Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 60
Posts 21 - 30

Der Shitstorm vom Fließband

(Shitstorms from the conveyor belt)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 3.4.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, politics, social media, threat
Summary | Social bots are becoming more frequent on social media. Some are quite believable, other not so much. Nevertheless they can reak quite some havoc on social media. They can be vocal supporters of an opinion and voice that opinion very stongly all the time, like in a shitstorm. They are responsible for much of the hate language online. Social bots can be assumed to have influenced political elections as they were used to push an opinion. The technology is similar to that of chatbots but they are designed to be assisting humans through conversational orders.
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Facebook, schlimm!

(Facebook, terrible!)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 26.3.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | Facebook, politics, threat
Summary | Facebook is seen as the root of all evil. The shift to more right-wing politics has happened because of Facebook. Such conclusions are questionable at best since a) Hitler did not have Facebook and managed to create a fascist regime without it and b) because the practice of scapegoating new media is as old as time.
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Staatsschützer auf der Jagd nach Terroristen

(Police hunting for terrorists)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 24.3.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | Facebook, law, social media, threat
Summary | A special few officers in the German police have the task to keep an eye on potential terrorists. That includes assiduously keeping up with their Facebook posts. This way, the police can find out when people plan to take a trip or other suspicious activities. Potential terrorists are also found on Facebook - in interest groups. The German police has hired many speakers of Arab, Urdu, Bosnian, Russian, and French since 9/11 to be able to keep up with the Facebook posts of suspects.
Image Description | Charts showing how islamists have emigrated to Iraq and Syria and how many potential islamists live in Germany.
Image Tags | chart

Wie Facebook unsere Sprache ausspähen will

(How Facebook wants to spy on our language)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 11.3.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, Facebook, research/study, word/writing
Summary | Facebook is planning to systematically keep track of linguistic innovations on their platform. They want to compile a slang dictionary ("social glossary") with the freshest expressions. Linguists are also very interested in this project. American linguist Gretchen McCulloch has already posed the research question what verbs and nouns will enter our speech for the new Facebook emoji reactions. We already speak of likes and liking something but how will we speek of users reacting with sad or angy emojis?
Image Description | Image of an eye reflecting a Facebook like symbol and a tweet by linguist Gretchen McCulloch.
Image Tags | Facebook, Twitter

Schon bald werden wir uns in Roboter verlieben

(We will be falling in love with robots pretty soon)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 2.2.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, threat
Summary | Robots with artificial intelligence are supposed to enter our lives in 2016. They are already being used in factories but now they are being designed as household helpers. Most of them show humanoid features. This is dangerous because it may cause humans to empathize with robots and even develop strong feelings for them.
Image Description | Images of a series of AI robots.

Der schleichende Niedergang der SMS

(The creeping descent of text messages)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 2.2.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | abbreviations, texting, WhatsApp
Summary | Texting has revolutionized our mobile communication in teh 1990s. Text messages have created a culture of abbreviations that we have kept going until today. The text message is however slowly going extinct. WhatsApp and other similar instant messaging apps are taking over because they do not charge per message. They do not charge at all - the only thing needed is a device with internet connection.
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Arabische Frauen wehren sich gegen sexuelle Gewalt

(Arab women defend themselves against sexual violence)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 17.1.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | diversity, Facebook, gender, law, politics
Summary | Two women from Palestine have created a Facebook group called "Tuskuteesh" ("break the silence") where they want to give Arab women a space to tell their storiess of sexual violence. Much sexual violence goes unpunished in the Arab world because the perpetrators are often family members.
Image Description | Image of the Tuskuteesh Facebook logo and the cover of a book written by one of the group creators.
Image Tags | female(s)

Englisch gut. Deutsch mangelhaft

(English good. German bad.)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 29.10.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | language threat, school, youth, YouTube
Summary | Today's youth have much better foreign language competencies in English than previous generations. That could have many reasons related to changes in the educational system but one reason is certainly that they are becoming global citizens digitally. They don't want to miss out on anything on Netflix or YouTube because their English is too poor so they tend to know English quite well.
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Die gefährlichen Nebenwirkungen der totalen Vernetzung

(The dangerous side effects of the complete network)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 29.10.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, politics, social media, threat, WhatsApp
Summary | In this age of massive amounts of data being generated every day, we face a lot of dangers. We are at greater risk of being ideologically radicalized because the social media only show us content that we like and even so, there is too much information being thrown at us that we can even comprehend. There is no protection against online slander and bullying. People are becoming reluctant to take political offices because of it. We should be mindful of our data use in the same way that we try to minimize our energy use. We waste a lot of our concentration on irrelevant WhatsApp messages.
Image Description | An @-sign made our of a lit bomb fuse and a compilation of Facebook sites.
Image Tags | Facebook

"Hallo Echo"

("Hello Echo")

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 27.10.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, privacy
Summary | Amazon's artificial intelligence assistant Alexa can now be tested in Germany as well. It functions very well in English but it can also be used in German, it will however take a while longer for Alexa to work well in German. Each new use gives the AI system new experience to learn from. It is voice-activated and can give users various information, manage their calenders, set alarms, or order items off the internet. Many people are worried about privacy issues.
Image Description | N/A

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