Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 337
Posts 1 - 10

How silicon valley is erasing your individuality

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 10.9.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, privacy, threat
Summary | Google and other major tech companies are trying to increase their monopoly and reach every area of our lives. It seems that those companies can now do anything; they are all competing to become the best personal assistants. Thanks to artificial intelligence softwares, they want to be constantly by our sides and never leave us. Major tech companies believe we are all "social" beings. Therefore, they try to create "social" platforms where we can all collaborate. They think that by bringing us together, they will make a better world. When it comes to individuality and free will, tech companies know what they're doing. They have algorithms that tell us/suggest what to buy, what to read, or what to do. The dominance and monopoly of big tech companies can be dangerous; it can lead to conformism and privacy issues.
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Slain teen's mother urges Congress to amend Web law

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 20.9.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | law, pornography, threat, youth
Summary | The mom of a 16-year old teenage girl who's been murdered testified about her daughter. Desiree Robinson was 16 and was on Backpage.com. The alleged killer used Backpage.com to find young girls with whom he could have sex. The pictures that Desiree posted online were the reason that led to her death. Senator Rob Portman introduced a new bill that will end immunity for websites that host prostitution-related advertising. Online sex trafficking is a serious issue and we need to do something to fight it.
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Violent thriller won't have many clicking 'like'

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 22.9.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, Facebook, social media, threat
Summary | The movie "Friend Request" is about the danger of social media and Facebook anxiety. The movie is unlikely to be popular though. In the movie, Laura is a popular college student and has a lot of Facebook friends. When Laura unfriends Marina, a shy student who posts a lot of gothic animations, Marina kills herself. The movie plot is a good idea, especially in the age of social media, but the movie fails to develop its characters.
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Antiabortion group accuses Twitter of blocking its ads, censoring images

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 23.9.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, social media, Twitter
Summary | Twitter has been accused of blocking antiabortion ads and asking to remove "sensitive content" from its social network platform. The antiabortion group (Live Action) claims that Twitter does not respect its policy to host "unfiltered debate". Other major tech companies such as Facebook or Google have been accused of crossing the line by censoring content and blocking posts from their platforms. According to Live Action, everyone should be able to share their ideas and opinion.
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In test, Twitter to double character limit

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Newspaper | USA Today
Date | 27.9.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | Twitter
Summary | Twitter is going to test tweets in 280 characters with a small group. The 140-character limit has been Twitter's most distinctive characteristics; some people don't want it to change. However, it is sometimes hard to express oneself in only 140 characters. Tweets in Japanese, Korean or Chinese are different; users don't need as many characters as tweets in English or French, for example. If people have more room to express themselves, they will tweet more, which is what Twitter wants.
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For this company, online surveillance leads to profit in Washington’s suburbs

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 10.9.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis, privacy, social media, threat
Summary | Babel Street is a startup that uses online surveillance; they try to get private information from online platforms in order to catch cybercriminals. For instance, police departments might use the service provided by the company in their investigations and scan posts online. Experts try to track dangerous criminals while analyzing posts in more than 200 languages, including the emoji language. Emoji has actually been a challenge for analysts. Another challenge the company faces is to make sure sure it doesn't violate people's privacy.
Image Description | Photograph of a man standing in a news room in front of several TVs, and two other people.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

Twitter testing longer tweets to boost its appeal

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Newspaper | Los Angeles Times
Date | 27.9.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | social media, Twitter
Summary | Twitter announced a new test: they are going to try to let a group of users tweet with a limit of 280 characters. Twitter's current limit (140 characters) was actually based on the SMS, but now many Twitter users feel constrained by the current limit. Twitter thus hopes the new limit of 280 characters will make things easier for users. Twitter has struggled to remain competitive next to Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook; they all offer other attractive features.
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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

China Blocks WhatsApp, Broadening Online Censorship

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 25.9.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, threat, WhatsApp
Summary | The messaging app WhatsApp has been blocked in China. WhatsApp -which is owned by Facebook- was the last of Facebook products available in China. Indeed, both Facebook and Instagram are unavailable in China. To block the messaging app WhatsApp, the Chinese government may have created a special system that can intercept WhatsApp messages. Because of censorship in China, users have to turn to other messaging apps that can be easily controlled by the Chinese government (e.g. WeChat). When WhatsApp was blocked, many Chinese users complained.
Image Description | Photograph of a man staring at his phone.
Image Tags | male(s), smartphone

Test your millennial knowledge with this mindless, fun game

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 6.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis, game
Summary | In the new app/game called "guess the emoji", users need to guess the meaning of emojis. Although the game is mindless and perhaps stupid, it is still fun.
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