Home / Commentary / Page 9
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Privacy is a huge concern for many users of social networking sites (SNSs). As danah boyd points out in her article, “Social Network Sites as Networked Publics Affordances, Dynamics, and Implications”, the private and public realms of the online world are blurred and constantly in flux. For instance, the public we may think of... More
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
When I first learned about the Amazon Echo I admit I immediately secretly wanted one. I mean, who wouldn’t, right? A 9-inch tubular robot sitting on the counter or shelf in any room of your home, just waiting for you to ask it a question or command it to order something online from... More
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
This blog post is part of our participation and support of the 16 Days of Activism to End Violence Against Women. The role of social media and reproductive coercion has made major news headlines this past year and I was recently asked to provide some comments about this topic for Planned Parenthood Ottawa. I... More
Monday, November 20, 2017
Reddit has an ugly side, and I’m not talking about its pro-Donald Trump subreddit or a community that appears to be organized around sharing pictures of dragons mating with cars (I think it’s best to not provide a link to either of those). It’s difficult to compare reddit to other websites, since it’s... More
Sunday, November 19, 2017
In 2011, Marc Andreessen declared, "Software is eating the world". Fast forward to 2016 and it has definitely eaten up mine. As a young researcher and writer, I’ve no doubt enabled the insatiable beast that is software through an increasing reliance on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). My relationship with software could... More
Saturday, November 18, 2017
Have you ever wondered how fast your teen is driving when not under your watchful eye? Or wish you could block them from online dating and chat sites? Maybe turn their phone off - even lock it down - after a pre-set time limit? Or even track their GPS location? Well, the good... More
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Depending on how familiar you are with reddit, you might think of it as a place where people post memes and cat pictures. Or maybe your perception of the site is shaped by some of its stranger communities – for every subforum (or ‘subreddit’ as they’re called on the site) that’s dedicated to sharing... More
A secret program in the UK has been using the school system’s data collection to uncover illegal migrants by identifying those children attending public school. In a recent interview with the Guardian, Martha Spurrier, the director of Liberty in the UK, accused the program of turning the Department of Education “into a border... More
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Seven years ago author Malcolm Gladwell – in a piece penned for The New Yorker – declared that the “revolution will not be tweeted”. In making a case against what he characterizes as the “so-called Twitter revolution”, Gladwell muses on how social media platforms simultaneously make it easier for activists to express themselves and... More
Saturday, September 30, 2017
Thirty three years ago today, September 30th 1965, marked the beginning of the anticommunist massacre in Indonesia — a bloodbath considered to be one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. In a singular official version of the event propagated by the Indonesian government, the day marked the "day of betrayal" by the... More
Sunday, September 17, 2017
For many us, when you see that a friend has checked-in somewhere posted on Facebook, your eyes probably glaze over and you quickly skip past their Foursquare recommendation of a specific restaurant or coffee shop. But last fall, you may have noticed that a large number of your Facebook friends apparently went to... More
The Conversation just published a short essay entitled "Beyond fake news: social media and market-driven political campaigns" written by Merlyna Lim. This essay is a summary of a much longer and comprehensive article, titled "Freedom to Hate: social media, algorithmic enclaves, and the rise of tribal nationalism in Indonesia," published... More
Search