Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 10
Posts 1 - 10

Germany vs. Twitter

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 21.6.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | law, threat, Twitter
Summary | The German government demands that Twitter remove illegal content (some offensive language is illegal in Germany) from the platform within 24 hours. If they fail to do so, Germany threatens to fine them up to 50 million euros. Now social media platforms have begun deleting German accounts which are even just coming close to illegal content so as not to risk a fine.
Image Description | Hand holding a lens over the Twitter logo.
Image Tags | hand(s), logo, Twitter

Bizarre tweet, weird explanation

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Los Angeles Times
Date | 1.6.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | politics, Twitter
Summary | President Trump's latest Tweet seems to be interrupted mid-sentence featuring a mistyped word: "covfefe". The news media have been reporting about covfefe for hours with millions of people cracking jokes about it on Twitter and other social media. This alleged mistake (which was taken down after five hours) managed to dominate the political discourse in the US rather than any actual pressing issues like the Presidents possible ties to Russia.
Image Description | Sean Spicer at a press conference and Donald Trumps Twitter feed.
Image Tags | male(s), Twitter

Is China Outsmarting America in A.I.?

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 27.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, computer programming, politics
Summary | China is surpassing the US in artificial intelligence research. They succeeded in getting to human-level language recognition a year before Microsoft did. China is also increasing funding for artificial intelligence research massively while President Trump is cutting research funding. The Chinese interent giant Baidu has succeeded in understanding very subtle differences between Chinese dialects.
Image Description | Images of a German AI researcher in China with his machines and students, a Tweet, and an auditorium watching a human playing a board game against Google AI.
Image Tags | female(s), Google, male(s), Twitter

In Discover, Snap Sees a Bright Spot as It Tries to Fend Off Facebook

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 7.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, fake news, Snapchat, youth
Summary | Snapchat Discover is a realm in the messaging app that offers advertisers a platform to present their content (which also self-destructs in 24 hours). It is very expensive for advertisers to produce new content each day but some say that they have been able to recruit followers in the hard-to-reach demographic of youths. Snapchat has also made a move to curate the content on their Dsicover platform in order to censor nudity as well as unreliable news sources in order to combat fake news.
Image Description | An image of a video shoot for Snapchat and a Tweet of a Snapchat video.
Image Tags | female(s), Snapchat, Twitter

Social Insecurity? internet Turns Boomers Into Twits

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 5.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis, Facebook, misunderstanding, research/study, youth
Summary | Elders are coming to Facebook and it's not pretty. Most young people find their older relatives' activities on Facebook cringey because they appear to regress back into their younger selves which is somehow undignified for the elderly. They also sometimes use wrong emojis because they tend to be too small for them to properly see. Young people are moving on to other platforms.
Image Description | Images of Cher, Donald Trump, and Larry King as well as some of their Tweets.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), Twitter

What Happened to Who?

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 8.4.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | abbreviations, grammar, language threat, politics, Twitter
Summary | More and more politicians have begun replacing the relative pronoun "who" with "that" in sentences like ''people that come with a legal visa and overstay''. Although some dictionaries say this is an acceptable for, the New York Times' style sheet does not condone using "that" instead of "who". It denies the mentioned persons their humanity. This trend is unsurprising considering that our communication is increasingly happening on platforms like Twitter that only allow 140 characters so that we invent loads of abbreviations like "LOL" and "TTYL".
Image Description | Artwork copying Edvard Munch's "The Scream" and a few high-profile Tweets with spelling mistakes.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), Twitter

Eager crowds are flattening Southern California's vibrant 'super bloom'

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Los Angeles Times
Date | 6.4.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | Instagram, social media, threat, Twitter
Summary | Rare rainfalls in California have cause the 'super-bloom' in the deserts, drawing thousands of visitors to the national parks. This is the first time social media has had such a huge impact on visitor numbers: people are eagerly Instagramming the admittedly photogenic natural phenomenon. The only problem is that people are breaking park rules in order to get a good picture: many are straying off the tracks, trampling the delicate flowers. People have posted pictures of themseves with wildflower bouquet and lying or sitting on top of the flowers. Not all parks have this problem, but some people are destroying the flora just to get a good Instagram post.
Image Description | Photographs of the superbloom off of Twitter.
Image Tags | Twitter

Trump literally holds the world's attention in the palm of his hand

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 17.1.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | politics, Twitter
Summary | Twitter is the perfect medium for Donald Trump. Short, polarizing, and not particularly throuroughly argued but memorable statements emulate his brand. Often he tweets very aggressively and without much content. Hillary Clinton usually tweets links to further multimedial material or engages with powerful supporters on Twitter but Donald Trump's tweets are much more often retweeted.
Image Description | Tweets of Donald Trump.
Image Tags | male(s), Twitter

‘Good Girl’ Prom Dress Fliers Draw Criticism for Florida School

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 30.3.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | gender, school, Twitter
Summary | One school's guidelines on what appropriate prom gowns entail went viral on Twitter because of the double standard that girls are subjected to such prescriptivism and also because the text accompanying the images was demeaning towards women. An image of a gown seen as appropriate is captioned with "good girl" resounding how one would talk to a dog rather than young women.
Image Description | Image of the bulleting board with prom dresses and Tweets about the school message.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), text, Twitter

Twitter says it's cracking down on abuse (again)

Hyperlink

Newspaper | USA Today
Date | 7.2.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, politeness, threat, Twitter
Summary | Twitter has been struggling with trolls, racists, and sexists since its advent but now a new motivation has presented itself. When investors such as Disney pull back their offers, Twitter headquarters begin to seriously look into the matter again. Twitter did very little to combat users who are only on Twitter to insult other users - they can be suspended but it is impossible to keep them from creating another anonymous account. For now, users can choose to mute certain words, posts, or threads so that they don't receive notifications for hateful content.
Image Description | Photograph of a hand-held smartphone showing the Twitter icon.
Image Tags | hand(s), smartphone, Twitter

Page 1 of 1