Hashtag: A genie or ally governments around the world cannot rein in?

Hashtag: A genie or ally governments around the world cannot rein in?

After Twitter drew world attention to schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram terror group, Nigerian security forces began to arrest protesters and later deployed armed police and water cannons onto the median. That scene would only provide more arresting footage to help drive the story further up the Twitter algorithm. Nigeria...

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Social media: Powerful tool for galvanising civilians against dictators and crime

Social media: Powerful tool for galvanising civilians against dictators and crime

Watching the analytics skyrocket during a dentist appointment in San Francisco, Jack Dorsey was struck by how quickly a hashtag can move. The founder of Twitter had seen people fire off tweets to coordinate protests in Iran in 2009, and the next year, the website had galvanised crowds of millions...

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How a hashtag went viral and incited a military intervention in Nigeria

How a hashtag went viral and incited a military intervention in Nigeria

Russell Simmons was finishing his morning yoga routine on a yacht floating in the turquoise Caribbean waters off St Barts, peacefully unaware that he was about to provoke a tidal wave. The man who founded the boom-bap hit machine Def Jam Records in a cramped Manhattan dormitory room and made...

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