Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 15
Posts 1 - 10

Twitter to trial upping 140-character limit to 280 so you can say everything you want to say

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Mirror
Date | 26.9.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | Twitter
Summary | Twitter's 140-character limit is its signature, but the social network said that, as a test, they are going to try longer tweets (280 characters) with random users. Some people are strongly attached to the current limit and don't want it to change.
Image Description | Photograph of the Twitter logo on a woman's lips, finger touching the Twitter app icon on a smartphone screen, hand holding a smartphone displaying Twitter, screenshots of tweets, and Twitter logo.
Image Tags | hand(s), logo, smartphone, Twitter

Germany vs. Twitter

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 21.6.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | law, threat, Twitter
Summary | The German government demands that Twitter remove illegal content (some offensive language is illegal in Germany) from the platform within 24 hours. If they fail to do so, Germany threatens to fine them up to 50 million euros. Now social media platforms have begun deleting German accounts which are even just coming close to illegal content so as not to risk a fine.
Image Description | Hand holding a lens over the Twitter logo.
Image Tags | hand(s), logo, Twitter

Bizarre tweet, weird explanation

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Los Angeles Times
Date | 1.6.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | politics, Twitter
Summary | President Trump's latest Tweet seems to be interrupted mid-sentence featuring a mistyped word: "covfefe". The news media have been reporting about covfefe for hours with millions of people cracking jokes about it on Twitter and other social media. This alleged mistake (which was taken down after five hours) managed to dominate the political discourse in the US rather than any actual pressing issues like the Presidents possible ties to Russia.
Image Description | Sean Spicer at a press conference and Donald Trumps Twitter feed.
Image Tags | male(s), Twitter

What Happened to Who?

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 8.4.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | abbreviations, grammar, language threat, politics, Twitter
Summary | More and more politicians have begun replacing the relative pronoun "who" with "that" in sentences like ''people that come with a legal visa and overstay''. Although some dictionaries say this is an acceptable for, the New York Times' style sheet does not condone using "that" instead of "who". It denies the mentioned persons their humanity. This trend is unsurprising considering that our communication is increasingly happening on platforms like Twitter that only allow 140 characters so that we invent loads of abbreviations like "LOL" and "TTYL".
Image Description | Artwork copying Edvard Munch's "The Scream" and a few high-profile Tweets with spelling mistakes.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), Twitter

On Twitter, a Battle Among Political Bots

Hyperlink

Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 14.12.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, fake news, politics, Twitter
Summary | People on social media are often discussing/debating with bots when it comes to politics. A lot of bots are created to misinform the public (they are called protests bots or propaganda bots). During the 2016 US Presidential election, many tweets with the hashtag MAGA or CrookedHillary came from automated bots.
Image Description | Photograph of people at a rally for Trump, photograph of a street with many police cars, and screenshots of several tweets
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), Twitter

Meet the 'mega monk' changing our attitude to happiness, one tweet at a time

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 20.3.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, Facebook, smartphone, social media, Twitter, youth
Summary | A monk from Korea has gained a large following on Facebook and Twitter with short posts with life wisdoms. Many people respond to his preaching of mindfulness: the position that people should slow down and take the time to reflect on themselves and their emotional state without becoming obsessed. The monk thinks these little moments of mindfulness are nowadays more important than ever, when we tend not to interact with each other directly but only through smartphones.
Image Description | A bunch of portraits of the Twitter-famous monk in various surroundings and a few of his tweets.
Image Tags | male(s), Twitter

YouTube reverses some restrictions on LGBT-themed content following uproar

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 21.3.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | gender, misunderstanding, Twitter, YouTube
Summary | Much of the LGBT content on YouTube is hidden when using the restricted mode. This is a setting that few users use, some parents, schools, libraries, et cetera. This mode is supposed to block out violent, dangerous, or sexual content showing nudity. Many creators came forth on Twitter and criticized YouTube for blocking their videos in the restricted mode despite there being no nudity or violence. Just topics around sexuality and health. YouTube has been adamant about clarifying that this is a bug in the algorithm and that they are fixing it but have not given a comprehensive list of their guidelines that make content "sensitive" so that it would disappear in the restricted mode.
Image Description | Tweets and videos about this.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), Twitter, YouTube

Twitter brings IBM's AI machine Watson on board to fight abuse

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 23.3.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, cyberbullying, Twitter
Summary | Twitter are responding to growing criticism about the mass of abuse happening on the platform. The are launching a new artificial intelligence helper to detect abuse. His name is Watson and he is very good at understanding subtle meanings and intentions as well as analysis images.
Image Description | Reuters image of silhouettes holding smartphones in front of the Twitter logo,
Image Tags | hand(s), logo, smartphone, Twitter

School apologises for 'slut-shaming' prom posters about 'appropriate' dresses suggesting women 'to blame' for rape

Hyperlink

Newspaper | Mirror
Date | 31.3.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | gender, hashtags, school, social media, Twitter
Summary | A Florida school was widely criticized online after a student shared posters that were put up in the school depicting what appropriate women's prom dresses look like and what kind of dresses are inappropriate. These posters were labeled with "good girl". The outrage is around the mysoginist language (degrading women to girls) and the mere fact that women's styling of their bodies is strongly policed and tied to accountability in sexual harrassment cases. The internet responded with a hashtag on Twitter with many contributions and the school's administration has since apologized.
Image Description | Image of the school, the original tweet with the posters, then tweets with students wearing woman symbol t-shirts in protest.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), school, Twitter

How to see what Twitter thinks it knows about you

Hyperlink

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

Page 1 of 2
Back | Next