Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 15
Posts 1 - 10

Extremists driven off Facebook and Twitter targeting smaller firms

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 12.7.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | Facebook, law, social media, threat, Twitter
Summary | Small social media networks don't have the same resources as big social media platforms to fight terrorists. Because platforms such as Facebook or Twitter can quickly block accounts supporting terrorism, extremists need to find other "smaller" platforms.
Image Description | Photograph of a hand using a laptop.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, hand(s)

Notwendiger Twitter-Protest oder Vandalismus?

(Necessary Twitter protest or vandalism?)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 8.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, law, social media, threat, Twitter
Summary | A German artist protested Twitter's lax action upon hate comments on their platform by spraypainting hate comments from Twitter on the German Twitter headquarter building. Twitter only deletes 1% of user-reported hate comments. The German justice minister has also gone after social media companies and is threatening with very high financial sanctions if they do not comply with local laws that prohibit hate language.
Image Description | Image and tweets of the protester and of the justice minister.
Image Tags | male(s), Twitter

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

The Internet Is Where We Share - and Steal - the Best Ideas

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 6.6.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | addiction, law, meme, social media
Summary | Intellectual property is difficult to defend on the internet. Memes go viral and the origin is hard to track down. Recently even Hollywood snagged an idea off of social media where users began developing an idea for a movie based on a picture of Rihanna and Lupita Nyong'o. Social media users try to be creative and share their ideas on these platforms because it is addicting if other users respond positively.
Image Description | Illustration of a bunch of @ and copyright signs.
Image Tags | text

The Rise and Fall of Yik Yak, the Anonymous Messaging App

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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

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

Hinter dem Hashtag #BlauerWal steckt eine verstörende Geschichte

(A disturbing story hides behind the hashtag #BlueWhale)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 18.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, hashtags, law, social media, threat, youth
Summary | Currently, a man is on trial in Russian courts for supposedly urging 15 teenagers to commit suicide. The case is connected to the #BlueWhale challenge that is said to circulate online on social media. It is a lethal game where one person gives another increasingly self-destructive tasks. Apparently, psychologically fragile teenagers are targeted online.
Image Description | Getty image of a blue whale and images of a man being arrested and in trial with his face pixellated.
Image Tags | male(s)

What The Fuck

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 16.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, law, politics, social media, Twitter
Summary | The social media employee of the police department Mannheim tweeted out information about a seeming terror attack: a car had hit multiple people in a pedestrian only zone. She had tweeted that the suspect had been arrested. Other Twitter users however started aggressively demanding more information about the suspect, i.e. his race, heritage, religion, etc. The social media worker was shocked at how quickly people on Twitter made this a speculative far right-wing political issue and at somepoint even commented "WTF" in response to one of these tweets at her. Meanwhile people on Twitter were outraged that the police Twitter account would use such language.
Image Description | N/A

Family ties: how to get parents involved in children's learning

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 24.2.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | childhood, Facebook, school, social media
Summary | It is important to involve parents in their children's education so that it continues after school is over. A way to do this is to assign homework that involves parents or involve parents in a school day. However, not all parents have time for this because they work a lot. Another way to keep parents involved in their children's schoolwork is sharing it with them on social media. There are programs to share photos or classwork videos with parents.
Image Description | Alamy image of a woman and a girl looking at an molecule model.
Image Tags | female(s)

School apologises for 'slut-shaming' prom posters about 'appropriate' dresses suggesting women 'to blame' for rape

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Newspaper | Mirror
Date | 31.3.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | gender, hashtags, school, social media, Twitter
Summary | A Florida school was widely criticized online after a student shared posters that were put up in the school depicting what appropriate women's prom dresses look like and what kind of dresses are inappropriate. These posters were labeled with "good girl". The outrage is around the mysoginist language (degrading women to girls) and the mere fact that women's styling of their bodies is strongly policed and tied to accountability in sexual harrassment cases. The internet responded with a hashtag on Twitter with many contributions and the school's administration has since apologized.
Image Description | Image of the school, the original tweet with the posters, then tweets with students wearing woman symbol t-shirts in protest.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), school, Twitter

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