Going DownWhat Would Happen If Facebook Failed? ‘Catastrophic’ Consequences, Says Oxford Report “The demise of...Facebook could have catastrophic social and economic consequences for innumerable communities that rely on the platform on a daily basis." By Rajvi Desai
Bubbling CauldronWhy Do Internet Witches Keep ‘Hexing’ Things? Hexes, including recent ones targeting Trump or cops and even the moon, have become a means to register cultural disgust. By Aditi Murti
End Hate SpeechInstagram, Facebook Ban Conversion Therapy Content and Advertisements While this is a win, the company's slapdash approach to fighting hate on its platforms continues to confound. By Aditi Murti
Keep It CleanAs We Fight for Social Justice Online, We Have to Ensure Our Voices Don’t Become Noise Having a voice involves backing opinion with action, showing up, engaging with research, and investing the time to learn. By Pritika Rao
Children Are Not PropsA Parenting Influencer Re‑Homed Her Son, Raising Questions About Digital Privacy, Exploitation When personal lives become monetizable brands, children, who cannot consent to the exposure, are at risk for emotional damage. By Aditi Murti
Hold UpTwitter Tests New Policy That Warns Users Before They Tweet Offensive Language The policy is an attempt to stop people from tweeting something they might regret later, a company spokesperson said. By Rajvi Desai
Tell Me The TruthLabeling Fake News Impairs Our Ability to Recognize It: Study Facebook's 2016 move to put warning labels on fake news has backfired. By Rajvi Desai
Copy SnacksStudy: Social Media Can Influence the Food Users Eat Participants in a study ate a little more fruits and veggies for every portion they thought their social media peers ate. By Aditi Murti
Also Known As ConsequencesCancel Culture Is Not Making People Intolerant; It’s Empowering Them How else will marginalized groups, whose needs are often overlooked in mainstream culture, have their voices heard? By Rajvi Desai
Mental BalanceTeenage Girls Experience Worse Mental Health and Self‑Harm More Than Boys: Study Sexist notions around body type are among the leading factors driving up rates of self-harm. By Anubhuti Matta
Step On My FaceThirst Tweets Walk a Thin Line Between Sexual Expression and Objectification Videos of male celebrities getting visibly uncomfortable reading out sexually explicit tweets from their women fans are gaining popularity. By Akshaya Chandrasekaran
In Between91% of 15‑Year‑Olds Can’t Separate Fact From Opinion In the era of fake news, an inability to distinguish between the two has real-world implications. By Anubhuti Matta
Not This Bird AgainReport: 49% of Links to Open‑Access Child Sexual Abuse Content Shared Via Twitter Microsoft Bing, Amazon and Google also had a significant number of URLs that led to child sexual abuse content. By Aditi Murti
Real Sadboi HoursLate Night Tweets Can Tell How Lonely a User Is: Research Twitter users who posted about loneliness were also more likely to be associated with anger, depression, anxiety, and substance use. By Aditi Murti
The Bird Tweets SenseTwitter Founder Jack Dorsey Announces Platform‑Wide Ban on All Political Advertising "While internet advertising is ... powerful ... for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics." By Aditi Murti
Inside CloutFemale Health Experts Lack the Twitter Influence of Their Male Peers, Study Finds The conclusion is reflective of a larger pattern in research, academia and policy that routinely sees men's voices elevated over women's, online and off. By Liesl Goecker
Look Before You SleepLack of Sleep From Social Media Affects Mental Health More Than the Actual Apps Do “While we obsess a lot about social media, how much do we obsess about how much our young people sleep?" By Anubhuti Matta
Can We Uninvent This?Using Social Media to Cope With Stress May Cause More Stress Tech-related stress can arise from information overload, the need to conform to peers online, and even website interface changes. By Aditi Murti
