's call to defund the police | Anthony D. Romero

"We need to defund the budgets of police departments. It's the only way we're going to take power back," says Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Calling for allies to get involved in the efforts to dismantle systemic racism, Romero explains why police reform isn't enough anymore -- and shows why it's time to take money from militarized law enforcement and reinvest it in the community. (This video, excerpted from a panel discussion featuring Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, Rashad Robinson and Dr. Bernice King, was recorded June 3, 2020. Watch the full discussion at go.ted.com/endingracism)

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

The US needs a radical revolution of values | Dr. Bernice King

The US needs a radical revolution of values | Dr. Bernice King

To cultivate a society grounded in equity and love, we must uproot systems of oppression and violence towards Black communities, says Dr. Bernice Albertine King, community builder and daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In a time of mourning and protest, King calls for a revolution of values, allies that engage and a world where anger is channeled into social and economic change. "Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation," King says. "Every generation is called to this freedom struggle." (This video, excerpted from a panel featuring Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, Rashad Robinson and Anthony D. Romero, was recorded June 3, 2020. Watch the full discussion at go.ted.com/endingracism)

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

How to channel your presence and energy into ending injustice | Rashad Robinson

How to channel your presence and energy into ending injustice | Rashad Robinson

The presence and visibility of a movement can often lead us to believe that progress is inevitable. But building power and changing the system requires more than conversations and retweets, says Rashad Robinson, the president of Color Of Change. To create material change in the racist systems that enable and perpetuate violence against Black communities, Robinson shares how we can translate the energy of global protests into specific demands, actions and laws -- and hold those in power accountable to them. "This is the time for White allies to stand up in new ways, to do the type of allyship that truly dismantles structures, not just provides charity," Robinson says. "You can't sing our songs, use our hashtags and march in our marches if you are on the other end supporting the structures that put us in harm's way, that literally kill us." (This video, excerpted from a panel featuring Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, Dr. Bernice King and Anthony D. Romero, was recorded June 3, 2020. Watch the full discussion at go.ted.com/endingracism)

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

The bill has come due for the US's history of racism | Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff

The bill has come due for the US's history of racism | Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff

The bill has come due for the unpaid debts the United States owes its Black residents, says Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, CEO of the Center for Policing Equity (CPE). But we're not going to get to where we need to go just by reforming law enforcement. In addition to the work that CPE is known for -- working with police departments to use their own data to improve relationships with the communities they serve -- Goff and his team are encouraging cities to take money from police budgets and instead invest it directly in public resources for the community. (This video, excerpted from a panel featuring Rashad Robinson, Dr. Bernice King and Anthony D. Romero, was recorded June 3, 2020. Watch the full discussion at go.ted.com/endingracism)

Click the above link to download the TED talk.