Archive for the ‘Social Networking’ Category

New York Social Network | Helping you enjoy life while …

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Social Media – The New York Times

Latest Articles

Berkeley Breathed, the creator of the comic strip, shared a (fake) letter telling him to stop using Mr. Trumps image.

By CHRISTINE HAUSER

Mark Zuckerberg is only about halfway through his goal to visit all the states, but the trips seem to be influencing his thinking, and his philosophy.

Twitters addition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags comes in time for the 50th anniversary of a vote to include the communities in the national census.

By TACEY RYCHTER

Creeping on your wifes account proves you are just as lame as the rest of us.

By JOHN HODGMAN

A teacher confronted the student, Daniel Barrow, on Thursday after seeing him in an online video with a gun, the police said. Mr. Barrow was arrested.

The Facebook chief plans to visit every state in the union and learn more about a sliver of the nearly two billion people who use the social network regularly.

By MIKE ISAAC

Ms. Mathers must remove graffiti in Los Angeles after taking a photograph of a naked 70-year-old in a shower area, in a case seen as body shaming.

By CHRISTINE HAUSER

It was not just family and friends mourning Martyn Hett this week. Even Mariah Carey was shocked by his death in the Ariana Grande concert bombing.

For one online personality, rushing to post Ariana Grande jokes had immediate consequence. Coca-Cola is one brand he will no longer be paid to plug.

By KATHERINE ROSMAN

With every step down the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, Chinese social media star Lili Xu reckons she is getting ever closer to her dream of a career in the movies.

Facebook converts many wide-angle panorama photos to 360-degree interactive images when they are uploaded, but you can revert to the original.

European Union ministers approved proposals on Tuesday to make social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube tackle videos with hate speech on their platforms. The proposals, which would be the first legislation at EU level on the issue, still need to be agreed with the European Parliament before becoming law. But EU lawmakers have similarly pushed for social media companies to do more to tackle hateful content on their platforms.

Pakistan's interior minister is warning that people posting "anti-state" content on social media will face prosecution.

The commencement speaker Yang Shuping, a senior at the University of Maryland, was accused on social media of selling out her homeland.

By MIKE IVES

Terrorism experts said the traumatizing effects on victims, which included many young girls, had been intended to grab the adult worlds attention.

By DAN BILEFSKY and RICK GLADSTONE

What changes would you like to see on the internet, and why?

By CAROLINE CROSSON GILPIN

A girl and her family were feeding a sea lion from a dock in British Columbia when the animal grabbed her by the dress and pulled her underwater, an episode that was caught on video.

By CRAIG S. SMITH

Social media has been abuzz with images of Mr. Trump joining Saudi and Egyptian leaders in laying hands on a white sphere.

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Images of U.S. President Donald Trump placing his hands on a glowing orb has set alight the internet, prompting comparisons to science fiction and fantasy villains.

Pakistan has begun a crackdown on online criticism of its powerful military, with up to 200 social media accounts under investigation, a security official said on Monday.

Berkeley Breathed, the creator of the comic strip, shared a (fake) letter telling him to stop using Mr. Trumps image.

By CHRISTINE HAUSER

Mark Zuckerberg is only about halfway through his goal to visit all the states, but the trips seem to be influencing his thinking, and his philosophy.

Twitters addition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags comes in time for the 50th anniversary of a vote to include the communities in the national census.

By TACEY RYCHTER

Creeping on your wifes account proves you are just as lame as the rest of us.

By JOHN HODGMAN

A teacher confronted the student, Daniel Barrow, on Thursday after seeing him in an online video with a gun, the police said. Mr. Barrow was arrested.

The Facebook chief plans to visit every state in the union and learn more about a sliver of the nearly two billion people who use the social network regularly.

By MIKE ISAAC

Ms. Mathers must remove graffiti in Los Angeles after taking a photograph of a naked 70-year-old in a shower area, in a case seen as body shaming.

By CHRISTINE HAUSER

It was not just family and friends mourning Martyn Hett this week. Even Mariah Carey was shocked by his death in the Ariana Grande concert bombing.

For one online personality, rushing to post Ariana Grande jokes had immediate consequence. Coca-Cola is one brand he will no longer be paid to plug.

By KATHERINE ROSMAN

With every step down the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, Chinese social media star Lili Xu reckons she is getting ever closer to her dream of a career in the movies.

Facebook converts many wide-angle panorama photos to 360-degree interactive images when they are uploaded, but you can revert to the original.

European Union ministers approved proposals on Tuesday to make social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube tackle videos with hate speech on their platforms. The proposals, which would be the first legislation at EU level on the issue, still need to be agreed with the European Parliament before becoming law. But EU lawmakers have similarly pushed for social media companies to do more to tackle hateful content on their platforms.

Pakistan's interior minister is warning that people posting "anti-state" content on social media will face prosecution.

The commencement speaker Yang Shuping, a senior at the University of Maryland, was accused on social media of selling out her homeland.

By MIKE IVES

Terrorism experts said the traumatizing effects on victims, which included many young girls, had been intended to grab the adult worlds attention.

By DAN BILEFSKY and RICK GLADSTONE

What changes would you like to see on the internet, and why?

By CAROLINE CROSSON GILPIN

A girl and her family were feeding a sea lion from a dock in British Columbia when the animal grabbed her by the dress and pulled her underwater, an episode that was caught on video.

By CRAIG S. SMITH

Social media has been abuzz with images of Mr. Trump joining Saudi and Egyptian leaders in laying hands on a white sphere.

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Images of U.S. President Donald Trump placing his hands on a glowing orb has set alight the internet, prompting comparisons to science fiction and fantasy villains.

Pakistan has begun a crackdown on online criticism of its powerful military, with up to 200 social media accounts under investigation, a security official said on Monday.

The rest is here:
Social Media - The New York Times

Why Instagram Is the Worst Social Media for Mental Health | Time.com – TIME

Instagram is the worst social media network for mental health and wellbeing, according to a recent survey of almost 1,500 teens and young adults. While the photo-based platform got points for self-expression and self-identity, it was also associated with high levels of anxiety, depression, bullying and FOMO, or the fear of missing out.

Out of five social networks included in the survey, YouTube received the highest marks for health and wellbeing and was the only site that received a net positive score by respondents. Twitter came in second, followed by Facebook and then Snapchatwith Instagram bringing up the rear.

The #StatusOfMind survey, published by the United Kingdoms Royal Society for Public Health, included input from 1,479 young people (ages 14 to 24) from across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. From February through May of this year, people answered questions about how different social media platforms impacted 14 different issues related to their mental or physical health.

There were certainly some benefits associated with social networking. All of the sites received positive scores for self-identity, self-expression, community building and emotional support, for example. YouTube also got high marks for bringing awareness of other peoples health experiences, for providing access to trustworthy health information and for decreasing respondents levels of depression, anxiety, and loneliness .

But they all received negative marks, as wellespecially for sleep quality , bullying, body image and FOMO. And unlike YouTube, the other four networks were associated with increases in depression and anxiety.

Previous studies have suggested that young people who spend more than two hours a day on social networking sites are more likely to report psychological distress. Seeing friends constantly on holiday or enjoying nights out can make young people feel like they are missing out while others enjoy life, the #StatusOfMind report states. These feelings can promote a compare and despair attitude.

Social media posts can also set unrealistic expectations and create feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem, the authors wrote. This may explain why Instagram, where personal photos take center stage, received the worst scores for body image and anxiety. As one survey respondent wrote, Instagram easily makes girls and women feel as if their bodies arent good enough as people add filters and edit their pictures in order for them to look perfect.

MORE : Why You Should Let Someone Else Choose Your Tinder Photo

Other research has found that the more social networks a young adult uses, the more likely he or she is to report depression and anxiety . Trying to navigate between different norms and friend networks on various platforms could be to blame, study authors sayalthough its also possible that people with poor mental health are drawn to multiple social-media platforms in the first place.

To reduce the harmful effects of social media on children and young adults, the Royal Society is calling for social media companies to make changes. The report recommends the introduction of a pop-up heavy usage warning within these apps or websitesomething 71% of survey respondents said theyd support.

It also recommends that companies find a way to highlight when photos of people have been digitally manipulated, as well as identify and offer help to users who could be suffering from mental health problems. (A feature rolled out on Instagram last year allowing users to anonymously flag troublesome posts .)

The government can also help, the report states. It calls for safe social media use to be taught during health education in schools, for professionals who work with youth to be trained in digital and social media and for more research to be conducted on the effects of social media on mental health.

The Royal Society hopes to empower young adults to use social networks in a way that protects and promotes their health and wellbeing, the report states. Social media isnt going away soon, nor should it. We must be ready to nurture the innovation that the future holds.

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Why Instagram Is the Worst Social Media for Mental Health | Time.com - TIME

Public Sharply Divided Over Ukraine’s Ban On Russian Social Networks – RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty

KYIV -- Censorship and a blow to freedom of expression, or a long-overdue move in defense of national security?

President Petro Poroshenko's blanket ban in Ukraine on several Russian Internet services, including leading Russian-language social networks and a popular search engine, has struck a chord -- or a nerve, depending on who you ask.

The ban, based on recommendations of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) put forth in April and issued on May 16 by presidential decree, immediately triggered a wave of criticism from human rights groups and journalists who claimed it was undemocratic.

Meanwhile, many Ukrainians -- particularly from the government and security apparatuses -- heralded it as a long overdue step to combat Russian instruments of information warfare amid a bloody shooting war with Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Specifically, the decree orders Internet service providers (ISPs) to block public access for three years to the Mail.ru group and its social-networking sites, VK (formerly VKontakte) and Odnoklassniki -- the top two in Ukraine.

At least 78 percent of Internet users in Ukraine, or some 20 million people, reportedly had a VK account as of late April. The Mail.Ru group is controlled by Kremlin-friendly oligarch Alisher Usmanov.

The decree also orders a block on the popular Russian search engine Yandex and its various services.

It brings the total of sanctioned physical and legal entities to 468 companies, most of them Russian, and 1,228 individuals in connection with what Poroshenko called via his own VK page Russia's "hybrid warfare" against Ukraine, including its seizure of Crimea in March 2014 and its role in a conflict in the country's east that has killed more than 9,900 people.

In signing the decree, Poroshenko promised to close his own VK page, where he has more than 466,000 followers. (The page was still up at the time of publication.)

Cynical Or Long Overdue?

Blistering criticism of the president's move came fast and hot.

"This is yet another example of the ease with which President Poroshenko unjustifiably tries to control public discourse in Ukraine," said Tanya Cooper, Ukraine researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW). "Poroshenko may try to justify this latest step, but it is a cynical, politically expedient attack on the right to information affecting millions of Ukrainians, and their personal and professional lives."

Some critics drew comparisons to Internet restrictions imposed by China, Iran, and Turkey.

The "Erdoganization of Poroshenko is here" former journalist-turned-lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko tweeted in an ominous reference to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's crackdown on that country's press and academia after a failed coup in July 2016.

Serhiy Petrenko, the former head of Yandex Ukraine, wrote this especially scathing indictment of Poroshenko's decree on his blog: "I'll be brief. Everyone who had a hand in this decree, including the person who signed it, are f***ing idiots."

The decree's supporters were no less enthusiastic, with many, like Ukrainian political consultant Taras Kuzio, saying the move was "long overdue."

"On the territory of Crimea and in the Russian Federation, Roskomnadzor blocked all our information resources, in particular, Free Crimea," Ukrainian political analyst Taras Berezovets wrote on Facebook, referring to a nonprofit project that monitors activities of Russian authorities on the annexed Crimean Peninsula. "Russians constantly write letters demanding to ban materials from our sites to our German [service] providers. So don't be surprised that for me this is a day of personal victory. Vendetta is such a sweet word, I'll tell you."

In justifying the ban, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said in a statement that "Russian security agencies are waging a hybrid war against the Ukrainian population, using in their special information operations Internet resources such as VK, Odnoklassniki, Mail.ru, and so on."

Andrei Soldatov, a Russian cybersecurity expert, told RFE/RL that "it is true that VK is extremely intrusive and known to be cooperative with the FSB," a reference to Russia's Federal Security Service and main successor to the KGB. But he argued that most Ukrainian users "cannot pose a security risk" as ordinary citizens "have no access to secrets."

Rather than risk public outrage, Soldatov said, Ukraine could have limited usage of those sites to military and officials with security clearances. Another option, he said without endorsing it, would have been to take a page from Russia's playbook and require the sites to store Ukrainians' personal data on Ukrainian soil.

But How To Ban?

At the time of publication, all of the banned sites were still accessible in Ukraine.

Ukraine had no legal mechanism in place for blocking the Internet resources listed in the ban when Poroshenko signed the decree, according to an SBU statement, leaving it and other law enforcement agencies scrambling to recommend the necessary changes in Ukrainian law.

Mykhaylo Chaplyhya from the Ukrainian Human Rights Ombudsperson's Secretariat told the UNIAN news agency that no website may be blocked in Ukraine without a court order.

Failure to comply with the order may result in fines equal to 100-200 tax-free minimum incomes of citizens, according a statement published on the site of the National Commission for the State Regulation of Communications and Informatics.

Some ISPs, including Ukraine's largest fixed-line operator, Urktelecom, said on May 17 that they had already begun to implement the ban, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

"Work will be carried out in stages and, according to specialists' preliminary estimate, will take several days, up to a week," Interfax quoted Urktelecom as saying.

If or when access to the targeted sites ceases, experts say it will be easy to skirt the block, as virtual private networks (VPNs) are readily available in Ukraine.

Not skipping a beat, VK sent Ukrainian users a message late on May 16 with a link to instructions on how to use such tools to circumvent the block.

"We love our Ukrainian users and want you to always stay in touch with friends and family," the company said.

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Public Sharply Divided Over Ukraine's Ban On Russian Social Networks - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty

Banned on Facebook: how the social network tackles controversial topics – TechRadar

A number of documents and manuals used to train Facebooks moderators have been exposed in an investigative report by The Guardian, revealing the type of content users are and arent allowed to post on the social networking site.

That includes taking some controversial stances. For instance, its allegedly Facebook policy to allow the livestreaming of video of people attempting self-harm, only removing the video once theres no longer an opportunity to help the person unless [the videos] are newsworthy.

Another example is in relation to violent language, which Facebook only deems as against the rules if the specificity of language makes it seem like its no longer simply an expression of emotion but a transition to a plot or design. General statements like lets beat up fat kids (a direct quote) can remain on the site, whereas someones request for a presidential assassination would be removed.

The Guardian report is part of a series the site is calling Facebook Files a combination of articles that discuss the guidelines in depth, and also provide samples of the original moderation documents themselves. The guidelines cover a huge range of specific topics, ranging from the showing of animal cruelty to non-sexual child abuse, and detail how Facebook feels each should be addressed.

Facebook already has around 4,500 content moderators whose sole job it is to wade through reports from users of disturbing or inappropriate content, and the company has said it plans to hire another 3,000 to help deal with the massive workload. While this army of screening staff deal with these reports, they apparently dont touch any of the content when it first gets posted that job is instead relegated to automated systems and checks.

These issues are obviously ethically complex, and for many people it will be irksome to see these topics discussed through the lens of corporate interest, no matter how reasonable the policy surrounding each problem may be.

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Banned on Facebook: how the social network tackles controversial topics - TechRadar