Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 7
Posts 1 - 7

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

Emoji: Rolle vorwärts

(Emoji: rolling forward)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 16.2.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, Facebook, threat
Summary | A bunch of new emojis have been included in the latest Apple update: the taco, a lion, and the eye-roll emoji which is the most popular of them all. In our age where online language is dominated by hyperbole, that is quite calm for a change. Simultaneously, Facebook enhances the like function with six emotions depicted by emojis.
Image Description | A bunch of eye-roll emojis with a few different emojis in between.
Image Tags | emojis

Jetzt kommt die Sticker-Schwemme

(The sticker flood is on its way)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 15.11.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | abbreviations, emojis, Facebook, language threat, marketing, social media
Summary | Emoticons (f.i. ":-D") and abbreviations (f.i. "LOL") have trickled down from "geek speak" and established themselves in the mainstream. Emojis are nowadays ever present in our digital communication as well as in other arenas such as film or advertising. Now various social media platforms, among them Facebook, offer users various palettes of stickers. They are larger versions of emojis and are sent as an image file rather than included on the keyboard as a letter. Because many sticker palettes need to be purchased, a whole economy is beginning to form: The Japanese messaging app Line has sold over $250 mio worth of stickers last year. We do not need to fear that emojis and co. will replace language as we know it.
Image Description | Commodified emojis in various forms (as balls, as tattoos, as bed sheets, as food, on clothing, as masks, etc.) and Facebook messenger chats using/purchasing sticker collections.
Image Tags | emojis, Facebook, male(s), social media

Quand les émotions mènent le bal

(When emotions are leading the way)

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Newspaper | Le Temps
Date | 9.5.2017
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, Facebook, privacy, social media, threat
Summary | Nowadays, people don't take the time to "think" and go from one emotion to another very quickly, especially on social media. For instance, Facebook introduced its "reaction" buttons. Today, it seems that a laughing emoji is worth a long speech. Facebook can also gather its users' personal information thanks to the reaction buttons. Our communication is now based on emotions, which can be dangerous.
Image Description | Cartoon representing four people chatting; one of the speech bubbles includes a series of different emojis.
Image Tags | emojis

2016: the year Facebook became the bad guy

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 12.12.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, Facebook, fake news, law, threat
Summary | 2016 has been a bad year for Facebook. Many scandals surrounded the company. It became clear that Facebook is now longer just an advertizing machine with access to almost 2 billion people world-wide but that it also curates what news media most of these people perceive - whether Facebook wants to accept this or not. They no longer just have to deal with sensoring nudity and human rights violations content but also fake news. While Zuckerberg denies that the fake news bubbles have influenced the presidential elections, his company at the same time makes tons of money selling exactly this persuasive power to advertisers.
Image Description | The Facebook reaction emojis and dislike (thumb-down) emojis, glasses in front of like buttons, and a man holding a smartphone with the Facebook logo in the background.
Image Tags | emojis, Facebook, logo, male(s), smartphone

Facebook unterscheidet "Lieben" und "Liken"

(Facebook differentiates between "love" and "like")

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Newspaper | Bayerischer Rundfunk
Date | 28.2.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, Facebook
Summary | Facebook has updated its "like" feature a year ago and now users have the opportunity to choose from a range of emojis to react to a post: love, laugh, suprised, sad, angry. Because this requires more clicks than a simple like, it can be inferred that users care more strongly about a post that they "reacted" to with an emoji. Facebook's algorithm is geared towards showing users much more content similar to the posts they reacted to.
Image Description | Photograph of a dog in a cone with the sad reaction emoji enlarged underneath.
Image Tags | emojis, Facebook

On rigole toujours mais on ne LOL plus

(We still laugh but we don't LOL anymore)

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Newspaper | 20 minutes
Date | 10.8.2015
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, Facebook, research/study, youth
Summary | According to a Facebook study investigating the different ways to translate “laugh” online, the use of “lol” is outdated. People prefer using “haha” or “hehe”, and 34% of participants would rather use emojis, especially young people. Only 2% of participants still use “lol”, and they are a little bit older; their average age is 30.
Image Description | Digital image of the "face with tears of joy" emoji.
Image Tags | emojis

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