INF-6107

mardi 28 mars 2017

Social Media in an Orwellian world

In his classic novel "1984", Georges Orwell presented a dystopian world where everyone was watch at all time by the all knowing Big Brother. This entity controlled the though of all citizen ensuring the good of the society.
The witty writer would have marvel at the social media networks and ubiquity of surveillance in our world. All for the sake of security, all major communications an social tools are subjected to government "spying". The government does not intervene as strongly as in the novel, still it is scary to see how our information can be use against the population.
Often more aggressive than governments are the corporations that profile online users to present the best marketing strategy. Just by looking at the "likes" of someone on Facebook, it is possible to deduce some personality traits. From there a marketer can build a solid profile by looking at the purchases made, items searched in the last month, etc.
With almost every online activities logged, what your are looking for can easily be determined. The catch is that almost everyone willingly grant access to all that information. No one is forced to "post", "search", "like", etc. online. We do it to be part of something bigger. To be recognized by our peers, to be "in". And quite often we like having the right advertisement at the right time. Who cares how they guessed what I need if it save me the hassle of searching.

lundi 27 mars 2017

Twitter Chat

I must confess, of all the social tools the most incomprehensible for me was Twitter. Granted, I am not a fan of any social tool, I can still find my way around most of them to find something interesting for me. But Twitter was still a mystery to me. I understood the basic principle that is: someone write a short post to his followers. They can then reply or forward the post.
That was it for me. Beyond that I was clueless.

Not anymore.

Looking for some interesting topics on groups in social media I came across TwitterChat. These are scheduled chats on Twitter where you can interact live with people interested in the chat subject. The chats are moderated by a host and gives the opportunity to meet new people. During the chat you can asked question or reply to others question. The idea is to share and discuss on a specific topic. It is a very dynamic group as it vary from chat to chat.

The tricky part is to find an active TwitterChat. I found an interesting one #contentchat that was having place this afternoon. The chat was moderated by Erika Heald @SFerika ‏ and had many participants. Some asked questions while others answered or commented on the post. In all the experience was interesting and I think this kind of social group is very effective by its dynamic nature and heterogeneous composition depending of the subject.

mercredi 22 mars 2017

Social media and narcissism

The advent of the social media may have been positive in many respects but it may have some psychological side-effects.
A growing body of evidence point to an epidemic of narcissism in social media. The self promoting social network are the perfect stage for narcissist to thrive in their disorder. So much that many of the most active users of social network present strong trait of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).

While it is possible to make correlation between overactive users and NDP, it is very difficult to determine if the social networks are causing NDP. Considering that the disorder is likely to develop before the age of 7 it seems more probable that social media attract narcissistic people because the structure of the network feed their need of shallow love and self promotion.
The source of the narcissism epidemic is therefor rooted in our parenting habits and social standards with children.

RE: 8 Ways Facebook Changed the World

In February 2014, Kurt Wagner posted an article on the ways Facebook changed the world. The article was interesting even 2 years later.

8 ways Facebook changed the World.

1. Facebook Changed How We Keep in Touch

Facebook is definitely a milestone in the history of human relations. In little more than 10 years, it has become more than a mean of communication but a relation catalyst. People connect and relate to each other through the service. It is part of the life of its user in a way that goes beyond one on one communication. It is the main way of getting news and information on people and organizations.

2. Facebook Changed the Way We Share Our Lives

With Facebook came the gratification of being popular, of speaking to an audience. As it takes everything to make the world there is an audience for any kind of posting. Be it your favourite food or your weird hobby, someone somewhere will be interested and will probably comment...

3. Facebook Changed the Way We Consume Content

Facebook is working endlessly to present its user with the news and content it would want to see. The more this art is perfecting the less user are exposed to new ideas. In this respect, it's a drawback of Facebook in regard to the widening of everyone horizon. You like baseball, we'll present you more baseball...

4. Facebook Changed the Way We View Privacy

This one is tricky... In fact, Facebook did not changed the way we see privacy, it blurred the lines. No one knows what privacy is anymore. Even someone who don't publish specific information on himself can be profiled just by looking at the pages he views and likes.

5. Facebook Changed American Politics

While it is still very true that Facebook changed the American politics, the sole influence of Facebook has faded. Other social networks are gaining importance in politics especially Twitter. Still Facebook was a game changer and paved the way to the use of social media to share political views/agenda.

6. Facebook Changed the Middle East

The kind of change that came to the Middle East using Facebook is not likely to be seen again because most of controlling regime learned from that and now censors and or monitors the use of social media.

7. Facebook Changed the Way People Are Bullied

Because of this new reality, rules have been adjusted to limit the possibility of cyberbullying. Police have more power and tools to manage those crime but the pseudo anonymity of the Internet keeps things sometimes tricky.

8. Facebook Changed the Way Businesses Interact With Customers

In 2017 a business (mainly retail and services to the population) cannot exist without a presence on Facebook. It is a privileged way to interact with clients. To manage complaint as well as promoting services of goods.

mardi 21 mars 2017

Wikileaks

In the turmoils of fake news and media blaming, one site still keeps bringing the truth.
Wikileaks was build to unveil the the truth about back office deals and hidden agenda of political groups around the world.
It is paradoxical that one of the most respected site and awarded for its transparency and openness about the source is aiming to make state secrets public. In this case, the credibility of the site is its main characteristic. All document posted on the site are thoroughly authenticate by multiple sources. Without this process, the site would lose the trust of its readers and its main goal.Still, it proves that even in an era of misinformation there is a way to promote truth and inspire trust.

lundi 20 mars 2017

"WireTrump"

More and more the use of social media to promote political agenda is eroding the trust in the online information.

Earlier this month, president Trump accused the previous administration and president of wiretapping his phone line during the presidential campaign. While President Trump maintain the accusation, no proof have been presented. What would follow is a series of public exchanges and requests aiming at discrediting the other party. While it is common place in politics to claim and disclaim all sorts of pseudo fact, in the social world things are generally more subtle.
Don't get this wrong, there is plenty of false statements on social network but they don't affect a nation security nor they are officially framed to attack the previous president. By using the social network to manipulate the public opinion, President Trump, bypass the traditional news outlet and flood the public with posts that are both entertaining and political. The negative impact of this strategy is a diminished trust in information in the social network.
We live in a society where information is front and centre of everything. If we cannot trust the news media or our social network (friends, colleague, family, etc.) how to find the truth? It is necessarily somewhere hidden behind some lies.
A survey by Environics found last year that less than 30% of respondents trust the information on social network which not far behind the less than 50% for broadcasting news. Even if we know the information may be false, the message stick if it is repeated. A poll by the news channel WJHL hint at a 25% believing the president. This poll is on a voluntary base and may not well reflect the general opinion. Still 25% is a lot of people backing the president on an accusation for which he has provided no proof.