Reading this article worries me a lot. I was fairly unaware of the recession while it was happening, but I encountered many, many stories from the time and read about how it, in many ways, left permanent scars on society. I do worry about if something similar happens soon, especially around the time I'm about to enter the job market.

I would make it so that people always read any linked article before commenting on them.

I honestly think that the things games do of "You've been online for [insert number] hours; maybe you should take a break" so that users are more self-conscious about the time they spend on social media. I at least think it would work for me, because sometimes, while using social media for a long time, I check the time, realize how much time I've spend on social media, and then I promptly log off.

I can't really say that I really like this article- especially item 1, which basically states that one shouldn't blame oneself for their social media addiction because larger, systemics forces are the ones truly driving it. Granted, the part about the systemic forces is absolutely true, but that doesn't mean one should abandon all personal responsibility from the equation. As someone who probably uses too much social media, and is actively trying to reduce their yield, I don't think I would've made progress if I didn't feel bad about myself at least a bit. Of course, one shouldn't overdo and think they're a defective person for not being able to "detox" immediately (again, there were systemic forces working against you) but you shouldn't fall into idea that it isn't, at least, partially one's own fault and therefore within one's personal control.

This BBC article details how Facebook was used in Myanmar (a country where the site is incredibly popular) in order to drum up hate against the Rohingya minority- resulting in a genocide and humanitarian crisis. The article also notes how the UN and other bodies have criticized Facebook for being slow in addressing such inflammatory content on the site.

Often, many social media sites have a "tag" system when it comes to posts and other content (these sites include YouTube). One way to improve recommendations would be if media sites allowed for users to essentially designate some tags with "not-interested" so that content with those tags are less likely to be recommended. This could help users avoid seeing upsetting content.

As someone who frequently uses Twitter, a site also has a follow feature, I feel a bit morbidly curious after reading this article- specifically as to what someone could possibly ascertain about me just by looking at who I follow. They'd probably figure about that I'm interested in history and politics- and more or less figure out a lot of my views- they might even be able to figure out my ethnicity based on how much Korean-history/politics related accounts I follow. Ultimately, I feel like that's fairly trivial information, so I don't mind the idea that much, but I can absolutely understand why people are scared at the thought of something more important (like someone's sexuality) being ascertained by social media sites.

This is a very basic thing, but I don't think companies should seek out information that can allow them to find out someone's address. This can obviously be a valuable piece of information for advertising purposes, but given the ease of data-leaks, it's all too possible that one's address could become easily available- which can lead to a whole host of issues.

I think "A Modest Proposal" is one of earliest examples of trolling where one pretends to be an intentionally exaggerated version of their opponents. In my personal opinion, I really "A Modest Proposal" and this particular type of trolling, especially when it's taken to such drastic lengths while still portraying a deep knowledge of the idea or person being critiqued.

I would have to say that there is an additional reason for trolling- the financial one. On some monetizable social media platforms, like Youtube or Twitter, more engagement means more revenue- so there is a trend of people who make intentionally outrageous statements/videos/other-content to drive up their engagement and their income (which I would say counts as trolling, especially since it's almost always at someone else's expense). This definitely doesn't account for most trolling, but it is noticeable.

This article in the Guardian details the analysis work done by Stack Overflow's David Robinson on the tweets of then presidential candidate Donald J Trump. Much of the text is in Robinson's own words, detailing how there was a clear difference in the content of the tweets written on an android device as opposed to an iphone- with the android tweets (likely from Trump's own Sanmsung Galaxy), contributing to the aggressive tweets that Trump was known for.

Honestly, I don't think too much about the authenticity of politician's tweets that are actually made by their social media teams. Maybe it's because I grew up in an age where you really wanted your online image polished if you were a public figure, but I generally carry the expectation that most politicians have teams of people working "their" social media accounts, crafting a carefully curated image to the point where, even if the politician writes their own tweets, they are heavily edited to the point of being hardly authentic themselves. So, end of the day, I don't think too much of them one way or the other.

I think on the english-speaking internet specifically, there's a lot of American defaultism- most because of America's disproportionately large population among native-english speaking countries, and the fact that a lot of popular social media sites are American and first got popular in America. I saw this during Covid, when users on Twitter criticized a couple for having a wedding with a big crowd (this was during the American lockdowns)- only for the OP to reveal that she was a New Zealander whose country had safely exited lockdown far quicker than America.

This article by Matt Binder details the abnormally high number of bot traffic that occurred during the 2024 Super Bowl. In particular, the article cites the words of CHEQ (a major cybersecurity firm) founder and CEO Guy Tytunovich, who details the reasons why such an occurrence is so anomalous. The article also details how the presence of bots has grown notably on Twitter since Elon Musk's assumption of ownership over the site. Finally, it ends with an explanation as to why- mostly pointing to Musk's sweeping lay-offs of staff that perhaps might've safeguarded against bot growth.