“Die vor uns stehenden Umwälzungen der digitalen Transformation sind von historischer Dimension. Sie sind in ihrer Bedeutung vergleichbar mit den Veränderungen im Zeitalter der Aufklärung, die die Grundlage für die Menschenrechte und ein friedlich vereintes Europa legten.”
Mario Birkholz sieht die Hochschulen in der Pflicht, ihre digitale Kommunikation mit den Anfoderungen des demokratischen Gemeinwesens in Einklang zu bringen.
“If you watched the SEC Twitter account hack that moved markets yesterday and wondered how to prevent account takeover for your personal, business, or high profile social media account, here’s an Account Takeover Prevention Guide for you and/or your organization.” @racheltobac neatly summarises the steps you should take to prevent the hijacking of your online accounts.
“What this means is that even more than it is in the advertising business, Facebook is in the surveillance business. Facebook, in fact, is the biggest surveillance-based enterprise in the history of mankind. It knows far, far more about you than the most intrusive government has ever known about its citizens. It’s amazing that people haven’t really understood this about the company. I’ve spent time thinking about Facebook, and the thing I keep coming back to is that its users don’t realise what it is the company does. What Facebook does is watch you, and then use what it knows about you and your behaviour to sell ads. I’m not sure there has ever been a more complete disconnect between what a company says it does—‘connect’, ‘build communities’—and the commercial reality. Note that the company’s knowledge about its users isn’t used merely to target ads but to shape the flow of news to them. Since there is so much content posted on the site, the algorithms used to filter and direct that content are the thing that determines what you see: people think their news feed is largely to do with their friends and interests, and it sort of is, with the crucial proviso that it is their friends and interests as mediated by the commercial interests of Facebook. Your eyes are directed towards the place where they are most valuable for Facebook.” John Lanchester does not know what will happen should this $450 billion penny ever drop.
“Our concern about government snooping sometimes distracts from self-awareness of our complicity as consumers of products so ubiquitous they have become everyday verbs.” Rachel Holmes is joining the resistance, because the so-called neutral platforms in reality facilitate hate against women, racism and homophobia.
“It is now possible to live in a virtual reality where Trump’s lies are acclaimed as the hidden truth that the mainstream media have concealed from the masses.” Anne Applebaum wants to bring reality back into the public debate.
“We were promised a global village; instead we inhabit the drab cul-de-sacs and endless freeways of a vast suburb of information.” Stephen Marche asks if social media are encouraging us to replace human bonds with mere connections.
“You use Linux everyday, whether you know it or not…”
The Linux Foundation
“Fifty years after one of the most extraordinary episodes of social upheaval in American history, we seem to have forgotten what activism is.” Malcolm Gladwell looks back at the beginnings of the civil-rights movement and tells why the next revolution will not be tweeted.