Guest Post: Are the Likes Worth It?
Are the Likes Worth It? by Sarah Robertson With the introduction of modern social media came the “like system”: a metric system which publicly reveals the positive interaction a person has received with a piece of content created for their audience, whether it be the general public or a select group of followers. Users were […]
Guest Post: Targeted Advertising and Ad Blocking Technologies
Targeted Advertising and Ad Blocking Technologies by Laura Moberg Have you ever wondered if your phone was listening to you? In an episode from their podcast Reply All, Alex Goldman and PJ Vogt investigate the belief many people have that Facebook is listening to us through our devices and using that information to create targeted […]
Guest Post: Algorithms and the Death of Democratic Discourse
Algorithms & The Death of Democratic Discourse by Christian Koch Our entire digital history tracked— and is still being tracked. Platforms like Google, Facebook, and others collect data from links clicked, time spent on a particular page, whether or not the content is shared, and even the most seemingly inconsequential choices— all to build pictures […]
Guest Post: Social Media and You: What questions about social media haven’t we asked ourselves?
Social Media and You: What questions about social media haven’t we asked ourselves? by Annika Marshall “To capture the world’s moments.” [1] That’s the motto that caught everyone’s attention when Instagram first kicked off in 2010. However, the motto is missing a key detail – “with a filter on top.” Social media was once advertised […]
Guest Post: The Many Sides of Being Social
The Many Sides of Being Social by Alannah Berson In 2014, several drag queens found themselves locked out of their Facebook accounts because their names weren’t “authentic”. [1] The accounts had been flagged after Facebook instituted a “Real Name” policy that limits what types of usernames are allowed on the site and seeks to tie […]
Guest Post: Checking our Online Behaviour for Digital Blackface
Checking our Online Behaviour for Digital Blackface by Estelle Frank In today’s digital age, we have more tools at our disposal to express ourselves virtually than ever before. From memes to GIFS to emojis to Bitmojis, visual representations of the emotion we may want to convey online is easily done on messaging or social media […]
“The Social Dilemma”: An Aftermath of Change?
When “The Social Dilemma” came out on Netflix earlier this year, it created a tremendous reaction of shock and alarm from its viewers. Even some of the most avid social media users were stunned at the practices that tech companies were performing right under their noses, and especially at one of the movie’s main claims: […]
Opinion: Why I Deleted my Instagram and Haven’t Looked Back
One day in December 2018, in the throes of the tail end of my first semester of graduate school, I examined my iPhone’s Screen Time application. This new iOS app had been introduced not too long ago, just earlier in the year. What I saw left a knot in my stomach. I couldn’t believe it! […]
Digital Identity Digest (April 2019)
Are universities more vulnerable to academic dishonesty? In April, actor Felicity Huffman and 12 other parents decided to plead guilty in the largest-ever college admissions scandal in the U.S. She is accused of paying to falsify her children’s test scores to secure admission to elite colleges. Echoing the scandal, NPR discusses how students are finding […]
People said…