Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 7
Posts 1 - 7

Der Herr der Smileys

(The Lord of Smileys)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 29.7.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | computer programming, emojis, misunderstanding, translation
Summary | The Unicode chief, Mark Davis, assesses which new emojis make it into the Unicode which all major tech firms use. Anyone can propose an emoji but they have to argue why it is a globally significant symbol. They are then written into the Unicode which is a computer code that works for all languages. Tech firms then choose the font for the letters and emojis in which these symbols appear on their devices. Tech companies have chosen more similar emoji fonts over the last years to avoid misunderstandings between devices of different providers if the emojis are displayed differently.
Image Description | Portrait of the interviewee Mark Davis.
Image Tags | male(s)

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

Social Insecurity? internet Turns Boomers Into Twits

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 5.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis, Facebook, misunderstanding, research/study, youth
Summary | Elders are coming to Facebook and it's not pretty. Most young people find their older relatives' activities on Facebook cringey because they appear to regress back into their younger selves which is somehow undignified for the elderly. They also sometimes use wrong emojis because they tend to be too small for them to properly see. Young people are moving on to other platforms.
Image Description | Images of Cher, Donald Trump, and Larry King as well as some of their Tweets.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), Twitter

Die Frau, die ungewollt mit Emojis ein Haus mietete

(The woman who inadvertently rented a house with emojis)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 24.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, law, misunderstanding
Summary | The debate around whether emojis count as words or seriously meaningful content is very heated - not only in academics but also in law. The Oxford English dictionary only reheated that fire by choosing an emoji as word of the year. Multiple law cases have centered on misunderstandings around emoji use, most recently a case where a woman indicated interest in renting a house with emojis (flamenco dancer, dancer girls, squirrel, comet, a victory sign, and a bottle of Champagne). The house owner sued her for using misleading emojis after she decided not to rent the house after all.
Image Description | An image of a woman's hand holding a smartphone and picking out an emoji and a portrait of the Israely judge who worked on the emoji case.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), hand(s), male(s), smartphone

Am I using this emoji right, or did I accidentally just sext someone?

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 17.2.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | emojis, misunderstanding, sexting
Summary | The Daily Mail released a list of emojis with double meanings. Some seemingly innocent emojis might in fact have another X-rated meaning. For instance, the mailbox emoji can mean "sex". You can use any emoji to talk about sex, but some are being used more than others. For example, the eggplant emoji is now widely accepted as a way to represent a penis. Most emojis can have a double meaning; they can be interpreted at face value or mean something completely different.
Image Description | Photograph of a man scratching his head, Twitter video of a man explaing the hidden meanings of emojis, and screenshots of tweets.
Image Tags | emojis, male(s), Twitter

Google ad controversy: what the row is all about

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 17.3.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | Google, marketing, misunderstanding, YouTube
Summary | The new automized online advertising sale process is causing problems. Many advertisers are unhappy because their ads have appeared next to inapproproate content. Then YouTube has tried to classify more content as inappropriate. Because this flagging process is also partly automatizes, many videos with LGBT content or other innocent content are being discriminated against.
Image Description | A Getty image of a Google sign and a graphic about how programmatic advertising works.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, Google, male(s)

YouTube reverses some restrictions on LGBT-themed content following uproar

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 21.3.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | gender, misunderstanding, Twitter, YouTube
Summary | Much of the LGBT content on YouTube is hidden when using the restricted mode. This is a setting that few users use, some parents, schools, libraries, et cetera. This mode is supposed to block out violent, dangerous, or sexual content showing nudity. Many creators came forth on Twitter and criticized YouTube for blocking their videos in the restricted mode despite there being no nudity or violence. Just topics around sexuality and health. YouTube has been adamant about clarifying that this is a bug in the algorithm and that they are fixing it but have not given a comprehensive list of their guidelines that make content "sensitive" so that it would disappear in the restricted mode.
Image Description | Tweets and videos about this.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), Twitter, YouTube

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