Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 94
Posts 71 - 80

Google's future is useful, creepy and everywhere: nine things learned at I/O

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 18.5.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, Google, privacy, threat
Summary | Google presented their new technology and their main focus is artificial intelligence. Google's Assistant is now proactively listening and making suggestion (for instance to leave the house early because of traffic) without users having to activate it by saying "OK Google". It will also be available accross devices. Google are attempting to replace Siri on Apple devices. Google's Assistant is much better developed in being able to understand colloquial commands. They are also working on connecting their Assistant with the camera, so that one could hold up the phone to a restaurant and get reviews about that restaurant pulled up. This has huge potential for making the lives of visually impaired people easier.
Image Description | Reuters and Getty images of Google CEO Sundar Pichai, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, and the Google Assistant home speaker.
Image Tags | female(s), Google, male(s), YouTube

Facebook reportedly testing new tool to combat fake news

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 6.12.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | Facebook, fake news, threat
Summary | Facebook is apparently looking into ways to combat fake news spreading on their platform. They have had to face much criticism because of this. Users have started getting little survey questions after clicking on news media links posted on Facebook asking them to evaluate how trustworthy the article is. It is not known what Facebook will do with the results of this poll.
Image Description | Getty image of the Facebook logo on various screens and a tweet.
Image Tags | Facebook, logo, male(s), Twitter

Exhausted students 'crying in toilets and breaking down in class' over 'unfair' new GCSE grading system

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Newspaper | Mirror
Date | 9.5.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, Facebook, politics, school, threat
Summary | A student has posted a rant about changes to the GCSE exam system making it yet more difficult. She describes how the whole student body has mental health issues since the changes were announced and just how ridiculous the expectations are. Her post has been shared almost 30'000 times by agreeing parents, teachers, and fellow students. Many commenters support her criticism while others show no understanding claiming that tests are meant to be hard.
Image Description | Getty images of someone writing with a pencil, and two images of exam situations, as well as a screengrab of the original Facebook rant.
Image Tags | Facebook, female(s), male(s), school

App lets doctors trade photos of patients for advice

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 11.12.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, social media, threat, WhatsApp
Summary | Many doctors often consult with each other when they are unsure how to treat a patient. This becomes a problem when they share images of patients without their consent on unsafe platforms such as WhatsApp. Now a safer platform has been developed where registered doctors can pool their expertise. Especially doctors working with refugees who don't speak their language find this incredibly useful.
Image Description | Refugee children and women wrapped in blankets.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

2016: the year Facebook became the bad guy

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 12.12.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, Facebook, fake news, law, threat
Summary | 2016 has been a bad year for Facebook. Many scandals surrounded the company. It became clear that Facebook is now longer just an advertizing machine with access to almost 2 billion people world-wide but that it also curates what news media most of these people perceive - whether Facebook wants to accept this or not. They no longer just have to deal with sensoring nudity and human rights violations content but also fake news. While Zuckerberg denies that the fake news bubbles have influenced the presidential elections, his company at the same time makes tons of money selling exactly this persuasive power to advertisers.
Image Description | The Facebook reaction emojis and dislike (thumb-down) emojis, glasses in front of like buttons, and a man holding a smartphone with the Facebook logo in the background.
Image Tags | emojis, Facebook, logo, male(s), smartphone

No, WhatsApp can't get you 'free internet without WiFi' - don't fall for the scam

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Newspaper | Mirror
Date | 16.1.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | threat, WhatsApp
Summary | Scammers are trapping people on WhatsApp with the offer of free internet service abroad without wifi. Users ought to be careful. Usually in these scams, users are sent a link from an unsuspecting contact which leads them to a website where they have to enter their personal data (which will be used to profit from them) and asked to share the link with a number of contacts to get the service.
Image Description | Getty image of a woman frowning at a smartphone with a WhatsApp icon in the background and some screenshots of the scam message and the website.
Image Tags | female(s), logo, smartphone, WhatsApp

Tackling abuse on social media is a monumental task - but billion dollar companies should be up to it

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 15.3.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, cyberbullying, law, social media, threat
Summary | Social media have a huge problem with trolling, cyberbullying, and sharing of criminal content. It is however extremely difficult for providers to find such content before it is reported or seen by many. Especially in verbal abuse, the line between joking and slander is blurred and human language is too messy to be able to flag down such instances with algorhythms.
Image Description | Getty image of the Facebook logo on a hand-held smartphone and a laptop and a photograph of a screen showing the Twitter logo.
Image Tags | Facebook, hand(s), logo, Twitter

Dear Coleen: My grandchild is exposed to sexually explicit web

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Newspaper | Mirror
Date | 30.3.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | childhood, Snapchat, social media, threat
Summary | A concerned grandparent does not know what to do about their 8 year old granddaughter. Her mother poorly supervises her digital activities and is a bad example in promiscuity. The 8 year old girl has a Snapchat and various other social media profiles where she exhibits adult language as well as speaks romantically/sexually about male celebrities. An expert agrees that this behavior is indeed inappropriate for her age and that something needs to be done like get in touch with one of the many governmental and other help organizations.
Image Description | Getty image of a girl using a laptop.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, female(s)

Sexting: A language our children must never learn

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Newspaper | Daily Telegraph
Date | 20.4.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | abbreviations, childhood, sexting, technology-free, threat, youth
Summary | Youths are using abbreviations to keep their parents out of the loop like LMIRL (let's meet in real life). The police have published a list of these to help parents monitor their children. It is sad that children and teenagers have such low self-esteem that they do anything to receive validation from their digital peers. This is not just youth culture or rap music's fault but rather the parent's fault. They are always busy and spend too much time on their smartphone rather than gracing their children with face-to-face attention and smartphone-free activities.
Image Description | Getty image of a teenage boy smirking at a smartphone.
Image Tags | male(s), smartphone

An app to stop a blazing row? No thanks...

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 20.4.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | online dating, addiction, threat, youth
Summary | There seems to be an app for everything nowadays, As if this generation of smartphone addicts needed to digitalize any more aspects of their lives. Our relationship were digitally invaded with Tinder ( a statistic says that 30% of people on there are married). Now there is even an app that monitors our emotional responses when fighting with our partner via a bracelet which functions as a stand-in robot counsellor.
Image Description | Alamy image of a fighting couple (woman verbally attacking man).
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

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