Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 34
Posts 21 - 30

Emojis on council tax bills: Council puts crying face on residents' statements

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 14.12.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, law, politeness
Summary | Lambeth citizens are getting emojis on their tax correspondence with their local authorities. To be exact: crying face emojis. One resident tweeted her tax calculations with a crying face emoji next to het balance due. Many find this distasteful since many people struggle to pay their taxes and emojis are just inappropriate for government communication. Emojis are one of the fastest growing languages ever recorded in history and they have surpassed their precursors, Egyptian hieroglyphs, which took centuries to develop.
Image Description | Tweet showing the tax document with emoji.
Image Tags | emojis, Twitter

If manners maketh the man, then what is Donald Trump?

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 13.4.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | politeness, politics, social media, spelling, Twitter
Summary | One can dislike Donald Trump for many reasons, but for the author one of the main reasons is his overuse of capitalization in his Twitter posts as well as his carelessness (that he mixes up p's and q's). This carelessness translates directly into his general rudeness, his inaptitude for diplomacy, and the paradox in defending old values by spitting on political correctness which is technically just plain old politeness.
Image Description | Image of Donald Trump with his hands in front of his face and a portrait of the author.
Image Tags | hand(s), male(s)

How to Clean Up Instagram Comments

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 27.10.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, Instagram, politeness
Summary | Instagram is offering users new options to hide inappropriate comments. The setting aims at slurs, profanities, and other offensive words and phrases in English. One can also build a custom list of the words, phrases, and emojis one would like to block. If users still manage to get their comments through and be hurtful, they can be reported to Instagram.
Image Description | N/A

‘Unicorn Food’ Is Colorful, Sparkly and Everywhere

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 20.4.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | (mental) health, hashtags, Instagram, marketing, politeness, social media
Summary | Starbucks is cashing in on the 'unicorn food' trend - a trend to make all food colorful. The trend was likely sparked from a Florida-based Instagrammer who has now acquired a huge following. She noticed that her hobby had become a trend when people would copy her creations and Instagram them with the fitting hashtag. Now Starbucks has caught on the trend and they are offering a unicorm frappucino for five days only.
Image Description | Unicorn/rainbow foods and the Starbucks Unicorn Frappucino.

Twitter plans 'completely new approach to abuse'

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Newspaper | USA Today
Date | 8.2.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | politeness, Twitter
Summary | Twitter is now trying to combat trolling again because the general tenor of bad language on the platform is repelling investors such as Disney. Twitter's market value is tumbling but the company is scheduled to start profiting in 2017. New features have been set in place so that users can not only block other users but block them from tweeting about oneself, too. Other features are 'safe' searches and filtering 'low-quality' comments (just profanities) out.
Image Description | Portrait of Twitter CEO.
Image Tags | male(s)

Wikipedia is fixing one of the Internet's biggest flaws: Online comments sections

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 26.10.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | politeness, social media, threat
Summary | Comment sections on any internet page of social media platform are notorious for displaying the worst in people. Social media is designed in such a way that it shelters its users into 'ideological echo chambers' and the isolation effect of the internet liberates people to be cruel with their language. Wikipedia has somehow managed to have a fairly respectful forum culture on their website even though it has not always been like this.
Image Description | The Wikipedia logo multiple times.
Image Tags | logo, Wikipedia

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

Trash talking has reached a whole new level, and it's all thanks to social media

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 12.12.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, politeness, social media, threat
Summary | Politeness and basic human decency has gone out the window since the advent of social media. Complete strangers and even politicians swear at each other online for the whole world to see. Insults are very personal and with no inhibitions.Especially in sports, pre-game trash-talking is now documented online for eternity. Many athletes even exhibit their religiousness online by thanking God after a successful game.
Image Description | N/A

8 Etiquette Rules That Still Apply To The Workplace, According To Experts

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Newspaper | Huffington Post
Date | 30.1.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | email, politeness
Summary | Rules of politeness are very important even though people are becoming increasingly relaxed about them. LIttle gestures of respect can help one's career advancement in unexpected ways. One tip, mainly concerning millenials, is to never to delegate urgent tasks by email. One should rather just pay a quick visit to the colleague and tell them verbally what you need them to do quickly. Millenials seem to be particularly reluctant to talk to their co-workers and prefer to just email or text them.
Image Description | CNP Montrose image of an office space.

3 Ways To Properly Wish ‘Happy Birthday’

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Newspaper | Huffington Post
Date | 15.9.2015
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | politeness, social media
Summary | Wishing someone a happy birthday over social media is very pale in comparison to for instance staying up till midnight and surprising someone with a call or visit. Also a better option than wishing someone a happy birthday via social media is to give them a gift - it does not need to be expensive, bought, or material. All it takes is a thought. That said, happy birthday wishes via social media can be nice, especially if some thought was put into them. Posting a personalized e-card or an old photo of the birthday boy or girl (where they look good) is a nice gesture for instance. What should be avoided is not even taking the time to spell our 'happy birthday, XYZ' and writing something like 'HBD'.
Image Description | An image of a bouquet of roses with a 'Happy birthday' sign in them.

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