The rising power and prominence of the nation's loudest, meanest voices obscures what most of us personally experience: Most people are sane and generous -- and too busy to tweet. It turns out, you're right. We dug into the data and found that, in fact, most Americans are friendly, donate time or money, and would help you shovel your snow. They are busy, normal and mostly silent. These aren't the people with big Twitter followings or cable-news contracts -- and they don't try to pick fights at school board meetings. So the people who get the clicks and the coverage distort our true reality.

Facebook and Twitter on Friday were blocked in Russia, amid President Vladimir Putin's ongoing military invasion of Ukraine. In a statement issued on Friday, Roskomnadzor, the country's communications regulator, explained the decision was made to "block access to the Facebook network" after at least 26 cases of "discrimination against Russian media and information resources" since October 2020. The agency highlighted Facebook's recent restriction of Kremlin-tied media sources RT News and Sputnik News across the EU. Hours later, Russian news agency Interfax reported that Roskomnadzor had also begun blocking Twitter.

Reframing ‘my data’ to ‘data about me’ is a really helpful way to move beyond the simplistic, dualistic and dangerous notion of personal data as a monetisable resource towards a recognition of the inseparable nature of data and self. Another perspective provides this tweet that we are more impacted by other people’s data than we are by data about us. And Viivi recommended this article that explains the difference between market participation and right-based pariticpation.

The EU's independent data protection authority informed: It is with the deepest regret that we announce the loss of Giovanni Buttarelli, the European Data Protection Supervisor. Giovanni passed away surrounded by his family in Italy, last night, 20 August 2019.

Anna Ansku Tuomainen has created a folder (linked in the title) to support us in communicating MyData. The 101 doc is currently mostly about the conference but you are encouraged to creatively use the materials also for any comms needs you have. Also important is to remember to tag @mydataorg in your tweets and posts so those can be forwarded in the main channel.

Tune in to the Twitter livestream (@mydataorg) of the MyData 2019 programme launch and if you are in Helsinki join us in person for the celebration.