tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22780946490698170432024-03-13T16:32:23.727-05:00Collections, Resources, and RamblingsNitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.comBlogger204125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-30457634822988571122014-11-05T10:32:00.001-06:002014-11-05T10:32:16.706-06:00Thriving on Forums, Paid Kremlin Trolls Move Into New Offices<a href="http://www.interpretermag.com/russia-this-week-kremlin-trolls-staff-up-move-into-new-offices/#4850">Russia This Week: Low Turnout for ‘Russian March,’ High Turnout for ‘National Unity Day’ | The Interpreter</a>: Thriving on Forums, Paid Kremlin Trolls Move Into New Offices<br />
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The sad life of Putin’s “Troll Army” - http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/11/02/the-sad-life-of-putins-troll-army/Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-91193522021151987052014-11-05T10:28:00.001-06:002014-11-05T10:29:54.714-06:00Be Very Skeptical — A Lot of Your Open-Source Intel Is Fake — War Is Boring — Medium<a href="https://medium.com/war-is-boring/be-very-skeptical-a-lot-of-your-open-source-intel-is-fake-5e4a5d5a9195">Be Very Skeptical — A Lot of Your Open-Source Intel Is Fake — War Is Boring — Medium</a><br />
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Governments plant propaganda in social mediaNitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-2264290506141543762014-09-03T17:47:00.001-05:002014-09-03T17:47:35.907-05:00The Asia Digital Life Project � An Outsized Role for Social Media in the Indonesian Election<a href="http://asiadigitallife.com/2014/07/21/an-outsized-role-for-social-media-in-the-indonesian-election/">The Asia Digital Life Project - An Outsized Role for Social Media in the Indonesian Election</a><br />
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Of 255 million citizens in Indonesia (which makes it the world’s third largest democracy) there are over 77 million citizens online — and 50 million of those are eligible to vote. There’s a very active social media landscape in Indonesia, and the social media activism community there is particularly vibrant.<br />
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Indonesia has one of the largest social media populations in the world. Globally, it’s number four in terms of Facebook users, and number five on Twitter. Jakarta is said to be the busiest Twitter city in the world. Indonesian’s are among the social media users with the most friends. For people there, having more than 1,000 friends on Facebook is not uncommon.<br />
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it’s true that social media was important in this election, mainly because of the lack of official information regarding the candidates and the election.<br />
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Both candidates also used social media a great deal, but in different ways.<br />
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This is the first time a vote in Indonesia has been subjected to this level of transparency. In part, that’s because the governmental election commission published the raw results online. Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-53579568579553732622014-09-01T09:24:00.001-05:002014-09-01T09:24:54.301-05:00Evidence Grows That Online Social Networks Have Insidious Negative Effects | MIT Technology Review<a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/view/530401/evidence-grows-that-online-social-networks-have-insidious-negative-effects/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140901">Evidence Grows That Online Social Networks Have Insidious Negative Effects | MIT Technology Review</a><br />
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They found for example that face-to-face interactions and the trust people place in one another are strongly correlated with well-being in a positive way. In other words, if you tend to trust people and have lots of face-to-face interactions, you will probably assess your well-being more highly.<br />
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But of course interactions on online social networks are not face-to-face and this may impact the trust you have in people online. It is this loss of trust that can then affect subjective well-being rather than the online interaction itself.<br />
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Sabatini and Sarracino tease this apart statistically. “We find that online networking plays a positive role in subjective well-being through its impact on physical interactions, whereas [the use of] social network sites is associated with lower social trust,” they say. “The overall effect of networking on individual welfare is significantly negative,” they conclude.<br />
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That’s an important result because it is the first time that the role of online networks has been addressed in such a large and nationally representative sample.<br />
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Sabatini and Sarracino particularly highlight the role of discrimination and hate speech on social media which they say play a significant role in trust and well-being. Better moderation could significantly improve the well-being of the people who use social networks, they conclude.Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-80491457312765115562014-08-29T07:53:00.001-05:002014-08-29T07:53:54.802-05:00With $30 Million More in Hand, IFTTT Looks to the Internet of Things - NYTimes.com<a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/with-30-million-more-in-hand-ifttt-looks-to-the-internet-of-things/?_php=true&_type=blogs&emc=edit_tnt_20140829&nlid=59143546&tntemail0=y&_r=0">With $30 Million More in Hand, IFTTT Looks to the Internet of Things - NYTimes.com</a><br />
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It is essentially a giant switchboard to connect disparate services, anything from Facebook to text messages to telephone calls. Users can create “recipes” in which an action on one service can trigger an action on another entirely different service.<br />
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More than 100 other Internet services connect to IFTTT, including Twitter and YouTube.<br />
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even if your text messaging service, by itself, is not meant to be a sort of alert system for when your friend checks in on Foursquare, the start-up wants to make that sort of remixing possible.<br />
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A social media manager for a company, for example, could connect multiple Twitter accounts to IFTTT and set up recipes specific to each account.<br />
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Anyone can make IFTTT recipes to use and share with others — 15 million recipes are used on a daily basis — and that number has only increased as more services connect to IFTTT’s platform.<br />
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Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-57563323035455364312014-08-28T17:28:00.001-05:002014-08-28T17:28:46.167-05:00Mobile Sales Lift Alibaba Profit Nearly Threefold, Ahead of I.P.O. - NYTimes.com<a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/alibaba-profit-and-mobile-revenue-soars-again-as-i-p-o-nears/?_php=true&_type=blogs&emc=edit_tnt_20140828&nlid=59143546&tntemail0=y&_r=0">Mobile Sales Lift Alibaba Profit Nearly Threefold, Ahead of I.P.O. - NYTimes.com</a><br />
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The Chinese e-commerce behemoth disclosed on Wednesday that its profit nearly tripled in the quarter that ended June 30, to $2 billion. Its sales climbed 46 percent, to $2.5 billion.<br />
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In short, it is part eBay, part Amazon.com and part PayPal, with a hunger to invest in yet more up-and-coming industries.<br />
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Nearly a third of Alibaba’s gross merchandise volume, or the value of goods sold on Alibaba’s marketplaces, comes from mobile transactions, compared with just 12 percent a year ago. And the number of mobile monthly active users rose 15 percent compared with those in the period a year earlier, to 188 million.Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-1269433582994588182014-08-26T14:46:00.001-05:002014-08-26T14:46:33.771-05:00BBC News - James Foley: Extremists battle with social media<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28870777">BBC News - James Foley: Extremists battle with social media</a>: Just as Islamic State (IS) has swept across Iraq, so too has it swarmed over social media - using the platform with a sophistication never before witnessed in this way.Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-33502029671433427402014-08-26T14:21:00.001-05:002014-08-26T14:21:15.854-05:00ISIS as Start-Up: Explosive Growth, Highly Disruptive, Super-Evil — Matter — Medium<a href="https://medium.com/matter/isis-as-start-up-explosive-growth-highly-disruptive-super-evil-4c7f7d3d99e5">ISIS as Start-Up: Explosive Growth, Highly Disruptive, Super-Evil — Matter — Medium</a><br />
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40,000 tweets were sent in a single day from the accounts of ISIS supporters. It’s built a huge, sophisticated web of connected Twitter accounts that amplify every single message.Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-2829106583299291542014-08-26T13:43:00.001-05:002014-08-26T13:43:00.304-05:00Jihad in a social media age: how can the west win an online war? | World news | The Observer<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/23/jihad-social-media-age-west-win-online-war">Jihad in a social media age: how can the west win an online war? | World news | The Observer</a><br />
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James Foley's murder highlights how the use of film, tweets and blogs to further the aims of ISIS is now a major security issue.<br />
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Islamic State's online army – dubbed "the new disseminators" by radicalization experts.<br />
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"These are young men in their 20s who have grown up with all this stuff," he said. "They all know it's not that hard to build an app, they know how important Twitter is, they know how to upload a really nasty YouTube video, and it'll go viral quickly. It's second nature to a lot of these young men, plus the lowering price of producing reasonably good-looking propaganda and sending it around the world is a lot easier now than it was 10 years ago."<br />
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The two most popular sites used by militants, he said, were Twitter and the Latvian-based site Ask.FM, where users, often anonymously, fire questions at one another. "Periodically a foreign fighter based in Syria will appear on the site. Wannabe foreign fighters can go to them and ask questions: 'What should I pack? What's the weather like out there?'<br />
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The most influential tweeter for foreign fighters was named as Shami Witness, a social media operator whose popularity has swollen in tandem with the territorialexpansion of ISIS.<br />
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Even a cursory sweep across Twitter can expose a multilayered network of foreign fighters, friends and wannabes. "The police want to close these things down and arrest them, while the intelligence services always want to keep them up, follow their followers, understand their network. They enable security services to track a lot of people.<br />
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One downside of attempting to drive extremists from social media is that it will drive them further into the deep web. Last week's Twitter crackdown has already witnessed extremists gravitate towards Diaspora, a decentralised network with data stored on private servers which cannot be controlled by a single administrator. Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-65645167556279985062014-08-19T14:37:00.001-05:002014-08-19T14:37:53.868-05:00Computational Linguistics of Twitter Reveals the Existence of Global Superdialects | MIT Technology Review<a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/view/529836/computational-linguistics-of-twitter-reveals-the-existence-of-global-superdialects/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140808">Computational Linguistics of Twitter Reveals the Existence of Global Superdialects | MIT Technology Review</a><br />
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The first study of dialects on Twitter reveals global patterns that have never been observed before.<br />
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They then searched these tweets for word variations that are indicative of specific dialects. For example, the word for car in Spanish can be auto, automóvil, carro, coche, concho, or movi, with each being more common in different dialects. Different words for bra include ajustador, ajustadores, brasiel, brassiere, corpiño, portaseno, sostén, soutien, sutién, sujetador, and tallador while variations on computer include computador, computadora, microcomputador, microcomputadora, ordenador, PC, and so on.<br />
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They then plotted where in the world these different words were being used, producing a map of their distribution. This map clearly shows how different words are commonly used in certain parts of the world.Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-47144152047884093862014-08-19T14:33:00.001-05:002014-08-19T14:33:10.107-05:00Daily Report: As Social Media Studies Proliferate, Experts Weigh Ethics Guidelines - NYTimes.com<a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/13/daily-report-as-social-media-studies-proliferate-experts-weigh-ethics-guidelines/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&emc=edit_tnt_20140814&nlid=59143546&tntemail0=y&_r=1">Daily Report: As Social Media Studies Proliferate, Experts Weigh Ethics Guidelines - NYTimes.com</a><br />
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Social science researchers are exhilarated by the prospect of tapping into the vast troves of personal data collected by Facebook, Google, Amazon and a host of start-ups, Vindu Goel reports.<br />
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Professor Hancock was a co-author of the Facebook study in which the social network quietly manipulated the news feeds of nearly 700,000 people to learn how the changes affected their emotions. When the research was published in June, the outrage was immediate.Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-20429113865984056982014-08-19T14:30:00.001-05:002014-08-19T14:30:40.773-05:00How People Consume Conspiracy Theories on Facebook | MIT Technology Review<a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/view/529956/how-people-consume-conspiracy-theories-on-facebook/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140814">How People Consume Conspiracy Theories on Facebook | MIT Technology Review</a><br />
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… in much the same way as mainstream readers consume ordinary news, say computer scientists.<br />
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In 2013, a report from the World Economic Forum suggested that online misinformation represents a significant risk to modern society. The report pointed to a number of incidents in which information had spread virally with consequences that could hardly have been imagined by its creators.<br />
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In one case, somebody impersonating the Russian Interior Minister tweeted that Syria’s President Basher al-Assad had been killed or injured. The tweet caused the price of crude oil to rise by over one dollar before traders discovered that the news was false. In another case in 2012, 30,000 people fled from the Indian city of Bangalore after receiving text messages that they would be attacked.Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-9239459367738737232014-08-19T14:27:00.001-05:002014-08-19T14:27:50.236-05:00The Data Mining Techniques That Reveal Our Planet's Cultural Links and Boundaries | MIT Technology Review<a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/view/526261/the-data-mining-techniques-that-reveal-our-planets-cultural-links-and-boundaries/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-weekly-communications&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140414">The Data Mining Techniques That Reveal Our Planet's Cultural Links and Boundaries | MIT Technology Review</a><br />
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Studying cultural variation around the world has always been expensive, time-consuming work. Which is why the newfound ability to mine the data from location-based social networks is revolutionizing this science.<br />
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Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-88437549452222483712014-08-18T12:05:00.001-05:002014-08-18T12:05:37.228-05:00For Big-Data Scientists, ‘Janitor Work’ Is Key Hurdle to Insights - NYTimes.com<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/technology/for-big-data-scientists-hurdle-to-insights-is-janitor-work.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140818&nlid=59143546&tntemail0=y&_r=0">For Big-Data Scientists, ‘Janitor Work’ Is Key Hurdle to Insights - NYTimes.com</a>Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-48377055360652439562014-08-16T14:35:00.001-05:002014-08-16T14:35:33.811-05:00Ukraine, Eye on Convoy, Says It Hit Military Vehicles Coming From Russia - NYTimes.com<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/16/world/europe/ukraine-russia.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140816&nlid=59143546&tntemail0=y">Ukraine, Eye on Convoy, Says It Hit Military Vehicles Coming From Russia - NYTimes.com</a>Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-72187122816768686222014-08-14T15:03:00.001-05:002014-08-14T15:03:39.291-05:00Malware Traffic Could Forewarn of International Conflicts | MIT Technology Review<a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/news/529936/malware-traffic-spikes-preceded-russian-and-israeli-conflicts/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-weekly-computing&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140814">Malware Traffic Could Forewarn of International Conflicts | MIT Technology Review</a><br />
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FireEye plans to continue the research. “We can see the digital equivalent of troops on the border,” Kevin Thompson, a threat analyst for the company, told MIT Technology Review. “But we’d like to look back at a whole year of data and try to correlate with all the world events in the same period.”<br />
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Government use of malware is becoming more common, according to Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer at F-Secure, who studies malware made and used by nation-states. Countries of all sizes use malware because it is relatively cheap and gets results, he said during a talk at Black Hat on Wednesday. “There are parallels here to the nuclear arms race,” he said. “[But] the power of nuclear weapons was in deterrence, and we don’t have that with cyberweapons.”Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-40521560498428015972014-07-29T13:33:00.001-05:002014-07-29T13:33:15.445-05:00How to Spot a Social Bot on Twitter | MIT Technology Review<a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/view/529461/how-to-spot-a-social-bot-on-twitter/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140729">How to Spot a Social Bot on Twitter | MIT Technology Review</a><br />
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Back in 2011, a team from Texas A&M University carried out a cyber sting to trap nonhuman Twitter users that were polluting the Twittersphere with spam. Their approach was to set up “honeypot” accounts which posted nonsensical content that no human user would ever be interested in. Any account that retweeted this content, or friended the owner, must surely be a nonhuman user known as a social bot.Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-47661027878157237602014-07-26T10:30:00.001-05:002014-07-26T10:30:22.049-05:00Friedrich Liechtenstein Finds Fame With ‘Supergeil’ Supermarket Ad - NYTimes.com<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/26/world/europe/Friedrich-Liechtenstein-supergeil-germany.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140726&nlid=59143546&tntemail0=y&_r=0">Friedrich Liechtenstein Finds Fame With ‘Supergeil’ Supermarket Ad - NYTimes.com</a><br />
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Mr. Liechtenstein, 55, is an unlikely candidate for Internet fame. He owns no phone, has no computer and only recently moved into an apartment after spending nearly two years living, rent-free, in the stairwell of an upscale eyeglass company’s Berlin office space, then in its showroom, where he served, in the eccentric 19th-century tradition, as an ornamental hermit.<br />
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But after the runaway success of a web-only advertisement for one of Germany’s largest supermarket chains this year, the dapper artist can no longer walk down the street without strangers asking to take his picture.Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-82491985513914261212014-07-24T09:53:00.001-05:002014-07-24T09:53:15.870-05:00Ukraine Crisis in Maps - NYTimes.com<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/02/27/world/europe/ukraine-divisions-crimea.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140713&nlid=59143546&tntemail0=y&_r=0">Ukraine Crisis in Maps - NYTimes.com</a>Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-53682507509023777362014-07-23T12:01:00.001-05:002014-07-23T12:01:37.801-05:00They Did This? In Rebel Country, Disbelief - NYTimes.com<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/23/world/europe/they-did-this-in-rebel-country-disbelief.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140723&nlid=59143546&tntemail0=y&_r=0">They Did This? In Rebel Country, Disbelief - NYTimes.com</a><br />
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In eastern Ukraine, many residents may side with the pro-Russian rebels, but they don’t see the fighters as capable of having taken down the Malaysia Airlines plane with a missile.Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-86751320715138708772014-07-22T11:54:00.001-05:002014-07-22T11:54:43.210-05:00Mathematicians Explain Why Social Epidemics Spread Faster in Some Countries Than Others | MIT Technology Review<a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/view/529126/mathematicians-explain-why-social-epidemics-spread-faster-in-some-countries-than-others/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140722">Mathematicians Explain Why Social Epidemics Spread Faster in Some Countries Than Others | MIT Technology Review</a><br />
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Psychologists have always puzzled over why people in Sweden were slower to start smoking and slower to stop. Now a group of mathematicians have worked out why.Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-22057216277022026442014-07-22T11:33:00.001-05:002014-07-22T11:33:01.095-05:00How ISIS Games Twitter - Atlantic Mobile<a href="http://m.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/isis-iraq-twitter-social-media-strategy/372856/">How ISIS Games Twitter - Atlantic Mobile</a><br />
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insurgency appsNitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-66641750353102133022014-07-22T11:30:00.001-05:002014-07-22T11:30:40.607-05:00It’s Another Perfect Day in Tibet! - NYTimes.com<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/22/world/asia/trending-attractive-people-sharing-upbeat-news-about-tibet-.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140722&nlid=59143546&tntemail0=y&_r=0">It’s Another Perfect Day in Tibet! - NYTimes.com</a><br />
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An advocacy group has identified nearly 100 fake accounts on Twitter whose sole purpose appears to be sharing treacly stories about Tibet and Xinjiang. The content comes via propaganda websites linked to the Chinese government.<br />
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Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-50383335384838676682014-07-20T15:42:00.001-05:002014-07-20T15:42:45.785-05:00The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Remixed And Retweeted : All Tech Considered : NPR<a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/07/19/332883611/the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-remixed-and-retweeted">The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Remixed And Retweeted : All Tech Considered : NPR</a><br /><br />
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<div style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #414141; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; max-width: 100%;">The deadly war in the Gaza Strip and Israel is being fought with rockets and guns. It's also being fought with tweets and viral videos.</div><div style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #414141; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; max-width: 100%;">Propaganda has always been a part of conflict; social media has expanded the battlefield.</div><div style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #414141; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; max-width: 100%;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #414141; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; max-width: 100%;">Alooshe thinks of himself as a soldier in the new media war against Hamas. </div><div style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #414141; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; max-width: 100%;">There's no question that Hamas has stepped up its Internet game from the last conflict.</div><div style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #414141; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; max-width: 100%;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #414141; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; max-width: 100%;">There are trained soldiers in this social media war: The official <a href="https://twitter.com/idfspokesperson" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">English Twitter account</a> for the Israeli military has more than 300,000 followers.</div><div style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #414141; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; max-width: 100%;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #414141; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; max-width: 100%;">In this war, social media is also letting people communicate directly with their enemy.</div><div><br /></div><div><div style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #414141; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; max-width: 100%;">Technology saturates every aspect of this war. Not just drones and missile defense shields, but mundane things like war smartphone apps that include flashlights, radios and emergency numbers.</div><div style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #414141; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; max-width: 100%;">During NPR's interview with Alooshe in Tel Aviv, an air raid siren went off. We dashed to the shelter in his apartment building, where he insisted we take a selfie.</div><div style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #414141; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; max-width: 100%;">"I must take a picture, you know?" he said.</div><div style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #414141; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25px; max-width: 100%;">As soon as the siren stopped, he <a href="https://twitter.com/noyalooshemusic/status/489849339058327553" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">uploaded the picture to Twitter</a> and Facebook. Then he used the chat service WhatsApp to make sure everyone in his family was safe.</div></div>Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2278094649069817043.post-19633783295409845402014-07-16T11:17:00.001-05:002014-07-16T11:17:39.678-05:00Young Israelis Fight Hashtag Battle to Defend #IsraelUnderFire - NYTimes.com<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/world/middleeast/young-israelis-fight-hashtag-battle-to-defend-israelunderfire.html">Young Israelis Fight Hashtag Battle to Defend #IsraelUnderFire - NYTimes.com</a>: Confronted with an outpouring of sympathy on social networks for Palestinians killed or wounded in Gaza in an eight-day military confrontation, a group of young Israelis is pushing back, using the hashtag #IsraelUnderFire to rally support for what they say is an unavoidable, defensive war provoked by rocket fire from Islamist militants.<br /><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">As </span><a href="http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=362804" style="background-color: white; color: #326891; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">The Jerusalem Post reports</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">, the effort to make Israel’s case is being spearheaded by 400 college students posting comments, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/israelunderfire/status/488391001346551808" style="background-color: white; color: #326891; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">memes</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/israelunderfire/status/489138311152140288" style="background-color: white; color: #326891; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">video clips</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">,</span><a href="https://twitter.com/israelunderfire/status/488033220990992387" style="background-color: white; color: #326891; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">images</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;"> and </span><a href="https://twitter.com/israelunderfire/status/487626887909220352" style="background-color: white; color: #326891; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">explanatory graphics</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;"> on </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/IsraelUnderFireLive" style="background-color: white; color: #326891; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">Facebook</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;"> and </span><a href="https://twitter.com/israelunderfire" style="background-color: white; color: #326891; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">Twitter</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;"> from dozens of computers in a </span><a href="http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4542801,00.html" style="background-color: white; color: #326891; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">“Hasbara war room”</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;"> at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. </span><br /><br />
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<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin-left: 4px;">Brewing cyberwarfare… "#IsraelUnderFire" vs. “#GazaUnderAttack" and “#FreePalestine"</div>Nitinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06599130934950306672noreply@blogger.com0