WNCT: ECU students make #ShutDownECU Twitter account, #KeepECUOpen forms in response. “A Twitter account continues gaining popularity, urging [East Carolina University] to switch to remote learning. #ShutDownECU is made up of about 10 students, with a list of demands for the university. They all want to remain anonymous.”
hashtags
Tech Transparency Project: Instagram’s Hashtag Blocking Favors Trump, Hurts Biden
Tech Transparency Project: Instagram’s Hashtag Blocking Favors Trump, Hurts Biden. “When a person searches Instagram for a hashtag and clicks on it, the platform has automatically generated “related hashtags” pointing users to other relevant content. TTP examined related hashtags for 20 popular terms associated with the Trump and Biden campaigns and found starkly different treatment of the two candidates. Instagram blocked the display of related hashtags on all 10 of the Trump hashtags reviewed, including #donaldtrump, #trump and #trump2020. That means users were not directed to other content, including anything negative or critical about the president. But for all 10 similar Biden hashtags, Instagram did display related hashtags, which at times steered users to insults and disinformation about the former vice president, with phrases like #creepyjoebiden, #joebidenpedophile and #joebidenisaracist.”
Global Voices: Nigerians counteract COVID-19 denialism with social media campaigns
Global Voices: Nigerians counteract COVID-19 denialism with social media campaigns. “Nigerians are reducing the effect of COVID-19 denial narratives with powerful online Twitter campaigns such as #MyCOVID19NaijaStory and #COVIDStopswithMe. These counter-narratives aim to prove that the deadly coronavirus is not a hoax and more importantly, to encourage people to adopt good public health behaviours to mitigate its spread. As of July 29, Nigeria had recorded 41,804 confirmed COVID-19 cases,18,764 recoveries and 868 deaths.”
BBC: Banned protesters send #ZimbabweanLivesMatter viral
BBC: Banned protesters send #ZimbabweanLivesMatter viral. “Could a social media hashtag – tapping into the energy and anger of the global #BlackLivesMatter phenomenon – help achieve in Zimbabwe what years of street protests, strikes and political campaigns have so clearly failed to do? Over the last few days, in response to a particularly brutal, public, widespread, and on-going clampdown by security forces, the hashtag #ZimbabweanLivesMatter has gone viral, globally.”
Rolling Stone: TikTok Bans QAnon Hashtags
Rolling Stone: TikTok Bans QAnon Hashtags. “A TikTok spokesperson told Rolling Stone such content contained disinformation, which is prohibited in the platform’s community guidelines, and confirmed that it was working to make QAnon-related content more difficult to find in its search function. TikTok will also be working to remove conspiracy theory-related videos and accounts, though some hashtags were still searchable on the platform as of this writing.”
BBC: Iran halts execution of three protesters after online campaign
BBC: Iran halts execution of three protesters after online campaign. “Iran has halted the executions of three men who were sentenced to death over anti-government protests last year, according to one of their lawyers. Babak Paknia told reporters that a request for a retrial had been accepted by the supreme court. The decision comes after a hashtag against their execution was used millions of times online.”
Evening Express: Aberdeen University shows off its assets with online #BestMuseumBum battle
Evening Express: Aberdeen University shows off its assets with online #BestMuseumBum battle. “Staff Aberdeen University have polished their bums for an online museum battle. Started by Yorkshire Museum, today’s curator is calling on museums to showcase the best bums and bottoms from their collection. Starting the campaign was an image of a Roman marble statuette depicting ‘an athlete at the peak of fitness’.”
BuzzFeed News: Why Mundane Daily Twitter Hashtags Keep Trending During The Coronavirus Pandemic
BuzzFeed News: Why Mundane Daily Twitter Hashtags Keep Trending During The Coronavirus Pandemic. “As a pandemic ravages the globe and the economy plummets like Dan Cortese in spandex shorts and a bungee cord, we are all desperately looking for some form of stability and normalcy. Luckily, you, a chronically online person, do not have to look far to find this tiny shred of pre-COVID-19 life that grounds us back in our base humanity. Just fire up Twitter before 10 a.m. and check the trending topics — chances are you will see the most banal and useless hashtags trend each morning: #MotivationMonday, #ThursdayThoughts, #FridayFeeling.”
Vice: Instagram Parents Are Documenting ‘Baby’s First Pandemic’
Vice: Instagram Parents Are Documenting ‘Baby’s First Pandemic’. “As we all try to find levity by any means possible, some parents have turned to a new Instagram milestone: “baby’s first pandemic,” the hashtag for which has close to 1,300 associated Instagram posts as of this writing. (There’s also #myfirstpandemic.)”
Good Morning America: #Quarantinelife trending across social media
Good Morning America: #Quarantinelife trending across social media. “Welcome to #QuarantineLife. As millions of Americans begin adjusting to staying at home for at least the next several weeks, the hashtag “QuarantineLife” was the top trending topic on Twitter Monday morning.”
Bustle: 13 Instagram Music Hashtags To Explore If You Need New Tunes
Bustle: 13 Instagram Music Hashtags To Explore If You Need New Tunes. “There are endless ways to use hashtags on Instagram: you may throw one in your caption, add some to help your post get more attention, or use them to scope out the best destinations in the city you’re visiting next. And while Instagram isn’t a music app, it doesn’t mean you can’t use it to search for the latest songs too. It just takes knowing what hashtags to follow to find new music on Instagram.”
Engadget: Google launches #AndroidHelp hashtag for tech support on Twitter
Engadget: Google launches #AndroidHelp hashtag for tech support on Twitter. “Google will now answer your Android-related problems on Twitter, and you don’t even have to slide into its DMs. The company has announced that it’s now assisting users who tweet their issues with the hashtag #AndroidHelp.”
Fstoppers: How I Hashtag My Photography for Social Media
Fstoppers: How I Hashtag My Photography for Social Media. “If you’ve found yourself wondering how you can go about using hashtags on Instagram for tagging your work, here’s how I go about it. Spoiler alert: I don’t overthink it, and I keep it as simple as possible. I think that people get too caught up thinking that the hashtags are crazy important and fretting about using the right ones. To me, that kind of stress seems like a waste of energy, and I, for one, am not prepared to lose any sleep over whether or not the tags for a given photo were on point.”
National Association of Secretaries of State: NASS Launches #TrustedInfo2020: A Public Election Education Initiative
Another November release I missed, from the National Association of Secretaries of State: NASS Launches #TrustedInfo2020: A Public Election Education Initiative. “#TrustedInfo2020 encourages American citizens to look to their state and local election officials as the trusted sources for election information. Driving voters directly to election officials’ websites and verified social media pages will ensure voters are getting accurate election information, and cut down on the misinformation and disinformation that can surround elections.”
NiemanLab: Political hashtags like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter make some people doubt the stories they’re attached to
NiemanLab: Political hashtags like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter make some people doubt the stories they’re attached to. “People who identified as politically moderate perceived news posts to be significantly more partisan when the posts included hashtags. In fact, in their comments, politically moderate respondents who saw news posts with hashtags were more suspicious of the story’s credibility and focused more on the politics of the hashtag.”
