Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 16
Posts 1 - 10

Ban mobile phones in schools to protect pupils' mental health

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 26.9.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, childhood, school, smartphone, threat
Summary | According to Shannon Turner, schools should ban smartphones to protect their pupils. Screens and social media can have a negative impact on children's health, which is why some schools have already put in place new rules (e.g. give children 6 hours of digital-free time).
Image Description | Photograph of two pupils in a classroom; one of them is showing her friend a smartphone and the other is giggling.
Image Tags | female(s), school, smartphone

Crackdown on Online Criticism Chills Pakistani Social Media

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 27.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, law, misunderstanding, social media, threat
Summary | The Pakistani government has passed a very strict law that prohibits any anti-government or anti-army posts on social media. Some people have already been arrested. They claim that their posts were not criticizing the armed forces and that it was all a misunderstanding. This is a huge issie when people get arrested for trivial tweets.
Image Description | Getty image of a protest.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), text

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)

Why Kids Can't Write

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 2.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | grammar, punctuation, school, smartphone, social media, spelling, texting, threat, word/writing
Summary | Many students struggle with writing despite various pedagogical models that have been implemented in past years to tackle that perpetual issue. This is all the more suprising considering that today's students may do moret voluntary writing than any generation before it. They text and post on social media a lot but the writing register is different there. The format's main principle is shortness so grammar, spelling, and punctuation take a back seat.
Image Description | GIF of a hand writing and a group of teachers in a workshop.
Image Tags | female(s), gifs, text

How can you protect your right to digital privacy at the border?

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 11.6.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | law, privacy, smartphone, threat
Summary | American customs now ask some flight passengers to give airport officers access to their digital devices. While it is still a rare case, some passengers are asked to turn on their smartphone/tablet/laptop to demonstrate that it is not hooked up to an explosive. They also check whether illegal data is being transmitted over the border on the hardware storage. Passengers are advised to clean their storage and store all their personal files on a cloud.
Image Description | iStock image of a woman using a smartphone at an airport.
Image Tags | female(s), smartphone

In the Apple Case, a Debate Over Data Hits Home

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 13.3.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | Facebook, law, politics, privacy, research/study, smartphone, threat
Summary | Apple's refusal to aide the FBI with breaking into the phone of the San Bernardino attacker has unleashed a political debate among Americans. IT experts as well as lay people report that they have had discussions about the topic with other people, some say they have had fights over Facebook with family members about the issue. Polls show that the American people are hugely divided on the topic: 42% think Apple should cooperate with the FBI while 47% support Apple's stance to protect user privacy.
Image Description | Getty image of a protest crowd showing a man holding up his smartphone with the text: "Don't turn our phones into FBI drones".
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone, text

Rumors on WhatsApp Ignite 2 Mob Attacks in India, Killing 7

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 25.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | fake news, law, threat, WhatsApp
Summary | In India, a piece of fake news has spread on WhatsApp. It said that a number of children were abducted in the region. Promptly, a mob has formed of over twenty people hunting down the alleged child abducters and murdering them. The police had however not recorded any cases of child abduction in the area.
Image Description | Image of people burying the dead after a mob attack.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

Diese drei Anwendungen sind besser als Whatsapp

(These three apps are better than WhatsApp)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 5.5.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | law, privacy, threat, WhatsApp
Summary | Brazil has just blocked WhatsApp in their country for 72 hours in order to for WhatsApp to share chats with their police in ciminal cases. It is unlikely that something like this will happen in Germany but it is good to know about some alternatives just in case... Especially since WhatsApp is not very trustworthy about user privacy. Threema is a Swiss app that alllows for user anonymity, Slack is a really good app to use with colleagues because files can be saved within group chats, and Telegram deletes inactive chats after a while so that there are no traces.
Image Description | Woman using a smartphone with headphones on the street.
Image Tags | female(s), headphones, smartphone

They don't learn the alphabet and won't have to sit an exam

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Newspaper | Mirror
Date | 2.2.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, brain, game, law, school, threat
Summary | A mother who homeschools their children lets them play video games for up to seven hours a day. Experts criticize this because excessive video gaming reduces the development of empathy and other important psychological and cognitive developments. They are clearly not receiving nearly as much educaton as children in the public school system. All this is however legal as homeschooled children do not need to follow the curriculum or sit standardized exams.
Image Description | Portrait of the mother with her three children all holding a video game controller.
Image Tags | female(s), game, male(s)

'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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