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Convosphere | Monthly Digest | August 2019

  1. Confused about how to use Facebook’s privacy settings? Join the club. A recent poll showed that more than a quarter (27%) of Londoners don’t know how to protect their privacy on the platform. In response to this, the social media giant has launched several pop-up cafés across the UK where guests will be given a free drink and privacy check-up. Named Facebook Cafes, the service centres will be open between August 28th to September 5th. Vital customer service or just a PR exercise? Tell us what do you think.
  2. It’s time we face up to the facts: fake news can lead to false memories. While this may be stating the obvious to anyone who has been warned of the dangers of disinformation, a recent study by University College Cork found that fabricated stories have a deeper effect on our minds than previously assumed. Click here to learn more about the research, and why you may not be as immune to phoney news reports as you might think.
  3. AI systems are making huge progress in helping us to process and understand large amounts of data. But there’s still a long way to go, especially when it comes to visuals. Researchers testing AI with ‘adversarial images’ (those routinely misidentified by AI) found that the machine could only identify around 2-3%. Whilst we don’t know exactly which elements of the image the AI bases its judgements on, the researchers believe that an “over-reliance on colour, texture and background cues” were to blame. They now plan to use their dataset of 7,500 adversarial images to train the systems to make the recognition more robust.
  4. Korea saw a collective removal of ad blockers this month as commercials surfaced as a new form of entertainment in the country. Internet users flocked to YouTube to watch Oriental Brewery’s ad for canned tuna, a surprisingly gripping story about breaking free from a controlling society. The interactive format, which let the viewers influence the outcome, must have resonated with the intended audience (millennials, of course!) as the video quickly attracted a record-breaking number of views.
  5. Remember Orkut? The eponymous founder of the former social network, Orkut Büyükkökten, found himself blocked from Tinder earlier this month. Why? Other users reported his account as fake after presuming it was a case of stolen identity when spotting his profile on the app. Büyükkökten turned to Twitter to call for help, using the hashtag #iamreal, and it wasn’t long before the topic began to trend. While some Twitter users tried to help him, others saw it as a chance to negotiate the return of the defunct social network, which in its heyday was used by 64% of Brazil’s internet population. While an Orkut relaunch looks an unlikely outcome, we hope that Büyükkökten has had more success on the dating app since his account was unblocked.

Also, don’t miss our posts – on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn – showing how the Convosphere team has made the most of our approach to flexible working during the holiday season as we joined UK-based Women’s Business Council’s campaign #100WaysToWorkFlexibly.

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