Wired: “AI-generated writing is now all over the internet. The introduction of automated prose can sometimes change a website’s character, like when once beloved publications get purchased and overhauled into AI content mills. Other times, however, it’s harder to argue that AI really changed anything. For example, look at LinkedIn. The Microsoft-owned social media site… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Social Media
Two Hundred Million Bluesky posts scrapped by 2 different groups
Failla A, Rossetti G (2024) “I’m in the Bluesky Tonight”: Insights from a year worth of social data. PLoS ONE 19(11): e0310330. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310330 “Pollution of online social spaces caused by rampaging d/misinformation is a growing societal concern. However, recent decisions to reduce access to social media APIs are causing a shortage of publicly available, recent,… Continue Reading
Remember Nuzzel? A similar news-aggregating tool now exists for Bluesky
Nieman Lab: “The creator of Sill says “the death of the link” has had disastrous consequences for journalism, art, and the web. His free social media tool entered public beta on Friday. The link collection tool Sill is now available to all Bluesky and Mastodon users, the app’s creator Tyler Fisher announced on Friday. If… Continue Reading
Meta loses ground to Bluesky as users abandon Elon Musk’s X
Financial Times [unpaywalled] – “Meta’s Threads is losing ground to social media start-up Bluesky in capitalising on the exodus of users from Elon Musk’s X following Donald Trump’s election. Since election day, app usage of Bluesky in the US and UK skyrocketed by almost 300 per cent to 3.5mn daily users, according to data from… Continue Reading
Study suggests X turned right just in time for election season
The Register – “Significant uptick in visibility for Musk, Republican account posts from July 13 – A pair of researchers say they’ve determined that July 13 was likely the day that X, formerly known as Twitter, made platform-level algorithm changes that increased the visibility of posts made by Elon Musk and Republican-leaning accounts in the… Continue Reading
This Bluesky Tool Makes It Easy to Find Accounts You’ll Want to Follow
Lifehacker: “Bluesky Network Analyzer looks at the people you’re already following, and then looks at the people they’re following to give you personalized recommendations…As I’ve also previously noted, the value you’ll get out of Bluesky is wholly based on who you follow there, since it isn’t really powered by an algorithm trying desperately to keep… Continue Reading
Is it Over Now (Social Media Version)?
The Scholarly Kitchen: “…For many years now, Twitter has been our leading social media source of referrals of readers. But over the last year, LinkedIn has started to catch up, and over the last 90 days, LinkedIn referrals surpassed those from Twitter, and are now bringing us 1.65 times as many readers. Bluesky remains far… Continue Reading
The rise of Bluesky, and the splintering of social
MIT Technology Review: “..Last year, we put “Twitter killers” on our list of 10 breakthrough technologies. But the breakthrough technology wasn’t the rise of one service or the decline of another. It was decentralization. At the time, I wrote: “Decentralized, or federated, social media allows for communication across independently hosted servers or platforms, using networking… Continue Reading
America’s News Influencers
The creators and consumers in the world of news and information on social media – In the heat of the 2024 election, news influencers seemed to be everywhere. Both Republicans and Democrats credentialed content creators to cover their conventions – and encouraged influencers to share their political messages. Influencers also interviewed the candidates and held fundraisers… Continue Reading
The Death of Critical Thinking Will Kill Us Long Before AI
Joan Westenberg: “…In the bite-sized content and viral media age, too many of us have lost — or are losing — the focus and patience for lengthy, complex texts. We skim and scan instead of closely reading. Our attention spans have shrunk to mere seconds. While technology has enabled the wide dissemination of information, it has also fragmented our… Continue Reading
Americans Are More Likely to Choose News That Supports Their Beliefs
This New Study Reveals Why. [The Debrief]: “A new study published in Communication Research suggests that people often prefer news that aligns with their existing beliefs, a tendency known as “selective exposure.” According to the new research, this habit is particularly noticeable in the United States, where partisan divides and “echo chambers” are becoming more… Continue Reading
A computational analysis of potential algorithmic bias on platform X during the 2024 US election
A computational analysis of potential algorithmic bias on platform X during the 2024 US election. [Working Paper] (Unpublished) – This technical report presents findings from a two-phase analysis investigating potential algorithmic bias in engagement metrics on X (formerly Twitter) by examining Elon Musk’s account against a group of prominent users and subsequently comparing Republican-leaning versus… Continue Reading
