Wednesday, January 15

SOCIAL MEDIA

What’s This Hashtag Thing All About?
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SOCIAL MEDIA

What’s This Hashtag Thing All About?

The Entrepreneur's Beginner's Guide to Hashtags. How a Few Words Can Increase Social Media Engagement. I'm sure you've noticed there's no shortage of social media techniques and tips out there! But have you also noticed the majority of those tips focus on general info, like how to get more followers or likes, or how to post compelling content to engage your users? Those resources are important, but I notice that sometimes hashtags get forgotten about. They're rarely mentioned in marketing articles, but they're such a great tool for building your brand, raising awareness around marketing campaigns and engaging/entertaining your audience. How Do Hashtags Work? If you're new to social media, I know it can seem overwhelming. You may have seen these words with the # in front of them on...
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Lost In Meta’s ‘Average User’ Data – The Thousands Of Vulnerable People Harmed By Facebook And Instagram
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SOCIAL MEDIA

Lost In Meta’s ‘Average User’ Data – The Thousands Of Vulnerable People Harmed By Facebook And Instagram

Joseph Bak-Coleman, University of Washington Fall 2021 has been filled with a steady stream of media coverage arguing that Meta’s Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram social media platforms pose a threat to users’ mental health and well-being, radicalize, polarize users and spread misinformation. Are these technologies – embraced by billions – killing people and eroding democracy? Or is this just another moral panic? According to Meta’s PR team and a handful of contrarian academics and journalists, there is evidence that social media does not cause harm and the overall picture is unclear. They cite apparently conflicting studies, imperfect access to data and the difficulty of establishing causality to support this position. Some of these researchers have surveyed social media users and fou...
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How Facebook – The Wal-Mart Of The Internet – Dismantled Online Subcultures
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SOCIAL MEDIA

How Facebook – The Wal-Mart Of The Internet – Dismantled Online Subcultures

Before the internet, people interested in body modification – not just tattoo and piercing enthusiasts, but those drawn to more unusual practices like ear pointing, tongue splitting, suspension, scarification and the voluntary amputation of limbs and organs – had a difficult time meeting others who shared their interests. The internet, of course, changed everything: You can chat and connect with anyone from your computer. And in 1994 – more than a decade before Facebook launched – body modification enthusiasts started their own social media platform: the Body Modification E-zine, or BME. First operating as a bulletin board service (an early form of online message boards), BME eventually added features and functions that were forerunners before now-familiar online tools: blogging, wikis, ...
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Since The Rise Of Social Media And Smartphones – Are People Lying More?
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SOCIAL MEDIA

Since The Rise Of Social Media And Smartphones – Are People Lying More?

David Markowitz, University of Oregon Technology has given people more ways to connect, but has it also given them more opportunities to lie? You might text your friend a white lie to get out of going to dinner, exaggerate your height on a dating profile to appear more attractive or invent an excuse to your boss over email to save face. Social psychologists and communication scholars have long wondered not just who lies the most, but where people tend to lie the most – that is, in person or through some other communication medium. A seminal 2004 study was among the first to investigate the connection between deception rates and technology. Since then, the ways we communicate have shifted – fewer phone calls and more social media messaging, for example – and I wanted to see how well ear...
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Facebook Blocking Access To Data About How Much Of A Misinformation Problem There Is And Who Is Affected
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IN OTHER NEWS, SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook Blocking Access To Data About How Much Of A Misinformation Problem There Is And Who Is Affected

Ethan Zuckerman, University of Massachusetts Amherst Leaked internal documents suggest Facebook – which recently renamed itself Meta – is doing far worse than it claims at minimizing COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on the Facebook social media platform. Online misinformation about the virus and vaccines is a major concern. In one study, survey respondents who got some or all of their news from Facebook were significantly more likely to resist the COVID-19 vaccine than those who got their news from mainstream media sources. As a researcher who studies social and civic media, I believe it’s critically important to understand how misinformation spreads online. But this is easier said than done. Simply counting instances of misinformation found on a social media platform leaves two key ques...
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The (Un)Impressive Life Of Fake Instagram Influencers
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SOCIAL MEDIA

The (Un)Impressive Life Of Fake Instagram Influencers

Why You Will Never Get Millions of Instagram Followers (Unless You Fake It) Are you like me and can be impressed quite easily? Or does Shania Twain's song, "That Don't Impress Me Much" play as your typical anthem? Maybe it was the way I was raised that has me appreciate certain achievements. We didn't have a lot growing up so the seemingly "rich" neighbourhood kids were always impressing me with their Etch-a-Sketches and Lite-Brites my brother and I could only dream of having! Even now, I'm impressed when I see the new neighbours move in with a Tesla and go on cruise ship holidays a couple of times a year (well before Covid anyway). I'm impressed when I see people and businesses win prestigious awards. I'm impressed when I go to the gym and witness incredible resolve from people build...
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Under New Surveillance Laws Facebook Or Twitter Posts Can Now Be Quietly Modified By The Government
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SOCIAL MEDIA, VIDEO REELS

Under New Surveillance Laws Facebook Or Twitter Posts Can Now Be Quietly Modified By The Government

James Jin Kang, Edith Cowan University and Jumana Abu-Khalaf, Edith Cowan University A new law gives Australian police unprecedented powers for online surveillance, data interception and altering data. These powers, outlined in the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill, raise concerns over potential misuse, privacy and security. The bill updates the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. In essence, it allows law-enforcement agencies or authorities (such as the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission) to modify, add, copy or delete data when investigating serious online crimes. The Human Rights Law Centre says the bill has insufficient safeguards for free speech and press fre...
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For Making Social Media Safer For Teens Facebook’s Own Internal Documents Offer A Blueprint
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SOCIAL MEDIA

For Making Social Media Safer For Teens Facebook’s Own Internal Documents Offer A Blueprint

Jean Twenge, San Diego State University Right at the time social media became popular, teen mental health began to falter. Between 2010 and 2019, rates of depression and loneliness doubled in the U.S. and globally, suicide rates soared for teens in the U.S. and emergency room admissions for self-harm tripled among U.S. 10- to 14-year-old girls. Social scientists like myself have been warning for years that the ubiquity of social media might be at the root of the growing mental health crisis for teens. Yet when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked during a congressional hearing in March to acknowledge the connection between social media and these troubling mental health trends, he replied, “I don’t think that the research is conclusive on that.” Just six months later, The Wall Street J...
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The Unprecedented Facebook Outage – The Few Clues Point To A Problem Caused From Within
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SOCIAL MEDIA

The Unprecedented Facebook Outage – The Few Clues Point To A Problem Caused From Within

David Tuffley, Griffith University Suddenly and inexplicably, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Oculus services were gone. And it was no local disturbance. In a blog post, Downdetector.com, a major monitoring service for online outages, called it the largest global outage it had ever recorded — with 10.6 million reports from around the world. The outage had an especially massive knock-on effect on individuals and businesses around the world that rely on Whatsapp to communicate with friends, family, colleagues and customers. It took Facebook nearly six hours to get services back online, albeit slowly at first. Ironically, the outage was so pervasive Facebook had to resort to using Twitter, its rival platform, to get updates out into the world. The internet and its outwardly v...
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The Outage And Scandals Test Facebook’s Users Frenemy Relationship
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SOCIAL MEDIA

The Outage And Scandals Test Facebook’s Users Frenemy Relationship

Elizabeth Stoycheff, Wayne State University When Facebook was down for most of the day on Oct. 4, 2021, did you miss it, were you relieved or some of both? Social scientists have compiled an expansive body of research that shows how people have come to develop a love-hate relationship with the social media giant with nearly 3 billion users. Many users have felt their relationship with the platform devolve into a messy codependence, mired by ambiguity and mistrust. For others, reliance on the platform is taken for granted, if occassionally appreciated in moments of pandemic isolation. And then there are the revelations that the company has been lying about applying its rules differently to important people, knowingly harming teen girls and having a big vaccine misinformation problem. Add...
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