Social Media

The end of comments on The Spinoff

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Today The Spinoff officially turns off comments. Here editor Duncan Greive explains his reasoning behind the decision. As of today, as of exactly right now, The Spinoff is turning off Disqus, the comments engine we’ve used since we started in September of 2014. The motivations are simple and twofold. First, comments make us no money but … Read more

Blindsided by the Brexit result? Blame the ‘filter bubble’ of social media

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The rancorous fallout from Brexit reinforces one of the key failings of what passes for debate in the social media era: that neither side ever hears the other’s argument. Richard MacManus on the ‘filter bubble’, and some ways Facebook and Twitter can address it. The big news this week was the decision by 52% of British … Read more

Won’t someone think of the Pākehā men?

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Opinion: Are we really living in an era of “social media menace”? Jessica Williams doesn’t think so. In these confused and dangerous times, where headlines and front pages scream about a “social menace”, spare a thought for the most marginalised group of all. A group that is hurting. The target of hate speech, harassment, constant … Read more

Trial by Twitter – how social media has made juries of us all

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Few of us can refrain from speculation when faced with a crime story like Making a Murderer and Serial – or Mark Lundy or David Bain. Elizabeth Beattie talks to New Zealand legal experts about the influence of social media on our most high profile trials. Had a conversation about Teresa Halbach’s RAV4 lately? What about Adnan … Read more

If it’s public is it fair game? Why we as media need to change the way we report on social media

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News site reports about social media backlash – social media backlash ensues. Ex-churnalist Jess McAllen says this cycle needs breaking.  UPDATE: comment from RNZ’s Megan Whelan appended at close. Yesterday Stuff.co.nz published a story largely based on a Facebook post by Old Mout Cider on the 6th of February regarding its decision to pull an … Read more

Facebook: Dislike? Sure. And We’d Like These New Buttons, Too

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The Mighty Zuck, His Zuckness of Zuckerberg, announced this week that plucky startup Facebook was giving some serious thought to introducing a “dislike” button, for users who didn’t exactly “like” the post they were reading, but felt utterly obliged to click something. Good idea. And why stop there? Here are a bunch of other buttons … Read more