Trauma dumping can be bad for the mental health of those who have this trauma unexpectedly thrown at them, and it also often isn’t helpful for the person doing the trauma dumping either:

While taking a break from parts or all of social media can be good for someone’s mental health (e.g., doomscrolling is making them feel more anxious, or they are currently getting harassed online), viewing internet-based social media as inherently toxic and trying to return to an idyllic time from before the Internet is not a realistic or honest view of the matter.

The book Writing on the Wall: Social Media - The First 2,000 Years describes how, before the printing press, when someone wanted a book, they had to find someone who had a copy and have a scribe make a copy. So books that were popular spread through people having scribes copy each other’s books. And with all this copying, there might be different versions of the book spreading around, because of scribal copying errors, added notes, or even the original author making an updated copy. So we can look at the evolution of these books: which got copied, and how they changed over time.

The method of determining what is shown to users is called a recommendation algorithm, which is an algorithm (a series of steps or rules, such as in a computer program) that recommends posts for users to see, people for users to follow, ads for users to view, or reminders for users.

Other disabilities are invisible disabilities that other people cannot notice by observing the disabled person (e.g., chronic fatigue syndrome, contact lenses for a visual disability, or a prosthetic for a missing limb covered by clothing).

If a building only has staircases to get up to the second floor (it was built assuming everyone could walk up stairs), then someone who cannot get up stairs has a disability in that situation.

When Elon Musk purchased Twitter, he also was purchasing access to all Twitter Direct Messages

For example, a social media application might offer us a way of “Private Messaging” (also called Direct Messaging) with another user. But in most cases those “private” messages are stored in the computers at those companies, and the company might have computer programs that automatically search through the messages, and people with the right permissions might be able to view them directly.

One particularly striking example of an attempt to infer information from seemingly unconnected data was someone noticing that the number of people sick with COVID-19 correlated with how many people were leaving bad reviews of Yankee Candles saying “they don’t have any scent” (note: COVID-19 can cause a loss of the ability to smell):

Some data is directly provided to the platform by the users. Platforms may ask users for information like: email address name profile picture interests friends

RIP trolling is where trolls find a memorial page and then all work together to mock the dead person and the people mourning them. Here’s one example from 2013:

Amusement: Trolls often find the posts amusing, whether due to the disruption or emotional reaction. If the motivation is amusement at causing others’ pain, that is called doing it for the lulz.

Sockpuppet (or a “burner” account): Creating a fake profile in order to argue a position (sometimes intentionally argued poorly to make the position look bad)

In 2016, when Donald Trump was running a campaign to be the US President, one twitter user pointed out that you could see which of the Tweets on Donald Trump’s Twitter account were posted from an Android phone and which from an iPhone, and that the tone was very different.

When we think about how data is used online, the idea of a utility calculus can help remind us to check whether we’ve really got enough data about how all parties might be impacted by some actions. Even if you are not a utilitarian, it is good to remind ourselves to check that we’ve got all the data before doing our calculus.

which Twitter claimed was less than 5%

you combine pieces of the language together according to specific rules in order to create meaning.

Some bots are intended to be helpful, using automation to make tasks easier for others or to provide information, such as:

Imagine I am an English speaker who wants to communicate with someone else who speaks Arabic. Neither of us speaks the other one’s language. If we have access to people who speak multiple languages, it is possible for them to act as translators, taking what someone says and repeating it in another language, until we are able to get our messages back and forth.

Virtue is a group effort. Individuals can’t be virtuous on their own because “the earth is slippery, slick” (meaning it is easy for an individual to fall into bad actions, they need support and moderation)