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These emojis make you ‘old’ according to Gen Z

<p dir="ltr">Language is an ever-evolving thing, full to the brim with nuance and meaning that might not seem obvious upon first glance - and it turns out that emojis are no exception.</p> <p dir="ltr">Members of Generation Z have taken to social media claiming that using certain emojis is a sign that you’re “officially old” and that the popular thumbs-up emoji is actually rude.</p> <p dir="ltr">According to users on Reddit, the official list of “cancelled” emojis includes:</p> <ul> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation">❤️ (Red heart)</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation">👍 (Thumbs up)</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation">👌 (“OK” hand)</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation">✅ (Tick or Checkmark)</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation">💩 (Poo)</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation">🙈 (Monkey covering eyes)</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation">😭 (Loudly crying face)</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation">👏 (Clapping hands)</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation">💋 (Lipstick kiss mark)</p> </li> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation">😬 (Grimacing face)</p> </li> </ul> <p dir="ltr">Many younger users also considered the thumbs-up emoji to be rude, explaining that it gives off a passive-aggressive or even confrontational air.</p> <p dir="ltr">“For younger people (I’m 24 for reference) the thumbs-up emoji is used to be really passive-aggressive,” one person wrote.</p> <p dir="ltr">“It’s super rude if someone just sends you a thumbs up. So I also had a weird time adjusting because my workplace is the same.”</p> <p dir="ltr">They chalked up the difference in the workplace to a “generational communication culture difference”.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Everyone my age in the office doesn’t do it, but the Gen X people always do it,” they wrote. “Took me a bit to adjust and get out of my head that it means they’re mad at me.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Others agreed, saying using it in the workplace makes team members “unaccommodating” and seems “unfriendly”.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I understand what you mean, my last workplace had a WhatsApp chat for our team to send info to each other on and most of the people on there just replied with a [thumbs-up emoji],” one commenter said.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I don’t know why but it seemed a little bit hostile to me, like an acknowledgment but kind of saying ‘I don’t really care/am not interested’? Don’t know if that’s the way you feel but I got used to it in time and I’m just as bad for sending a thumbs up now.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Another said: ““It’s not that odd to see it as passive-aggressive. Just imagine how would it feel to go into your boss’ room, say something, and then see him turn to you, look you in the eye, and [give a thumbs-up].”</p> <p dir="ltr">But, older users expressed their confusion at this emoji etiquette, with one saying it must be “a younger generational thing”.</p> <p dir="ltr">“So it’s like a sarcastic thing? Man I’m getting old lol,” one wrote.</p> <p dir="ltr">Another defended their use of the thumbs up, saying it “means many things”.</p> <p dir="ltr">“It means ‘I approve’ or ‘I understood and will obey’ or ‘I agree’. If anything, my only objection would be that some days it might be hard to tell which one it means,” she offered. </p> <p dir="ltr">“But it is generally pretty clear.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“It’s just a way to say ‘i’ve read your message and have nothing to add and I hope and pray to all the gods all the bazillion people in this group chat have nothing to say on it too,’” another chimed in.</p> <p dir="ltr">Linguists have been studying emojis since the appearance of the modern emoji in 2015. In her book <em>Because Internet: Understanding how language is changing</em>, linguist Gretchen McCulloch explains that some emojis, like most of those that have been “cancelled”, are gestures, like the ones we make with our hands while talking.</p> <p dir="ltr">While these can be quite universal, like the thumbs up or smiling emojis, there can also be nuance based on culture and the writing systems people use.</p> <p dir="ltr">With younger people interpreting emojis such as the thumbs-up as “rude” or “old”, it seems there is nuance between generations too.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-3239804b-7fff-1206-dc92-834ccb95a484"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Getty Images</em></p>

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Billionaire actress Zhao Wei erased from history

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Zhao Wei, one of China’s top actresses, has all but vanished from the internet after the Chinese government scrubbed any record of her online.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Serials and chat shows featuring the actress are no longer available on Chinese streaming sites and her name has been removed from online credits for movies she has appeared in.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ms Wei rose to fame in the late 1990s after appearing on China’s highly popular television series, </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">My Fair Princess</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. Since then, she has gone on to become a director, pop singer, and businesswoman on top of being an A-list actress.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">But, after Ms Wei was accused of being unpatriotic in hiring a Taiwanese actor for a leading role in a 2016 film, she began to run into trouble.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Her hiring decision was overturned and Ms Wei’s business acquisitions soon came under close regulatory and taxation scrutiny.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Last month, a public relations agency she owns was hit with a nationalistic scandal after one of its clients took a selfie during a visit to Japan’s Yasukuni war dead shrine.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Over the weekend, Chinese news sites reported that Ms Wei had fled the country and was spotted at France’s Bordeaux airport.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The crackdown on Ms Wei comes as Beijing’s Cyberspace Administration agency issued a series of instructions for social media and internet operators to “rectify” issues with fan communities.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The new instructions aim to ensure “political and ideological safety in the cyberspace as well as creating a clean internet”.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This also means celebrities can no longer be ranked in terms of popularity, talent agencies must be overseen by the Community Party, and fan clubs must be licenced and officially authorised.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Previously, China’s National Radio and Television Administration ordered that actors be banished if their “morality is not noble”, are “tasteless, vulgar and obscene”, or if their “ideological level is low and [they] have no class”.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ms Wei has also been accused by the Communist Party-controlled </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Global Times</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> of being “entangled in various scandals over the years”, but provides no official reason for her erasure.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Any discussions of why she has been erased is also being censored on social media.</span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image: Getty Images</span></em></p>

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Shanghai Disneyland reopens with social distancing measures

<p>Shanghai Disneyland reopened on Monday after 107 days of closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.</p> <p>The park is now open to public with 30 per cent capacity. Visitors are required to book tickets online, have their temperatures checked ahead of entry and wear face masks. Hand sanitisers are also made available at queue entries and attraction exits.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr">Tears! Long time no see my pals! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ShanghaiDisneyland?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ShanghaiDisneyland</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SHDL?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SHDL</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/%E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7%E3%83%87%E3%82%A3%E3%82%BA%E3%83%8B%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B3%E3%83%89?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#上海ディズニーランド</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Disney?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Disney</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Disneypark?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Disneypark</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Disneyland?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Disneyland</a> <a href="https://t.co/Bsv51z84Ha">pic.twitter.com/Bsv51z84Ha</a></p> — DONGDONG (@gourmetdyy) <a href="https://twitter.com/gourmetdyy/status/1259672695668539392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 11, 2020</a></blockquote> <p>The park also features yellow tape markers as part of social distancing efforts. Most of the park’s attractions – including rides, live shows, stores and restaurants – are accessible, but theatre shows are cancelled and the daily float parade is downsized.</p> <p>Cast members have also reportedly been trained to carry out <a href="https://deadline.com/2020/05/disneyland-shanghai-reopen-date-may-11-coronavirus-1202926767/">contactless guest interaction</a>.</p> <p>“We have cast members throughout the park. They’re continuously wiping down and making sure that everything is as disinfected and sanitized,” Andrew Bolstein, senior vice president of operations at Shanghai Disney Resort, told <a href="https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/travel/story/opening-day-disney-shanghai-looked-70613135"><em>Good Morning America</em></a>.</p> <p>The reopening came after Disney reported a $1 billion hit on its parks, experiences and products segment during the second quarter “primarily due to revenue lost as a result of the closures”. All other parks remain closed.</p>

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Woman makes ‘monstrous’ knitted masks to encourage social distancing

<p>An Icelandic woman has promoted social distancing through a novel, innovative way: knitting.</p> <p>Knitwear designer Ýrúrarí Jóhannsdóttir has gone viral after sharing her knitted masks and other isolation creations on social media.</p> <p>The 3D masks – which feature knits of mouths, teeth and jutting tongues – have been described by fans as “grotesque”, “<a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/icelandic-knitwear-designer-tongue-masks-yrurari-johannsdottir">trippy</a>” and “<a href="https://10daily.com.au/news/a200505cmtfy/woman-makes-grotesque-knits-to-scare-people-into-social-distancing-20200505">freakish</a>”.</p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/B_DKJ3xgUWt/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="margin: 8px 0 0 0; padding: 0 4px;"><a style="color: #000; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B_DKJ3xgUWt/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">I’ve been experimenting with some of my sweater ideas to wear on a face, always interesting to see the outcome 👽 It has been fun to see masks inspired by mine, good use of quarantine time to knit💜But a reminder again, my masks are not made for safety, knitted masks are not safe to start with! Take care 🦠❌🦠❌🦠 #mask #knitting #fashionforbankrobbers</a></p> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">A post shared by <a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/yrurari/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank"> Ýrúrarí</a> (@yrurari) on Apr 16, 2020 at 10:00am PDT</p> </div> </blockquote> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/B-4JbBOABY5/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B-4JbBOABY5/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">A post shared by Ýrúrarí (@yrurari)</a> on Apr 12, 2020 at 3:22am PDT</p> </div> </blockquote> <p>The 27-year-old designer said she has always been interested in tongues because “they are kind of rude, sticky, and strange”.</p> <p>She extended her work from sweaters to face masks due to the coronavirus pandemic.</p> <p>“I didn’t really make the masks to wear,” she told <em><a href="https://mashable.com/article/knitted-face-mask-tongue-lips/">Mashable</a></em>. “In my mind they are more like wearable sculptures, not made for safety [but] more as a fun approach to the rule of keeping distance.”</p> <p>“If you look scary enough people will stay away!”</p> <p>Jóhannsdóttir said the masks promoted the idea that “using masks can be fun”.</p> <p>“Everything we put on us can also be fun if we want it to, and bringing smiles to people’s faces in times like these is also important,” she told <em><a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/icelandic-knitwear-designer-tongue-masks-yrurari-johannsdottir">Vogue</a></em>.</p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/B_PcEsSAByb/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B_PcEsSAByb/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">A post shared by Ýrúrarí (@yrurari)</a> on Apr 21, 2020 at 4:27am PDT</p> </div> </blockquote> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/B_aQTE0gOyo/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B_aQTE0gOyo/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">A post shared by Ýrúrarí (@yrurari)</a> on Apr 25, 2020 at 9:16am PDT</p> </div> </blockquote>

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How to change your phone number in Facebook or get rid of it entirely

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">You can easily change a phone number in Facebook if your original number connected to the social media platform has become outdated.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Facebook asks for a user’s phone number for a few reasons, which are: </span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">A phone number can be used to reset a forgotten password</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">It can be used to suggest people you may know so that you can connect with them on Facebook</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The phone number can keep your account safe with two-factor authentication and you can also receive text alerts for potentially unauthorised logins</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">However, if you want to remove the number entirely or change it, it’s an easy fix.</span></p> <p><strong>How to change your phone number on Facebook</strong></p> <ol> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Log into Facebook on a computer and click on the arrow in the top-right corner of your home page. Click on “Settings”.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Select “Mobile” on the left side.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">If your account isn’t connected to a phone number, you can add one from this section via the “+ Add a Phone” section.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">If you already have a phone number, you can click on “+ Add another mobile phone number” to add another number.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Enter your number and select if you’d like Facebook to confirm the number with a text message or with a call and click “Continue”.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Enter the confirmation code you receive from Facebook and click “Confirm”.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">You can remove a phone number on Facebook by clicking the “Remove” button below the number you want to delete.</span></li> </ol> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Easy!</span></p>

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Winning at social media is easier than you think

<p>The world is starting to see <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-lost-15-million-us-users-in-the-past-two-years-report-says/">the gradual decline of Facebook</a>, with 15 million US users dropping off between 2017 and last year.</p> <p>Nonetheless, Facebook remains <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/#:%7E:targetText=How%20many%20users%20does%20Facebook,network%20ever%20to%20do%20so.">the largest social network</a> in the world. As of late last year, almost 60% of <a href="https://www.socialmedianews.com.au/social-media-statistics-australia-january-2019/">Australians</a> had a Facebook account, half of whom logged-on daily.</p> <p>And while most of us intuitively understand what others find interesting, there’s a growing body of research on online engagement and the characteristics of viral content.</p> <p><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/facebook-and-conversation-analysis-9781350141612/">For my research</a>, I studied more than 1,200 posts from 266 Facebook users - everyday people aged 21-40 – to identify the common denominator among “successful” Facebook posts.</p> <p><strong>Share if you agree</strong></p> <p>For the study, I decided to create a distinction between “likes” and comments. I treated likes as a simpler form of acknowledgement, and comments as a more active mode of engagement – they require time, effort and a deeper understanding of the content.</p> <p>I found posts which performed relatively well in terms of engagement (more than five comments), could be characterised by certain linguistic features.</p> <p>Successful posts tended to prompt further action from readers, or used humour to engage.</p> <p>Conversations on Facebook feeds generally start by “tellings”, meaning posts which contain narratives. For example, what a friend is doing, a video, or a selfie.</p> <p>Among the content I studied, the more popular posts requested a response of some kind, usually through questions, or requests such as “click on this funny link”.</p> <p>Simply adding “what do you think of this?” at the end of a post was likely to increase engagement - and this was true for posts with varying subject matters.</p> <p>I also found posts that were simple to understand performed better, as opposed to those which were vague or confusing - sometimes referred to as <a href="https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/imbecilic-art-vaguebooking/">vaguebooking</a>, like this example:</p> <p><strong>Laughter is the best medicine</strong></p> <p>Humour also increased engagement.</p> <p>Research has shown conversations driven by jokes <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0378216694901171">encourage involvement and inclusion</a>.</p> <p>I observed this too, with funny posts securing more responses. Similarly, posts that were not overtly funny were more likely to do well if they received funny comments.</p> <p>Ongoing conversations also stimulate further engagement. Successful Facebook users didn’t just post content, they also responded to comments on their posts.</p> <p>The take home message?</p> <p>Although the success of Facebook content also relies on privacy settings, the number of friends a user has, how active the user is and how popular they are outside Facebook, strategically designed posts can give any user a quick upper hand.</p> <p>And it’s likely you can use the same principles on other platforms such as Twitter or Instagram.</p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/matteo-farina-908782">Matteo Farina</a>, Adjunct Lecturer, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/flinders-university-972">Flinders University</a></em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/winning-at-social-media-is-probably-simpler-than-you-think-128704">original article</a>.</em></p>

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The problem of living inside a social media echo chamber

<p>Pick any of the big topics of the day – <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49560557">Brexit</a>, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03092019/hurricane-dorian-climate-change-stall-%20%20record-wind-speed-rainfall-intensity-global-warming-bahamas">climate change</a> or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/us/politics/trump-immigration-policy.html">Trump’s immigration policies</a> – and wander online.</p> <p>What one is likely to find is radical polarization – different groups of people living in different worlds, populated with utterly different facts.</p> <p><a href="https://qz.com/933150/cass-sunstein-says-social-medias-effect-on-democracy-is-alexander-hamiltons-nightmare/">Many people</a> want to <a href="https://www.adweek.com/digital/arvind-raichur-mrowl-guest-post-filter-bubbles/">blame</a> the “social media bubble” - a belief that everybody sorts themselves into like-minded communities and hears only like-minded views.</p> <p>From my perspective as a <a href="https://objectionable.net/">philosopher</a> who thinks about <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/NGUCAA">communities</a> and <a href="https://philpapers.org/go.pl?id=NGUCIA&amp;aid=NGUCIAv1">trust</a>, this fails to get at the heart of the issue.</p> <p>In my mind, the crucial issue right now isn’t what people hear, but whom people believe.</p> <p><strong>Bubble or cult?</strong></p> <p>My research focuses on <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/episteme/article/echo-chambers-and-epistemic-bubbles/5D4AC3A808C538E17C50A7C09EC706F0">“epistemic bubbles” and “echo chambers.”</a> These are two distinct ideas, that people often blur together.</p> <p>An epistemic bubble is what happens when insiders aren’t exposed to people from the opposite side.</p> <p>An echo chamber is what happens when insiders come to distrust everybody on the outside.</p> <p>An epistemic bubble, for example, might form on one’s social media feed. When a person gets all their news and political arguments from Facebook and all their Facebook friends share their political views, they’re in an epistemic bubble. They hear arguments and evidence only from their side of the political spectrum. They’re never exposed to the other side’s views.</p> <p>An echo chamber leads its members to distrust everybody on the outside of that chamber. And that means that an insider’s trust for other insiders can grow unchecked.</p> <p>Two communications scholars, <a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/people/faculty/kathleen-hall-jamieson-phd">Kathleen Hall Jamieson</a> and <a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/people/faculty/joseph-n-cappella-phd">Joseph Cappella</a>, offered a careful analysis of the right-wing media echo chamber in their 2008 book, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/echo-chamber-9780195398601">“The Echo Chamber.”</a></p> <p>Rush Limbaugh and the Fox News team, they said, systematically manipulated whom their followers trusted. Limbaugh presented the world as a simple binary – as a struggle only between good and evil. People were trustworthy if they were on Limbaugh’s side. Anybody on the outside was malicious and untrustworthy.</p> <p>In that way, an echo chamber is a lot like a cult.</p> <p>Echo chambers isolate their members, not by cutting off their lines of communication to the world, but by changing whom they trust. And echo chambers aren’t just on the right. I’ve seen echo chambers on the left, but also on parenting forums, nutritional forums and even around exercise methods.</p> <p>In an epistemic bubble, outside voices aren’t heard. In an echo chamber, outside voices are discredited.</p> <p><strong>Is it all just a bubble?</strong></p> <p>Many experts believe that the problem of today’s polarization can be explained through epistemic bubbles.<span class="attribution"><a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/wroclaw-poland-april-10th-2017-woman-624572783?src=-1-15" class="source"></a></span></p> <p>According to legal scholar and behavioral economist <a href="https://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/10871/Sunstein">Cass Sunstein</a>, the main cause of polarization is that <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10935.html">internet technologies</a> have made the world such that people don’t really run into the other side anymore.</p> <p>Many people get their news from social media feeds. Their feeds get filled up with people like them - who usually share their political views. Eli Pariser, online activist and chief executive of Upworthy, spotlights how the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/309214/the-filter-bubble-by-eli-pariser/9780143121237/">invisible algorithms</a> behind people’s internet experience limit what they see.</p> <p>For example, says Pariser, Google keeps track of its user’s choices and preferences, and changes its search results to suit them. It tries to give individuals what they want – so liberal users, for example, tend to get search results that point them toward liberal news sites.</p> <p>If the problem is bubbles, then the solution would be exposure. For Sunstein, the solution is to build more public forums, where people will run into the other side more often.</p> <p><strong>The real problem is trust</strong></p> <p>In my view, however, echo chambers are the real problem.</p> <p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/F2sFqWtZfpgU9nfK8u3E/full">New</a> <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Filter-Bubbles%2C-Echo-Chambers%2C-and-Online-News-Flaxman-Goel/9ece17d2915f65c66c03fa28820447199addec45">research</a> suggests there probably aren’t any real epistemic bubbles. As a matter of fact, most people are regularly exposed to the other side.</p> <p>Moreover, bubbles should be easy to pop: Just expose insiders to the arguments they’ve missed.</p> <p>But this doesn’t actually seem to work, in so many real-world cases. Take, for example, climate change deniers. They are fully aware of all the arguments on the other side. Often, they rattle off all the standard arguments for climate change, before dismissing them. Many of <a href="http://opr.ca.gov/facts/common-denier-arguments.html">the standard climate change denial</a> arguments involve claims that scientific institutions and mainstream media have been corrupted by malicious forces.</p> <p>What’s going on, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/episteme/article/echo-chambers-and-epistemic-bubbles/5D4AC3A808C538E17C50A7C09EC706F0">in my view</a>, isn’t just a bubble. It’s not that people’s social media feeds are arranged so they don’t run across any scientific arguments; it’s that they’ve come to systematically distrust the institutions of science.</p> <p>This is an echo chamber. Echo chambers are far more entrenched and far more resistant to outside voices than epistemic bubbles. Echo chamber members have been prepared to face contrary evidence. Their echo-chambered worldview has been arranged to dismiss that evidence at its source.</p> <p>They’re not totally irrational, either. In the era of <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-great-endarkenment-9780199326020">scientific specialization</a>, people must <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2027007">trust</a> doctors, statisticians, biologists, chemists, physicists, nuclear engineers and aeronautical engineers, just to go about their day. <a href="https://philpapers.org/go.pl?id=NGUEAT&amp;aid=NGUEATv1">And they can’t always check</a> with perfect accuracy whether they have put their trust in the right place.</p> <p>An echo chamber member, however, distrusts the standard sources. Their trust has been redirected and concentrated inside the echo chamber.</p> <p>To break somebody out of an echo chamber, you’d need to repair that broken trust. And that is a much harder task than simply bursting a bubble.<em><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: http://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></em></p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/c-thi-nguyen-606694">C. Thi Nguyen</a>, Associate Professor of Philosophy, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/utah-valley-university-2123">Utah Valley University</a></em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-problem-of-living-inside-echo-chambers-110486">original article</a>.</em></p>

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Facebook unveils “empathetic” new logo that’s designed to promote “clarity”

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Facebook has taken the need to rehabilitate its image quite literally and unveiled a new corporate logo.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The company, which also owns other platforms such as Instagram and encrypted messaging site WhatsApp has released a new logo that it can use to differentiate itself from the social media site that shares the same name.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><img style="width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7832331/body-facebook.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/7728c133ea8f44fc92f9f8fd49f36b30" /></span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The company is planning to introduce clearer Facebook branding on the other two popular social media channels it owns and use the new block lettering logo to show the difference. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Facebook’s chief marketing officer Antonio Lucio announced the reasoning behind the change. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“The new branding was designed for clarity, and uses custom typography and capitalisation to create visual distinction between the company and app,” he said.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“People should know which companies make the products they use … this brand change is a way to better communicate our ownership structure to the people and businesses who use our services to connect, share, build community and grow their audiences,” Mr Lucio said in a statement.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In a separate statement to </span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-04/facebook-adds-more-corporate-branding-to-instagram-whatsapp"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bloomberg</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, he said that it was due to “emphatic” millennials.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“All the research that we’ve had from Generation Z and millennials was all very emphatic as to they need to know where their brands come from,” Mr Lucio said.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We needed to be more transparent with our users in showcasing that everything is coming from the same company.”</span></p>

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How social media can change your life

<p>So you think this whole social media caper is just a fad and only of real interest to Gen Y and Gen X? If so, then read on, you may just be surprised to find social media has been around a lot longer than you think and it has some tangible benefits for the modern Baby Boomer.</p> <p>When you strip it back, social media has been in existence since the time of Socrates and Plato – only their equivalent of broadband were messengers and instead of a computer, they used papyrus scrolls. In ancient Rome they even had small tablets restricting the amount of characters you could fit - Twitter springs to mind here.</p> <p>The Romans even used acronyms to shorten messages and long-distance communications, much the same as today’s social network users shorten ‘by the way’ to BTW and ‘please’ to PLZ.</p> <p><strong>Did you know<br /></strong>More than 500 000 Australians aged 60 years and over have a Facebook page. <br />In fact, 60 per cent of Australians aged 55 to 64 use the internet, with more than 30 per cent of those over 65 spending time online. The whole social media sphere has been somewhat hijacked by the younger generation. It’s seen as a trend with a new platform coming onto the scene every year. First it was My Space, then Facebook and now Twitter and Instagram are the flavour of the moment.</p> <p>Irrespective of the slight differences, these platforms all serve the same purpose; facilitating communication and peer-to-peer connection - this is a universal desire, not just the domain of younger generations.</p> <p><strong>Safe use of social networking sites<br /></strong>As with anything, while social networking sites offer you great opportunities, you should always remain cautious and know how to use these sites safely. You need to understand how privacy and security settings work on these sites up front. A common misconception is that only your contacts or “friends” can access the information you post, when in reality the default setting is that many more can view the material. Facebook has a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/help/325807937506242/">comprehensive explanation</a> on their site about the importance of changing the default setting.</p> <p>You may also, want to watch the video tutorial above which will show you how to change your settings step-by-step. Once you know how to take advantage of the medium and not the other way around you can start enjoying the benefits of being active online.</p> <p><strong>Reasons you need to get onto social media today</strong></p> <ul> <li>Social interaction – you can easily meet new likeminded friends online.</li> <li>Instant access to news and information – often news and information is leaked on social networking sites before mainstream media gets hold of it.</li> <li>Find a new job - If you are looking for work, many people find sites like LinkedIn valuable for job searching and notices posted on Facebook have been known to lead to a job.</li> <li>Long distance communication - You can communicate with people interstate and overseas more immediately and easily and at lower cost than a phone call.</li> <li>Keeping engaged despite geographical location - Beneficial is you live in rural, regional and remote communities where there’s limited means of socialising.</li> <li>Find lost friends and make new ones – track down old school friends or colleagues and connect with like-minded people in special interest groups.</li> </ul> <p><em>Written by Danielle Cesta. Republished with permission of <a href="https://www.wyza.com.au/articles/lifestyle/relationships/how-social-media-can-change-your-life.aspx">Wyza.com.au.</a></em></p>

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How to resist fake news

<p>Although the term itself is not new, fake news presents a growing threat for <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1473127/africas-fake-news-problem-is-worse-than-in-the-us/">societies across the world</a>.</p> <p>Only a <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0207383">small amount of fake news is needed</a> to disrupt a conversation, and at extremes it can have an impact on democratic processes, <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-may-owe-his-2016-victory-to-fake-news-new-study-suggests-91538">including elections</a>.</p> <p>But what can we do to avoid fake news, at a time when we could be waiting a while for <a href="https://en.unesco.org/fightfakenews">mainstream media</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/08/fake-news-is-going-to-get-worse-unless-companies-take-action-dnc-cto.html">social networks</a> to step up and <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2018/08/24/tech/one-problem-fake-news-it-really-really-works">address the problem</a>?</p> <p>From a psychology perspective, an important step in tackling fake news is to understand why it gets into our mind. We can do this by <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-two-people-see-the-same-thing-but-have-different-memories-104327">examining how memory works</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Memory-Distortion-Brains-Societies-Reconstruct/dp/0674566769">how memories become distorted</a>.</p> <p>Using this viewpoint generates some tips you can use to work out whether you’re reading or sharing fake news – which might be handy in the coming election period.</p> <p><strong>How memory gets distorted at the source</strong></p> <p>Fake news often relies on <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200105/the-seven-sins-memory">misattribution</a> – instances in which we can retrieve things from memory but can’t remember their source.</p> <p>Misattribution is one of the reasons advertising is so effective. We see a product and feel a pleasant sense of familiarity because we’ve encountered it before, but fail to remember that the source of the memory was an ad.</p> <p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Rand2/publication/327866113_Prior_Exposure_Increases_Perceived_Accuracy_of_Fake_News/">One study</a> examined headlines from fake news published during the 2016 US Presidential Election.</p> <p>The researchers found even one presentation of a headline (such as “Donald Trump Sent His Own Plane to Transport 200 Stranded Marines”, <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trumps-marine-airlift/">based on claims shown to be false</a>) was enough to increase belief in its content. This effect persisted for at least a week, was still found when headlines were accompanied by a factcheck warning, and even when participants suspected it might be false.</p> <p>Repeated exposure can <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/10/5/16410912/illusory-truth-fake-news-las-vegas-google-facebook">increase the sense that misinformation is true</a>. Repetition creates the perception of group consensus that can result in collective misremembering, a phenomenon called the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-mandela-effect-and-how-your-mind-is-playing-tricks-on-you-89544">Mandela Effect</a>.</p> <p>It might be harmless when people collectively misremember something fun, such as a <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/christopherhudspeth/crazy-examples-of-the-mandela-effect-that-will-make-you-ques">childhood cartoon (did the Queen in Disney’s Snow White really NOT say “Mirror, mirror…”?)</a>. But it has serious consequences when a false sense of group consensus contributes to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/the-signal/are-anti-vaxxers-having-a-moment/10957310">rising outbreaks of measles</a>.</p> <p>Scientists have investigated whether <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/acp.3274">targeted misinformation can promote healthy behaviour</a>. Dubbed false-memory diets, it is said that false memories of food experiences can encourage people to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine/falsememory-diet-the.html">avoid fatty foods</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3627832/">alcohol</a> and even <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25116296">convince them to love asparagus</a>.</p> <p>Creative people that have a strong ability to associate different words are <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Thomas_Ormerod/publication/251531367_Convergent_but_not_divergent_thinking_predicts_susceptibility_to_associative_memory_illusions/">especially susceptible to false memories</a>. Some people might be more vulnerable than others to believe fake news, but <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/24/world/asia/pakistan-israel-khawaja-asif-fake-news-nuclear.html">everyone is at risk</a>.</p> <p><strong>How bias can reinforce fake news</strong></p> <p><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200105/the-seven-sins-memory">Bias</a> is how our feelings and worldview affect the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-two-people-see-the-same-thing-but-have-different-memories-104327">encoding and retrieval of memory</a>. We might like to think of our memory as an archivist that carefully preserves events, but <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351660020/chapters/10.4324/9781315159591-4">sometimes it’s more like a storyteller</a>. Memories are shaped by our beliefs and can function to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/autobiographical-memory">maintain a consistent narrative rather than an accurate record</a>.</p> <p>An example of this is selective exposure, our tendency to seek information that <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4797953/">reinforces our pre-existing beliefs</a> and to avoid information that brings those beliefs into question. This effect is supported by evidence that television news audiences are <a href="https://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/">overwhelmingly partisan</a> and exist in their own echo chambers.</p> <p>It was thought that online communities exhibit the same behaviour, contributing to the spread of fake news, but this <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-myth-of-the-echo-chamber-92544">appears to be a myth</a>. Political news sites are often populated by people with <a href="https://www.academia.edu/34506137/The_Myth_of_Partisan_Selective_Exposure_A_Portrait_of_the_Online_Political_News_Audience">diverse ideological backgrounds</a> and echo chambers are <a href="https://medium.com/trust-media-and-democracy/avoiding-the-echo-chamber-about-echo-chambers-6e1f1a1a0f39">more likely to exist in real life than online</a>.</p> <p>Our brains are wired to assume things we believe <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167203259933">originated from a credible source</a>. But are we more inclined to remember information that reinforces our beliefs? <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247781236_Do_Attitudes_Affect_Memory_Tests_of_the_Congeniality_Hypothesis">This is probably not the case</a>.</p> <p>People who hold strong beliefs remember things that are relevant to their beliefs but they remember opposing information too. This happens because people are motivated to defend their beliefs against opposing views.</p> <p>Belief echoes are a related phenomenon that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-correcting-donald-trump--or-anyone-else--doesnt-work/2016/01/08/9e5ef5d4-b57d-11e5-a842-0feb51d1d124_story.html?utm_term=.912e5b8e4409">highlight the difficulty of correcting misinformation</a>. Fake news is often designed to be attention-grabbing.</p> <p>It can continue to shape people’s attitudes after it has been discredited because it produces a vivid emotional reaction and builds on our existing narratives.</p> <p>Corrections have a much smaller emotional impact, especially if they require policy details, so should be <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258180567_Misinformation_and_Its_Correction_Continued_Influence_and_Successful_Debiasing">designed to satisfy a similar narrative urge</a> to be effective.</p> <p><strong>Tips for resisting fake news</strong></p> <p>The way our memory works means it might be impossible to resist fake news completely. But one approach is to start <a href="https://qz.com/858887/how-to-know-if-fake-news-is-fake-learn-to-think-like-a-scientist/">thinking like a scientist</a>. This involves adopting a questioning attitude that is motivated by curiosity, and being aware of personal bias.</p> <p>For fake news, this might involve asking ourselves the following questions:</p> <ul> <li><strong>What type of content is this?</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/australians-born-overseas-prefer-the-online-world-for-their-news-84355">Many people rely on social media and aggregators as their main source of news</a>. By reflecting on whether information is news, opinion or even humour, this can help consolidate information more completely into memory.</li> <li><strong>Where is it published?</strong> Paying attention to where information is published is crucial for encoding the source of information into memory. If something is a big deal, a wide variety of sources will discuss it, so attending to this detail is important.</li> <li><strong>Who benefits?</strong> Reflecting on who benefits from you believing the content helps consolidate the source of that information into memory. It can also help us reflect on our own interests and whether our personal biases are at play.</li> </ul> <p>Some people <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3023545">tend to be more susceptible to fake news</a> because they are more accepting of weak claims.</p> <p>But we can strive to be more reflective in our open-mindedness by paying attention to the source of information, and questioning our own knowledge if and when we are unable to remember the context of our memories.</p> <p><em>Written by Julian Matthews. Republished with permission of </em><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-fake-news-gets-into-our-minds-and-what-you-can-do-to-resist-it-114921"><em>The Conversation.</em></a></p>

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