Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 24
Posts 11 - 20

What Chatbots Reveal About Our Own Shortcomings

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 24.4.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, marketing, misunderstanding, threat, Twitter
Summary | Artificial intelligence is the new big thing but it is mostly geared towards commercial services like ordering pizza, etc. Microsoft for instance proudly announced that their AI assistant can now even understand slang inputs. But this way of learning from actual users has shown to be risky when Microsoft released their AI robot Tay on Twitter and people trolled them by teaching Tay offensive things.
Image Description | Illustration and a GIF of smartphones typing.
Image Tags | gifs, smartphone, text

The Week in Tech: Facebook Live, a More Civil Reddit and Yahoo’s Odd Deal-Making

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 9.4.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, cyberbullying, Facebook, marketing, politeness, Twitter
Summary | Reddit has for the first time in its existence enabled users to block other users from commenting. This enables censorship of less desirable opinions. Twitter landed the exclusive deal to live stream a football game on their platform, a deal Facebook was initially after since they are better known for their LiveStream service than Twitter. This is a high-profile marketing campaign for Twitter. Also, Yahoo is trying to sell itself.
Image Description | An image of a smartphone showing a livestreamed interview.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone

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.
Image Description | N/A

China Disrupts WhatsApp Service in Online Clampdown

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 18.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | censorship, Facebook, Google, Instagram, privacy, threat, Twitter, WhatsApp
Summary | The Chinese government has partly shut down the use of WhatsApp within their borders. The app is widely used around the globe and was used by some in China do communicate with people outside of Chine with end-to-end encryption. Other popular social media platforms and internet sites like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are blocked under the "Great Firewall" in China.
Image Description | Woman using a smartphone and women standing in front of Facebook and Instagram logos as well as emojis.
Image Tags | emojis, Facebook, female(s), Instagram, logo, smartphone

Counting Characters in Twitter

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 10.3.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | texting, Twitter
Summary | Why does Twitter only allow a limit of 140 characters? When Twitter was created, they decided to develop a system that would mirror the SMS system with its 160-character limit. They tried to do that, but they also needed space for the sender's username and the colon that precedes the tweet. Maybe Twitter will increase the limit in the future.
Image Description | N/A

Using Twitter's New Mute Powers

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 24.11.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | Twitter
Summary | Since 2014, Twitter has had a mute button that lets users filter a particular user's content. Now, Twitter users can use the mute function to filter specific words, hashtags, emojis, or whole conversations.
Image Description | N/A

On Twitter, a Battle Among Political Bots

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 14.12.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, fake news, politics, Twitter
Summary | People on social media are often discussing/debating with bots when it comes to politics. A lot of bots are created to misinform the public (they are called protests bots or propaganda bots). During the 2016 US Presidential election, many tweets with the hashtag MAGA or CrookedHillary came from automated bots.
Image Description | Photograph of people at a rally for Trump, photograph of a street with many police cars, and screenshots of several tweets
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), Twitter

For Many Women, Trump's 'Locker Room Talk' Brings Back Memories of Abuse

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 11.10.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | hashtags, politics, Twitter
Summary | After a recording of Donald Trumps "locker room talk" leaked, a woman took Twitter and shared a personal story of sexual harassment and urged other women to do the same. Within a few days 27 million women responded and the hashtag #notokay became the marker for the thread. All of these singular examples demonstrated that they were not singular and that Donald Trump is wrapped up in and oblivious to the fact that his "harmless" locker room talk is perpetuating rape culture.
Image Description | Portraits of women who posted under the hashtah #notokay.
Image Tags | female(s)

United and Pepsi Affairs Force Brands to Respect Social Media

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 13.4.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | marketing, politics, social media, Twitter
Summary | Companies are becoming ever more aware of how powerful the "data tsunamis" transmitted on social media really are. Some are installing real-time social media response screens where they can track their brand image on social media. Many companies have increased their social media up to five times in the past two years. These social media analysts track trends and determine whether the company's marketing should jump on the bandwagon or whether the trend is on the decline already. Controversies can also hurt companies when they become viral, for instance the recent United Airlines incident or the insensitive Pepsi advertising. Social media staff are made aware that when they communicate with one customer on Twitter, they have a public audience, even if it is through the messenger because screenshots can get shared too.
Image Description | Carl’s Jr restaurant.
Image Tags | male(s)

None of Us Are Safe From Getting ‘Owned’

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 28.3.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | privacy, social media, Twitter, word/writing
Summary | Much communication on social media and especially Twitter revolves around criticizing. One frequently used term is 'owning' - one can 'own' a hater or troll when exposing some compromising information about them or something that they did not realize. The word hails from hacker culture of the early internet days when 'owning' meant to hack into someone else's virtual space and snoop around.
Image Description | Illustration of a lock made out of an ethernet cable.

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