Social Media in 2018

One of your readings for week 4 is the revelations of an Iranian blogger, who was jailed by his government for ten years:

social media and the devaluation of information

After he came out of prison, he witnessed a completely different world: blogs were replaced by Instagram.

Can you understand his take on the value of “hyperlinks?” Do you agree with it. What about his take on algorithms? Since his opinion was published (2015), the issue of algorithms surfaced numerous times:

the election
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/22/social-media-election-facebook-filter-bubbles

the difference in coverage by Facebook versus Twitter on the night of Ferguson, Mo:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2014/08/18/twitter-facebook-and-ferguson-our-awareness-problem

Do you think the blogger may be right then about the evolution (or decline) of social media and its ability to democratize news distribution and help global issues and global citizenship?

 

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