Monday, April 7

SOCIAL MEDIA

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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Manipulation And Misinformation On Social Media – How ‘Engagement’ Makes You Vulnerable
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SOCIAL MEDIA

Manipulation And Misinformation On Social Media – How ‘Engagement’ Makes You Vulnerable

Filippo Menczer, Indiana University Facebook has been quietly experimenting with reducing the amount of political content it puts in users’ news feeds. The move is a tacit acknowledgment that the way the company’s algorithms work can be a problem. The heart of the matter is the distinction between provoking a response and providing content people want. Social media algorithms – the rules their computers follow in deciding the content that you see – rely heavily on people’s behavior to make these decisions. In particular, they watch for content that people respond to or “engage” with by liking, commenting and sharing. As a computer scientist who studies the ways large numbers of people interact using technology, I understand the logic of using the wisdom of the crowds in these algorithms...
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6 Questions Answered – Why Facebook Created Its Own ‘Supreme Court’ For Judging Content
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SOCIAL MEDIA

6 Questions Answered – Why Facebook Created Its Own ‘Supreme Court’ For Judging Content

Facebook’s quasi-independent Oversight Board on May 5, 2021, upheld the company’s suspension of former President Donald Trump from the platform and Instagram. The decision came four months after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg banned Trump “indefinitely” for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. The board chastised Facebook for failing to either set an end date for the suspension or permanently ban Trump and gave the social media company six months to resolve the matter. What is this Oversight Board that made one of the most politically perilous decisions Facebook has ever faced? Why did the company create it, and is it a good idea? We asked Siri Terjesen, an expert on corporate governance, to answer these and several other questions. 1. What is the Facebook Oversight Boa...
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Social Media Turns Online Arguments Between Teens Into Real-World Violence
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SOCIAL MEDIA

Social Media Turns Online Arguments Between Teens Into Real-World Violence

The deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January exposed the power of social media to influence real-world behavior and incite violence. But many adolescents, who spend more time on social media than all other age groups, have known this for years. “On social media, when you argue, something so small can turn into something so big so fast,” said Justin, a 17-year-old living in Hartford, Connecticut, during one of my research focus groups. (The participants’ names have been changed in this article to protect their identities.) For the last three years, I have studied how and why social media triggers and accelerates offline violence. In my research, conducted in partnership with Hartford-based peace initiative COMPASS Youth Collaborative, we interviewed dozens of young people aged 1...
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Avoid Becoming A Misinformation Superspreader: 7 Ways To Avoid It
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SOCIAL MEDIA

Avoid Becoming A Misinformation Superspreader: 7 Ways To Avoid It

The problem of misinformation isn’t going away. Internet platforms like Facebook and Twitter have taken some steps to curb its spread and say they are working on doing more. But no method yet introduced has been completely successful at removing all misleading content from social media. The best defense, then, is self-defense. Misleading or outright false information – broadly called “misinformation” – can come from websites pretending to be news outlets, political propaganda or “pseudo-profound” reports that seem meaningful but are not. Disinformation is a type of misinformation that is deliberately generated to maliciously mislead people. Disinformation is intentionally shared, knowing it is false, but misinformation can be shared by people who don’t know it’s not true, especially becau...
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How Search Engines Spread Misinformation – It’s Not Just A Social Media Problem
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SOCIAL MEDIA

How Search Engines Spread Misinformation – It’s Not Just A Social Media Problem

Search engines are one of society’s primary gateways to information and people, but they are also conduits for misinformation. Similar to problematic social media algorithms, search engines learn to serve you what you and others have clicked on before. Because people are drawn to the sensational, this dance between algorithms and human nature can foster the spread of misinformation. Search engines often serve up a distorting blend of information and misinformation. Crispin la valiente/Moment via Getty Images, CC BY-ND Search engine companies, like most online services, make money not only by selling ads, but also by tracking users and selling their data through real-time bidding on it. People are often led to misinformation by their desire for sensational and entertaining news as well as ...
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