Landing : Athabascau University

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  • This is a terrifying article on the all-powerful (in China) WeChat app, revealing some fascinating insights into the ways it is organized and policed - very literally - by Chinese authorities. As one source puts it, "The filter bubbles on WeChat...
    Comments
    • Jenny Chun Chi Lien September 12, 2020 - 7:07pm

      Thank you very much professor Jon for sharing this topic.

      I stay away from using any technologies developed by companies in China since they are China government controlled - wechat, tiktok, huawei, alibaba...etc.

      I grew up in Taiwan where the government and most Taiwanese citizens value basic human rights especially in the areas of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, LGBTQ equality, women rights...etc. Many people there have been actively fighting against being influenced or potentially controlled by China mainly because they do not want to lose their basic human rights. They know China too well to not trust China. 

      Since 2019, Reddit- the most popular forum and the 5th largest website in the world (right after Google, Youtube, Facebook, and Amazon), is funded by Chinese investors, which resulted in a large backlash as people worried about potentially censorship that can happen in America [1].

      China's controls of technologies and their growing influences these years are scary, but part of me is happy that finally the rest of the world are starting to see the problems and threads China is bringing to all human beings in the entire world- and we have to do something about it, or one day we can lose our freedom right here in Canada as well. 

       

      [1]  "Reddit: Censorship fears spark criticism of Tencent funding reports". BBC News. February 11, 2019. Retrieved September 30, 2019.

       

    • Jon Dron September 13, 2020 - 2:52pm

      And thanks for this, Jenny. As a long-time Reddit lurker (and very occasional contributor) I had not realized that it was funded by Chinese investors, nor did I know about that backlash. Having visited both Taiwan and China I know which system I prefer! Even walking on the street in Beijing last year I was hastily silenced by a local when I (without directly expressing an opinion or offering a critique) alluded to the troubles in Hong Kong. Quite scary. I loved Taiwan - wonderful place, so much to be proud of.

    • Jenny Chun Chi Lien September 18, 2020 - 11:30pm

      I do feel I am very lucky to be born in Taiwan and to be living in Canada! :D 

      China is so big with 20 percent of the human population so I truly hope one day their political system would change!

      I also use Reddit a lot to read information - I find opinions posts on Reddit tend to be more honest and reliable compared to other sites (at least for now) . I don't think any censorship has happened on Reddit yet but Tecent - the Chinese company invested in Reddit is the owner of WeChat, so I think reddit users' worries are very legit!

       

  • Baljeet Bilkhu commented on a bookmark WT.Social September 5, 2020 - 9:08am
    I too have signed up for WT.social and found it to be a really great resource for news - I especially like the aspect of being able to determine what is important to me and can filter on what exactly I want to see.  I also like the reporting...
  • Jon Dron bookmarked LambdaMOO Takes a New Direction August 19, 2020 - 10:53am
    This is a fantastic example - from 1992 - of how it is completely impossible to separate out the digital technologies from the social technologies (the rules, norms, procedures, etc) in a social software system. Social software is not just code: it...
  • Jon Dron bookmarked WT.Social August 18, 2020 - 10:31pm
    A social network that you can pay for, created by Jimmy Wales (of Wikipedia fame). You can get in right away with no payment but I chose to pay because I believe in this kind of thing. It looks pretty cool, more set-like than network-like. From the...
    Comments
    • Baljeet Bilkhu September 5, 2020 - 9:08am

      I too have signed up for WT.social and found it to be a really great resource for news - I especially like the aspect of being able to determine what is important to me and can filter on what exactly I want to see.  I also like the reporting and analysis provided by WT.Social - something that I find lacking on some other news platforms.

  • Machines might be very good at *identifying* problems, and that's great, but humans are needed to react to and deal with them: there are infinite possible ways to do that, and there are always vastly many opportunities to heal rifts, and make things...
  • Hi Dr. Dron, Interesting topic. Your comment about having reserve if this was automated reminds me of Linus Torvald's concerns when his lieutenants wanted to use automated code merges. He resisted for a while and then wrote Git. It's become common...
  • Reporting on a very interesting study (linked from the article) on aggressive comments on Wikipedia pages, revealing that less than half of all personal attacks on the site are from anonymous users. Although it is true (as conventional wisdom...
    Comments
    • Daryl Campbell February 15, 2017 - 12:57pm

      Hi Dr. Dron,

      Interesting topic. Your comment about having reserve if this was automated reminds me of Linus Torvald's concerns when his lieutenants wanted to use automated code merges. He resisted for a while and then wrote Git. It's become common place to just trust code merges now with high degree of confidence. 

      What concerns you with an automated system for detecting and responding to attacks when there are known patterns? Assume of course that there these changes still hit the Wiki history and there is some way to appeal. (I'm not enticing you to write this tool though ;-) )

      -dc-

    • Jon Dron February 15, 2017 - 1:54pm

      Machines might be very good at *identifying* problems, and that's great, but humans are needed to react to and deal with them: there are infinite possible ways to do that, and there are always vastly many opportunities to heal rifts, and make things positive again. It's about humans socializing with humans and the smartest AI in the world does not yet (and likely never will) know what it is like to be a human, so will not be able to respond creatively or appropriately to that unique social context.

  • Jon Dron bookmarked An Introduction to Social Media for Scientists January 27, 2017 - 6:52pm
    A practical guide for researchers wishing to make use of the social web in a professional academic context. Given the intent to offer an introduction as to why social media should matter to the academic research community, it provides quite a good...
  • A thoughtful piece from danah boyd on how difficult it is to avoid self-segregation in online (as well as physical) communities: in simplistic terms, that we tend to gravitate to those we see as like us, away from those that seem different, and that...
  • Jon Dron commented on a bookmark jwz: Instagram Hates The Internet January 19, 2017 - 2:29pm
    ps - for a glimpse of one alternative approach, it might be worth checking out https://landing.athabascau.ca/bookmarks/view/2091933/open-whisper-systems which is open, non-commercial, and free as in speech as well as in beer.
  • Jon Dron commented on a bookmark jwz: Instagram Hates The Internet January 19, 2017 - 2:24pm
    Sigh - more fragmentation. It will be interesting to see what becomes of this. After dropping its extremely unpopular attempt to tie YouTube comments to Google+ accounts I am a little surprised that Google is attempting something that appears to be...
  • Sandra Mulalic commented on a bookmark jwz: Instagram Hates The Internet January 19, 2017 - 1:37pm
    The latest chat feature by YouTube does exactly that, it is trying to lock their users in the "walled gardens" of YouTube: "The idea is to keep the sharing experience within YouTube instead of switching between other applications, which the...
  • Jon Dron bookmarked dlvr.it: Smart Social Media Automation January 15, 2017 - 3:01pm
    One of a number of services, tools and plugins to enable syndication of content to and from various social media. As far as I can tell this is, in some ways, not quite as smart as something like Known, inasmuch as (from a cursory glance) it seems to...
  • Yochai Benkler's seminal paper from 2002, introducing themes later explored in greater depth in the Wealth of Networks (very highly recommended, albeit very long indeed). In this shorter and earlier paper, he outlines his central notion of a third...
  • Quite an interesting infographic snapshot of a (small but significant) subset of popular social media sites and their users, in infographic form, with sources. Gives a good overview of who, how, why and to what extent people tend to use some popular...
  • Jon Dron bookmarked jwz: Instagram Hates The Internet March 30, 2016 - 11:00am
    Quite opinionated perspective on Instagram as an old fashioned bulletin board system and the deeply harmful lock-in practiced by most social media companies on the Internet today. Though the tone of the article is angry (and, strangely, doesn't...
    Comments
    • Sandra Mulalic January 19, 2017 - 1:37pm

      The latest chat feature by YouTube does exactly that, it is trying to lock their users in the "walled gardens" of YouTube:

      "The idea is to keep the sharing experience within YouTube instead of switching between other applications, which the company hopes will create a less cumbersome experience."

      Not unlike the way FB Messenger and Viber keep offering to use their applications for actual phone calls, instant messaging and also to replace phone's native SMS application.

    • Jon Dron January 19, 2017 - 2:24pm

      Sigh - more fragmentation. It will be interesting to see what becomes of this. After dropping its extremely unpopular attempt to tie YouTube comments to Google+ accounts I am a little surprised that Google is attempting something that appears to be even worse, especially given the fact that the company was once admirably committed to supporting standards like OpenSocial that were designed to support such interoperability. As usual, Facebook is much to blame - it has deliberately sucked people from YouTube and hidden what they post, and is now a major video provider in its own right, so I guess Google felt it had to respond. This is not the way to do it, though.

      In fairness, realtime chat, video, audio, etc has historically always been prone to proprietary lock in, partly for technical reasons but, I suspect, mainly because ephemeral stuff like that can more easily be locked in: people seldom need to use it or share it beyond the immediate context, so they can (in theory) flit between systems as they please. It's annoying if you do wish to record and refer back to it, but it's not so disruptive if you lose access, on the whole. There's not the long-term investment, nor much need to reify such dialogues. After initially thinking things like Viber etc were a great idea, I am now very much less enamoured, especially since Apple and Google joined the party. Beware what happens should you ever switch from an iPhone to an Android phone or vice versa. As for WhatsApp, words fail me. It's easy to see the appeal, though, to the companies of fragmentation as a business model. I wonder whether there is a business model that makes defragmentation worthwhile? A good book that has much to say on such things is The Master Switch, by Tim Wu, which gives an historical (though very US-centric) account of things like the telephone system, radio regulation, cable TV, etc, and looks at the Internet in the light of that. Few answers, but a great analysis of how (in the US) such things evolved.

       

    • Jon Dron January 19, 2017 - 2:28pm

      ps - for a glimpse of one alternative approach, it might be worth checking out https://landing.athabascau.ca/bookmarks/view/2091933/open-whisper-systems which is open, non-commercial, and free as in speech as well as in beer.

  • And the one goal is growth. Zuckerberg would always ask the same question: "Does it help us grow?" If not, he would tell Kagan he wasn't interested. This relentless and single-minded pursuit of growth not matter what the cost is of course what I...
  • This sounds interesting, especially as (now but not forever) the better tiers are free. There will always be a free tier, according to the ads.  It's trying to be an app store for open source web applications, allowing you to install all sorts...
  • Craig Diotte commented on a bookmark Definition Discussions Elsewhere / Social Software Alliance January 17, 2016 - 4:24pm
    Nothing helps establish your geek cred more then being able to quote an RFC!  I remember in my undergrad we had to disect an IP packet using the RFC as a reference.  I was in my glory. As for the definition of social software, its almost...
  • Jon Dron commented on a bookmark Definition Discussions Elsewhere / Social Software Alliance January 17, 2016 - 3:04pm
    The search for a definition is *much* more important than finding one. It is not just a moving target but one that can be viewed through many valid lenses. Many moons ago I used to teach beginners about the Internet (because there were people that...