Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 7
Posts 1 - 7

Tech’s sexism doesn’t stay in Silicon Valley. It’s in the products you use.

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 8.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, artificial intelligence, diversity, gender, research/study
Summary | Slicon Valley has been entangled in scandals around sexism and racism recently. Many innovations incorporate artificial intelligence which means that the software learns from data reflecting our social reality but which are biased. This leads to issues like image recognition not recognizing black people as humans but as gorillas because the data the program learned from included predominantly white people. A similar case is a health app that tracked various physical paramenters but not the menstrual cycle thereby disregarding a large proportion of the female population.
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In a Tiny Digital Icon, Big Aspirations

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 27.5.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis, Twitter
Summary | A new emoji representing the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags was added to Twitter; this digital recognition was significant. Emojis are everywhere and everyone uses them; they have become an important part of our communication. The new emoji was added to Twitter on a special day: during Australia's 50th anniversary of the vote to include indigenous people in the national census. The new emoji can thus be shared easily. Although adding the new emoji might seem insignificant, an associate professor of indigenous studies says that adding the flags represents an important move by Twitter.
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Apple Welcomes New Faces To Its Growing Emoji List

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 18.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis
Summary | Apple shared a preview of a set of its 12 new emojis. Some of the new emojis are a woman wearing a hijab, a breastfeeding woman, a face throwing up, a zombie, and a sandwich. Apple's goal has been to be more diverse and inclusive, which is why we'll be able to use a hijab or breastfeeding emoji. There are several requirements to meet in order to see a new emoji on our keyboard: compatibility with emojis in other social media platforms and expected level of use.
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Gaymoji: A New Language for That Search

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 14.3.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis, research/study, sexting
Summary | The dating app Grindr caters to gay men and is now adding specific emojis - called Gaymojis - to their app. They have noticed that 20% of the messages sent on their platform contain emojis so they are providing emojis specific to the gay dating experience such as a peach with a phone (= bootycall) or an eggplant with a ruler (= well endowed). One linguist says that emojis may take some pressure off of the content of the conversation. Instead of thinking of something to say, emojis just signal that 'I am here and I am interested'.
Image Description | Portrait of the Grindr owners, the Grindr office in LA, and some Gaymojis.
Image Tags | emojis, male(s)

Get Ready, Here Comes Generation Z

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Newspaper | Huffington Post
Date | 11.4.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | brain, diversity, research/study, youth
Summary | The next generation consisting of people born between 1996-2012 is being researched so that college mentors know how to interact with them. This "Generation Z" has a short attention span of ca. 8 seconds, is very competent at multi-tasking, position themselves as global citizens interconnected with various people digitally, and have entrepreneurial ambitions with a strong preference for financial security over pursuing a passion.
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Mitú grows fast, furious with its Snap alliance

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Newspaper | USA Today
Date | 22.2.2017
Language | German
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | diversity, Facebook, smartphone, Snapchat, YouTube
Summary | The video entertainment company Mitù which is geared towards authentic representation of latinos and latinas on various social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and now Snapchat. They have seen some growth since beginning to broadcast on Snapchat. They also noticed that they can build more intimacy with the viewers by not filming in a horizontal format since most their viewers watch their videos from a smartphone and a horizontal video layout creates a distance.
Image Description | Portrait of the person in charge of Mitù's Snapchat presence.
Image Tags | female(s)

This ‘Homoji’ Keyboard Brings Queer Shorthand To Your Text Messages

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Newspaper | Huffington Post
Date | 16.2.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis, social media
Summary | A new emoji keyboard is available: Homoji. It includes emojis relevant to the gay community and culture such as 'gym bunnies' or 'otters' which are type-identifiers in the male gay community. Other emojis include colorful pieces of text of the words 'slay' or 'yaas'.
Image Description | A preview of the new available homojis.
Image Tags | emojis

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