Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 20
Posts 1 - 10

Twitter testet doppelt so lange Tweets

(Twitter is testing twice as long tweets)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 27.9.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | texting, Twitter, word/writing
Summary | Twitter has announced that they will be allowing a test group tweets of up to 280 characters in length instead of just 140 characters. The extreme shortness dictated by Twitter is a remnant of its early beginnings when Twitter was mimicking text messages. Japanese, Chinese, and Korean will not be included in this update because those languages can express far more content in fewer characters already.
Image Description | Twitter logo with colorful hashtags.
Image Tags | hashtag, logo, Twitter

Facebook ließ gezielte Werbung an "Judenhasser" zu

(Facebook allowed targeted advertising for "Jew Haters")

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 15.9.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, diversity, Facebook, politics, threat
Summary | Facebook is one of the biggest advertising platforms world-wide. It lists target groups for advertisers to choose from. One of those groups used to be "Jew Haters". Facebook removed the target group saying that they will do a better job at curating users into appropriate target groups based on how they position themselves in their profiles.
Image Description | The Facebook logo on a computer screen with a mouse cursor over it.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, Facebook, hand(s), logo

So können nützliche Apps das Autofahren erleichtern

(This is how useful apps can make driving easier)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 19.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, law, smartphone, threat
Summary | It is prohibited to take a smartphone into your hand while driving - not to text, not to call, and not to check notifications or the time. One can use their smartphone via voice control or if it is mounted on the dashboard as a navigational unit. More and more car-targeted apps are becoming voice operated so as to make them useful for drivers.
Image Description | Images of hand-held and dashboard-mounted smartphones inside cars showing maps and the Facebook logo.
Image Tags | Facebook, hand(s), logo, smartphone

So gefährlich ist die dunkle Seite der Online-Werbung

(This is how dangerous the dark side of online advertising is )

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 11.5.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | Facebook, Google, law, marketing, threat
Summary | Hackers have found new ways to enter people's computers more effectively. Online advertisements can run a malware script as soon as one is on the website where the advertisement is shown - without clicking on it. This is dangerous for all websites that display advertising - the biggest advertisers online being Facebook and Google.
Image Description | Image of the Google headquarters with a male silhouette in front of it.
Image Tags | Google, logo, male(s)

Das Monster lebt

(The monster is alive)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 31.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | censorship, cyberbullying, Facebook, law, threat
Summary | Facebook is hiring thousands of new employees to battle cyberbullying on their platform and to remove offensive material as quickly as possible. But a couple thousand are not very many people to combat wrongdoings of 2 billion users. German politicians are trying to make Facebook comply with local laws about removing illegal content from the internet but Facebook is nowhere near fulfilling those requirements.
Image Description | A photograph of a man holding a smartphone showing the Facebook logo and the face of a monster.
Image Tags | Facebook, hand(s), logo, male(s), smartphone

Gesucht: Putzkräfte fürs Netz

(Wanted: cleaning personnel for the net)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 10.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, cyberbullying, Facebook, fake news, law
Summary | Facebook is hiring thousands of people to check their platform for offensive content. Artificial intelligence and algorhythms have proven to be incapable of dealing with all nuances of human communication. They were not able to reliably identify cyberbullying content and fake news. Facebook is admitting the boundaries of technological possibilities and now hiring humans to do the job.
Image Description | Reuters image of a hand holding a smartphone in front of a screen showing the Facebook logo.
Image Tags | Facebook, hand(s), logo, smartphone

Auf die Bombe folgten die Explosionen

(The bomb was followed by explosions)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 10.12.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | Facebook, law, politics, privacy
Summary | Recently the news story about a company called Cambridge Analytica made waves: they claimed to have extracted an accurate psychological profile of all adult US citizens based on their Facebook likes. The company uses those profiles to target very specific audiences with political advertising. Such rigorous profiling based on data that was not willingly given for the purposes of such analysis would be illegal in Europe.
Image Description | Bloomberg image of a woman with glasses (only eyes portion of face visible), the glasses reflecting a screen showing the Facebook logo.
Image Tags | Facebook, female(s), logo

«Sie agieren wie ein Schwarm»

(«They behave like a swarm»)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 12.10.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | social media, threat, Twitter
Summary | Extremist groups flourish on social media. It is designed to make users happy, to mirror their preferences, and encapsulates them in a bubble of their own interests isolating them from opposed content. This is very dangerous when people slip into violent extremist circles online. The government and social media corporations should work together on breaking this bubble effect to make sure everyone sees a piece of 'reality' every once in a while.
Image Description | Photograph of a smashed window in front of a Twitter icon.
Image Tags | logo, Twitter

Das ist an Messenger-Verschwörungstheorien dran

(This is the deal with messenger conspiracy theories)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 5.11.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, privacy, Snapchat, texting, threat, WhatsApp
Summary | A list of popular messengers is analyzed in terms of how well they protect their users' privacy. The safest one is Signal and many others have end-to-end encryption, for instance WhatsApp. They still collect the metadata though (interlocutors, time of interaction, location). Some even save the content that is sent around - most shockingly Snapchat which is popular becuase it supposedly leaves no trace. Some messengers supposedly have ties with national security ministries, like Telegram in Russia and Viber in Israel. Apple recently refused to work with the FBI in giving away a customer's personal information.
Image Description | Photograph of a smartphone screen with messengers and a video about messengers.
Image Tags | hand(s), logo, smartphone, WhatsApp

Hasskommentare im Internet

(Hate comments on the internet)

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Newspaper | Wiesbadener Kurier
Date | 30.11.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, law, social media
Summary | Hateful comments are hard to avoid online. A local school hosted a workshop about how to deal with hate comments. It is important to counter hateful, polemic comments. Either by debunking them, so demonstrating that they are plain wrong by providing credible facts, by ironizing them, or in extreme cases by getting the police involved. A correlation between a lot of hateful comments about refugees and hate crimes has been confirmed.
Image Description | Twitter icon.
Image Tags | logo, Twitter

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