Number of Posts: 10
Posts 1 - 10
Facebook Faces a New World as Officials Rein In a Wild Web
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
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
Germany Tells Sites to Delete Hate or Pay Up
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
Like Father Like Son, Using Twitter as a Foil To Skewer Political Foes
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 30.6.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | politics, Twitter
Summary | Both President Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. like to use Twitter to control the media narrative about the Trump administration. When the newspapers print a story that they do not like, they respond to it on Twitter. They claim that many readers also take to Twitter to get their news when they feel that the traditional media outlets are not reporting an a neutral enough manner.
Image Description | Donald Trump Jr. taking a picture on his smartphone.
Image Tags | male(s), smartphone
The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak, the Anonymous Messaging App
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
The Smartphone’s Future: It’s All About the Camera
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 30.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | privacy, smartphone, translation, virtual reality
Summary | Now that smartphones are as thin and as fast as possible, they need to develop into another realm. The camera will be used in new ways to, for instance, improve privacy by unlocking your phone by showing your face. Another innovation is the possiblity of taking a picture of a restaurant menu and having it instantly translated. Augmented reality also relies on the camera enabling users to, for instance, project a 3D model of a piece of furniture they want into a picture of their living room to see what it would look like.
Image Description | Illustration showing a smartphone scanning a woman's face.
Image Tags | female(s), smartphone
How to Protect Your Privacy as More Apps Harvest Your Data
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 2.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | law, marketing, privacy, smartphone, threat
Summary | Many smartphone apps can be used for free, or rather one does not have to pay money to use it. However, if the app is not from a non-profit organization, users pay in some other way that may be obscure to them. Usually free for-profit apps collect data abou their users that they can sell to advertisers. The only way to protect oneself from this is to carefully read the terms and conditions, even if they are in legalese. If one does not like the level of privacy provided by an app, the only certain way to avoid data exploitation is not to download the app.
Image Description | Illustration of a hand holding a smartphone where eyes are hidden behind the app icons.
Image Tags | hand(s), smartphone
China Disrupts WhatsApp Service in Online Clampdown
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
As Elites Switch to Texting, Watchdogs Fear Loss of Transparency
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 6.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | law, politics, privacy, threat, WhatsApp
Summary | The powerful elites are using the end-to-end-encrypted WhatsApp to communicate sensitive information. Such strategies are adopted by politicians, high-profile representatives of major companies, and Wallstreet banker. The latter are lawfully obligated to save all communications for possible inspection but WhatsApp enables them to escape that law.
Image Description | Image of a man talking on the phone and another man reading some paperwork.
Image Tags | male(s), smartphone
Snapchat Discover Takes a Hard Line on Misleading and Explicit Images
Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 23.1.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | Snapchat, threat, youth
Summary | Snapchat is making greater ethical demands to news publishers on the Discover page. News media posting on Snapchat's Discover page are asked to only post material that is fact-checked and objective and to refrain from using sexually explicit or violent images that are not newsworthy for shock value. In response to a complaint about minors being exposed to inapproriate material on Snapchat, Snapchat ask media outlets who publish on their platform to put age-restrictions on their posts so that mature content is only seen by people who have signed up as adults on Snapchat.
Image Description | Screenshot of the Snapchat Discover page.
Image Tags | smartphone, Snapchat
Page 1 of 1