Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 5
Posts 1 - 5

Diese drei Anwendungen sind besser als Whatsapp

(These three apps are better than WhatsApp)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 5.5.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | law, privacy, threat, WhatsApp
Summary | Brazil has just blocked WhatsApp in their country for 72 hours in order to for WhatsApp to share chats with their police in ciminal cases. It is unlikely that something like this will happen in Germany but it is good to know about some alternatives just in case... Especially since WhatsApp is not very trustworthy about user privacy. Threema is a Swiss app that alllows for user anonymity, Slack is a really good app to use with colleagues because files can be saved within group chats, and Telegram deletes inactive chats after a while so that there are no traces.
Image Description | Woman using a smartphone with headphones on the street.
Image Tags | female(s), headphones, smartphone

Niedlichkeit hat ihren Preis

(Cuteness has its price)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 20.1.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | marketing, privacy, selfie, threat
Summary | A new popular app in China called Meitu lets users edit their selfies. The process includes a beautification filter which enlarges the eyes and adds glitter and a rosy hue to the selfie. The app however suspiciously asks for permission to a lot of user data which does not seem to be necessary for an image editing app. The app likely collects all this data about their users so that they can sell their information to advertizers who want to target specific groups. All free apps have a hidden price.
Image Description | Selfie with the Meitu beautification filter.
Image Tags | female(s), selfie

Es postet, also bin ich

(It posts so I am)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 19.7.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | brain, emojis, language threat, selfie, social media
Summary | In his new book called "Facebook generation", Roberto Simanowski positions himself between the cultural pessimists and the digital euphorics. He does fear for our language competence and tied to it our memory. We tend to posts selfies and emojis rather than put our feelings into words. We tend to post a link to a song, a video, or an article rather than paraphrase that information make our point in an original sentence. This leads to the degeneration of our language ability and that inability to process information in our own words prevents the creation of memories. Instead we leave a huge digital data trail online.
Image Description | Woman's hands holding a smartphone while using a laptop.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, female(s), hand(s), smartphone

Facebook-App soll das Gedankenlesen lernen

(Facebook app is supposed to learn mindreading)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 20.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | brain, Facebook, privacy, translation
Summary | Facebook is working on new technology to enable mind reading. This would enable users to type just by thinking and moreover possibly type in a foreign language they don't even speak. All this would be possible if we had sensors that could read brain waves and interpret them correctly. The developers at Facebook emphasize that only those thoughts would be read which are willingly shared by the user.
Image Description | Thinkstock image of two cyborgs.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

So bildet man sich im Job effektiv weiter

(This is how you educate yourself further in your job)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 27.3.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | digitized education, privacy
Summary | It is imperative for everyone who wants to stay updated in their field to keep educating themselves. Traditinally, this education happened in company seminars but there are increasingly more online courses on offer. MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) are a modern alternative where teachers and students never meet in person but interact entirely digitally. A course design in between the two is called "blended learning" where students first self-educate online and meet up in a seminar later on. Hot topics in further education of professionals are all things connected to technology and especially topics around privacy.
Image Description | A Getty image of a woman studying on the floor with notes, a laptop, a tablet, and a snack.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, female(s), tablet

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