Without much delay, Facebook and Twitter could make significant changes to limit political manipulation and propaganda. Will they? And will users ask it of the social media giants?
Cities are the laboratories where the tech giants are exploring urban innovations.
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Companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Airbnb and Tesla are redefining key aspects of daily life such as work, mobility and leisure, using our cities as laboratories for their innovations.
Days before their Oct. 28 presidential election, Brazilians protested news that supporters of right-wing front-runner Jair Bolsonaro had used WhatsApp to spread false information about his opponents.
Reuters/Nacho Doce
Facebook retired its ‘Move fast and break things’ slogan – perhaps because, as new research from Brazil confirms, democracy is among the things left broken by online misinformation and fake news.
Researchers have found people use the ‘like’ button on social media posts for many reasons.
Worawee Meepian
Hysterical narratives promoting fear among some Americans may be more effective at sparking violence than hate speech is. Social media companies are expected to guard against both.
Should you have trusted this man with so much of your personal data?
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Scholars and skeptics warned about Facebook long before its founder was even born. Technology companies keep asking for more and more data and proving they can’t be trusted.
Canadians are up in arms about Statistics Canada’s push for their financial data. They shouldn’t be.
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Statistics Canada has been tone-deaf in its push for the financial data of Canadians from banks, but that data is essential to forming good public policy.
Emoji can cloak microaggressions in humour and play.
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Amazon, Facebook and Google have lofty goals for their effects on global society. But people around the world are still waiting for the positive results. Here’s what the tech giants could do.
Social media misinformation rose significantly before the 2016 presidential election.
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The Iffy Quotient measured misinformation on social media in the run-up to the recent elections. Facebook has gotten better at combating untrustworthy links, but Twitter still struggles.
Online hate still rages, often in plain sight.
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New research suggests media organisations that rely on Facebook to build audience are trapped in an attention economy that delivers traffic but no money.
New research shows that more and more of our public conversation is unfolding within a dwindling coterie of sites that are controlled by a small few, largely unregulated and geared primarily to profit rather than public interest.
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New research into the economics of attention online casts doubt on the net’s role in fostering public debate, and raises concerns about the future of democracy.
Many teenagers have stopped using Facebook and have gravitated instead to image-sharing platforms like Instagram.
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On May 25, 2018, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force. Four months later, how has the law changed people’s perceptions and behaviour?
There are several flow-on effects from the recent Facebook hack.
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There is always a tension between usability and security. People want systems to be secure so that their identities aren’t stolen, but they want those same systems to be easily accessible.
Facebook moderators sift through hundreds of examples of distressing content during their shifts.
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The news that a former moderator is suing Facebook over unsafe work practices suggests it’s time we finally took the mental health of moderators seriously.