Number of Posts: 13
Posts 1 - 10
Facebook Faces a New World as Officials Rein In a Wild Web
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 17.9.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, Facebook, marketing, privacy, social media, threat
Summary | Facebook’s head of global policy management recently agreed to remove anything that violates the Vietnamese law from the social network. Governments around the world (even in the US) are increasingly trying to keep control of what's happening online. As a result, governments and big tech companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook or Amazon don't always agree with each other. On the one hand, big tech companies want to have more control and power, and on the other hand, nations want to gain more control over people's online behvior. Facebook's desire to expand everywhere (e.g. in China) is one of the reasons for today's struggle between tech companies and nations. Facebook also faced some issues in Europe and Africa.
Image Description | Photograph of people using computers in a computer room, map of Facebook's users, two women laughing in front of a board displaying social media icons, Mark Zuckerberg and other people running in China, Mark Zuckerberg, his wife and daughters, glass building, people in front of a thumb-up sign, woman, crowd (some of them are using their phones), and people on their computers.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, Facebook, female(s), male(s), smartphone, social media
How Hate Groups Forced Online Platforms to Reveal Their True Nature
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 21.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, politics, social media, threat
Summary | Ever since the fatal Unite the Right protest in Charlotteville, social media and other internet companies seem to be washing their hands from any connection with far-right groups. Facebook has deleted such groups off of their platform, Reddit has done the same, Spotify is deleting white supremacist music from their libraries, and so on. Now far-right groups are building online alternatives for themselves and lamenting the censorship they have been victimized by.
Image Description | Illustration of hands around some crumpled-up paper.
Image Tags | hand(s)
A Hunt for Ways to Combat Online Radicalization
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
Crackdown on Online Criticism Chills Pakistani Social Media
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 Rise and Fall of Yik Yak, the Anonymous Messaging App
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 27.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | childhood, cyberbullying, law, privacy, social media, threat, youth
Summary | The anonymous messaging app Yik Yak became very popular in colleges and schools because it lets people broadcast anonymously to other users near them. The activity on the app has however started to become thretening with college students and children bullying each other and people making bomb threats that have led to multiple evacuations. A feminist group from University of Mary Washington have filed complaint to the University to block Yik Yak on campus because it has been used to harrass and threaten members.
Image Description | An illustration with a face and a smartphone and an image of the creators of Yik Yak.
Image Tags | male(s), smartphone
Names of the Brussels Victims Emerge Online, One by One
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 24.3.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | Facebook, social media, texting, threat
Summary | In the aftermath of the Brussels airport terrorist attacks, cell phone service was unreliable so people worried about their loved one's went on social media in search for missing persons. Entire bulletin boards were created on Facebook where people posted pictures of the missing family members and friends. Shortly after, deaths were being published on Facebook and other social media.
Image Description | A Getty image showing the airport evacuation in Brussels and Twitter posts with pictures of missing persons.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), Twitter
Review: When the Digital World Is Judging Your Every Thought
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 17.3.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | marketing, politics, social media, threat
Summary | The new novel "I Hate The Internet" by Jarett Kobek poses a lot of interesting questions about how social media is affecting our society. The main question is: why is everyone willingly giving away their intellectual property on platforms owned by for-profit corporations? How did these capitalist platforms become to be perceived as the most appropriate space to exercise one's freedom of speech? Wannabe social activists think they are helping a cause by posting provocative comments on social media but few people are getting active for real social change.
Image Description | Image of the book and a portrait of the author holding a giant plush emoji.
Image Tags | emojis, male(s)
Obama Shifts Online Strategy on ISIS
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 9.1.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, law, politics, social media, threat
Summary | President Obama is sending his representatives to California to speak to the major social media platforms in order to find ways to stop ISIS from recruiting new members on social media. The terrorist organization has proven to be very successful on social media and stopping their success on social media is a good proactive measure in defeating ISIS. Removing threatening content from social media however always risks being likened to censorship.
Image Description | Portrait of an Apple representative.
Image Tags | male(s)
Why Kids Can't Write
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
How I Learned to Love Snapchat
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 22.5.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | Snapchat, social media, texting, threat
Summary | The texting revolution, as with other major and rapid technological advances, has inspired moral panic. People think that we are becoming less social. It might be true, but we should also look at the advantages of new technologies. For instance, texting has allowed a whole generation to be free from the "stricture" and "inconvenience" of phone calls. Snapchat is one the latest technological trends and it goes beyond words. It's the most well realized way of expressing meaning. With texting, people tried to find ways to approximate normal human conversations (e.g. typing awareness indicator, or read receipt), but they are almost as awkward as phone calls. The author of the article talks about voice memos and the fact that they are becoming more popular. She also talks about Snapchat and how different it is from other social networks; Snapchat is the place where you can be yourself.
Image Description | N/A
Page 1 of 2
Back |
Next