Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 2
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A Hunt for Ways to Combat Online Radicalization

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 23.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | Google, research/study, social media, threat, YouTube
Summary | Social media companies have only recently begun waking up to the fact that their unpoliced platforms are safe spaces for all kinds of extremism. Studies show that extremists nowadays get radicalized online, whether they be islamists or white supremacists. While these two movements may differ in ideologies, they resemble each otehr very strongly in their internet strategies of recruitment and organization of offline events. A research group at Google has now come up with a diversion strategy to combat the radicalization of individuals online. They target people who watch extremist recruitment videos on YouTube with video suggestions that present differing arguments and the downsides of that ideology. So far, there can be no knowing whether this strategy is helping but the redirection videos are being watched.
Image Description | GIF with mouse cursor arrows: black arrows surrounding a white arrow.
Image Tags | gifs

Popular People Live Longer

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 1.6.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, research/study, social media
Summary | Resent research has shown that popularity significantly improves one's longevity due to many genetic, psychological, and evolutionary reasons. This may explain why so many people value their popularity on social media, i.e. how many followers, retweets, or likes they get. That is however not the kind of popularity that significantly improves one's chances at a long life. That requires a stable and large social surrounding with nurturing relationships.
Image Description | Illustration of a tombstone saying "not enough likes" with a thumbs down symbol.
Image Tags | emojis, Facebook

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