FT.com [paywall]: The Internet Archive’s mission is to ‘provide universal access to all knowledge’. Within the partitions of a lovely former church in San Francisco’s Richmond district, racks of laptop servers hum and blink with exercise. They comprise the web. Well, a really great amount of it. The Internet Archive, a non-profit, has been gathering… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Social Media
A new history of YouTube argues that the video-streaming service created the template for the online attention economy
The New Yorker – “…According to the company, the site has more than two billion monthly “logged-in” users. In a given twenty-four-hour period, more than a billion hours of video are streamed, and every minute around five hundred hours of video are uploaded. The torrent of content added to the site has helped establish new… Continue Reading
The High Cost of Living Your Life Online
Wired: “To be online is to be constantly exposed. While it may seem normal, it’s a level of exposure we’ve never dealt with before as human beings. We’re posting on Twitter, and people we’ve never met are responding with their thoughts and criticisms. People are looking at your latest Instagram selfie. They’re literally swiping on… Continue Reading
How TikTok Tracks You Across the Web, Even If You Don’t Use the App
Consumer Reports: “Almost every website you visit collects information about what you’re doing and sends it off into the tech industry’s data analyzing machinery, where it is used for online advertising. For years, Google and Facebook (now known as Meta) have dominated that advertising business, and conducted a lot of the data gathering. But lately,… Continue Reading
How to scrub your phone number and address from Google search
Washington Post: “From a simple Google search, strangers can dig up your phone number, physical address or other personal information. You might not want that floating around the internet — or its presence could be putting you in danger. Now, Google says it’s making it easier to request that information be removed from search results.… Continue Reading
Deep state phobia: Narrative convergence in coronavirus conspiracism on Instagram
Tuters, M., & Willaert, T. (2022). Deep state phobia: Narrative convergence in coronavirus conspiracism on Instagram. Convergence, 28(4), 1214–1238. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221118751 “Recent scholarship has established that conspiracist narratives proliferated in mainstream online discourse during the coronavirus pandemic. This proliferation has been provocatively characterized as a ‘conspiracy singularity’ in which previously divergent conspiracy narratives converged into a… Continue Reading
Is This the Beginning of the End of the Internet?
The Atlantic: “Occasionally, something happens that is so blatantly and obviously misguided that trying to explain it rationally makes you sound ridiculous. Such is the case with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’s recent ruling in NetChoice v. Paxton. Earlier this month, the court upheld a preposterous Texas law stating that online platforms with more… Continue Reading
AI can now create any image in seconds, bringing wonder and danger
Washington Post: “Since the research lab OpenAI debuted the latest version of DALL-E in April, the AI has dazzled the public, attracting digital artists, graphic designers, early adopters, and anyone in search of online distraction. The ability to create original, sometimes accurate, and occasionally inspired images from any spur-of-the-moment phrase, like a conversational Photoshop, has… Continue Reading
Google is making it easier to find search results from Reddit and other forums
Engadget: “Google is making it easier to find search results from Reddit and other forum sites. The search engine is adding a new module that will surface discussions happening on forums across the web for queries that may benefit from crowd-sourced answers. The “discussions and forums” module will surface relevant posts from sites like Reddit… Continue Reading
How to Share a Tweet on LinkedIn
Make Use Of: “Want to share a tweet you saw on Twitter to LinkedIn? Whether it is your own tweet, a news story, or helpful job advice, here’s what to know about how to share a tweet to LinkedIn..” Continue Reading
US politicians tweet far more misinformation than those in the UK and Germany
The Conversation: “Politicians from mainstream parties in the UK and Germany post far fewer links to untrustworthy websites on Twitter and this has remained constant since 2016, according to our new research. By contrast, US politicians posted a much higher percentage of untrustworthy content in their tweets, and that share has been increasing steeply since… Continue Reading
Controversial Artist Matches Influencer Photos With Surveillance Footage
Smithsonian Magazine: “It’s an increasingly common sight on vacation, particularly in tourist destinations: An influencer sets up in front of a popular local landmark, sometimes even using props (coffee, beer, pets) or changing outfits, as a photographer or self-timed camera snaps away. Others are milling around, sometimes watching. But often, unbeknownst to everyone involved, another… Continue Reading
