DragonI

1. Hurricane Irma
2. Hurricane Maria
3. Hurricane Michael
4. Hurricane Dorian

 "I'm not sure that I've ever even heard of a Category 5. I knew it existed",  Donald J Trump  #25thThe45th   #VoteHimOut  #IdiotInChief  

In 2016, German universities enjoyed another big rise in the international student population, according to the latest data. Germany recorded close to a 7 percent increase in international students coming to the country. This follows a jump of nearly 8 percent the previous year. Numbers have risen about 30 percent since 2012.

But in Germany, students -- on the whole -- famously pay no tuition fees, regardless of where they come from. Seen from the U.S. or Britain, this policy may appear either supremely principled or incredibly naïve. With international students making up nearly one in 10 students (and even more if you count noncitizens who attended German schools), why does the country choose to pass up tuition-fee income and educate other countries’ young people for free?

International students certainly seem to want to stick around: about half plan to remain in Germany after graduation, according to a survey conducted by the German Academic Exchange Service, with three in 10 planning to stay permanently.

The soft-power argument plays a role, too: overseas graduates are seen as generating goodwill for Germany globally. “The idea of Germany being part of an international community is valued very highly,” said Wahlers. “Of course, we invest a certain amount of money [in their education], but what we get back is worth so much more. The international students, when they graduate, will be partners for Germany in the world; this kind of international network building is of immense importance to us.”

Most Students Don’t Know When News Is Fake, Stanford Study Finds

A study of middle-school to college-age students found most absorb social media news without considering the source. How parents can teach research skills and skepticism.

www.wsj.com|Sue Shellenbarger

Preteens and teens may appear dazzlingly fluent, flitting among social-media sites, uploading selfies and texting friends. But they’re often clueless about evaluating the accuracy and trustworthiness of what they find.

Some 82% of middle-schoolers couldn’t distinguish between an ad labeled “sponsored content” and a real news story on a website, according to a Stanford University study of 7,804 students from middle school through college. The study, set for release Tuesday, is the biggest so far on how teens evaluate information they find online. Many students judged the credibility of newsy tweets based on how much detail they contained or whether a large photo was attached, rather than on the source.

Facebook's Fight Against Fake News Was Undercut by Fear of Conservative Backlash

It’s no secret that Facebook has a fake news problem. Critics have accused the social network of allowing false and hoax news stories to run rampant, with some suggesting that Facebook contributed to Donald Trump’s election by letting hyper-partisan websites spread false and misleading information. Mark Zuckerberg has addressed the issue twice since Election Day, most notably in a carefully worded statement that reads: “Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99 percent of what people see is authentic. Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes. The hoaxes that do exist are not limited to one partisan view, or even to politics.”

gizmodo.com|Michael Nunez

According to two sources with direct knowledge of the company’s decision-making, Facebook executives conducted a wide-ranging review of products and policies earlier this year, with the goal of eliminating any appearance of political bias. One source said high-ranking officials were briefed on a planned News Feed update that would have identified fake or hoax news stories, but disproportionately impacted right-wing news sites by downgrading or removing that content from people’s feeds. According to the source, the update was shelved and never released to the public. It’s unclear if the update had other deficiencies that caused it to be scrubbed.

“They absolutely have the tools to shut down fake news,” said the source, who asked to remain anonymous citing fear of retribution from the company. The source added, “there was a lot of fear about upsetting conservatives after Trending Topics,” and that “a lot of product decisions got caught up in that.”

A Ton of People Are Looking Up the Definition of 'Fascism' For Some Reason

gizmodo.com|Eve Peyser

Merriam-Webster reported Sunday evening that “fascism” is currently the top look-up on its site. According to the dictionary, searches for “misogyny,” “bigot,” “xenophobe,” “racism” and “xenophobia” also spiked after Tuesday’s election. I wonder why.

Additionally, it seems searches for “fascism” spiked on Google Trends the day Donald Trump was named president-elect. Hmmm...

Zuckerberg Has Thought About the Election and Decided Facebook Is Not to Blame

Following internal questioning from employees prior to last Tuesday’s election and upper-level rumination post-election, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made his official statement on whether or not the social media network that is “not a media company” adversely influenced the election. His conclusion: Nope, didn’t.

gizmodo.com|Rhett Jones

• Peter Thiel “gave a Mark Zuckerberg a half-million-dollar loan, the first outside investment in Facebook, which Thiel later converted into a seven-per-cent ownership stake and a seat on the board.” 
• Thiel is a member of Trump’s transition team. Donald Trump talks about draining the swamp of lobbyist and “political elites” yet Peter Thiel is a Steering Committee member of the ultra secretive who’s who of the political elite, Bilderberg Group.
• Drum roll. Thiel co-founded Palantir Technologies with CIA money (tax payers money). You know - the company used by the United States Intelligence Community. The NSA uses Palantir to spy on everyone including American citizens. Thx for the share Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald.

As the New York Times reported yesterday, “several vice presidents and executives of the social network,” began questioning the role that Facebook played in this year’s presidential election almost immediately after it was over. Sources that wished to remain anonymous said that “top executives concluded that they should address the issue and assuage staff concerns at a quarterly all-hands meeting.”

Last night, Zuckerberg attempted to address the public’s concerns with a note on his page.

Facebook, on the other hand, delivers a steady stream of outlets that no one has ever heard of but they might trust because, among other things, their friend said they should. Many will not read the story at all but will see a headline like, “FBI AGENT SUSPECTED IN HILLARY EMAIL LEAKS FOUND DEAD IN APPARENT MURDER-SUICIDE,” and allow it to course into the way they see the world. That particular assertion came from The Denver Guardian, a site that very carefully constructs fake news in a way that isn’t instantly recognizable.

The Facebook position is that they don’t want to determine what the truth is, they only want to control what people see by relying on algorithms that prefer engagement rather than quality. A story like an FBI agent involved in Hillary’s email investigation being murdered is hot, people will engage. And the fact that no one else is reporting it will cause them to engage even further with comments like, “why is no else reporting this?! This is an outrage!!”

From the beginning, it would seem, Zuckerberg’s plan was to take down “media corporations owned by conglomerates” in favor of an “open information flow for people.” At this point, what is happening certainly seems hostile to established media and by algorithmically manipulating the news feed, the company is actively working against the idea of an open flow of information. Additionally, allowing sponsored posts and advertisements masquerading as news stories, or fake news stories masquerading as advertisements, it has further throttled the flow of quality information.