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Academics To Predict Next Twitter and Its Pitfalls
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Apr 15, 2009 08:54 PM
from the peer-into-my-crystal-ball dept.
from the peer-into-my-crystal-ball dept.
An anonymous reader writes "University researchers in the UK have put together a team tasked with predicting the next big thing in terms of communication technologies, in a bid to tackle ethical pitfalls before they become a problem. This is in the wake of the rise of social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, which has led to a dramatic increase in the amount of personal information available online."
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Submission: Academics to predict next Twitter and its pitfalls by Anonymous Coward
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The next service? "c.hr" (Score:5, Funny)
One character messages only. Now you can say the same things even faster.
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This is perfect when I say the names of all 50 states in one syllable.
Science Fiction (Score:2, Insightful)
Why don't they just go read some good science fiction? Or talk to some good sci-fi authors?
Re:Science Fiction (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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Telegraph prose (Score:5, Interesting)
One character messages only. Now you can say the same things even faster.
Feh. Ancient history.
An entire genre of prose was derived from the high cost of sending telegrams. Hemingway is probably the most famous example, but a whole generation of journalists learned to pare down their sentences to the absolute minimum to save on transmission costs.
True story: A foreign correspondent was sent to a distant country to prepare some coverage of an imminent war. Because telegraph costs were so high, the home office had prepared large amounts of background already, and kept it sitting on file. All they needed to know was when to print it.
The parsimonious editor sent the following message to his correspondent:
?
To which the correspondent replied:
!
The same day the front page announced news of the outbreak of war.
Parent
Academics To Predict Future! (Score:5, Funny)
Somebody just got a big fat grant for sitting around and smoking dubies.
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Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Social network medical records (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Social network medical records (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
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Begs the question (Score:4, Informative)
Who in their right mind would ever put their own personal information on the web?
If people are stupid enough to do it, then let them be the victim of their own stupidity.
Anon.
Parent
Re:Begs the question (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't people posting their own idiotic adventures online - the problem is people getting tagged in other people's photos and videos. It's easy for me to control what I post online about myself; it's very, very difficult for me to control what other people post about me online, and even more difficult to remove material that I find inappropriate.
Or it would be if I had a social life, anyways.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The best thing you can do is not hang around with idiots who feel compelled to blog or twat* about every damn thing they do. That won't eliminate every single photo of you, but it'll eliminate most (currently) searchable references to you. Avoiding having non-friends take your picture can almost always be done without causing a fuss.
The only major loose end that leaves is family, which can be difficult to deal with diplomatically. A lot of older people don't understand the basics of internet socialization -
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You're new to the net aren't you?
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So your problem is with freedom.
Academics meh... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Academics meh... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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They already did this on the iPhone.
Somewhat predictably, it made the developer quite a lot of money.
Re:Academics meh... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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You're so right. [venturebeat.com] Not to mention that the market is fiercely competitive, and pulls in 6 figures in a week. Whodathunkit?
Re:Academics meh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Academics meh... (Score:4, Insightful)
But they do know what they want. A faster horse, or whatever the equivalent is these days.
Parent
If you could do that... (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd probably not be swatting away for some douche at a University, trying to finish you thesis or get tenure. You'd probably scrape together every last penny you had and become a first round VC.
Re:If you could do that... (Score:4, Interesting)
Ah, but nobody is claiming they can do so accurately. They can, however, make educated predictions, some of which will be right. It's the shotgun approach. The point isn't in the predictions, but in the ethical issues they address, so that others can take responsible actions if some of those technologies become big.
The headline could better have read "Academics to predict pitfalls of potential next Twitters."
Parent
Strangled in the crib, or earlier (Score:4, Insightful)
So now they're trying to figure out a way to regulate new technologies out of existence before they've even been conceived of? Such progress....
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Tweets would be limited to 80 characters or less instead of 140...
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The character limit makes you aware how much fluff we add to what we say. Most comments on this article could be half as long and lose little. I wouldn't claim it is bringing succinctness back to English, sum ppl jus rite lyk dis nstead.
Other sites do it, one takes anecdotes with word limit of ~50 makes good use as readers can absorb many stories quickly increasing how much they enjoy their time at the site. In a time poor society I'd appreciate more people going straight to the point.
(FYI, I wrote this po
Pseudonyms, encryption and Identity theft (Score:5, Insightful)
I use pseudonyms as a barrier between me and Identity Theft, because facebook, myspace all look like vectors for Identity theft to me. Using a fake identity can't be a bad thing when people are inclined to steal it.
Unfortunately, our institutions are yet to realise that protecting privacy by educating people about using encryption is a good first step to reducing fraud related behaviour. Until that happens, the bad guys have the advantage.
Simply put, the authorities have related encryption to illicit activities instead of a set of basic tools that people can use to protect themselves on line. In terms of protecting ourselves people are often encouraged into the worst sets of behaviour, so we haven't even done the basics now, let alone 10-15 years time. I predict more scams in the future.
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Re:Pseudonyms, encryption and Identity theft (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately Facebook, Myspace etc. do not allow pseudonymous identities. It is required that all information be accurate and truthful. Recently a woman in the US was convicted [wikipedia.org] for "unauthorized access" on Myspace because she signed up pretending to be some make-believe boy. There were aggravating factors that led to her investigation and arrest (she trolled some teenage girl who ended up killing herself), but, still, what she was convicted for was just that, computer fraud because of signing up on false pretences, not for harassment or anything like that.
I would have gotten a Facebook account a while ago if they did not have that requirement.
Parent
Re:Pseudonyms, encryption and Identity theft (Score:4, Insightful)
"Unfortunately Facebook, Myspace etc. do not allow pseudonymous identities."
That's not a bug, it's a feature. Some of us actually *want* people to know who we are online, and want to know who the people are who we are dealing with.
Yes, we'd no doubt get a whole lot more privacy if we always went by Zasduhauy Q. Viisufod online and posted a picture of our cat run through a Gaussian blur as our photograph.
But why not extend that logical principle and go to the office and supermarket every day wearing a Guy Fawkes mask? The Man shall not chain me! I shall be a free, unharrassed, absolutely private individual! None shall know my secret identity!
If you have stuff you don't want the world to know, don't put it up on public forums.
Conversely, if you want to create a public forum where people can trust each other, don't let them lie about their identity.
Works for me.
Parent
Sorry, but you're completly missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but you're completly missing the point.
The supermarket is a semi-private place: you show your face knowing that only a fraction of people (those that live in the same town) are present there; and if do something embarassing, an employer 10 years from now won't be able to know.
Facebook is a worldwide public place. You have to be cautious because everything you say there is on the record, for everyone to see.
So the decision to be anonymous on facebook has an entirely different meaning than the supermarket. It is far from paranoia, even more so when you think of all the new ways this information could be used ,in the future.
And of course, the thing that really matters here is politic: by setting up an anonymous account on facebook, you can lead a political life, convincing people to go to protests, or to vote or donate for a cause. It is a pretty new thing to be able to do so anonymously, and there is nothing cowardly about it when you see how scientology (for example) illegally harasses opponents.
Parent
The next thing is "flaps", 26 character max (Score:4, Funny)
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The next big thing will be "Grunter" -- one syllable "grunts" that you can use to express your emotions to anonymous strangers on the internet who will pretend to be interested in you as long as you subscribe to their "grunts".
I've already patented this six ways from Sunday, so don't even think about getting your grubby dick-beaters anywhere near my idea.
Ugh! You heard it here first.
What are these folks talkign about? (Score:2)
...in a bid to tackle ethical pitfalls before they become a problem...
The question that has to be asked is: "...they (ethical issues), become a problem to who?"
As far as I know, those who put info online do so with knowledge of what they face and especially the privacy issues that may arise. I get a feeling that folks involved in efforts as mentioned in the introduction are living in the 50s where privacy was such a big deal.
Today's kids do not see that as much of an issue I might add. I hope they direct their efforts elsewhere.
Avoid Marketeers (Score:4, Insightful)
The only way to make a social networking product be as big as My Space / Facebook / Twitter AND not suck monkey nuts is to keep the marketeers out of it, and that just isn't going to happen.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No that's what I meant. I don't mind banner ads and stuff. It's the companies posing as 'people' who want to be your friend. I get enough spam in my email, thanks.
I enjoy being able to white list my instant messaging and email accounts, but a "social networking" service needs to be open.
140 characters is too many (Score:5, Funny)
In the next Twitter, there's no typing. You signal emoticons. If you are too fat to use the mouse, they will develop a device that interprets your emotions from the configurations of your fat cells, and you don't ever have to get off the couch.
etc
Social Networks Don't Threaten My Privacy (Score:2)
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Because at least one of the academics involved fancies himself an ethicist which means he knows if he thinks about it long enough, he can come up with an ethical dilemma in anything.
Will they predict centralized or distributed? (Score:2)
It's a bit depressing how these recent Internet-based "communication technologies" are all centralized. In some sense, this seems to be a natural offshoot of applications springing up on the web -- individual websites are centralized entities by design. It's also about control and monetization, which is good for the service provider... perhaps less so for the user and for reliability/redundancy/etc.
But I also wonder how much the unanswered technical challenges presented by anonymous internet-based attacke
They should be looking for the next Webvan (Score:2)
After all the social networks are using the same business strategy.
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