BBC: Venezuela: ‘I’m paid to tweet state propaganda’. “Every day, Venezuela’s ministry of communications tweets a ‘hashtag of the day’, which is repeated not only by elected officials’ accounts and state sympathisers but also by ‘digital troops’ like Rafael, who are paid to share propaganda.’
Quartz: Elon Musk’s Twitter has even lost the man who popularized #hashtags. “Arguably, Chris Messina created a monster. Back in 2007, Messina, a technology developer who was one of the first 2,000 users of Twitter, suggested using the hashtag symbol to group tweets dealing with the same theme or event. This way, these tweets could be easily found by Twitter users interested in that topic. But, like other monsters, the hashtag didn’t behave exactly as Messina intended.”
NBC News: Twitter blocks hashtags used to promote child sex abuse material after NBC News review. “NBC News found that a series of hashtags on the platform related to the file-sharing service Mega served as rallying points for users seeking to trade or sell CSAM. NBC News observed the hashtags over a period of several weeks, and counted dozens of users who collectively published hundreds of tweets daily.”
Utah State University: USU Folklore Announces Digital Trend of the Year. “Utah State University’s Digital Folklore Project has named the hashtag #MahsaAmini, which launched a significant grassroots protest of the Iranian government’s treatment of women, the #DigitalLoreoftheYear for 2022.”
Screen Rant: How To Follow Hashtags On Mastodon (And Why It Isn’t Working). “Following hashtags can create a personalized feed of content for users to enjoy, but what is the best way to follow hashtags on the Mastodon app? Without hashtags, users potentially lose out on content that could be relevant to their interests. While it is easy to search for hashtags, users just want an easy way to see relevant content without searching for it.”
Archaeological Institute of America: Tweetathons Are Back For 2022!. “The popular International Archaeology Day Tweetathons that started as a pandemic innovation will be back again for the third year in a row. We’ll have a full set of Tweethaon instructions, sample tweets, and more like we did in 2020 and 2021 soon, but so that everyone can start planning, here is a list of hashtags and dates!” The tweetathon starts Monday, October 3rd, and continues for most of the next two weeks.
BBC: Kenya election: The influencers paid to push hashtags. “Social media influencing is a growing and potentially lucrative business for young people in Kenya and increasingly, politicians come calling…. With the fiercely contested presidential election on 9 August, many fear the system of paid-for influence can lead to manipulation and the spread of harmful narratives.”
Indiana University Bloomington: New social media tools help public assess viral posts, check for bots. “The Observatory on Social Media, or OSoMe, at Indiana University has launched three new or revamped no-cost research tools to give journalists, other researchers and the public a broad view of what’s happening on social media.” They’re very Twitter-oriented and look like a lot of fun.
TechCrunch: TikTok to roll out content filters and maturity ratings in pledge to make app safer. “Earlier this year, TikTok said it was developing a new system that would restrict certain types of mature content from being viewed by teen users. Today, the company is introducing the first version of this system, called ‘Content Levels,’ due to launch in a matter of weeks. It’s also preparing the rollout of a new tool that will allow users to filter videos with certain words or hashtags from showing up in their feeds.”
Flinders University: Instagram pressure rising. “Flinders University body image experts are urging all Instagram users to apply a more conscious ‘filter’ to monitor their health and fitness posts. The researchers say people who follow in the footsteps of high-profile social media influencers and upload regular #fitspo and #cleaneating Instagram posts may be placing increased pressure on girls and women, as the posts may exacerbate bad feelings about themselves and their bodies.”
Bellingcat: This New Tool Lets You Analyse TikTok Hashtags. “Compared to those of other social media platforms, TikTok’s API (Application Programming Interface) presents more obstacles to developers. It can change frequently, making it harder for developers to use and harder for researchers to draw wider insights from trends as they develop over weeks and months. Bellingcat’s Investigative Tech Team has therefore created the Bellingcat TikTok Analysis Tool (built on the basis of a TikTok scraper offered by Github user drawrowfly) that allows researchers to collect a dataset of TikToks associated with specific hashtags over lengthier periods.”
NBC News: Twitter bans over 100 accounts that pushed #IStandWithPutin. “Twitter has banned more than 100 accounts that pushed the pro-Russian hashtag #IStandWithPutin for participating in ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior,’ days after the hashtag trended on Twitter amid the invasion in Ukraine.”
NBC News: Instagram pushes drug content to teens. “Instagram is pushing drug-related content to teen accounts, according to research by the watchdog group Tech Transparency Project (TTP). While the company has pledged to crack down on drug sales, it continues to suggest hashtags related to buying illegal substances to children as young as 13, the research shows.”
Hurriyet Daily News: Prosecutor launches probe into ‘Help Turkey’ social media posts. “The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has launched a probe into social media posts that asked for foreign help with the hashtag ‘Help Turkey’ amid the massive wildfires. In a statement on Aug. 5, the prosecutor’s office argued that the posts were trying to show the country as ‘incapable’ and ‘attempted to create panic, fear and concern among the public.'”
Vogue: How Orthodox Women Are Using Social Media to Liberate Each Other From Dead Marriages. “The intersection of religious and secular law has proved sticky terrain for women (or men) attempting to obtain a get [document establishing a Jewish divorce]. But the emergence of social-media-fueled activism has the potential to change the traditional power dynamics. In many ways, #FreeChava mimics other social-justice movements that have played out on social media: There is an initial post, then the repost, and sometimes a viral moment. (To date, more than 1,500 posts have used the #FreeChava hashtag.)”
