Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 6
Posts 1 - 6

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)

The 'empowered consumer' doesn't get much say

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 16.4.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | marketing, privacy, social media, threat
Summary | The perceived multiplication of choices in consumer culture, for example when buying a plane ticket (optional luggage fees, insurance fees, prioritized boarding fees, etc.), just looks like an advantage for the consumer on the surface. In the end, we end up paying more and giving away our data. The data will in turn be used to milk consumers even further by knowing to which advertisements they are particularly susceptible.
Image Description | Airport check-in area.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

Just how separated are we? Two cross-country hitchhikers use social media to prove it’s just four degrees

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 9.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | social media, threat, youth
Summary | Two millennials, Ari Gootnick, 23, and Oliver Shahery, 22, went on a road trip to see whether new technology and social media have changed our relationships and "shrunk the world". They showed that people are much more connected than they think they are. Through the project, the millennials are trying to prove that people are only four degrees of separation from other people. During their trip, they have seen close and long-lost friends as well as complete strangers. They also documented their whole trip on social media and said that the borders between physical and digital interactions are fluid.
Image Description | Three hotographs of both millennials in front of the Capitol in D.C., next to a car, and in the White Sands in N.M.
Image Tags | male(s)

In search of 'lulz,' trolls hijack civic engagement

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 7.11.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, politics, social media, threat
Summary | Internet culture's sense of humor has become careless. A meme was recently circulated in Pennsyvania that said that one could vote online by just commenting the name of their candidate. Even though this was a joke, it was dangerously close to disenfranchising people of their votes. In the same way some people post anti-semitic or racist/sexist things and then claim to just do it to combat the tyranny of political correctness and not really meaning any harm. Such content however promotes extremism and is harmful - no matter the intentions.
Image Description | Man holding up Hillary Clinton toilet paper.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

The Resistance

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 27.12.2015
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, smartphone, threat
Summary | The rapid development of new media has many people worrying about the 'end of the human era' especially with advancements in the development of artificial intelligence. We are constantly connected with our smartphones and are hardly ever 'in the moment'. Driving and texting is illegal but it still causes many accidents. The EU are passing a law for "the right to be forgotten" forcing search engines to suppress ambarrassing content from an individual's past. Many people are worried about government and other surveillance, leading them to use encrypted instant messaging services and cover up their webcams with duct tape. A resistance is developing lead by techno-skeptics.
Image Description | Portraits of individuals mentioned in the article: Astra Taylor & Jaron Lanier.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

Please, don't silence your cellphones

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 16.4.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | smartphone, technology-free, threat
Summary | AMC's entertainment chief executive commented that they are considering letting moviegoers use their smartphones in AMC theaters. The reasoning behind this statement being that it is no longer possible to tell young adults today to put away their smartphones for two hours. This statement was met with a lot of public anger about smartphones entering even the sanctity of the cinema. AMC quickly rectified the statement saying that texting will not be allowed in their theaters in the foreseeable future.
Image Description | Illustration of a (abstracted, faceless) movie theater audience on top of a huge smartphone screen.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone

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