industryterm:social networking site

  • Facebook urged to tackle spread of fake profiles used by US police
    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/22/facebook-law-enforcement-fake-profiles-ice

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has called on Facebook to address the proliferation of undercover law enforcement accounts on the social networking site following a Guardian report that revealed a secret network of accounts operated by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). EFF, a digital civil liberties not-for-profit, said law enforcement agencies are able to create fake accounts to spy on users, despite Facebook’s policy which prohibits all users, including government (...)

    #ICE #Facebook #manipulation #migration #surveillance #EFF

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d958cc35b5dbcaeb498d6180c77812fd431068b4/0_0_4369_2622/master/4369.jpg

  • 10 Proven Strategies to Market Startups on #linkedin
    https://hackernoon.com/10-proven-strategies-to-market-startups-on-linkedin-378fd5485369?source=

    Do you see LinkedIn as just a professional networking site or a prolific social media platform?Are you aware of the potential of using a LinkedIn #marketing strategy for your business?Do you know how to use LinkedIn for marketing your startup?To know all this and more, this LinkedIn marketing tutorial blog for your #startup is a great way to begin!LinkedIn is more than just a social networking site that serves to connect job aspirants with employers or fosters strategic business partnerships.In fact, LinkedIn is widely used across the globe to seek employment. It is home to several recruiters. But it’s a whole lot more than that.With over 450 million professionals available on this network, it’s also an impactful marketing tool. LinkedIn connects individuals and adds tremendous value for (...)

    #social-media #marketing-strategies

  • Facebook stored hundreds of millions of passwords unprotected
    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/21/facebook-admits-passwords-unprotected

    Facebook mistakenly stored “hundreds of millions” of passwords in plaintext, unprotected by any encryption, the company has admitted. The mistake, which led to user passwords being kept in Facebook’s internal servers in an insecure way, affects “hundreds of millions of Facebook Lite users, tens of millions of other Facebook users, and tens of thousands of Instagram users”, according to the social networking site. Facebook Lite is a version of Facebook created for use in nations where mobile (...)

    #Facebook #données

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/29e9ff1463be05fb947bcee875c35d2345431154/0_276_4134_2480/master/4134.jpg

  • How to Create Your #identity Effortlessly on a #blockchain
    https://hackernoon.com/how-to-create-your-identity-effortlessly-on-a-blockchain-9e42a998ccee?so

    This paid story is brought to you by SafebitYou can create a social identity for yourself by creating a profile on a social networking site like Facebook. You can use that identity to seamlessly signup on Medium. You don’t have to re-enter first name, last name, etc. Medium integrates Facebook APIs and transfers your information with your consent.But, what about creating your identity on the blockchain?Creating an identity on a blockchain is not easy. Consider a #bitcoin wallet, you need to generate a private key and a public key. But, look at this public key, does it speak for you?897c59e1c04dab8748f7f9a2e2c7fd96d16bf700d389ba4153dba3d1bebdccf9You need an identity that communicates your personality or individuality.@BlockchainCoderNow compare this identity with the public key. (...)

    #blockchain-identity #identity-on-blockchain

  • Assassinat de deux scientifiques palestiniens en Algérie
    Dimanche, 22 Juillet 2018 - 20:56 - Nessma
    https://www.nessma.tv/fr/article/deux-scientifiques-palestiniens-tues-en-algerie-2183

    Des sources médiatiques algériennes ont confirmé l’assassinat d’un scientifique de la famille Al Farra et un médecin de la famille Al Banna, sachant que les deux étaient Palestiniens, de Khan Younès au sud de la bande de Gaza.

    L’ambassade palestinienne en Algérie a annoncé à la famille Al Farra à Khan Younès la mort de leur fils Suleiman Mohamed Al Farra (33 ans) et du docteur Mohamed Hameed Al Banna.

    Selon les conclusions préliminaires des autorités, ils sont morts soit par étouffement soit par électrocution.

    Le mystère entoure la mort des deux scientifiques.

    • Two Palestinian Scientists Found Dead in Algeria
      July 23, 2018 6:52 PM
      http://imemc.org/article/two-palestinian-scientists-found-dead-in-algeria

      Two Palestinian scientists were found dead in an Algerian apartment, reports in Gaza said, on Sunday.

      The two, identified as Suliman al-Farra, aged 34, and Mohammed Albana, a 35-year-old physician from Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip.

      According to reports, they were found in al-Farra’s apartment, and the Palestinian embassy in Algeria told the family of one of the deceased that the two died of gas inhalation or due to a short circuit.

      Some Palestinian reports said that they were assassinated, but there was no confirmation from the authorities. Palestinian scientists and experts around the world have been killed, in recent years, in assassinations alleged to be carried out by Israel’s Mossad espionage agency.

      However, local sources in Gaza assure that the two died as a result of inhaling butane gas, used for cooking, and not as rumored on social networking sites.

  • #ovato — Embracing the Future of Digital Marketing Trends
    https://hackernoon.com/ovato-embracing-the-future-of-digital-marketing-trends-7a4d44ac1e48?sour

    Image courtesy of Automotive Social via FlickrThe marketing model is consistently shifting to meet the needs of its today’s population, which spends considerable time online. This has informed the creation of digital advertising campaigns but has not managed to keep pace with the rate of transformation within the space. As a result, it is difficult to find a marketing approach that garners full attention of the target audience.In the recent past, marketing agencies as well as brands have come to realize the potential of influencer marketing to reach their audiences and offer a high ROI and conversion potential. Statistical analytics show that up to 74% of internet users discover new services and products on social networking sites. At the same time, 49% of consumers base their decision (...)

    #blockchain #digital-marketing #influencer-marketing #social-media

  • It’s Time for a New Social Network
    https://hackernoon.com/its-time-for-a-new-social-network-9bc3c8fbaee6?source=rss----3a8144eabfe

    …and I have a few thoughts. I’m interested in hearing yours, too!For a while now, I’ve been pretty disastisfied with #facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, to a certain extent. I’ve found the changes over the last few years kinda annoying, and I see more and more people becoming disgruntled. We, as consumers, always should have choice of where to spend our money and time, and right now, there still aren’t any good places to go outside of these big players. So it’s time for a new social network, one that has a few key principles that differ it from the others. One that gives users a choice of how they think about social networking sites, and choose what they prefer.And while Facebook is in the news this week and last, I think it’s worth having that discussion again, and I’m motivated to write this (...)

    #manipulation #social-media #privacy #advertising

  • #Sci-Hub domains inactive following court order • The Register
    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/23/scihubs_become_inactive_following_court_order

    A spokesperson for Verisign, which controls .cc domains, told us: “Verisign responds to lawful court orders subject to our technical capabilities. When the Company is presented with such lawful orders impacting domain names within our registries, we respond within our technical capabilities. Beyond that, we have no comment.”

    The domain sci-hub.bz, whose registrar is listed as todaynic.com, does not currently have the status of “serverHold”. On the social networking site vk, Sci-Hub wrote that users could use the DNS project servers 80.82.77.83 and 80.82.77.84.

    #science #libre

  • Fake news: Study tests people’s ability to detect manipulated images of real-world scenes — ScienceDaily
    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170717220933.htm

    Our study found that although people performed better than chance at detecting and locating image manipulations, they are far from perfect. This has serious implications because of the high-level of images, and possibly fake images, that people are exposed to on a daily basis through social networking sites, the internet and the media.

    We found that people were better at detecting physically implausible manipulations but not any better at locating these manipulations, compared to physically plausible manipulations. So even though people are able to detect something is wrong they can’t reliably identify what exactly is wrong with the image. Images have a powerful influence on our memories so if people can’t differentiate between real and fake details in photos, manipulations could frequently alter what we believe and remember

    #Photoshop #Fake_news

  • Facebook can track your browsing even after you’ve logged out, judge says
    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/03/facebook-track-browsing-history-california-lawsuit

    Judge dismisses lawsuit accusing Facebook of tracking users’ activity, saying responsibility was on plaintiffs to keep browsing history private A judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing Facebook of tracking users’ web browsing activity even after they logged out of the social networking site. The plaintiffs alleged that Facebook used the “like” buttons found on other websites to track which sites they visited, meaning that the Menlo Park, California-headquartered company could build up (...)

    #Facebook #Like #historique #procès

  • Chirp is a Simple Electron Twitter Client
    http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/06/chirp-electron-twitter-client

    I came across a new Electron Twitter client today called Chirp — and I sort of had to write about it. See, I’ve written of my love for Twitter Lite, the social networking site’s new mobile experience before, and recommended a number of ways in which you can ‘use’ Twitter Lite in a standalone window like a traditional app (aka as a […] This post, Chirp is a Simple Electron Twitter Client, was written by Joey Sneddon and first appeared on OMG! Ubuntu!.

  • Unlike Us | About
    http://networkcultures.org/unlikeus/about

    Invitation to join the network (a series of events, reader, workshops, online debates, campaigns etc.)

    Concept: Geert Lovink (Institute of Network Cultures/HvA, Amsterdam) and Korinna Patelis (Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol)

    Thanks to Marc Stumpel, Sabine Niederer, Vito Campanelli, Ned Rossiter, Michael Dieter, Oliver Leistert, Taina Bucher, Gabriella Coleman, Ulises Mejias, Anne Helmond, Lonneke van der Velden, Morgan Currie and Eric Kluitenberg for their input.

    Summary
    The aim of Unlike Us is to establish a research network of artists, designers, scholars, activists and programmers who work on ‘alternatives in social media’. Through workshops, conferences, online dialogues and publications, Unlike Us intends to both analyze the economic and cultural aspects of dominant social media platforms and to propagate the further development and proliferation of alternative, decentralized social media software.

    Whether or not we are in the midst of internet bubble 2.0, we can all agree that social media dominate internet and mobile use. The emergence of web-based user to user services, driven by an explosion of informal dialogues, continuous uploads and user generated content have greatly empowered the rise of participatory culture. At the same time, monopoly power, commercialization and commodification are also on the rise with just a handful of social media platforms dominating the social web. These two contradictory processes – both the facilitation of free exchanges and the commercial exploitation of social relationships – seem to lie at the heart of contemporary capitalism.

    On the one hand new media create and expand the social spaces through which we interact, play and even politicize ourselves; on the other hand they are literally owned by three or four companies that have phenomenal power to shape such interaction. Whereas the hegemonic Internet ideology promises open, decentralized systems, why do we, time and again, find ourselves locked into closed corporate environments? Why are individual users so easily charmed by these ‘walled gardens’? Do we understand the long-term costs that society will pay for the ease of use and simple interfaces of their beloved ‘free’ services?

    The accelerated growth and scope of Facebook’s social space, for example, is unheard of. Facebook claims to have 700 million users, ranks in the top two or three first destination sites on the Web worldwide and is valued at 50 billion US dollars. Its users willingly deposit a myriad of snippets of their social life and relationships on a site that invests in an accelerated play of sharing and exchanging information. We all befriend, rank, recommend, create circles, upload photos, videos and update our status. A myriad of (mobile) applications orchestrate this offer of private moments in a virtual public, seamlessly embedding the online world in users’ everyday life.

    Yet despite its massive user base, the phenomena of online social networking remains fragile. Just think of the fate of the majority of social networking sites. Who has ever heard of Friendster? The death of Myspace has been looming on the horizon for quite some time. The disappearance of Twitter and Facebook – and Google, for that matter – is only a masterpiece of software away. This means that the protocological future is not stationary but allows space for us to carve out a variety of techno-political interventions. Unlike Us is developed in the spirit of RSS-inventor and uberblogger Dave Winer whose recent Blork project is presented as an alternative for ‘corporate blogging silos’. But instead of repeating the entrepreneurial-start-up-transforming-into-corporate-behemoth formula, isn’t it time to reinvent the internet as a truly independent public infrastructure that can effectively defend itself against corporate domination and state control?

    Agenda
    Going beyond the culture of complaint about our ignorance and loss of privacy, the proposed network of artists, scholars, activists and media folks will ask fundamental and overarching questions about how to tackle these fast-emerging monopoly powers. Situated within the existing oligopoly of ownership and use, this inquiry will include the support of software alternatives and related artistic practices and the development of a common alternative vision of how the techno-social world might be mediated.

    Without falling into the romantic trap of some harmonious offline life, Unlike Us asks what sort of network architectures could be designed that contribute to ‘the common’, understood as a shared resource and system of collective production that supports new forms of social organizations (such as organized networks) without mining for data to sell. What aesthetic tactics could effectively end the expropriation of subjective and private dimensions that we experience daily in social networks? Why do we ignore networks that refuse the (hyper)growth model and instead seek to strengthen forms of free cooperation? Turning the tables, let’s code and develop other ‘network cultures’ whose protocols are no longer related to the logic of ‘weak ties’. What type of social relations do we want to foster and discover in the 21st century? Imagine dense, diverse networked exchanges between billions of people, outside corporate and state control. Imagine discourses returning subjectivities to their ‘natural’ status as open nodes based on dialogue and an ethics of free exchange.

    To a large degree social media research is still dominated by quantitative and social scientific endeavors. So far the focus has been on moral panics, privacy and security, identity theft, self-representation from Goffman to Foucault and graph-based network theory that focuses on influencers and (news) hubs. What is curiously missing from the discourse is a rigorous discussion of the political economy of these social media monopolies. There is also a substantial research gap in understanding the power relations between the social and the technical in what are essentially software systems and platforms. With this initiative, we want to shift focus away from the obsession with youth and usage to the economic, political, artistic and technical aspects of these online platforms. What we first need to acknowledge is social media’s double nature.

    Dismissing social media as neutral platforms with no power is as implausible as considering social media the bad boys of capitalism. The beauty and depth of social media is that they call for a new understanding of classic dichotomies such as commercial/political, private/public, users/producers, artistic/standardised, original/copy, democratising/ disempowering. Instead of taking these dichotomies as a point of departure, we want to scrutinise the social networking logic. Even if Twitter and Facebook implode overnight, the social networking logic of befriending, liking and ranking will further spread across all aspects of life.

    The proposed research agenda is at once a philosophical, epistemological and theoretical investigation of knowledge artifacts, cultural production and social relations and an empirical investigation of the specific phenomenon of monopoly social media. Methodologically we will use the lessons learned from theoretical research activities to inform practice-oriented research, and vice-versa. Unlike Us is a common initiative of the Institute of Network Cultures (Amsterdam University of Applied Science HvA) and the Cyprus University of Technology in Limassol.

    An online network and a reader connected to a series of events initially in Amsterdam and Cyprus (early 2012) are already in planning. We would explicitly like to invite other partners to come on board who identify with the spirit of this proposal, to organize related conferences, festivals, workshops, temporary media labs and barcamps (where coders come together) with us. The reader (tentatively planned as number 8 in the Reader series published by the INC) will be produced mid-late 2012. The call for contributions to the network, the reader and the event series goes out in July 2011, followed by the publicity for the first events and other initiatives by possible new partners.

    Topics of Investigation
    The events, online platform, reader and other outlets may include the following topics inviting theoretical, empirical, practical and art-based contributions, though not every event or publication might deal with all issues. We anticipate the need for specialized workshops and barcamps.

    1. Political Economy: Social Media Monopolies
    Social media culture is belied in American corporate capitalism, dominated by the logic of start-ups and venture capital, management buyouts, IPOs etc. Three to four companies literally own the Western social media landscape and capitalize on the content produced by millions of people around the world. One thing is evident about the market structure of social media: one-to-many is not giving way to many-to-many without first going through many-to-one. What power do these companies actually have? Is there any evidence that such ownership influences user-generated content? How does this ownership express itself structurally and in technical terms?

    What conflicts arise when a platform like Facebook is appropriated for public or political purposes, while access to the medium can easily be denied by the company? Facebook is worth billions, does that really mean something for the average user? How does data-mining work and what is its economy? What is the role of discourse (PR) in creating and sustaining an image of credibility and trustworthiness, and in which forms does it manifest to oppose that image? The bigger social media platforms form central nodes, such as image upload services and short ulr services. This ecology was once fairly open, with a variety of new Twitter-related services coming into being, but now Twitter takes up these services itself, favoring their own product through default settings; on top of that it is increasingly shutting down access to developers, which shrinks the ecology and makes it less diverse.

    2. The Private in the Public
    The advent of social media has eroded privacy as we know it, giving rise to a culture of self-surveillance made up of myriad voluntary, everyday disclosures. New understandings of private and public are needed to address this phenomenon. What does owning all this user data actually mean? Why are people willing to give up their personal data, and that of others? How should software platforms be regulated?

    Is software like a movie to be given parental guidance? What does it mean that there are different levels of access to data, from partner info brokers and third-party developers to the users? Why is education in social media not in the curriculum of secondary schools? Can social media companies truly adopt a Social Network Users’ Bill of Rights?

    3. Visiting the Belly of the Beast
    The exuberance and joy that defined the dotcom era is cliché by now. IT use is occurring across the board, and new labour conditions can be found everywhere. But this should not keep our eyes away from the power relations inside internet companies. What are the geopolitical lines of distribution that define the organization and outsourcing taking place in global IT companies these days? How is the industry structured and how does its economy work?

    Is there a broader connection to be made with the politics of land expropriation and peasant labour in countries like India, for instance, and how does this analytically converge with the experiences of social media users? How do monopolies deal with their employees’ use of the platforms? What can we learn from other market sectors and perspectives that (critically) reflect on, for example, techniques of sustainability or fair trade?

    4. Artistic Responses to Social Media
    Artists are playing a crucial role in visualizing power relationships and disrupting subliminal daily routines of social media usage. Artistic practice provides an important analytical site in the context of the proposed research agenda, as artists are often first to deconstruct the familiar and to facilitate an alternative lens to understand and critique these media. Is there such a thing as a social ‘web aesthetics’? It is one thing to criticize Twitter and Facebook for their primitive and bland interface designs. How can we imagine the social in different ways? And how can we design and implement new interfaces to provide more creative freedom to cater to our multiple identities? Also, what is the scope of interventions with social media, such as, for example, the ‘dislike button’ add-on for Facebook? And what practices are really needed? Isn’t it time, for example, for a Facebook ‘identity correction’?

    5. Designing culture: representation and software
    Social media offer us the virtual worlds we use every day. From Facebook’s ‘like’ button to blogs’ user interface, these tools empower and delimit our interactions. How do we theorize the plethora of social media features? Are they to be understood as mere technical functions, cultural texts, signifiers, affordances, or all these at once? In what ways do design and functionalities influence the content and expressions produced? And how can we map and critique this influence? What are the cultural assumptions embedded in the design of social media sites and what type of users or communities do they produce?

    To answer the question of structure and design, one route is to trace the genealogy of functionalities, to historicize them and look for discursive silences. How can we make sense of the constant changes occurring both on and beyond the interface? How can we theorize the production and configuration of an ever-increasing algorithmic and protocological culture more generally?

    6. Software Matters: Sociotechnical and Algorithmic Cultures
    One of the important components of social media is software. For all the discourse on sociopolitical power relations governed by corporations such as Facebook and related platforms, one must not forget that social media platforms are thoroughly defined and powered by software. We need critical engagement with Facebook as software. That is, what is the role of software in reconfiguring contemporary social spaces? In what ways does code make a difference in how identities are formed and social relationships performed? How does the software function to interpellate users to its logic? What are the discourses surrounding software?

    One of the core features of Facebook for instance is its news feed, which is algorithmically driven and sorted in its default mode. The EdgeRank algorithm of the news feed governs the logic by which content becomes visible, acting as a modern gatekeeper and editorial voice. Given its 700 million users, it has become imperative to understand the power of EdgeRank and its cultural implications. Another important analytical site for investigation are the ‘application programming interfaces’ (APIs) that to a large extent made the phenomenal growth of social media platforms possible in the first place. How have APIs contributed to the business logic of social media? How can we theorize social media use from the perspective of the programmer?

    7. Genealogies of Social Networking Sites
    Feedback in a closed system is a core characteristic of Facebook; even the most basic and important features, such as ‘friending’, traces back to early cybernetics’ ideas of control. While the word itself became lost in various transitions, the ideas of cybernetics have remained stable in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics and the biopolitical arena. Both communication and information theories shaped this discourse. How does Facebook relate to such an algorithmic shape of social life? What can Facebook teach us about the powers of systems theory? Would Norbert Wiener and Niklas Luhmann be friends on Facebook?

    8. Is Research Doomed?
    The design of Facebook excludes the third person perspective, as the only way in is through ones own profile. What does this inbuilt ‘me-centricity’ imply for social media research? Does it require us to rethink the so-called objectivity of researchers and the detached view of current social research? Why is it that there are more than 200 papers about the way people use Facebook, but the site is ‘closed’ to true quantitative inquiry? Is the state of art in social media research exemplary of the ‘quantitative turn’ in new media research? Or is there a need to expand and rethink methods of inquiry in social media research? Going beyond the usual methodological approaches of the quantitative and qualitative, we seek to broaden the scope of investigating these media. How can we make sense of the political economy and the socio-technical elements, and with what means? Indeed, what are our toolkits for collective, transdisciplinary modes of knowledge and the politics of refusal?

    9. Researching Unstable Ontologies
    Software destabilizes Facebook as a solid ontology. Software is always in becoming and so by nature ontogenetic. It grows and grows, living off of constant input. Logging on one never encounters the same content, as it changes on an algorithmic level and in terms of the platform itself. What does Facebook’s fluid nature imply for how we make sense of and study it? Facebook for instance willingly complicates research: 1. It is always personalized (see Eli Pariser). Even when creating ‘empty’ research accounts it never gives the same results compared to other people’s empty research accounts. 2. One must often be ‘inside’ social media to study it. Access from the outside is limited, which reinforces the first problem. 3. Outside access is ideally (for Facebook and Twitter) arranged through carefully regulated protocols of APIs and can easily be restricted. Next to social media as a problem for research, there is also the question of social research methods as intervention.

    10. Making Sense of Data: Visualization and Critique
    Data representation is one of the most important battlefields nowadays. Indeed, global corporations build their visions of the world increasingly based on and structured around complex data flows. What is the role of data today and what are the appropriate ways in which to make sense of the burgeoning datasets? As data visualization is becoming a powerful buzzword and social research increasingly uses digital tools to make ‘beautiful’ graphs and visualizations, there is a need to take a step back and question the usefulness of current data visualization tools and to develop novel analytical frameworks through which to critically grasp these often simplified and nontransparent ways of representing data.

    Not only is it important to develop new interpretative and visual methods to engage with data flows, data itself needs to be questioned. We need to ask about data’s ontological and epistemological nature. What is it, who is the producer, for whom, where is it stored? In what ways do social media companies’ terms of service regulate data? Whether alternative social media or monopolistic platforms, how are our data-bodies exactly affected by changes in the software?

    11. Pitfalls of Building Social Media Alternatives
    It is not only important to critique and question existing design and socio-political realities but also to engage with possible futures. The central aim of this project is therefore to contribute and support ‘alternatives in social media’. What would the collective design of alternative protocols and interfaces look like? We should find some comfort in the small explosion of alternative options currently available, but also ask how usable these options are and how real is the danger of fragmentation. How have developers from different initiatives so far collaborated and what might we learn from their successes and failures? Understanding any early failures and successes of these attempts seems crucial.

    A related issue concerns funding difficulties faced by projects. Finally, in what ways does regionalism (United States, Europe, Asia) feed into the way people search for alternatives and use social media.

    12. Showcasing Alternatives in Social Media
    The best way to criticize platform monopolies is to support alternative free and open source software that can be locally installed. There are currently a multitude of decentralized social networks in the making that aspire to facilitate users with greater power to define for themselves with whom share their data. Let us look into the wildly different initiatives from Crabgrass, Appleseed, Diaspora, NoseRub, BuddyCloud, Protonet, StatusNet, GNU Social, Lorea and OneSocialWeb to the distributed Twitter alternative Thimbl.

    In which settings are these initiative developed and what choices are made for their design? Let’s hear from the Spanish activists who have recently made experiences with the n-1.cc platform developed by Lorea. What community does this platform enable? While traditional software focuses on the individual profile and its relation to the network and a public (share with friends, share with friends of friends, share with public), the Lorea software for instance asks you with whom to share an update, picture or video. It finegrains the idea of privacy and sharing settings at the content level, not the user’s profile. At the same time, it requires constant decision making, or else a high level of trust in the community you share your data with. And how do we experience the transition from, or interoperability with, other platforms? Is it useful to make a distinction between corporate competitors and grassroots initiatives? How can these beta alternatives best be supported, both economically and socially? Aren’t we overstating the importance of software and isn’t the availability of capital much bigger in determining the adoption of a platform?

    13. Social Media Activism and the Critique of Liberation Technology
    While the tendency to label any emergent social movement as the latest ‘Twitter revolution’ has passed, a liberal discourse of ‘liberation technology’ (information and communication technologies that empower grassroots movements) continues to influence our ideas about networked participation. This discourse tends to obscure power relations and obstruct critical questioning about the capitalist institutions and superstructures in which these technologies operate. What are the assumptions behind this neo-liberal discourse? What role do ‘developed’ nations play when they promote and subsidize the development of technologies of circumvention and hacktivism for use in ‘underdeveloped’ states, while at the same time allowing social media companies at home to operate in increasingly deregulated environments and collaborating with them in the surveillance of citizens at home and abroad? What role do companies play in determining how their products are used by dissidents or governments abroad? How have their policies and Terms of Use changed as a result?

    14. Social Media in the Middle East and Beyond
    The justified response to downplay the role of Facebook in early 2011 events in Tunisia and Egypt by putting social media in a larger perspective has not taken off the table the question of how to organize social mobilizations. Which specific software do the ‘movements of squares’ need? What happens to social movements when the internet and ICT networks are shut down? How does the interruption of internet services shift the nature of activism? How have repressive and democratic governments responded to the use of ‘liberation technologies’? How do these technologies change the relationship between the state and its citizens? How are governments using the same social media tools for surveillance and propaganda or highjacking Facebook identities, such as happened in Syria? What is Facebook’s own policy when deleting or censoring accounts of its users?

    How can technical infrastructures be supported which are not shutdown upon request? How much does our agency depend on communication technology nowadays? And whom do we exclude with every click? How can we envision ‘organized networks’ that are based on ’strong ties’ yet open enough to grow quickly if the time is right? Which software platforms are best suited for the ‘tactical camping’ movements that occupy squares all over the world?

    15. Data storage: social media and legal cultures
    Data that is voluntarily shared by social media users is not only used for commercial purposes, but is also of interest to governments. This data is stored on servers of companies that are bound to the specific legal culture and country. This material-legal complex is often overlooked. Fore instance, the servers of Facebook and Twitter are located in the US and therefore fall under the US jurisdiction. One famous example is the request for the Twitter accounts of several activists (Gonggrijp, Jónsdóttir, Applebaum) affiliated with Wikileaks projects by the US government. How do activists respond and how do alternative social media platforms deal with this issue?

  • Non, on n’a certainement pas encore touché le fond avec ces histoires de fake news. Continuons à creuser : Facebook and Google make lies as pretty as truth - How AMP and Instant Articles camouflage fake news
    http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/6/13850230/fake-news-sites-google-search-facebook-instant-articles

    The fake news problem we’re facing isn’t just about articles gaining traffic from Facebook timelines or Google search results. It’s also an issue of news literacy — a reader’s ability to discern credible news. And it’s getting harder to tell on sight alone which sites are trustworthy. On a Facebook timeline or Google search feed, every story comes prepackaged in the same skin, whether it’s a months-long investigation from The Washington Post or completely fabricated clickbait.

    While feed formatting isn’t anything new, platforms like Google AMP, Facebook Instant Articles, and Apple News are also further breaking down the relationship between good design and credibility. In a platform world, all publishers end up looking more similar than different. That makes separating the real from the fake even harder.

    • Facebook begins testing ways to flag fake news
      https://www.ft.com/content/2cf4a678-c25b-11e6-81c2-f57d90f6741a

      Facebook will try out new ways to report and flag fake news this week, setting up a partnership with fact-checking organisations to try to address the “worst of the worst” hoaxes spread by spammers. 

      The world’s largest social network is testing several ways to try to limit the rapid proliferation of fake news stories. This was highlighted by posts that went viral during the US presidential election campaign, such as a report that the Pope endorsed Donald Trump or the “Pizzagate” story that claimed Democrats were involved in a paedophile ring. 

      =>http://rue89.nouvelobs.com/2016/12/14/conspiration-trois-fromages-265906

      Facebook will make it easier to report a fake news story by clicking in the upper right-hand corner of each post. Once a story is reported by Facebook users or identified by “other signals”, such as whether people share a story after they read it, as potentially being fake, it will be sent to third-party fact-checking organisations. 

      If the members of Poynter’s International Fact Checking Network discover it is fake, it will be flagged as “disputed”, with a link to the fact-checking organisation’s article explaining why. Disputed stories will appear lower in the Facebook news feed, where posts appear in an order governed by a complex algorithm, and people will receive a warning that they are disputed if they decide to share them. 

      Adam Mosseri, vice-president of product management at Facebook, said the company was committed to doing its part to address the issue of fake news. 

      “We believe in giving people a voice and that we cannot become arbiters of truth ourselves, so we’re approaching this problem carefully,” he said. 

      Facebook has long insisted it is a technology company, not a media organisation, and been cautious about getting involved in editorial decisions. When the problem of fake news hit the headlines after the US election, the social network was initially reluctant to accept responsibility, with founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg saying it was “pretty crazy” to think fake news affected the election result. 

      However, within days, Facebook said it was experimenting with developing ways to stop the spread of fake news. Many in the tech and media industries have already begun to build or discuss their products to address the problem. 

      “We’ve focused our efforts on the worst of the worst, on the clear hoaxes spread by spammers for their own gain,” Mr Mosseri said.

      But rightwing commentators complained that Facebook had partnered with fact-checking organisations they deemed as on the left, with Republican Evan Siegfried tweeting that it was “not good for conservatives”. Ben Shapiro, editor-in-chief of the Daily Wire, wrote that the change was a “disaster for news” and accused the factcheckers: Politifact, Factcheck.org, Snopes, ABC news and the Washington Post of all skewing to the left. 

      The US public is convinced fake news is a real problem, according to a survey released by the Pew Research Center on Thursday. The majority of Americans believe the spread of fake news has confused people about basic facts and a third say they frequently see fake political news online. 

      Some 71 per cent believe social networking sites and search engines have a responsibility to stop the spread of fake news, but they assign similar responsibility for stopping the spread of fake news to the public and politicians. 

      Nearly a quarter claim to have shared fake news on social networks themselves, with about 14 per cent admitting they shared it despite knowing the story was fake. 

      Facebook and Google have already tried to limit the financial gains that can be made by spreading fake news, by ensuring that known fake news sites do not receive revenue from their advertising network. Now, Facebook has also decided that any link flagged as disputed cannot be included in an advert, so people cannot pay for them to go viral. Sites purporting to be reputable news sites, by disguising their URL, will also not be allowed to buy adverts from the company.

      #hoax #conspirationnisme

  • Don’t mention the weather. UAE threatens imprisonment over social media videos of storm
    http://www.al-bab.com/blog/2016/march/uae-weather-crime.htm#sthash.jx1QmDu5.9EaUEaDf.dpbs

    Don’t mention the weather

    UAE threatens imprisonment over social media videos of storm❞

    (...) Emirates 24/7 reports:

    During the recent heavy rains across the UAE some individuals behaved irresponsibly on social networking sites, said officials. They shared photos and videos from accidents that occurred during the rainy days and circulated rumours about building collapses and people drowning in rain water, thereby, creating panic among public.

    In addition, they ignored the great initiatives by the authorised departments and the heroic efforts by police and civil defence teams

    Lawyer Yousef Al Sharif said some people shared videos and images of the weather in a manner that harms the country’s reputation and disrupts public peace. He added that as per law such acts are punishable. Violators can be punished with imprisonment and a fine not exceeding Dh1 million [$270,000] for spreading false information or rumours online that damages the reputation of the country.

    #surréalisme_arabe

  • Le régime « laïque » égyptien s’attaque aux athées

    Authorities raid & close ’atheists’ cafe’ in downtown Cairo | Mada Masr
    http://www.madamasr.com/news/authorities-raid-close-atheists-cafe-downtown-cairo

    Sunday, December 14, 2014 - 22:00
    Authorities raid & close ’atheists’ cafe’ in downtown Cairo
    By: Mada Masr
    Security forces raided and closed what they described as the “atheists’ café” in the Abdeen neighborhood of downtown Cairo, municipal authorities announced Sunday.

    The café has also been described as a den for “Satan worshippers.”

    The closure spurred a reaction on social networking sites, with “atheists’ café” trending nationwide.

    The mainstream media portal Sada al-Balad reported on Sunday that the coffee shop was raided and demolished.

    Gamal Mohie, chief of the Abdeen Municipality, told Mada Masr that the coffee shop in question was not raided on Sunday, but one month earlier, on November 10.

    “There was no demolition involved, only confiscation of the coffee shop’s property. This was all done in accordance with the law and legal procedures,” Mohie clarified, adding that the only person arrested during the raid was the owner, “as his coffee shop was unauthorized, unlicensed, and also because drugs were found inside.”

  • Photo of DAESH teen goes ‘viral’
    http://www.arabtimesonline.com/NewsDetails/tabid/96/smid/414/ArticleID/210229/reftab/96/Default.aspx

    Photo Of DAESH Teen Goes ‘Viral’

    KUWAIT CITY, Oct 21: The photo of a 16-year-old Kuwaiti boy known as ‘Zabbah Al- Jahrawi’, but whose real name is Nassar, went viral on various social networking sites, along with reports that he died in the attack launched by the international alliance in Kobani, Syria, reports Al-Seyassah daily.

    Nassar is believed to have joined DAESH two months ago and he is seen holding a gun in the photo.

  • L’étonnante (ou pas) économie des réseaux sociaux : ici Wer-kennt-wen, « l’un des plus gros succès du Web allemand », « fermé en juin 2014 ».
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wer-kennt-wen

    Wer-kennt-wen (English: Who-knows-whom) was a popular German social networking site. […] According to Alexa Internet in July 2011, wer-kennt-wen had a world-wide traffic rank of 959 and was one of the most successful websites in Germany.

    […] The RTL Group decided to withdraw the site’s services by the beginning of June 2014.

  • Iraqi newspaper bombed for Khamenei portrait
    http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/18650

    The staff at Iraq’s al-Sabah al-Jadeed newspaper have either stayed home, fled to Kurdistan, or left Iraq altogether to escape threats that surfaced after they published a cartoon of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. The newspaper’s offices in Baghdad were targeted and anonymous threats against the newspaper flooded social networking sites. read more

  • One in, one out: Study shows how people put a limit on their social networks
    http://phys.org/news/2014-01-people-limit-social-networks.html

    Despite the way that mobile technologies and social networking sites have made it easier to stay in touch with large numbers of acquaintances, a new study has shown that people still put most of their efforts into communicating with small numbers of close friends or family, often operating unconscious one-in, one-out policies so that communication patterns remain the same even when friendships change.

    #reseaux_sociaux

  • How Facebook could get you arrested | Technology | The Observer
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/09/facebook-arrested-evgeny-morozov-extract

    How Facebook could get you arrested

    Smart technology and the sort of big data available to social networking sites are helping police target crime before it happens. But is this ethical?

    Evgeny Morozov
    The Observer, Saturday 9 March 2013 19.20 GMT

    Illustration of imaginary Facebook policeman
    Companies such as Facebook have begun using algorithms and historical data to predict which of their users might commit crimes. Illustration: Noma Bar

    The police have a very bright future ahead of them – and not just because they can now look up potential suspects on Google. As they embrace the latest technologies, their work is bound to become easier and more effective, raising thorny questions about privacy, civil liberties, and due process.

    #réseaux-sociaux #facebook

  • UK cops face disciplinary action over Facebook posts - Computer Business Review
    http://media.cbronline.com/news/uk-cops-face-disciplinary-action-over-facebook-posts-020112

    More than 150 police officers faced disciplinary action during 2008-2010 over their behaviour on the social networking site

    More than 150 police officers faced disciplinary action in England and Wales during the period 2008-2010 over their behaviour on the social networking site Facebook, according to details released by Press Association.

    Policemen have used Facebook to harass former partners and ex-colleagues, to make comments on their counterparts wives and some even suggested having beaten up members of the public during protests, figures collected from 41 of the 43 forces show.

    An officer in Hampshire was dismissed without notice in 2009 for posting a racist comment on Facebook, while another officer was dismissed in early part of 2011 for referring to a colleague as a “grass” and a “liar” on Facebook and harassing a policewoman.

  • How the US Justice Department legally hacked my Twitter account | Birgitta Jónsdóttir | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/11/us-justice-department-legally-hacked-twitter

    Before my Twitter case, in which the US Department of Justice has demanded that the social media site hands over personal information about my account which it deems necessary to its investigation of WikiLeaks, I didn’t think much about what rights I would be signing off when accepting user agreement in my computer. The text is usually lengthy, in a legal language that most people don’t understand. Very few people read the user agreements, and very few understand their legal implications if someone in the real world would try to use one against them.

    http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/11-3

    A Virginia district court judge has ruled the U.S. government can collect the private information of three WikiLeaks volunteers from the social networking site, Twitter. The government has subpoenaed all the account information of Icelandic lawmaker Birgitta Jonsdottir, Dutch activist Rop Gongrjip and programmer Jacob Appelbaum. Thursday’s ruling upholds a lower court judgment in March that found the subpoena does not violate constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.