Inspired by “Is it My Opinion?”, “The Ease of Online Shopping” – blogs from fellow students – and a New York Times article, I have decided to touch upon the topic of fake reviews for my last blog. As mentioned in “The Ease of Online Shopping”, there is a plethora of products you can order online, but another interesting aspect of the…
Every day more than 4,000 new apps are released. Google Play´s monthly new releases exceed 100,000 each month and Apple´s App Store is not far behind. The big five tech companies (Apple, Facebook, Google (Alphabet), Amazon, Microsoft) are steadily supplanting oil companies as biggest corporations in terms of stock market value. What is it these companies do and how do they make…
I first encountered a fake Facebook event about three years ago. It was named Naruto run in front of the Parliament building. A Naruto run is when a person runs leaning forward, with their arms outstretched behind them. Three years ago, there were a lot of memes mentioning Naruto run, so that was the main inspiration for this event. Naruto run in…
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…