Media & Technology debate motions (page 2)

A social media influencer is a user on social media who has established credibility in a specific industry which they use to persuade others e.g. Kylie Jenner

Gene editing technologies (e.g. CRISPR-Cas9) are used to insert, delete, modify or replace a genome in a living organism, usually in the somatic cells (any cell except the sperm and egg). The technology is usually applied in adults but a controversial research in 2018 involved the use of the technology in the embryo of a pair of twins.

Falun Gong are an extreme anti-CCP religious organisation, they have faced significant persecution from the Chinese Government. Falun Gong produce and sponsor a significant portion of online content exposing the cruelty of the CCP and discussion of their government policy decisions. They also offer VPN services to Chinese mainlanders and have significant influence in Chinese communities outside of China. Their content is exclusively right wing and socially conservative. Newspapers and content creators the Falun Gong backed were consistently accused of pedalling Pro-Trump conspiracies

Afrofuturism is the reimagining of a future filled with arts, science, and technology seen through a black lens. The term was conceived a quarter-century ago by white author Mark Dery in his essay, "Black to the Future," which looks at speculative fiction within the African diaspora. Examples of afro-futurism in literature and culture include: writing by Octavia Butler and Sun Ra, Black Panther, and Janelle Monae's ArchAndroid/Dirty Computer.

Parler is a microblogging / social media webservice / app. It is often positioned as a free-spech, no-moderation alternative to Twitter and other social media networks. In the aftermaths of the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, many tech companies have taken action against Parler - e.g. Apple and Google has removed the Parler app from their stores, and Amazon Web Services have stopped its hosting services for Parler. In letters sent to Parler about their decisions, Amazon, Apple, and Google all cited the social media company's lack of a workable system to keep violent content off its platform.

An AI technology has been invented that creates realistic virtual humans equipped with simulated partial consciousnesses for users to interact with. Users may legally do anything they wish to these consciousnesses. These consiousnesses are programmed to experience all the same emotions as a human--including pleasure, pain, fear, etc.

Parler is an American alt-tech microblogging and social networking service. Parler has a significant user base of Donald Trump supporters, conservatives, conspiracy theorists, and right-wing individuals. Posts on the service often contain far-right content, and conspiracy theories such as QAnon. Journalists have described Parler as an alternative to Twitter, and users include those banned from mainstream social networks or opposing their moderation policies

Project Tsuki no Me would put every person in a permanent dream state where they will live the rest of their lives fulfilling all of their desires at that point in time (Not necessarily immediate desires but also long-term aspiratons). Each person lives out their life in their own individual dream world. Implementing the project would do so for everyone, and there is no option to do so for only a section of the population.

Parler is a social media app popular with conservatives in the US. Recently, Google and Apple has removed Parler from the Google Play Store over concerns that content circulating on the site was used to incite radicalism and violence.

PubPeer is an online platform for post-publication peer review (PPPR). Unlike other platforms for PPPR, PubPeer offers their readers to leave comments under their real name or anonymously.

Scientific knowledge is the body of knowledge developed through the scientific method. The scientific method categorically rejects or does not reject phenomena (things, characteristics, events) by testing hypotheses about them through empirical or logical experiments. by contrast, traditional knowledge is the body of knowledge developed by traditional human experiences. These are experiences and beleifs of communities that stem from interactions with their environment, which are often passed down through generations via cultural practices or communal memory

Absolute neutrality means equal weight to all events, opinion and arguments regardless of what side they're from.

Artificial General Intelligence is the hypothetical intelligence of a machine that has the capacity to understand or learn any intellectual task that a human being can. It is a primary goal of some artificial intelligence research.

Twitter has recently added a fact-checking function where certain high profile tweets that are factually incorrect are flagged as such with a link to Twitter has recently added a fact-checking function where certain high profile tweets that are factually incorrect are flagged as such with a link to fact-checking post

020 was a year filled with trials and tribulations for the world. The Corona virus impacted the world in so many ways both marginal and unmaginable. The lives of so many were lost to the pandemic. Businesses fell and collapsed , jobs were lost from the mass layoffs of workers and the economic elites of the world widened the world's inequality gaps. Health workers had to risk their lives.live as we know essentially came to a stand still and later changed in ways we had never experienced and had to adapt to.

Warner Bros. has recently signed a deal with an Artificial Intelligence company whose algorithms allow them to predict how successful a movie will be (overall, and in different countries) given elements such as genre, actors, themes, and budget.

Disclosure Culture refers to a culture where individuals' private lives are shared/extensively disclosed online - e.g. via social media.

Teleportation technology exists that allows anyone to teleport anywhere in the world that is a public space. This technology is accessible to all humans. Governments can place laws over its use, but are incapable of amending the technology.

Augmented Eternity enables one to create a digital persona/avatar that can interact with people on one's behalf, even after one is dead. This can be done by amalgamating a mass amount of personality data about the person and simulating such experiences.

Twitter has recently added a fact-check function, where certain high-profile tweets that are factually incorrect are flagged as such with a link to fact-checking post.

Sci-Hub and Library Genesis are websites that provides free access to millions of research papers and books, without regard to copyright, by bypassing publishers' paywalls in various ways.

Journalistic objectivity is a mainstream notion in the news industry, and is characterised by the aim of providing demonstrably correct information that is not guided or influenced by a particular point of view. Those who adhere to this idea would include the facts regardless of whether or not they like the facts. They avoid making judgments and steer clear of doubt and ambiguity. Major news agencies thay adhere strictly to this idea include the BBC, Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, Bloomberg and Reuters. There has been a recent shift away from this norm, with outlets such as the Washington Post, Fox News, Mother Jones and American Spectator, National Review, and the Wall Street Journal adhering less strictly to that idea (to varying degrees of adherence).

You are a scientist. Whilst working alone in the lab, you discover that Doomsday is going to happen in exactly 5 years, and that this is completely inevitable. As the only expert in the world in this particular subject, you are very certain no one else is going to uncover this information.

Various governments and governing bodies restrict what areas of scientific research may be studied. For example, various countries have banned the creation of clones. These restrictions differ from ethics rules that limit HOW research is performed, as opposed to WHAT research is performed.

Mergers and acquisitions are transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred or consolidated with other entities. Mergers are the combination of two companies to form one, while acquisitions are one company being taken over by the other.

Creator-driven content refers to media produced by individuals with a large online following who are responsible for the production and distribution of their own content (ie, YouTubers, IG influencers, TikTok stars, Twitch livestreamers).

"Desperation science" is a scientific methodology that involves speeding up the process of research by loosening regulations on that research. In biomedical research, this includes processes such as allowing early approvals for use of various drugs before safety and efficacy (especially in the long-term) has been thoroughly proven, and doctors prescribing medication based on results of early stage trials. Data on drugs is often collected in postmarketing surveillance trials after the drug has gone to market/started being widely prescribed.

"Kya kare ya na kare, Yeh Kaisi Mushkil haye!" You are a journalist at a large national news agency. You have obtained evidence that the management has been taking bribes by influential business people and politicians to suppress news and spread fake news/propaganda.

A patent is a form of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from profiting off an invention for a limited period of years. If violated, the patent holder can sue the person/organization infringing the patent in order to enforce his or her rights.

Genetic engineering is the process of using technology to alter the genetic makeup of an organism before they are born. Genetic engineering involves the direct manipulation of one or more genes. For instance, making humans more resistant to extreme temperatures, able to live in more acidic environments etc.

Roger Fisher (1981) suggested that instead of a briefcase containing the nuclear launch codes, the means to launch a bomb should instead be carried in a capsule embedded near the heart of a volunteer. That person would carry a heavy blade with them everywhere the president went. Before authorising a missile launch, the commander-in-chief would first have to personally kill that one person, gouging out their heart to retrieve the codes.(theme: war, remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki)

Clutch Mami is an indepedent rapper from Compton, California. Her recent song, 'Slatt Money', has received a considerable amount of local radio play and has received over a million views on YouTube. The mixtape from which Slatt Money comes, 'All Clutch Everything', has received positive reviews from critics, with many praising her clever wordplay, intelligent commentary on her experiences with poverty and anti-black racism, and fun, accessible beats.

The 'Hollywood Blockbuster model' refers to a business model employed by major Hollywood studios whereby studios opt to heavily fund a small amount of films each year as opposed to distributing that funding more equally across a larger number of films.

In the future, the technology exists to create simulations of the universe that are capable of perfectly emulating real life conditions (laws of physics, chemistry, etc).

Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry was a Soviet institution that had a goal of preserving rare seeds of edible plants in an attempt to protect the biodiversity. Many of the crops widely used around the world today are the result of cross-breeding with the crops maintained by the Vavilov Institute. During the siege of Leningrad in 1942, most of the researchers of the institute succumbed to hunger, refusing to eat the seeds and their produce that they were tasked to protect.

Gene editing is the process of scientists editing the genome by adding, altering or removing genome segments at particular points in the DNA. CRISPR is a form of gene editing that is faster and cheaper than all those that came before it. CRISPR-Cas9 was adapted from a naturally occurring genome editing system in bacteria. The bacteria capture snippets of DNA from invading viruses and use them to create DNA segments known as CRISPR arrays. The CRISPR arrays allow the bacteria to "remember" the viruses (or closely related ones). If the viruses attack again, the bacteria produce RNA segments from the CRISPR arrays to target the viruses' DNA. The bacteria then use Cas9 or a similar enzyme to cut the DNA apart, which disables the virus.

In X years later, a technology that could comprehensively evaluate and record individuals' character traits (e.g. maliciousness, wittiness, benevolence, articulateness, etc.) has been developed. This tech can be used to rank and publicize each individual's overall moral worth.

Alain Cocq, who had lived for 34 years with an extremely painful and untreatable degenerative condition, attempted to facebook live himself starving himself to death to protest and create political change on France's ban on euthanasia. Facebook stopped broadcasts after the first day as violating it's policy against broadcasting suicides. A political suicide is an attempt to use one's death to make a political statement or produce a political shift. Some examples include: immolation, hunger strikes.

A Sokal paper is a fictitious paper that does not reflect any actual experimentation, evidence or logic. Sokal papers use technical language, jargon and ideological popular themes to mimic a real paper.

By definition, virtual influencers are fictional computer-generated 'people' who have the realistic characteristics, features and personalities of humans. Behind each of them are creators and coders from robotics and AI companies who mostly remain faceless and are responsible for growing their. Instagram platforms and generating new content such as posts, vlogs and even music for their social media. A popular example would be Lil Miquela, a "forever 19-year old" Brazilian-American model and music artist, who has amassed over 2.8 million followers on Instagram. Her list of countless brand collaborations include being the face of Samsung's #teamgalaxy campaign in 2019 and teaming up with supermodel Bella Hadid for a Calvin Klein advertisement. She has also been listed within The Times' 'Most Influential People on the Internet.'

A recent study on mentorship in the academe was published in the scientific journal Nature Communications. The findings of the article state that increasing the proportion of female mentors in the academe can have adverse effects on research productivity for female mentees. The authors argue that policies encouraging opposite-gender mentorships may actually increase the scientific impact of women who pursue a scientific career. Since its publication, the article has been subjected to backlash from the feminist movement.

Genoeconomics is a field of protoscience that combines molecular genetisc and economics, based on the idea that a person's financial behaviour could be traced to their DNA and that genes are related to economomic behaviour

Neuralink technology aims to implant wireless brain-computer interfaces in humans. It is being developed by Neuralink Corporation, which currently employs several high-profile neuroscientists, has already implanted a device onto a pig, and expects to start experiments with humans in 2020.

According to the latest cabinet secretariat notification, films, audio-visual programmes, news and current affairs available online are moved from under the ambit of the IT ministry to be regulated by the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) ministry.A direct implication of this would be the regulation of all forms of content on OTT (Over The Top Media service; Eg. platforms like Netflix and Hotstar) similar to what happens with films through censor board or TV news with News Broadcasters Association.

Ray Kurtzweil proposed the widely accepted theory called "Exponential growth of technology". It deals with the pace of growth in terms of technological advancements. The theory states that there exists a situation called 'The Singularity' which is a point of time in the future where technological growth becomes irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization.

Pop psychology refers to theories and ideas about human psychology that are marketed to the general public. Examples include, but are not limited to, personality tests and self-help literature that claims to have scientific psychological backing.

Middleware is software that rides on top of an existing platform and can modify the presentation of underlying data. Middleware allows users to choose how information is curated and filtered for them. For social media platforms, users could hypothetically select middleware services that would block, prioritise and reconfigure different types of data, and social media platforms would use those determinations to curate what those users saw.

Bon Appetit is a food magasine with a highly viewed Youtube channel. Recently, tensions rose as issues regarding pay and treatment of its POC staff as well as pictures its editor-in-chief in brownface. As a response, most of its POC staff and on-camera personalities have left the company Bon Appetit has since restarted with new POC personalities focusing on non-white cuisine, however it has received criticism that the new videos does not respond to the controversy and is merely pandering to POCs

Big data refers to extremely large data sets that may be analysed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behaviour and interactions, resulting in profiles and predictions. Some examples of big data usage include tailor-made policy creation & profiling and targeted advertising on social media

Assuming its reliability and truthfulness, a technology has been invented, which can calculate and inform individuals - based on the individuals' current life choices, career, and other variables - the quality of life for the last five years of their life.

VTubing is a trend emerging out of Japan in which YouTubers/livestreamers use technology to represent themselves as a cartoon or anime avatar in real time. The technology allows the user's movements and voice to be synced to the avatar in a live broadcast. Vtubers typically do not reveal their "real" identity or appearance.

You live in a student house with 18 other individuals. You all share one common room. One housemate is a Christian who grew up in a highly conservative community. One day, you hung up a sizeable poster on the wall of the common room which features two men kissing (it's an advertisement for a suit-store) because you like the poster. The Christian housemate expresses that although he thinks people have the right to be gay, the poster makes him uncomfortable and reluctant to go into the common room. He asks you and the other housemates if the poster can be removed.

Australia's government has introduced draft legislation, a mandatory code of conduct, that would compel digital platforms like Facebook and Google to share advertising revenue with commercial news media companies for hosting their original content. As well as payment, they would have to give news publishers exclusive access to user data and transparency of algorithms used to rank and present media content.

An A-list celebrity is a professional artist with a very strong track record in their respective industry. It may be a bankable movie star who has a very strong track record of box office successes, or a pop star with a string of #1 hit singles and albums.

Social media demetrication is the process of removing all metrics such as likes, number of shares etc. from all posts.

Liable: To be held liable means to be accountable or legally responsible for a particular action or event. Fake news: this is a form of news that consists mainly of misinformation or hoaxes and is deliberately spread through traditional forms of media and online/ social media.

Embedded journalism refers to reporters and photographers accompanying specific military units into combat zones.. Motion: THW

Sci-Hub is a website that provides free access to millions of paywalled and open-access research papers and books. Sci-Hub obtains paywalled papers by presenting illicitly held university usernames and passwords to the publishers' websites via the universities' proxy websites. Athena provides alternative open source publishing for academics online. Motion: Thi

The Walt Disney Company owns Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Fox, ABC and dozens of other studios, media networks, amusement parks and merchandising rights.

"Eva's Stories" is an Instagram account based on the true diary of a teenage Jewish girl in the holocaust, portraying her journal entries as an Instagram feed.

Sensitivity Screening (readers) are a subset of beta-readers who review unpublished manuscripts with the express purpose of spotting cultural inaccuracies, representation issues, offensive bias, stereotypes or problematic languages. Phenomenon of sensitivity screening (reading) is antithetical to the use of clear or unfiltered languages on literary work.

Open source refers to any program whose source code is made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit. Open source software is usually developed as a public collaboration and made freely available. MOTION: THW

Technology X is an advanced form of virtual reality, that allows individuals to have absolute control over events, people and surroundings in a virtual world. Once technology X is used a person can't go back to reality. Motion: Assu

A Social Media Influencer is a user on social media who has established credibility in a specific industry. A social media influencer has access to a large audience and can persuade others by virtue of their authenticity and reach. e.g. Kylie Jenner, Chiara Ferragni, Jake Paul etc.

Social-network operators are protected by a section of the Communications Decency Act that for two decades has absolved Internet companies of any legal liability for the content that their users create. Motion: THW h

United States Pacific Command has detected an intercontinental ballistic missile launch. The missile is headed for downtown Honolulu. An attempted intercept has failed. The warhead is expected to detonate in 15 minutes. You are a civilian emergency response official for the State of Hawaii.

The Socrates machine accurately determines your potential for a range of attributes (e.g. physical strength, intelligence, empathy, charisma, diligence). All individuals are tested, and their results are on public record.

Geoengineering is the deliberate intervention in the Earth's climate and weather systems.

The "Intellectual Dark Web" is a term describing a group of academics and intellectual ( e.g. Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris) who promote 'politically incorrect' views, such as the significance of biological differences between sexes, the failing of multiculturalism, and defences of colonialism. They have promoted their views mainly via YouTube and social media. As of late, they have been increasingly given more mainstream platforms.

China's "Social Credit System" intends to use data to measure each citizen's pro- or anti social behaviour (as decided by the Chinese government). China intends to use it to reward and sanction its citizens. Motion: Thi

Dragonfly Eyes is a film made by Chinese filmmaker Xu Bing, compiled from over 10,000 hours of public domain Chinese surveillance footage, combined with voiceover work. Motion: TH,

CRISPR-Cas9 is a biological technique that allows for editing of genomes in organisms by removing, altering, or adding sections of DNA sequence. This will allow scientists to manipulate what features are expressed or not expressed in humans. Motion: THW