Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 20
Posts 1 - 10

Das Vong zum Sonntag

(The vong for Sunday)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 27.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | anglicisms, language threat, social media, texting
Summary | The German internet and social media have produced a new language in the last two years: the "vong" language, its main feature being an attributive construction of "vong (noun) her" which roughly translates to and the English phrase (noun)-wise with "vong" replacing the "-wise". It is a language between English and German, uses numericals wherever possible as is known from texting language and is highly influenced by hip hop jargon. Now a German artist has translated the Bible into vong-language.
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Notwendiger Twitter-Protest oder Vandalismus?

(Necessary Twitter protest or vandalism?)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 8.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, law, social media, threat, Twitter
Summary | A German artist protested Twitter's lax action upon hate comments on their platform by spraypainting hate comments from Twitter on the German Twitter headquarter building. Twitter only deletes 1% of user-reported hate comments. The German justice minister has also gone after social media companies and is threatening with very high financial sanctions if they do not comply with local laws that prohibit hate language.
Image Description | Image and tweets of the protester and of the justice minister.
Image Tags | male(s), Twitter

Dieser Hass auf das Netz ist lächerlich

(This hate online is ridiculous)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 29.10.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, fake news, law, social media, threat
Summary | People are writing books about how the internet and social media are the bane of democracy. Social media have however not created a new genre of bullying and hate lanuguage (just a new medium). It just enables everyone to see every hateful opinion that used to be hidden in peoples homes.The myth of the filter bubble is being spread by politicians and regular people alike but people have always liked to get the news they agreed with. No one subscribes to a newspaper that has the opposite political outlook. Also, contrary to popular belief, wrong doers on Facebook are being held accountable if the cross the line of what is legal and what is not.
Image Description | Getty image of zeros and ones with a pair of eyes.

Lehrer schreiben Manifest gegen verrohte Schüler

(Teachers write a manifesto against brutal language)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 6.9.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | brain, cyberbullying, language threat, school, social media, youth
Summary | Many German schools now report an increase in vulgar hate language among the students. They see the cause in the increased amount of hate language online on social media. This leads to less tolerance towards people with other opinions and more aggressive discussions. Neurological psychologists say that violent language influences the brain so that individuals who are exposed to it more readily use physical violence against others.
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Twittern am Rande des Nervenzusammenbruchs

(Twittering on the edge of a nervous breakdown)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 25.7.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, fake news, social media
Summary | News spread very fast over social media. Social media does however cannot discriminate between true and false. Users have to set their own filters: pay attention to credible sources and mute untrustworthy outlets. Psychologists claim that social media has contributed to the feeling most people have that catastrophes are followed by a never-ending strip of catastrophes.
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Das ist der wohl obszönste Username im ganzen Netz

(This is probably the most obscene username on the internet)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 13.6.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | censorship, politeness, privacy, research/study, social media, threat, word/writing
Summary | Many news media sources now tend to quote opinions from social media users rather than do polls out in the street. It is not uncommon to see an opinion of the "common people" in a newspaper article quoting an obscure social media username. The difference to the traditional technique of asking people on the street is that journalists needed to obtain consent of the people to quote them. One woman has now found a way to avoid being quoted without her consent: she chose a very obscene username including four words which are inappropriate enough so that they would have to be censored in a newspaper.
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Erst Kommentare, dann Brandsätze

(First comments, then arson)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 11.4.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, gender, social media, threat
Summary | Hate language online is huge. People seem to have no shame, even when they cannot hide behind an anonymous username. Even personal social media accounts post horrendous statements bordering on illegal content. Most hate language online comes from men. Many newspaper websites have deactivated the comment sections because they cannot handle the content of it.
Image Description | N/A

Der Shitstorm vom Fließband

(Shitstorms from the conveyor belt)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 3.4.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, politics, social media, threat
Summary | Social bots are becoming more frequent on social media. Some are quite believable, other not so much. Nevertheless they can reak quite some havoc on social media. They can be vocal supporters of an opinion and voice that opinion very stongly all the time, like in a shitstorm. They are responsible for much of the hate language online. Social bots can be assumed to have influenced political elections as they were used to push an opinion. The technology is similar to that of chatbots but they are designed to be assisting humans through conversational orders.
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Staatsschützer auf der Jagd nach Terroristen

(Police hunting for terrorists)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 24.3.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | Facebook, law, social media, threat
Summary | A special few officers in the German police have the task to keep an eye on potential terrorists. That includes assiduously keeping up with their Facebook posts. This way, the police can find out when people plan to take a trip or other suspicious activities. Potential terrorists are also found on Facebook - in interest groups. The German police has hired many speakers of Arab, Urdu, Bosnian, Russian, and French since 9/11 to be able to keep up with the Facebook posts of suspects.
Image Description | Charts showing how islamists have emigrated to Iraq and Syria and how many potential islamists live in Germany.
Image Tags | chart

Vong diesem Mann her kommt 1 neue Sprache

(Fromg this man comes 1 new language)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 16.6.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | language threat, meme, social media, spelling
Summary | A meme is floating around in social media spaces. The "Vong" language is parodying serious language by incorporation orthographical and grammatical mistakes as well as tautology. It has become incredibly popular on social media and has even appeared in Germans' spoken language and advertisements. Common features of it are replacing the indefinite articles "eine/ein" ("a") with a "1" and adding the phrase "vong... her" usually including a redundant tautalogical statement and the misspelled preposition "von". An example would be: "The weather is really nice, sun-wise." Here, the "sun-wise" is the tautological statement and it would also include an orthographical error in "Vong" language.
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