Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 5
Posts 1 - 5

China Disrupts WhatsApp Service in Online Clampdown

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 18.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, Facebook, Google, Instagram, privacy, threat, Twitter, WhatsApp
Summary | The Chinese government has partly shut down the use of WhatsApp within their borders. The app is widely used around the globe and was used by some in China do communicate with people outside of Chine with end-to-end encryption. Other popular social media platforms and internet sites like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are blocked under the "Great Firewall" in China.
Image Description | Woman using a smartphone and women standing in front of Facebook and Instagram logos as well as emojis.
Image Tags | emojis, Facebook, female(s), Instagram, logo, smartphone

WhatsApp Introduces End-to-End Encryption

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 5.4.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | Facebook, law, privacy, threat, WhatsApp
Summary | Facebook has introduced end-to-end encryption for all WhatsApp communication including one-on-one and group chats and multimedia data sent in chats. This is a step to protect user privacy because breaches have happened in the past. The federal government however opposes this step because it denies the police access to communications which may be crucial to crack criminal cases.
Image Description | WhatsApp and Facebook logos.
Image Tags | Facebook, logo, WhatsApp

How to see what Twitter thinks it knows about you

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 18.5.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | marketing, privacy, threat, Twitter
Summary | Twitter is spying on its users, even outside the app. It compiles or guesses information about the users and their interests to sell to advertisers for targeted advertising. Much of the guesswork they have to do is off but they collect lots of data about each user and try to guess their gender, for instance. Users can change their privacy settings so that Twitter does not track their activities on other websites and apps.
Image Description | Reuters image of silhouettes holding smartphones in front of the Twitter logo and a graph with statistics.
Image Tags | logo, smartphone, Twitter

Controversial rights group teaches young Muslims how spies monitor social media

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 29.4.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | privacy, threat, WhatsApp
Summary | A dubious organization is teaching young muslims in the UK how authorities can spy on their digital communications. Government authorities are eager to intercept instant messaging communication to be able to avoid terrorist attacks but companies such as WhatsApp and Telegram are making their services encrypted and refuse to aid the government in their surveillance endeavors.
Image Description | Image of a screen close-up showing the WhatsApp and Facebook icon, portraits of dead terrorist attackers (once with a balaclava), and a Getty image of the GCHQ director (UK intelligence organization?).
Image Tags | Facebook, logo, male(s), WhatsApp

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

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