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Post by Admin on Sept 16, 2015 12:28:03 GMT
A new German Green Party video urges citizens and Facebook managers to act against a spate of anti-immigrant hate messages on social media. In the four-minute video, the Greens' parliamentary leader, Katrin Goering-Eckardt, read out some anti-immigrant abuse she had received, calling it "dirt that belongs in the bin". She urged Facebook to "ensure that such hate, such dirt no longer appears on Facebook pages". A migrant surge is challenging Germany. The authorities expect as many as 800,000 migrants - most of them refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan - to arrive this year. The Greens' leader pointed her Facebook readers to the Greens' anti-racism campaign on Twitter, called #NoHateSpeech. "Your dirt spurs me on," she warned those who had insulted her on Facebook. She said she was also speaking out on behalf of the many Germans helping refugees, who could not defend themselves openly.
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Post by Admin on Dec 6, 2015 7:41:49 GMT
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has written an open letter to his baby daughter, Max, pledging to donate most of his £30 billion fortune to help make the world a better place via the power of the internet. If he'd been more honest, this is the letter I believe he should have written: Darling Max By the time you're old enough to read this, you will understand why I fear for you and your generation. For although I am one of the founding fathers of the internet, I know how dangerous and disturbing the online world has become — especially for girls like you. Let's start with the 'friends' you may have on Facebook. Do not confuse them with the friends you should trust in the real world. Many will barely know you, plenty may be jealous, others will be insincere and spiteful.
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Post by Admin on Jan 14, 2016 6:50:46 GMT
According to police in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, a group of about 20 people attacked six Pakistanis on Sunday evening, near Cologne's central train station. Two of the victims were reportedly taken to hospital. Shortly after the first attack, a similar incident unfolded when a 39-year-old Syrian national was assaulted by a group of five people. Police said they were investigating grievous bodily harm, but could not confirm whether either of the attacks was racially motivated. It was also not initially clear whether the two were linked. Cologne tabloid "Express" reported on Monday that a group of "bikers, hooligans and bouncers" had used Facebook to plan a "human hunt" to "clean up" Cologne's city center. Early on Monday, a police spokesperson was unable to confirm the reports. On Sunday afternoon, police had received tipoffs about "groups," which were "specifically looking for provocation," police said. Officers were deployed in the city center and Cologne's "Altstadt" quarter in large numbers. As the result of several identity checks, four people were briefly detained, reported a police spokesman. Whether they were among the attackers is yet to be determined. Two people also faced criminal charges. German Chancellor Angela Merkel confronted Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in a conversation overheard at the UN about those using his social network to post hateful material. Speaking to the European leader at a luncheon, Zuckerberg was heard saying 'we need to do some work' in reference to the German push against racist posts on the Internet. 'Are you working on this?' Merkel, who has seen an increase in violence against immigrants in her country during a massive intake of Syrian refugees, pressed again. Zuckerberg replied, 'yeah', before a speaker at the event on Saturday in New York made the rest of the conversation inaudible. 'We are committed to working closely with the German government on this important issue,' Facebook spokesman Debbie Frost told Bloomberg. 'We think the best solutions to dealing with people who make racist and xenophobic comments can be found when service providers, government and civil society all work together to address this common challenge.' Merkel's desire to push Facebook to greater control over the information on its website comes as her administration says it would welcome 800,000 refugees from the war-torn Middle East this year.
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Post by Admin on Feb 13, 2016 5:39:11 GMT
On New Year’s Day, 13-year-old Nicole Lovell reportedly posted a photo of herself in the Facebook group Teen Dating and Flirting, along with the question: “Cute or nah?” The post apparently garnered 304 responses, most of which were mean-spirited. Even after the Blacksburg, Virginia, teenager’s disappearance and murder in late January, the members of that Facebook group continued to cyberbully Lovell. That is until Tuesday afternoon, when the group went offline, just after Virginia Tech students David Eisenhauer, 18, and Natalie Marie Keepers, 19, were charged with involvement in Lovell’s death. “No dead people allowed!” one group member commented on a post about Lovell, hours before the group’s page disappeared from Facebook. Another member, using expletives, wrote that the killing was justified because of the victim’s appearance. That post was the only one in the Facebook group’s final 24 hours that mentioned Lovell or the widespread media attention that the group had received in recent days. In fact, up until the shutdown, traffic on the group page was typical, with more than 100 posts in the past day. In the aftermath of Lovell’s death, groups such as Help Save the Next Girl and Justice for Children Without Voices asked Facebook to remove the group. A Facebook representative tells Newsweek that the social network does not comment on specific cases or Facebook groups, and directed Newsweek to the social network’s community standards. Because there are 1.55 billion Facebook users and millions of Facebook groups, the representative says, the company only becomes aware of potentially problematic content if a user reports that content. A group can be disabled for repeat violations, the representative adds.
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Post by Admin on Oct 29, 2016 20:50:57 GMT
On Thursday, Twitter announced it would soon be "discontinuing" the mobile app for Vine. Vine provided a wealth of hilarious six-second loops, often involving sports or highlighting political protests in a time before we all had livestreaming capabilities in our pockets. But all that's over now. And that's leaving thousands of highly creative digital influencers without an outlet. "The creators who will be most damaged by this move are those who were too late to push off-platform," said Taylor Nikolai, creator and owner of the @funnyvines Twitter account and CEO of Viral Spark, a social media consulting company.
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