Written by: Akif Aliyev Its 9am on a March morning when I wake up and instinctively roll to my side, pick up my phone and begin my morning routine of mindless social media scrolling just like millions of others around the world. A practice so regular and subconscious at this point that one seldom questions why this must be the very first…
I am having a conversation with my friend Stefan Buijsman who is the youngest Ph.D. of the Netherlands and Sweden (obtained it at the age of 20). He has written numerous books about mathematics and Artificial Intelligence and he is an optimist when it comes to technological developments and social media. We discuss whether WhatsApp is as private and encrypted as it…
Since the existence of image-based journalism and the overall rise in various media formats, we have become oversaturated with images. This in itself does not have to be viewed as a negative development in society. Much good has come from the advent of new media. People learn of different cultures and explore ever-changing forms of entertainment. With globalization working hand in hand…
Some people may have heard of the short-lived existence of Microsoft’s AI chatbot called ‘Tay,’ others may have completely missed the event. The latter would come as no surprise, given that Tay was released on March 23rd of 2016 and was taken down the very same day. This artificial intelligence chatter bot was published on Twitter and was designed as a 19-year…
Conspiracies are something that always interest me. The way people sometimes blatantly belief in something that others don’t just fascinates me. If I’m completely honest, sometimes I even laugh at people who belief in conspiracy theories. However, lately I keep thinking about this conspiracy like phenomenon that I encounter on news pages on Facebook. A lot of times I see these banners…
Our age is truly the age of Big Data. Every day we tweet, write posts and upload photos to Facebook and Instagram and send messages through WhatsApp to keep in touch with our friends and relatives. While doing this, we might not be aware that we are constantly producing new data, thus only increasing the amount that is already out there. As…
Facebook was launched in 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg and his roommates at Harvard University. Until 2006, Facebook’s main objective was to connect college students, notably those studying in Ivy League schools in United States. During its early years, Facebook was functioning on a rather smaller scale than nowadays. Zuckerberg’s mission statement was “Making the world more open and connected” for as long…
There are an immense amount of social media platforms current, probably we don’t even know about some of them. However, Facebook is probably the one that is never outdated. It has been there since my earliest recollection, my parents know about it and I do think that it will still be there as I get older and older. So, what can a…
Crowdsourcing of Surveillance through Gamification Inspired by the virtual watchers project Burkhard Schafer – Crowdsourcing and cloudsourcing CCTV surveillance https://www.voanews.com/world-news/middle-east-dont-use/facebook-becomes-divisive-bahrain
The story of our lifetimes is how intentionally, by design, a number of institutions – both governmental and corporate – realized it was in their mutual interest to conceal their data collection activities in order to increase the breadth and depth of their sensory networks
Edward Snowden on JRE #1368
I’ll be honest with you, I have a thing for the nitty-gritty of controversies. The issue of privacy on social media has been the talk of the town, but what exactly does privacy mean to us in this post-digital era and how are we and the corporations we populate taking responsibility for our virtual homes on the WWW.