Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 13
Posts 1 - 10

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

Germany Tells Sites to Delete Hate or Pay Up

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 30.6.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, censorship, cyberbullying, Facebook, fake news, law, threat
Summary | Germany has the strictest policies when it comes to illegalizing slanderous, threatening, and extremist language from public spaces. Germany has just passed a law that allows them to fine Facebook as much as 57 million dollars if they do not remove offensive content quickly enough from the platform. While some may say this is censorship , German lawmakers claim that respectful online encounters are a necessity for free speech to thrive. Facebook is now working on improving the flagging process for offensive material and are also using artificial intelligence to remove fake news.
Image Description | Blurry man looking at a smartphone with the Facebook logo in the background.
Image Tags | Facebook, logo, male(s), smartphone

The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak, the Anonymous Messaging App

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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

Gesagt und getan

(Said and done)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 29.6.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, Facebook, law
Summary | The German justice department is demanding that Facebook comply to local laws. They are planning to instate a new law that forces Facebook to remove illegal content (for instance cyberbullying, etc.) within 24 hours after it being reported. Facebook must also react to German language reports.
Image Description | N/A

So gewaltig wie die Erfindung der Schrift

(As huge as the invention of writing)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 21.6.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, artificial intelligence, cyberbullying, Facebook, law, marketing, politics, threat
Summary | The digitalization is the most significant development of our time. Created for the democratization of information, it can however also be used for the opposite. The Chinese government are already using the internet as a means to survey their citizens and assess their loyalty. Artificial intelligence technologies are in place to calculate the shortest way to your destination, predict crimes, predict illnesses and cancer risks, as well as what book you will buy next. Amazon sends customers unsolicited products because the loss of having to return the product by mail is smaller than the profit of the customer keeping the well suggested item. Facebook has been created to connect people within a community but the platform cannot battle the hate language and cyberbullying to the extent that it influences presidential elections.
Image Description | Heisenberg media image of the author at a public speaking event with another man.
Image Tags | male(s)

Das Monster lebt

(The monster is alive)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 31.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | censorship, cyberbullying, Facebook, law, threat
Summary | Facebook is hiring thousands of new employees to battle cyberbullying on their platform and to remove offensive material as quickly as possible. But a couple thousand are not very many people to combat wrongdoings of 2 billion users. German politicians are trying to make Facebook comply with local laws about removing illegal content from the internet but Facebook is nowhere near fulfilling those requirements.
Image Description | A photograph of a man holding a smartphone showing the Facebook logo and the face of a monster.
Image Tags | Facebook, hand(s), logo, male(s), smartphone

Gesucht: Putzkräfte fürs Netz

(Wanted: cleaning personnel for the net)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 10.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, cyberbullying, Facebook, fake news, law
Summary | Facebook is hiring thousands of people to check their platform for offensive content. Artificial intelligence and algorhythms have proven to be incapable of dealing with all nuances of human communication. They were not able to reliably identify cyberbullying content and fake news. Facebook is admitting the boundaries of technological possibilities and now hiring humans to do the job.
Image Description | Reuters image of a hand holding a smartphone in front of a screen showing the Facebook logo.
Image Tags | Facebook, hand(s), logo, smartphone

"Wir können die Demokratie durch Schweigen verlieren"

("We can lose democracy by keeping quiet")

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 3.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, law, politics
Summary | Journalist Dunja Hayali is a strong critic of online hate. It is ever present for regular people as cyberbullying and becomes more problematic when political figures like Donald Trump do it. He routinely debases women, muslims, and Mexicans on Twitter and goes unpunished. Hayali has previously sued people for posting hate comments about her online and one of her cyberbullies has just been charged.
Image Description | Portrait of journalist Dunja Hayali.
Image Tags | female(s)

What The Fuck

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 16.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, law, politics, social media, Twitter
Summary | The social media employee of the police department Mannheim tweeted out information about a seeming terror attack: a car had hit multiple people in a pedestrian only zone. She had tweeted that the suspect had been arrested. Other Twitter users however started aggressively demanding more information about the suspect, i.e. his race, heritage, religion, etc. The social media worker was shocked at how quickly people on Twitter made this a speculative far right-wing political issue and at somepoint even commented "WTF" in response to one of these tweets at her. Meanwhile people on Twitter were outraged that the police Twitter account would use such language.
Image Description | N/A

'Stop trolling Travellers' says police chief who vows to track down anyone posting 'hate crime material' online

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Newspaper | Mirror
Date | 4.4.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, law, social media, threat
Summary | A regional police officer is prosecuting internet trolls that are hateful towards the traveller community online. Travellers are being more accepted and visible in communities and granted to stop but people are still very hateful towards them on the internet and on social media. This is especially harmful to children in the traveller community because it keeps them from taking pride in their heritage.
Image Description | A portrait of the police officer, of the chair of the National Alliance of Gypsy Traveller and Roma Women, and images of Traveller camps.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

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