Number of Posts: 10
Posts 1 - 10
Twitter founder: Trump presidency is product of short attention spans
Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 13.9.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | politics, social media, threat, Twitter
Summary | Evan Williams, one of Twitter's founders, claims that Donald Trump's online behavior is showing how social media platforms are making us dumber. Indeed, social networks are based on short attention spans, and they also undermine open-mindedness and our sense of truth. According to Williams, advertising models are to be blamed.
Image Description | Portrait of Donald Trump.
Image Tags | male(s)
Invasion of the troll armies: from Russian Trump supporters to Turkish state stooges
Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 6.11.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | fake news, politics, threat
Summary | Thousands of trolls out there are pretending to be someone else. They spread fake news and write fake texts in exchange of some money. For instance, Russian people were paid by their government in order to pretend to be Trump's supporters. In China, the practice is common; the government pays people to manipulate social media. The article lists other examples such as Russia, Ukraine, Israel, the UK, North and South Korea, and Turkey.
Image Description | Image of military men (their faces has been replaced by thumbs up), image of someone using a laptop, two social media illustrations
Image Tags | computer/laptop, male(s), social media
Jeremy Corbyn on Snapchat: where are the lols, Jezza?
Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 10.5.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | politics, Snapchat
Summary | Jeremy Corbyn has been using Snapchat for his campaign, but so far he's mostly been using the same old campaign trail images. In order to win the young vote, he could be doing a lot more. Also, Snapchat shouldn't be used for formality.
Image Description | Collage of 6 of Corbyn's snaps, and screenshot of one of his "dull" snaps displaying a bus emoji
Image Tags | emojis, male(s), Snapchat
The rise and rise of international diplomacy by WhatsApp
Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 4.11.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | politics, privacy, texting, WhatsApp
Summary | WhatsApp diplomacy is a thing: when leaders gather to talk in the same room, they can exchange emojis and other documents to other people without the whole room knowing. WhatsApp is more secure than other government information systems and has been used at the UN and EU headquarters.
Image Description | Photograph of a group of diplomats looking at their phone, screenshot of a WhatsApp chat, photograph of a man holding a phone and a woman standing next to him (both are looking at the phone)
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone, text, WhatsApp
Germany threatens to fine social media companies €50m for hate speech and fake news
Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 14.3.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | Facebook, fake news, law, politics
Summary | Germany is threatening to sue Facebook should it not do something against abuse and fake news on its platform. Germany has very strong defamation laws so Facebook needs to regulate its content if they want to stay in Germany. A new mechanism to flag fake news has been developed.
Image Description | Reuters image of many Facebook logos under a magnifying glass and a portrait of Germany's Justice Minister Heiko Maas.
Image Tags | Facebook, hand(s), logo, male(s)
No, wealth isn't created at the top. It is merely devoured there
Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 30.5.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | politics, social media, threat
Summary | The new rising technology firms like Facebook, Airbnb, and Uber are the new class of rentiers. The do not create anything new, they claim control over goods and services and cash in on transactions made on the platform they provide. That is all they do: provide a platform. It is only profitable because people willingly share content and offer their services on these sites. But these firms also have not invented the technology (internet, computer devices, etc.): that technology was developed with the tax payer's money. So technically they are just selling and reselling already existing goods - like a rentier.
Image Description | Getty image of a protester, an iPhone, the Facebook campus, a bunch of bank signs, and a Mexcan capitalist.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone, text
Boaty McBoatface shows we shouldn’t always listen to the public, says Bank of England chief economist
Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 31.3.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | politics, word/writing
Summary | The public should not always be asked. In the public poll about the name for a new research ship the name Boaty McBoatface won with 80 per cent of the votes - this as an example of how internet crowds can develop "madness". Similarly, the public should not be allowed to vote on financial politics they do not understand. Bankers also have to learn to break down their language so that common people understand what they mean. "Prices and jobs" will resonate much better with the broad public than "inflation and employment". Also, the fewer adjectives and adverbs there are, the easier the message is to understand.
Image Description | Image of a ship, a banker, and an empty marmite shelf.
Image Tags | male(s)
Exhausted students 'crying in toilets and breaking down in class' over 'unfair' new GCSE grading system
Newspaper | Mirror
Date | 9.5.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, Facebook, politics, school, threat
Summary | A student has posted a rant about changes to the GCSE exam system making it yet more difficult. She describes how the whole student body has mental health issues since the changes were announced and just how ridiculous the expectations are. Her post has been shared almost 30'000 times by agreeing parents, teachers, and fellow students. Many commenters support her criticism while others show no understanding claiming that tests are meant to be hard.
Image Description | Getty images of someone writing with a pencil, and two images of exam situations, as well as a screengrab of the original Facebook rant.
Image Tags | Facebook, female(s), male(s), school
Nextdoor broke the social network mold. Could political ads make it just like Facebook?
Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 5.5.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | politeness, politics, social media
Summary | A small but growing social media platform called "Nextdoor" caters to neighborhood exchanges. Neighbors are encouraged to define their neighborhoods and exchange useful information like good dentists and other public services or police activity in the neighborhood. They have explicitly defined that the rapport on the platform is supposed to be civil and pragmatic so the general tone is very polite, also because users' identities and addresses are confirmed (no anonymity). The platform urges users to report rants defining them linguistically as "ALL CAPS, excessive punctuation, provocative language, judgmental accusations, or repetitive explanations."
Image Description | A portrait of Nextdoor's CEO.
Image Tags | male(s)
If manners maketh the man, then what is Donald Trump?
Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 13.4.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | politeness, politics, social media, spelling, Twitter
Summary | One can dislike Donald Trump for many reasons, but for the author one of the main reasons is his overuse of capitalization in his Twitter posts as well as his carelessness (that he mixes up p's and q's). This carelessness translates directly into his general rudeness, his inaptitude for diplomacy, and the paradox in defending old values by spitting on political correctness which is technically just plain old politeness.
Image Description | Image of Donald Trump with his hands in front of his face and a portrait of the author.
Image Tags | hand(s), male(s)
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