Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 9
Posts 1 - 9

Facebook Faces a New World as Officials Rein In a Wild Web

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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

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

Facebook Will Use Artificial Intelligence to Uncover Extremist Posts

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 15.6.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, censorship, Facebook, politics, threat
Summary | Facebook has been urged by both users and politicians to do more to combat extremist content on their platform. It is Facebook's responsibility to monitor the content they allow so as not to provide a safe space for extremists. Facebook has announced that they plan to employ artificial intelligence to help them flag extremist content.
Image Description | An image of a man and blurry silhouettes standing under a Facebook logo.
Image Tags | Facebook, female(s), logo, male(s)

Father in Thailand Kills 11-Month-Old Daughter Live on Facebook

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 25.4.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, censorship, Facebook, law, threat
Summary | Since Facebook has enabled its livestream functions many crimes have been broadcasted on Facebook. Facebook still struggles to take such offensive content down. Recently a man livestreamed himself killing his daughter and the recording stayed online for twenty hours. Facebook needs to improve its artificial intelligence mechanism to flag such content faster.
Image Description | Reuters image of people crying.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

Facebook lets streams of depravity flow freely

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 19.4.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, Facebook, fake news, law, pornography, privacy, threat
Summary | Facebook is facing many criticisms about its poor enforcement of basic standards of content on the platform. Multiple violent live streams have been uploaded to Facebook in the past in it always took Facebook too long to take them down. Their algorithm to weed out pornography has backfired when they censored a historic photograph of a napalm victim from the Vietnam War because it registered as child pornography. After much denial, Facebook are finally taking steps against fake news spreading on their platform. All this may be called censorship but without moderation there can be no free speech because bullies dominate the discourse.
Image Description | N/A

The big myth Facebook needs everyone to believe

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 28.1.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, diversity, Facebook
Summary | With its huge number 1.5 billion users, Facebook struggles not to impose American ideologies on the majority of their users, 80% of whom are not from the USA. Facebook claims not to promote culturally specific moral positions but just provides a neutral space for people to connect. This statement has shown to be faulty when Facebook made the mistake to suggest to their Spanish users that bullfighting is controversial enough for it to be reported as inappropriate content. Bullfighting is, however, a federally acknoledges national heritage in Spain so there are definitely American moral judgments being imposed here. Facebook should admit to the fact that they help shape public discourse.
Image Description | iStock photo of a Facebook-like hand symbol holding money and a screenshot of an image posted on Facebook.
Image Tags | Facebook, hand(s)

Germany springs to action over hate speech against migrants

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 6.1.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, cyberbullying, Facebook, law, politics, social media
Summary | Facebook has recently decided to comply with German law rather than their own corporate policies when it comes to hate language on their platform contributed by users from Germany. Germany is very strict about prohibiting hate language against minorities. Critics say this is a step in the wrong direction towards censorship.
Image Description | Protest crowd holding a canvas.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), text

The Week in Tech: Facebook Live, a More Civil Reddit and Yahoo’s Odd Deal-Making

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 9.4.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, cyberbullying, Facebook, marketing, politeness, Twitter
Summary | Reddit has for the first time in its existence enabled users to block other users from commenting. This enables censorship of less desirable opinions. Twitter landed the exclusive deal to live stream a football game on their platform, a deal Facebook was initially after since they are better known for their LiveStream service than Twitter. This is a high-profile marketing campaign for Twitter. Also, Yahoo is trying to sell itself.
Image Description | An image of a smartphone showing a livestreamed interview.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone

China Disrupts WhatsApp Service in Online Clampdown

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 18.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, Facebook, Google, Instagram, privacy, threat, Twitter, WhatsApp
Summary | The Chinese government has partly shut down the use of WhatsApp within their borders. The app is widely used around the globe and was used by some in China do communicate with people outside of Chine with end-to-end encryption. Other popular social media platforms and internet sites like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are blocked under the "Great Firewall" in China.
Image Description | Woman using a smartphone and women standing in front of Facebook and Instagram logos as well as emojis.
Image Tags | emojis, Facebook, female(s), Instagram, logo, smartphone

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