Amanda Todd was a 15-year-old Canadian girl who took her own life in October 2012. Prior to her death, she had been the victim of extensive and prolonged cyber-bullying on Facebook, YouTube and other social…
Emoticons, punctuation and creative spelling have been debated, condemned, and regulated since the very beginning of online text-based communication. We’ve all seen “netiquettes” on how not to use ALL…
When we think of tenth birthdays, we associate them with youth and the cusp of tweenhood, a life only just begun and about to get more exciting. But it’s different in the technology industry and, as it…
On the morning of 22 January 2013 a story started to develop on Twitter about the imminent and unexpected resignation of Jens Weidmann, the CEO of Deutsche Bundesbank. The first documented tweet came at…
As someone who researches online behaviours such as trolling, cyberbullying, and cyberstalking, I have, from time to time, ended up on the receiving end of abusive online behaviour myself. Out of a wide…
We truly live in a digital age. The “selfie”, has been announced by the Oxford English Dictionary as this year’s most popular word and, by me, as this year’s most unremarkable word. This new-found trend…
Twitter is awash with trolls, spammers and misanthropes, all keen to ruin your day with a mean-spirited message or even a threat that can cause you genuine fear. It seems all too easy to set up an account…
The way information spreads through society has changed significantly over the past decade with the advent of online social networking. But it seems we humans continue to apply the same approach that we…
The number of people in Britain who are using the internet has risen substantially, reaching 78% of the population aged 14 years and over as compared with 59% in 2003. But according to the latest survey…
Oxfam released a highly critical report last week warning that austerity measures in the UK are having a damaging effect on welfare. Despite the recent hurrah for Chancellor George Osborne over signs of…
Popular Science has announced that it will be closing online comments on its news stories. Uncivil commenters have an overly negative effect on readers, it claims, with a small number of negative commenters…
Professor Digital Culture, Business and Computing at Durham University Business School and Advanced Research Computing (ARC), Durham University, Durham University