Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 20
Posts 11 - 20

‘Good Girl’ Prom Dress Fliers Draw Criticism for Florida School

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 30.3.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | gender, school, Twitter
Summary | One school's guidelines on what appropriate prom gowns entail went viral on Twitter because of the double standard that girls are subjected to such prescriptivism and also because the text accompanying the images was demeaning towards women. An image of a gown seen as appropriate is captioned with "good girl" resounding how one would talk to a dog rather than young women.
Image Description | Image of the bulleting board with prom dresses and Tweets about the school message.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), text, Twitter

Facebook says police can’t use its data for ‘surveillance’

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 13.3.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | Facebook, law, politics, privacy
Summary | Though Facebook's biggest source of revenue is advertising, they do cooperate with police investigators on a case-to-case basis. The government however has the option to subject Facebook users to mass surveillance in case of a disaster. "Disaster" is not defined so this gray are enables the government to misuse privacy agreements with Facebook at any given moment.
Image Description | Hand holding magnifying glass against a wall of Facebook logos.
Image Tags | Facebook, hand(s), logo

Twitter says it's cracking down on abuse (again)

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Newspaper | USA Today
Date | 7.2.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, politeness, threat, Twitter
Summary | Twitter has been struggling with trolls, racists, and sexists since its advent but now a new motivation has presented itself. When investors such as Disney pull back their offers, Twitter headquarters begin to seriously look into the matter again. Twitter did very little to combat users who are only on Twitter to insult other users - they can be suspended but it is impossible to keep them from creating another anonymous account. For now, users can choose to mute certain words, posts, or threads so that they don't receive notifications for hateful content.
Image Description | Photograph of a hand-held smartphone showing the Twitter icon.
Image Tags | hand(s), smartphone, Twitter

13 Super-Modern Signs Your Relationship Is Getting Serious

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Newspaper | Huffington Post
Date | 30.1.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | Facebook, Instagram, sexting, social media
Summary | The digital age has brought forth new little milestones for relationships: what used to be putting your girlfriend on speed dial may now be waiting for them to watch a new episode of your favorite TV show together. Other signs that your relationship is increasingly serious are when you text each other during day time not to make plans but to check in or share something, when your significant other's family want to befriend you on social media, when you appear in each other's Instagrams, when you make your relationship official on Facebook, or when you send each other nude selfies.
Image Description | A CNP Montrose image of intricately manicured hands using a Blackberry.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), smartphone, text

How To Completely Unplug From Your Smartphone For An Entire Day

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Newspaper | Huffington Post
Date | 3.6.2015
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | addiction, research/study, technology-free
Summary | We are all a little addicted to our technological devices and are so used to spending all spare time we have on our smartphones. It is however greatly beneficial to our body and mind to unplug completely for a day. We may not be able to fathom what we could do will all that time without technological devices but the author provides a long list of possible activities: cooking a well-balanced breakfast, reading an actual print newspaper or book, exercising, cleaning up, taking up a craft, playing with one's pets, meeting friends, or going on a day trip to explore.
Image Description | Getty images of people doing the suggested activities and one of a person photographing a sunset on their smartphone (described by tags).
Image Tags | camera, female(s), hand(s), smartphone

Hysteria Over Sexting Reaches Peak Absurdity

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Newspaper | The Atlantic
Date | 10.7.2014
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | law, sexting, threat, youth
Summary | The law’s classification of juvenile sexting as child pornography is illegitimate. Puts emphasis of legal prosecution on distinction between consensual vs. non-consensual sexting. Non-consensual sexting may then be seen as harrassment or exhibitionism in which case a restraining order could be issued rather than putting the minor who takes explicit pictures of him- or herself in prison and on the sex offenders list. The need to update child pornography laws to exclude consensual sexting among minors became very clear in a Virginia case where the police wanted to photograph a 17 year old suspects' erect penis for court evidence.
Image Description | Close-up photograph of a male-persons groin are with the genitalia covered by the hands.
Image Tags | hand(s), male(s)

Secrets of the Emoji World, Now With Its Own Convention

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 7.11.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis
Summary | An obscure committee called Unicode Consortium made up of various representatives of leading technological companies world-wide has the ultimate power over which content gets turned into emojis and which does not. An emoji convention (Emojicon) is organized in San Francisco, decorated with emoji-shaped balloons, beach balls, bean bags, emoji foods, people dressed up as emojis, and with many expert speakers from academia, the corporate world, as well as artists and designers. Many of them are unhappy with such a small unrepresentative group of a few (likely) middle-aged, white men should decide on which emojis are available to everyone around the world. The Unicode Consortium has too much power over the global visual language.
Image Description | A hand reaching into a pile of emoji cut-outs. A person dressed as the peach emoji being interviewed. Two people in costumes taking a selfie.
Image Tags | emojis, hand(s), selfie

WhatsApp Finally Adds Fully-Encrypted Video Calling Service

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Newspaper | Huffington Post
Date | 15.11.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | privacy, WhatsApp
Summary | WhatsApp announced that it will soon be possible to have end-to-end encrypted video calls. Since WhatsApp has been acquired by Facebook, they have been able to use Facebook's huge infrastucture which enabled them to include online calls and now video calls, too. Users seem very worried about government surveillance, especially now that Donald Trump has been elected. WhatsApp still keeps dossiers of their users' contact lists and other meta-data but not of the content of their messages. Initially in the WhatsApp/Facebook merger, the companies ensured users that their data of the two platforms would not be connected but their privacy policy has recently changed, breaking this promise.
Image Description | Getty image of a hand holding an iPhone with just a huge WhatsApp icon on it. A video explaining the new adjustments to WhatsApp's user privacy policy.
Image Tags | hand(s), smartphone

Dear Doc, :-(

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 18.1.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, texting, youth
Summary | Physicians report that their children who are away at college frequently text them to ask about symptoms such as throat aches or send them images of their swollen toes, turf burns, or their roommates' rashes. Given the fact that today's teenagers conduct an increasing amount of their social interactions over their smartphones, it is not surprising that they would seek medical counsel through that medium as well. Hospitals are already looking into possibilities of diagnosing certain ailments via digital communication in order to expand medical coverage to remote areas.
Image Description | Illustration of a smartphone taking an x-ray of a foot.
Image Tags | hand(s), smartphone

Why Handwriting Is Still Important

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 31.8.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | childhood, texting, word/writing
Summary | People are outraged after a journalist claims that handwriting is becoming a useless skill. Opponents are referencing instances where writing is unavoidable, such as signing a legal document, or is more appropriate, such as writing love letters or letters of condolence. Learning to write longhand is also very important for children to develop various skills.
Image Description | Black and white staged photograph from Getty: hand holding a pen and writing on a piece of paper.
Image Tags | hand(s)

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