Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 24
Posts 1 - 10

For travelers, chatbots and AI can't quite take you there

Hyperlink

Newspaper | USA Today
Date | 27.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence
Summary | Artificial intelligence experts are very enthusiastic about the latest developments in AI for travel. Lay users however disagree, they find artificially intelligent chatbots as of now basically useless for real travellers. They still struggle to understand natural language and various bugs remain to be fixed.
Image Description | Screenshot of a chatbot conversation through Facebook including an image of a pizza with topping floating over it.
Image Tags | Facebook, text

Crackdown on Online Criticism Chills Pakistani Social Media

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 27.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, law, misunderstanding, social media, threat
Summary | The Pakistani government has passed a very strict law that prohibits any anti-government or anti-army posts on social media. Some people have already been arrested. They claim that their posts were not criticizing the armed forces and that it was all a misunderstanding. This is a huge issie when people get arrested for trivial tweets.
Image Description | Getty image of a protest.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), text

The Internet Is Where We Share - and Steal - the Best Ideas

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 6.6.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | addiction, law, meme, social media
Summary | Intellectual property is difficult to defend on the internet. Memes go viral and the origin is hard to track down. Recently even Hollywood snagged an idea off of social media where users began developing an idea for a movie based on a picture of Rihanna and Lupita Nyong'o. Social media users try to be creative and share their ideas on these platforms because it is addicting if other users respond positively.
Image Description | Illustration of a bunch of @ and copyright signs.
Image Tags | text

The limits of instant activism

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 28.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | politics, social media
Summary | A new book titled "Twitter and Tear Gas" by Zeynep Tufekci is coming out. It discusses the infuence of social media on protest culture. The author has been present in many recent protest movement: Occupy Wall Street, the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul, the Tahrir Square protests, and many more. In her book, she concludes that social media help mobilize many people very quickly, as the anti-Trump marches have shown. However, this ease with which people are mobilized to attend a protest make the ties within the protest community looser making it difficult for the movements to overcome issues later on in the process.
Image Description | Image of the March on Washington in 1963.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), text

Where Non-Techies Can Get With the Programming

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 4.4.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | computer programming, digitized education, research/study
Summary | Computer programming is the new lingua franca of modern economy. Introductory classes are increasingly popular at universities with 90% of Standford students taking an introductory computer programming class. Coding can be useful for lawyers, doctors, historians, and even students from the humanities because learning to code entails learning computational thinking.
Image Description | Illustration with a diverse group of faces connexted to written computer code.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), text

The Facebook Breakup

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 13.3.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, Facebook, research/study, threat
Summary | Many studies have been published about whether Facebook makes us happy or unhappy. Studies with both conclusions exist. They agree that Facebook notifications can cause a hormone release that boosts feelings of happiness for a moment, like all other addictive substances. Facebook has teams working on solustions on how to deal with accounts of users who pass away or how to assist people with avoiding their ex-partners on Facebook.
Image Description | An illustration of a vacuum cleaner vacuuming a broken heart, a team of designers working at Facebook, motivational posters from Facebook, and a smartphone showing the post-breakup settings Facebook offers.
Image Tags | Facebook, female(s), male(s), smartphone, text

Apple faces 11 other orders for suspects' electronic data

Hyperlink

Newspaper | USA Today
Date | 24.2.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | law, politics, privacy, threat
Summary | After Apple had refused to cooperate with the FBI in unlocking a terrorist's iPhone for investigation, the FBI are requesting their assistance again in elevn other criminal cases. Apple had refused the initial request in order not to sell out their users' privacy and were supported by other major tech firms.
Image Description | Text document showing the criminal cases in question in a table.
Image Tags | chart, text

Germany springs to action over hate speech against migrants

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 6.1.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, cyberbullying, Facebook, law, politics, social media
Summary | Facebook has recently decided to comply with German law rather than their own corporate policies when it comes to hate language on their platform contributed by users from Germany. Germany is very strict about prohibiting hate language against minorities. Critics say this is a step in the wrong direction towards censorship.
Image Description | Protest crowd holding a canvas.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), text

Why Kids Can't Write

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 2.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | grammar, punctuation, school, smartphone, social media, spelling, texting, threat, word/writing
Summary | Many students struggle with writing despite various pedagogical models that have been implemented in past years to tackle that perpetual issue. This is all the more suprising considering that today's students may do moret voluntary writing than any generation before it. They text and post on social media a lot but the writing register is different there. The format's main principle is shortness so grammar, spelling, and punctuation take a back seat.
Image Description | GIF of a hand writing and a group of teachers in a workshop.
Image Tags | female(s), gifs, text

Letter of recommendation: Duolingo

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 27.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | digitized education, game, smartphone, translation
Summary | Duolingo is a language learning app that is designed like a game and rewards users with points when they finish a lesson. It is similarly limited in its effectiveness, it may familiarize users with a foreign language but it is entirely text-based rather than spoken. It is just a mildly more productive way to waste time on a smartphone.
Image Description | Illustration showing greeting in various languages.
Image Tags | text

Page 1 of 3
Back | Next