These are the top maybe-not headlines from the past 36-hours presented by The Conversation Project from raw engagement data from our social media to the headlines posted over the past day.
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The 8 topics that our followers ranked as the most conversational are:
PUTIN WARNS RUSSIA’S CORONAVIRUS CRISIS YET TO PEAK AS CASES SURPASS 47,000
President Vladimir Putin said Russia had managed to slow the spread of the new coronavirus but warned the peak of the outbreak still lay ahead after the number of confirmed infections surged past 47,000 nationwide on Monday. Russia reported 4,268 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Monday, down from more than 6,000 the day before. Forty-four people died overnight, bringing the death toll to 405, Russia’s coronavirus task force said. Russia’s new coronavirus infections have risen quickly in April even as Moscow and an array of Russian regions have imposed lockdown restrictions now already three weeks old. But despite the clampdown, infections have spread from Russia’s worst-hit area in Moscow and penetrated all of its more than 80 regions, Putin said at a televised meeting with officials and health experts on Monday.
COMMENTARY: This story was big enough to carry over from yesterday’s newsletter. This speaks to the messaging of coronavirus stories and the mystic of stories involving Vladimir Putin.
[SOURCE: news.yahoo.com]
THE COMPANY RUNNING AN OREGON ONLINE CORONAVIRUS SYMPTOM TRACKER NOW SAYS IT WON’T SELL YOUR DATA TO ADVERTISERS
While tech giants like Google and Apple have faced scrutiny from privacy and anti-surveillance activists for their software projects responding to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, smaller projects have flown under the radar. A COVID-19 symptom checker used in Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington counties in Oregon has a privacy policy claiming the company can sell people’s personal data to advertisers. Emergency room software company Vital, which makes the tool, said it’s a way of telling people whether they should go to the emergency room or self-quarantine. But the company also said it could sell one’s location and other identifying data gathered with the tool to advertisers, according to its privacy policy, which stated that “we may use a type of advertising commonly known as interest-based or online behavioral advertising.” After this story was published, Vital adjusted its privacy policy to state that it does not use its COVID-19 symptom checker to sell information to advertisers. The tool asks people to input their age, gender, zip code, and symptoms, as well as any underlying health conditions. It also collects information about location and web browsing history — all of which, according to the privacy policy, may be sold to “interest-based or online behavioral” advertisers so it can serve personalized ads.
COMMENTARY: as stated in the story, there was a major change of heart by Vital that lead to a direct change in the Buzzfeed story. While we are excited about the possibility of answers to the problem, we still have little trust in the institutions working solve the problem.
[SOURCE: buzzfeednews.com]
MAN VIOLATING QUARANTINE AT A BEACH IN ITALY BECOMES A HILARIOUS CORONAVIRUS MEME
Rimini is a city on the Adriatic coast in Italy with over 22 centuries of history. Recently, a new page was added to it. And quite a funny one, too. On the 17th of April, the public relations office of the city’s municipality shared an aerial photo of a man breaking quarantine. In it, two police officers can be seen approaching him, leaving their four-wheel motorcycles behind on the sand. The sharp image immediately grabbed the Internet’s attention. In fact, people liked it so much, they turned it into a meme.
COMMENTARY: Ever wonder how people become memes? Here is your chance to see one man’s journey from the humble beginning.
[SOURCE: boredpanda.com]
PATRIOTS TRADE RETIRED ROB GRONKOWSKI TO BUCCANEERS FOR 4TH-ROUND PICK
The New England Patriots have agreed to trade Rob Gronkowski to the Buccaneers in a deal that reunites the retired tight end with Tom Brady in Tampa Bay. Gronkowski’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, said Tuesday on SportsCenter that the five-time Pro Bowler has been “really invigorated” physically since he retired from football nearly 13 months ago. Gronkowski told Fox Sports in a text message: “I’m back. I always said when I have that feeling and it feels right, I will be ready to take the field again. And I have that feeling. I’m ready.” Gronkowski, who turns 31 next month, has one year and $9 million remaining on his current deal with the Patriots. The Buccaneers announced the details of the trade in a news release Tuesday. New England will receive a fourth-round pick (No. 139 overall) in the NFL draft, and the Buccaneers will receive a seventh-round pick (No. 241 overall) in the trade.
COMMENTARY: Don’t think Tampa wants to roll the dice and see what Old Man Brady still has in the tank? If football does come back on time, we expect a lot of fun from the Buccaneers.
[SOURCE: espn.com]
JOHN ELWAY: VIRTUAL TEST DRAFT ‘SMOOTH’ AFTER EARLY HICCUPS
Denver Broncos president of football operations/general manager John Elway called the staff of his team’s IT department “heroes” in the run-up to this week’s draft and said he expects any problems when the picks are officially made to be minimal. Elway and representatives from every other team went through a dry run of the draft Monday morning with a two-round practice session. There were some early technical issues, which included a 2-and-a-half minute delay for the Cincinnati Bengals to make the first pick, a source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Earlier reports had the delay as much longer. Elway said the virtual format, with teams having their personnel people, scouts and coaches all online from different locations, may impact how quickly teams can communicate in-house before trying to make a trade to move up or down the board.
COMMENTARY: People are asking for nationwide voting via their cell phones, but the situation we are living through is proving just how frustrating the tech really is and the real rate of failure. We’ll see how well this work, and if it becomes an innovation or a nightmare they wish they could forget.
[SOURCE: espn.com]
RICHARD BRANSON OFFERS HIS ISLAND AS COLLATERAL AS VIRGIN ATLANTIC AND VIRGIN AUSTRALIA FACE COLLAPSE
Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia will need government support if they’re to survive the economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. Billionaire founder Richard Branson said Monday that the airlines need money from the UK and Australian governments to keep going “in the face of the severe uncertainty surrounding travel today,” including the lack of clarity over how long planes will have to remain grounded. In an open letter to employees, Branson said the survival of Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia was important to provide much needed competition to British Airways, an IAG subsidiary, and Qantas. “If Virgin Australia disappears, Qantas would effectively have a monopoly of the Australian skies,” he noted. Branson, who has already pumped $250 million into Virgin Group companies in response to the pandemic, said he would offer his Necker Island estate in the Caribbean as collateral “to raise as much money against the island as possible to save as many jobs as possible around the group.” Virgin Atlantic will seek a commercial loan from the UK government, which it will repay, Branson added, without giving details of how much money it needs.
COMMENTARY: The ‘island as collateral’ does make the headline clickbait, but the ramifications are real. And we see them in the US with the efforts to help shore up small business that are being thwarted by large companies getting to the gold first.
[SOURCE: msn.com]
OKTOBERFEST CANCELLED DUE TO CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
Oktoberfest has been cancelled this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. The German state of Bavaria has confirmed that the two-week beer festival will not take place this autumn. This year’s Oktoberfest had been scheduled for September 19 to October 4. Around six million people usually attend Oktoberfest, often bringing in more than €1 billion for the city of Munich. Bavarian state premier Markus Soeder said the Covid-19 outbreak made the festival too dangerous. He added that he came to the decision alongside the Mayor of Munich Dieter Reiter. The first Oktoberfest was held in 1810, and the festival has become known for its huge quantities of beer, long wooden tables and brass bands.
COMMENTARY: This is…not surprising. If social distancing is the key to keeping down infections, large gatherings must be avoided. The thank the people of Munich for weathering the storm with their disruption, and hope that most Oktoberfests around the world will take the same stance.
[SOURCE: standard.co.uk]
RESTAURANTS’ BAILOUT PROBLEM: UNEMPLOYMENT PAYS MORE
Restaurants say their industry needs its own targeted recovery fund because the bailout package Congress passed last month is making it more attractive for their staff to draw unemployment benefits than to continue working. The new Paycheck Protection Program waives repayment of small business loans if the borrower uses 75 percent of the money to maintain payroll, a measure intended to reduce layoffs. But with the expanded unemployment benefits included in the stimulus bill, some workers can as much as double their weekly checks if they stay unemployed. The mismatch is particularly acute for restaurants, cafes and small shops — nonessential businesses where pay scales tend to be low that have been put into indefinite hibernation. The National Restaurant Association told Congress Monday that more than 60 percent of restaurant owners believe existing assistance programs, including PPP, are insufficient to keep employees on payroll and asked for $240 billion in aid targeted to their industry. Restaurants represent less than 9 percent of Paycheck Protection loan recipients, but as of March accounted for the majority of layoffs nationwide as the contagion took hold. Unemployment benefits vary by state, but in 2019, before the coronavirus crisis, the average weekly benefit nationwide was $370. A $600 sweetener that the stimulus bill added, on a temporary basis, to weekly unemployment checks raises the average weekly benefit to $970, an amount that approximates average weekly pay nationwide and is nearly double average weekly pay within the food industry: about $500 nationwide for full-time workers. Dental assistants, security guards and travel agents similarly stand to earn more money on unemployment than they can by working.
COMMENTARY: This is a sad reality. Most people just want to get to work and earn their wages, but some people will try to work the system, especially as those trying to help the masses are rushing to get it done without installing proper oversight. And often, without employing common sense.
[SOURCE: politico.com]
Eight Things To Talk About uses the raw engagement data from the social media engagement from The Conversation Project to generate the top-ranking headlines over the course of the past day.
A full weeks’ data (from Friday to Friday) is compiled, weighed, and sorted to produce the content for the Weekly Wrap-Up with J Cleveland Payne, published every Saturday as a podcast available at ThisIsTheConversation.com or wherever your favorite podcasts are found.
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