Pieces of my mind

❤ A social media student who sits in front of tumblr | 22 y/o | A nomster ❤ Digital Communities | Swinburne University of Technology, Sarawak ❤ Portions of this site and the works within it are being produced with the intention of critique and/or educational use under Australia's 'fair dealing' exceptions to copyright (Section 40 & 41). However, if you feel your IP is being infringed, please contact my service provider (tumblr) with the appropriate DMCA requests, as I, the single author take full responsibility for the content of this site.

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Fa Mulan on Social Media

Could Fa Mulan has her own Facebook, Twitter or Instagram? What? You don't know who is Fa Mulan?

She's the hero of China as in Mulan movie by Disney.

The topic for today will be China and Social Media Banning

China & Social Media Banning

As technology rises, social media exist as a way for people to communicate and interact with each other. People could get the latest news or any informations if you just click on it, well technology is at the tip of our finger. But along the processes, there will be someone out there watching all our steps and controlling from the inside what we may view or what we may not. They would try to permanently blocked or removed it from our eyes and make it out of reach. Scary isn't it? "Well, it's for the best", that's what China said.

Is China striving to a better nation or waiting fot it's doomsday?

Will Fa Mulan save them again?

The Banning of LGBT

It's already crystal clear that China is making many possible ways to block the access of their people to the outside world by creating a new one which they can control such as Weibo, Youku Tudou, RenRen, QZone and many others.

In this issue, let's talk about LGBT community in China. Comparing China and United States, China has a larger population than United States of 1,337 million people and anywhere in this world, there will be LGBT supporters including in China.

But, the LGBT community in China has been shut off completely through their own social media as the government has the power. They think LGBT comes from corrupted mind of people and it should be taken down.

According to Weibo’s official administrator account, their post stated that the site would be launching a three-month cleanup targeting “illegal” content, including images, cartoons and videos associated with homosexuality, pornography and violence.

And guess what? All the post related to homosexuality and posts with #iamgay or any posts that have 'gay' word were removed completely from social media while the people were outraged.

Somehow, it becomes a sensitive keyword just like feminism.

"Feminism has become a politically sensitive keyword" (Andersen, Wired Magazine, 2018)

What would happen to the LGBT community in China in the future?

As you know, even if right now the people of China can't have access or reach out to the information outside, one day with the power of the civilians they can topple down the government just by using social media. Social media can't stop them from posting and sharing their ideologies among them.

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Social Gaming, A Brand New World

Social Gaming?

Social gaming brings out a whole new world to people where they can play games and interact with each other. It is different from our reality world as they can customise their avatar, be whoever they want to be and choose how they want to look like. Some male gamers choose to have a girl avatar in the social gaming world and some choose to be who they are.

Even though it’s a whole new world for us, it’s also the same like in real world where rules implies to all people. Is that a good news or bad news? It means you can’t do whatever you want unless you break the rules.

HEY! RULES ARE GOOD Y’KNOW.

The developer of the game who creates the rules are like king while the people who play the game are like the citizens. Hereby, to ensure peace and harmony among the citizens, rules are created.

What about people who hacks the game in order to level up their character? Is buying using real money in the game affects the community?

Well you see, social gaming is supposed to be fun and entertaining. Most importantly, it is FREE. But in social gaming, impatience of a gamer would lead them to buy the offers in the game in order to achieve something for their character.

Recently, I started playing Mobile Legends on my Android and here what I could tell you how the game is.

It’s a free interactive multiplayer online game where people could chat, add as friends, create their own community and even voice chatting while playing the game.

In order to get new characters or levelled up, you need to buy them using the money or diamonds you earn from playing the game.

In order to get money or diamonds quickly, you can choose to pay the game to buy diamonds and the game’s money.

Can you see the picture?

The game itself is free for people to download it but when it comes to playing it, you can buy certain things by using real money.

According to an interview conducted by Kononov Nikita, the interviewee claims that the in-game progress feels unreasonably slow unless he pays for it. He gives the game Clash of Clans, made by Supercell, as an example of slow progression.

This would eventually leads them to pay the game in order to speed up the progression of the game itself. This can be applied to the game Mobile Legends.

Personally, I think it is up to the person to spend their money on the game to have upgrades or anything when playing it and it does not considered as cheating. This is due to some people may prefer to work hard for it in order to get what they want to achieve and it brings self-satisfaction when you have achieved it. 

In terms of online community in the game, when there are more players join the community, the relationship between the gamers will eventually grows bigger and they will have many connections around them.

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I’M HOT SO I NEED FANS

Here you go. Five colourful fans and I hope it will cool you down. :)

Fans

What is a fan?

You always see people admitting themselves as “Your Number One Fan” of something or someone. Why can’t you be number two, three or even hundreds. There are thousands of fans each day keep on loving and even worshipping something and as I say, you are also a fan of something too.

“Everybody knows what a ‘fan’ is. It’s somebody who is obsessed with a particular star, celebrity, film, TV programme, band: somebody who can produce reams of information on their object of fandom…And fans participate in communal activities” (Hills, 2002)

Basically, we become a fan once we have something we like in particular.

Examples:

Cartoons

Anime

Comics

Foods

Characters

Books

Artist

You can see from this video which the girl is a fan of makeup and cartoon characters, so she decided to make a video about makeup tutorial on how to cosplay or role-play as characters from cartoons.

Fans Around The World Assemble!

Have you ever wonder how fans unite?

Well in this digital technology, there are many platforms such as Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Discord that allow fans to communicate with each other and form communities online based on their shared interest. It also allow fans to engage in social and political activism.

For example the LGBT community might relate their activism based on some cartoons or anime as some anime portray love between the same gender in certain platforms. Some also make their own piece such as artworks or comics by using the characters to show how they support LGBT.

For example, the anime Yuri On Ice. The descriptions of the anime is mainly about sportsmanship and how Yuri strive to become the best ice skater. Yet, people or fans perceive it as a ‘Yaoi’ (Boy’s love) and most Yaoi fans tend to love it.

Platforms such as Tumblr and Deviantart usually revolve around fandom world and mostly about fan arts while a website called fanfic is a place where fans post the stories they create with the characters they like. It can be any genres including lesbian and gay. This allow them to create their own community as they communicate with each other through their creations. Hence, it supports their belief and engaging in social activism.

We can see it clearly through a Tumblr user named Dopey Beauty which she creates meme and edit pictures in order to support LGBT.

Here, we can see how social activism acts in social media by using the characters they love to express their emotions and beliefs. Some of us do not agree with her actions who do not support LGBT activism as the characters used are for children.

In conclusion, we are all a fan of something and fans are really creative in any activism by using things they like to portray their feelings and thinking. 

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Crowdsourcing & Crowdfunding

Hey! Crowdsourcing is a good way to gain more information.

In today’s era, the advanced technology and the internet can bring the community together by having the same goals or intention. That can be seen through crowdsourcing and crowdfunding. Crowdsourcing is usually involved a number of people working together through collaboration in order to help each other out or achieve an objective.

We can see this through the Apple website where there is a discussion board and people would post their problems there, seeking for solutions for their Apple’s products. Other people would help by commenting some ways through their knowledge to help them. This can be considered as crowdsourcing. It’s a pretty good way to obtain information right? Just like ants that are working together to carry something heavy in order to get food.

BEWARE! Fake News Is Everywhere!

Social media is widely used by our community in communication and it can also be used to spread news. But, what if the news are fake? How can it affect the crowdsourced information.

In Malaysia, Whatsapp and Facebook are the biggest main sources of fake news.

Reasons:

Readers do not seek for the sources and believe the contents.

The messages is widely spread among the users of Whatsapp and Facebook.

Some news are claimed to be created by professionals such as doctors, economist and others.

Words of mouth is a powerful weapon in spreading news.

Chained messages from the fake news.

Speaking of chained messages, have you guys ever got this type of message?

It is widely spread and Whatsapp and many people believe it. What can you do to prevent this chained message from spreading? So as fake news?

Crowdsourcing is the ANSWER

Playing sport is good for your health but have you ever heard playing sport at night is dangerous for your health?

There was a news about how dangerous it is for your health if you exercise during night time and it is a silent killer in our society. But, how crowdsourcing would help to prevent fake news?

Based on one famous medical doctor in Twitter, Dr.Beni Rusani, exercising at night is not a dangerous act and here is how he answers towards the news.

Dr. Beni Rusani is one of the cardiologist at the National Heart Institute (IJN) and graduated from Auckland Medical School in 2003, and Masters in Internal Medicine from National University Malaysia (UKM). He is famous with his social media in bringing awareness about health and reacting towards fake news regarding health issues. Most of the doctors and professionals support his act and posts in social media as they are telling the truth to people. This is a good example of crowdsourcing as fake news are spreading vastly in the community.

So what do you think about crowdsourcing and crowdfunding?

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Magical Creature In The Modern World: Trolls

YOUR VIDEO SUCKS EVEN MY DOG CAN DO IT BETTER. YOU ARE A WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT AND SOOOO FAKE, GO AND F*#K YOURSELF! YOU ARE A CANCER TO EVERYONE!!!

Ever heard of this phrase? It is everywhere across the platforms. YouTube, Facebook or Twitter you just name it. What do people call them?

TROLL

Poppy is a happy singing troll who never left anyone behind and love hugs. But in our real world trolls are not like that. They are meaner just like in the folktales, where the trolls live under the bridge and harass people who are crossing over. But in the modern world, they harass people through the internet platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube or others you just name it.

Where do they harass people?

THE CYBERSPACE

These days, most people use social media as a way to communicate with each other short or long distance. But some people use it to have fun by harassing people in the common platforms such as Facebook and Youtube. Let’s look into another platform which is Sayat.me. 

Sayat.me is a famous platform for businesses to get feedbacks from their peers about certain projects or work anonymously to know the strengths and weaknesses in order to improve the performances of the company. Yet, with the theory of ‘Affordances’, people use it for another reasons.

According to Donald Norman:

...the term affordance refers to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used. A chair affords (‘is for’) support and, therefore, affords sitting. A chair can also be carried.

With the theory of affordances, people use Sayat.me platform to get honest opinions or feedbacks about themselves from their friends or families for fun. What if the fun turns into a tragedy?

A teenage boy,15 hanged himself after being bullied in Sayat.me

This tragedy happened in Sayat.me platform where the boy, George Hessay was cyber bullied and trolled. This platform also created affordances for other people to troll people and it will turned into a cyber bullying case as people may criticise or post anonymously. George decided to hang himself after being trolled online by people in the platform and this was considered as cyber bullying case. From this case, parents should always monitor and observe their children’s behaviour and act when using social media as social media is not all sunshine and rainbows.

Ways to Handle Trollers and Cyberbullying

Even if there are many cases in cyberbullying and trolling in social media, there are ways on how to handle it. Just remember, trollers just want to spread hate across the platforms and they will do whatever they want to bring people down just for their fun.

“And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate

Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake

I shake it off, I shake it off”

Taylor Swift, 1989, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd, 2014.

Ignore the trolls, the more you feed them the happier they are and they will keep on trolling people.

Consult you parents or teachers about the trolls. Don’t keep it to yourself. We don’t want worse thing to happen.

Control your emotions. Don’t give in to their games and fall for it.

Spread more love instead of hate. You don’t want to stoop so low just like them do you?

Report it or flagged it as spams.

If you have suicidal thoughts after reading the comments, consult a therapist or counsellor.

Remember, troll is just a normal human being who is hiding behind their computer. They are afraid to show up in the real world and hiding in their nest of cowardice.

Tell me what you think about trolling and cyberbullying by leaving the comments below. :)

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NO! NOT THE POLITICAL STUFFS. ARGH! I HATE THE SOCIAL MEDIA!

(This post contains sensitive materials regarding political stuffs and it is specially for educational purposes and personal opinions.)

People must be wondering about the statement above why would I hate social media as social media makes the world better in terms of communication and technologies. Let me make it clear, I HATE SOCIAL MEDIA, in a good way. The topic for today would be involving politics engagement with social media and how they use it.

Dangerous Topic: Politics and Social Media (Protesting and Government Control)

Some people tend to avoid “the politics” especially in Malaysia where there is a freedom of speech. Is it true?

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or UDHR (of which Malaysia is a signatory) guarantees that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.

But do we get a freedom of speech?

We can see this through the case which a Malaysian cartoonist known as Zunar was being arrested for drawing a cartoon on criticism of sodomy ruling on Anwar Ibrahim case. His office was raided, his arts were confiscated and his workers had been harassed by people. Can you see the power of social media? Social media allows people to share online about their political views but the government is trying to seize control of the social media itself. Will it be possible?

Yes, it is. With the advanced technology nowadays by the government, the government can take control of who or what can be accessed by the citizens. Even so, it does not stop the people from posting or protesting online. I HATE SOCIAL MEDIA! I THOUGHT I COULD ESCAPE THE POLITICS WORLD THROUGH IT BUT THE WORLD REVOLVES AROUND IT.

Social Media and Malaysia’s Bersih Movements

The Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street are not the only two movements that are from media-driven political reform, so as Bersih movement.

‘Bersih’, a word in Malay language literally brings the meaning of ‘Clean’ as it is used in the meaning of the government is clean from any corruptions and having a clean and fair elections. People are allowed to post their feeling and opinions on how dissatisfy they are towards the government through the Bersih movement. 

By having the technologies and social media, people starts to communicate to each other by using applications like Whatsapp, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and many other as they have something in common on protesting the government. Hence, Bersih was created through social media and gained 200,000 followers from 30,000 on 2015. 

Wow! That shows how powerful social media is towards political matters.

Political engagement in social media

As social media nowadays plays a big role in communication, some of our leaders in other words political subjects decided to make a good use of it in political engagement. These days there millions of people owning at least a smartphone or a tablet and if you ask them about Facebook, they will know it for sure. Mark Zuckerberg has finally make Facebook a famous platform in the eyes of people. Congratulations Mark!

We can see a lot of our leaders are becoming like a big STAR for having their own official account on social media for example, Najib Razak and Obama.

By having a social media accounts, these leaders are able to communicate with their followers or know what is currently trending in their social media accounts.

They are also able to know how people feel or react to certain political matters and use it as a chance to make the country as a better place to live in.

Able to promote themselves on getting more votes on the next election.

In conclusion, we can see that social media has a lot of uses including political engagement.

So what do you think about social media and political engagement?

Feel free to drop your comments and tell us how you feel.

[onlinecounsellingcollege]

She picked up the pieces of her life and created something beautiful. From that day forth she shone like the sun and changed the definition of broken.

Randall M. Core (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

[phi-los-o-pher]

Everybody hates hipsters … especially hipsters. And the ironic part is that hipsters’ opposition to pop culture has become pop culture.“

Peter Furia (via phi-los-o-pher)

[malinke-lonnaa-deactivated20180]

sometimes the things you want badly and are too impatient for might take awhile to come, stay open, it’ll come

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just be patient. :D

[thecyclopsnugget]

Politically Social Media

Politicians have been seeking ways to approach and dive deep into our daily lives; and we have the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal to prove it. With the rise of social media, it couldn’t escape the fate of being politically engaged as politicians and political parties are taking advantage of it to win our hearts (votes).

According to Kalsnes (2016), Internet has become a popular medium for political communication during election campaigns, especially for social media platforms which have been hailed for their participatory and interactive potentials. In such way, politicians and political parties get to communicate directly with their potential voters without bypassing other media, which often the case, altered the original message. In addition, a study shows that, in general, the segment of 60 years and above trusted politicians more than the segment of 30 years and below; however, ironically, the most distrustful, young voters tended to trust politicians more in social media than in other media and communication channels. Hence, social media acts as a political tool to penetrate and win the younger generations’ hearts (votes).

Now, even though it sounds like social media is nothing but a toy played by various politicians in political contexts; social media also offer opportunities for discourse about social issues on a global scale. According to Petray & Collin (2017), social media platforms allow for citizen journalism of protests as they unfold, without the lag and editorializing of traditional media, as exemplified by #Ferguson and #BlackLivesMatter protests in the US and during the #Egypt uprising. Such acts gave an opportunity for normal citizens to counter the decisions made by those in powerful positions, limit their power (in some ways), and seek for a fairer judgement. Besides that, social media is also being utilised for the feminist movement such as Time’s Up, #MeToo, and #drawaline.

However, these trending hashtags, endorsed heavily by celebrities, could raise some issues especially among the younger crowd (I’m saying kids age) who without proper developed judgement. Here, I would like to share my very personal encounter with the above statement:

So, I was fangirling Harry Styles few months ago (October 2017 maybe) by stalking his Instagram and I came across a picture of his fans holding up the LGBT pride flags at one of his concert. So apparently the star had loudly and proudly brought out the rainbow flag in every of his concert to support the cause which urged his fans to follow the actions. This apparent very heart-warming post was tainted when I looked at the comment section: a fan of his asked why he wasn’t holding up the #BlackLivesMatter sign too as it is “trending” now (the comment was then deleted). And to my disappointment, other fans attacked her because of how she questioned Harry’s action, and no one seems to educate her on how a social movement is not a “trending” thing as it ties closely with lives and deaths.

Hence, even though the use of social media to spread a cause can reach out to audience on a global scale, it might also create a wrong impression, especially for the younger crowd, to follow a movement blindly without understanding the root of it just because it is “trending”.  

Well, it is a brilliant move for politicians and political parties to utilise social media as their platform to target young voters. Not only that, social media also provide us an opportunity to be heard by those in power as it gives us a voice to question the decisions made by higher authorities. So, politics, as much as I want to run away from the chaos, it is everywhere just like our parents.

[makerswomen]

“You have to use your platform for something good. You just have to, otherwise what’s the point? I would say the core message that I am trying to get through to everybody, is that whatever it is that you set your mind to, that you want to do, you can do it.—Shay Mitchell

This week is all about the ChangeMAKERS—women who have made a difference. Actress Shay Mitchell knows that being in the public eye makes her a great candidate to promote charities and non-profits. She’s worked with The Trevor Project (@thetrevorproject) which focuses on suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth, WE Charity for the education and development of children, and she has worked with organizations that donate to GLAAD (@glaad). 

You can see our full set of interviews with Shay Mitchell over on MAKERS. 

[staff]

@makerswomen is celebrating ChangeMAKERS for the last week of Women’s History Month. The women they’re profiling are those who have made an effort to make the world a better place. Go on and give ‘em a follow to see who else they highlight over the next few days. 

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Is Tumblr a blog or social media network?

Hearing the words ‘social networking sites’, the first thing comes in our mind is Facebook. But, why Facebook? It’s because Facebook is one of the largest platform for social networking sites and followed by others such as Instagram, snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest and countable of them in the internet nowadays. What about blogging? Ever heard of the blog community? We only know how to use it but we never really discover what it truly is and its potential. Now give yourself a round applause and a thumbs up as you are about to discover what is blogging and what Tumblr really is; whether it’s a blog or a social media network.

This might have been boring and sleepy but let’s look at the definition first before getting into the next BIG STEP.

According to Randy Duermyer, blogging is involving people web logging their everyday lives like a journal. I personally think the same way too! Perhaps we have the same mind? Nowadays, people use blogging as a platform to convey their feelings or record days of their lives. Some even take this opportunity to use blog for businesses, charity and even make money out of their self video blogging or more known as vlogging about foods, health and beauty, travelling or their private lives. Wow! You can do so many things by writing a blog. 

Here is one of the examples of a blog to get a clear picture it which consist of a famous food blog by a girl who lives in Bangsar and known as Bangsar Babe. There are many blogging platform such as Wordpress, Blogger, Livejournal and many more.

Now we have look upon blogging, how about social media network?

What is social media network?

According to Danah Boyd, social network is a web-based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.

To make it simple, social media network is basically a platform where people connect, sharing information and communicates with each other. One of the biggest example is Facebook. But what makes it different from blogging?

Social media network allows a two way communication unless a blog which only allows a one way communication. Even though there are comments section in a blog, some people may disable it as a blog is more to a private space that are being public or only selected people are allowed to read it.

So, what makes Tumblr so special?

Personally, Tumblr can be counted as social media network and a blog for certain reasons. One of the reasons are Tumblr has flexible features and enables one to many communications. As it may allow people to post video, images and text like a normal blog, it also allows people to reshare or like posts. People are able to comment or privately message a person enabling them to communicate to each other and exchanging information like a normal social media does. Other than that, most people use Tumblr in sharing their experience too. As an example, a blog about depression where people often look at some quotes or referring to other people’s depressions and ways to handle it as a way to express their feelings or find ways to get better of theirselves just likea normal blog.

Plus, we can see nowadays people also use Tumblr as a place for fandoms or a community just like I do. People share their artworks or pictures of something they love and reshare things that are related to them. Can yourelate this situation with your everyday life? If you don’t, perhaps the word ‘meme’ will give you a hint. There is a wide range of people from the Anime fans group to LGBT and feminist communities exist and interract with each other. With Tumblr, people are able to make connections within the system publicly or privately.

Can Tumblr be a blog or social media network? Well, it’s up to the users itself on how to use it as they can customize everything from their posts to html.

[vtsvro]

How would I? He was with us when we bought them.

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BOKKODY

[staff]

We’re taking steps to protect against future interference in our political conversation by state-sponsored propaganda campaigns

Hi Tumblr,

We’re all grappling with the influence that state-sponsored disinformation campaigns can have on our political conversations—and how wide-spread that interference turned out to be. So please take a moment to read this, think about it, and talk about it.

Last fall, we uncovered 84 Tumblr accounts linked to the Russian government through the Internet Research Agency, or IRA. These accounts were being used as part of a disinformation campaign leading up to the 2016 U.S. election. After uncovering the activity, we notified law enforcement, terminated the accounts, and deleted their original posts. Behind the scenes, we worked with the Department of Justice, and the information we provided helped indict 13 people who worked for the IRA.

Now that the investigations are done, we want to let you know how we’re going to help protect Tumblr in the future and what you can do to help.

Here’s what we know about these accounts

The IRA employs more than 1,000 people who engage in electronic disinformation and propaganda campaigns around the world using phony social media accounts. Their goal is to sow division and discontent in the countries they target. What makes them so difficult to spot is that they’re not spambots. They’re real people who get trained and paid to spread propaganda.

As far as we can tell, the IRA-linked accounts were only focused on spreading disinformation in the U.S., and they only posted organic content. We didn’t find any indication that they ran ads.

Remember, the IRA and other state-sponsored disinformation campaigns play off our zero-sum politics. They want to drive a wedge between us so that we spend our time fighting with each other instead of building towards the future. We’ll be watching for signs of future activity, but the best defense is knowing how they operate and how to judge the content you see.

What we’re doing in response to the interference

First, we’ll be emailing anyone who liked, reblogged, replied to, or followed an IRA-linked account with the list of usernames they engaged with.

Second, we’re going to start keeping a public record of usernames we’ve linked to the IRA or other state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. We’re committed to transparency and want you to know everything that we know.

We’ve decided to leave up any reblog chains that might be on your Tumblrs—you can choose to leave them or delete them. We’re letting you decide because the reblog chains contain posts created by real Tumblr users, often challenging or debunking the false and incendiary claims in the IRA-linked original post. Removing those authentic posts without your consent would encroach on your free speech—and there have been enough disruptions to our conversations as it is.

What we’re doing to stop future disinformation campaigns

You’ve probably read that U.S. intelligence officials expect foreign agents to try similar propaganda campaigns in the future. We’ll be monitoring Tumblr for signs of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, and if we see anything we will…

Terminate the accounts and remove their original posts.

Notify you if we determine that you’ve liked, reblogged, replied to, or followed a propaganda account.

Add the username to the public record.

Alert law enforcement.

There are also things you can do to help stop the spread of disinformation and propaganda.

Be aware that people want to manipulate the conversation. Knowing that disinformation and propaganda accounts are out there makes it harder for them to operate. The News Literacy Project has this handy checklist for spotting their tricks.

Be skeptical of things you read. Disinformation campaigns work because they know people don’t fact check. Look for reliable sources, and double-check that the source really says the same thing as the post. You can also check Snopes and Politifact. Both are award-winning resources and usually have the latest viral claim fact checked on the front page. 

Correct the record. When you see people spreading misinformation—even unintentionally—politely say something in a reblog or reply. If it’s your friend, send them a message to let them know.

One last note: Please vote.

Transparency won’t mean a thing if we don’t participate in the process. Whatever your political stance, voting ensures a government that represents your interests. For our U.S. users: You can register online or by mail, and many states are holding primaries right now.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

my problem with all the fandom discourse is that both sides really, really don’t seem to understand that media studies is its own academic discipline instead of, like, a scientific formula or something

it’s not “media never influences people” or “media always influences people exactly as planned,” it’s complicated with many different schools of thought and approaches and branches, from marxism to postmodernism to, I shit you not, fan studies. there’s no single accepted This Is How Media Works Theory that everyone adheres to.

(also actual media criticism involves both criticizing works you like and drastically limiting consumption of all media, even media you do like, but that never comes up in the discourse™ hmmm I wonder why)

[theryfyproject]

A lot of people laugh at me when I tell them I spent 7 years of my life studying media. I have to laugh in response to their “where will that get you?” Because clearly they have not realised just how ubiquitous media is. How it makes you judge people for entirely normal decisions. Such as studying media in order to understand the world around you.

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this is soooo true

[kyoyatta]

someone pls help Kotarou

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LOLed :’D