All social media both feeds and feeds on narcissism, but Twitter’s capacity to mirror the world and its users’ neuroses in discrete verbal and visual units, at least in certain corners of the site, elevates self-regard to a formal principle. What makes Twitter so axiomatically hellish? It’s a place where even the most well-intentioned attempts… Read More KATIE KADUE – Twitter as Suspended Hell
In April 2020, Facebook purchased a 10-percent stake in Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio, the telecommunications arm of the Reliance empire. In addition to dominating telecom, Reliance is the largest player in petrochemicals and in retail. When its latest acquisition is complete, the company will control 40 percent – a large plurality – of India’s organised groceries sector. That could… Read More DANIEL BLOCK: How the Facebook-Reliance combine and the farm laws pave the way for digital colonisation
Sometimes… silence makes a lie begin to take on the shimmer of truth… Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has written a detailed essay about the conduct of young people on social media “who are choking on sanctimony and lacking in compassion”, who she says are part of a generation “so terrified of having the wrong opinions that… Read More ‘It is obscene’: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie pens blistering essay against social media sanctimony
Late last month, an “unknown hill in the Chinese desert” was blanketed in scores of large red and white banners, flapping vitriol in the breeze. “I hope you die, bitch,” said one. “Little bitch, screw the feminists,” said others. They were all actual messages sent to women, a direct act of harassment anonymised by social media.… Read More China’s feminists protest against wave of online abuse with ‘internet violence museum’
NB: The only caveat I have to make on this incisive comment refers to the (admittedly conditional) phrase: “instances that must haunt any ruler left with an iota of conscience.” Our rulers do not have an iota of conscience. Within days of the latest lockdown, the RSS general secretary was talking about anti-national forces conspiring to… Read More Suhas Palshikar: A monumental failure of governance // ‘There should be no clampdown on information, people can voice grievances on social media’: Supreme Court
NB: Those who have made capitalism into a religious cult, and who resist social regulation as an impingement on the freedom of the market (as if liberty is al about the liberty of corporates) may reflect on why the likes of Zuckerberg and Murdoch have acquired so much power. DS This is about more than… Read More Marina Hyde: The question every politician should be asking is, what does Mark Zuckerberg want with us?
As law enforcement continues its nationwide manhunt for violent pro-Trump extremists involved in last week’s deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, one of America’s top experts in disinformation is here to remind you that if you want to understand how we got here, you need to look beyond Donald Trump and Washington. “The internet is… Read More ZACK STANTON: The Internet Is a Crime Scene
MAGAR is a news aggregator started by a group of friends in South Asia. We share and celebrate the work of writers, researchers, artists and news sites. Through Magar we hope to broaden our knowledge of the world, and exchange each other’s concerns and curiosities. This is a collaborative not-for-profit site. Every link directs you… Read More MAGAR: A South Asian News Alligator !
Martin Luther King Jr. understood that non-violence is never instinctual. It takes practice. After a year of boycotting the public bus system in Montgomery, King’s community was jubilant when the courts ruled that segregation on buses was unconstitutional. But King knew the tremendous force it would take to withstand the inevitable acts of hatred and… Read More Jan Erkert: How to deal with trolls
After the truth-shower 