Tag: Social Media

Mobilizing for democracy? Five myths about protest movements

     

Lebanese security forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons Sunday to disperse hundreds of protesters for a second straight day, ending what started as a peaceful rally in… Read more »

Countering ‘high-tech illiberalism’: Information pollution’s disturbing power

     

Online disinformation campaigns supported by fundamental changes in military and geopolitical strategies of major players such as Russia and China harden tribal factions and undermine the security of infrastructure systems in… Read more »

Social media, political polarization and disinformation: a review

     

  Social media is neither inherently democratic or undemocratic, “but simply an arena in which political actors — some which may be democratic and some which may be anti-democratic —… Read more »

Political bots – ‘propaganda powerhouse’ threatens democracy

     

Bots airing pro-Kremlin views have flooded the Russian-language portion of the social media platform Twitter, in what researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute’s Computational Propaganda Research Project  say is an… Read more »

How social media undermines democratic transitions

     

Egypt’s 2011 uprising has become synonymous with the successful use of social media to overthrow an entrenched authoritarian regime, note analysts Sean Aday, Deen Freelon and Marc Lynch. Popular and… Read more »

Iranian activists use social media to demand justice, accountability

     

The public outcry over the rape and murder of six-year-old Afghan refugee Setayesh Ghoreishi (left) demonstrates how social media has allowed Iran’s civil society to hold accountable hardliners in the… Read more »

How African governments block social media

     

A small but increasing group of African governments is blocking social media during elections. The BBC’s Clare Spencer asks why and how this is done and how people get around… Read more »