When users experienced a “metallic buzzing” on WhatsApp and Telegram calls starting in Aug. 2025, Russia’s state internet regulator, Roskomnadzor, claimed it was because the platforms acted as aids in alleged fraud and terrorism. Just a week after the initial interference, the Kremlin announced a mandate that the VK messaging app Max would come preinstalled […]
Tag: social media
Reflections on the Neighborhood Corpse of Charlie Kirk
On Sept. 10th, 2025, Charlie Kirk was assassinated. The next day, a crypto coin commemorating his death reached a market cap value of five million dollars. Within one week, over two million were placed into online bets as to the sexual orientation of his killer. Within two months, I watched an AI generated video of […]
Doomscrolling Toward Enlightenment
The first thing I do when I wake up in the mornings is open three different apps on my phone. In no particular order, I go from Instagram to TikTok to Substack. The real star of the three, and my own guilty pleasure, is Substack. I love to start my day with existentialist writing that […]
Social Media and the Over-Democratization of Debate
We all engage in casual forms of debate almost constantly, and free argumentation is so integral to our daily decision-making that it’s only natural for it to be the foundation of a free, democratic society. Throughout American history, public debate has remained consistently central. Debate shaped the nation’s founding documents, like the Federalist and anti-Federalist […]
Indonesia and the Chronically Online Political Voice of Gen Z
Searching Indonesia on TikTok once yielded viral videos of an 11-year-old kid racing boats and “aura-farming”. Now, the same search is instead met with clips of burning buildings, demands to the government, and the “Jolly Roger” flag from the 1997 Japanese manga and anime One Piece. These two jarringly different snapshots have one thing in […]
The Warden of the Panopticon: Trump and the Dawn of Digital Authoritarianism
Digital control is the bloodstream of modern authoritarianism. From the streets of Hong Kong to the border of Israel, technology has begun to amplify domination. The history of anti-authoritarian organizing has forced fascism to evolve, birthing the era of digital despotism. Left unchecked, the trend threatens to concentrate power into unelected elites, eliminate social movements, […]
A Post-Mortem of the Youth Vote in 2024
This article is a follow-up to an earlier Berkeley Political Review article entitled “Blue Generation: Gen Z and the Democratic Party.” In the 2024 presidential election, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris underperformed President Joe Biden’s vote share in 2020 nationally by three percentage points. Harris’ underperformance is more striking when looking at individual states, even states […]
Social Media’s Most Wanted: The New Age of Digital Villain Worship
“Double, double toil and trouble”—the cauldron of public opinion is once again brewing, this time casting criminals as misunderstood cultural icons. The romanticization of villains and criminals is nothing new. Yet, in an era where social media actively blurs the line between fact and fiction, Luigi Mangione is recast as a martyr, raising questions about […]
Fitness Influencers and the Unseen Market of Teenage Exploitation
Being trapped inside the house for months during the COVID-19 lockdowns gave everyone new options for how to spend their newfound free time: one could turn to binge-watching a new Netflix series, picking up a new hobby, or for many, attempting a new workout regimen. Thanks to social media, during quarantine, it became a trend […]
Addressing the Alt-Right Pipeline
It’s no secret your social media algorithm knows you better than you know yourself. What you click, what you ignore, and how long you stare at a post gives algorithms slews of information they collect, store, and use to keep you on the app for as long as possible. While this feature has been great […]
The First Amendment Security Blanket
Prior to January 24th 2021, if you were to open up Spotify and click on the “Podcasts & Shows” tab, “The Joe Rogan Experience” would take up the entire top half of your screen. This Spotify exclusive is the largest podcast in the world, where notoriously controversial comedian Joe Rogan has smoked marijuana with Elon […]
Revolutionizing Sex Work? The Growth of OnlyFans Within a Hostile Working Environment
In early August of 2020, actress and child-star Bella Thorne’s OnlyFans account captured the attention of many young adults when she posted a highly edited Instagram video, in which she revealed that she would be selling her nude photos for roughly $200 each. While she received thousands of orders, buyers never acquired the promised photos. […]
Growing Pains: The Evolution of Influencer Marketing
Double tap. Click subscribe. Retweet. In 2010 Instagram was established. With it emerged the influencer. Influencers are public figures that exert influence on the habits and commercial choices of their followers through their social media platforms. They do so by publicizing their purchasing choices, recommendations and opinions on these accounts. Users have come to look […]
Social Media’s Not the Problem, We Are.
“If only those with opposing political views were able to engage in conversation, overall animosity would decrease.” While good-natured and opportunistic, evidence consistently proves this theory wrong. There is a growing body of research in America that seeks to understand political polarization. Unsurprisingly, digital forms of communication are unhelpful. Examples abound. My personal favorite is […]
Search Engine Politics: How Algorithms are Creating Political Controversy
With new and emerging technologies including social media platforms and search engines, old problems are being brought to the forefront once again. One of those issues is political bias and it is an issue that is now being discussed, investigated, and debated in the halls of Congress. Discussing political bias, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter […]
“Pics or it Didn’t Happen”: California’s Millennials’ Resistance to Voting
How much would you pay for an avocado? Millennials, even if they refuse to admit it now, will fork up a relatively large amount, such as $12 for avocado toast or $5 for a side of guacamole. Driven largely by millennials, the current 18- to 35-year-olds, avocado consumption has skyrocketed from one pound per person in […]
Trump’s Twitter Regime: Empowering the People, Killing the Press
The president and the press are entrenched in a strenuous game of cat and mouse. It’s a trial of wits in which each president seeks to promote their version of factual truths to the populace without interference from the press. This media avoidance has been practiced throughout history in notable ways: Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside […]
Are You #MakingADifference?
Over the past decade, voluntourism has become a dirty word in the world of development. You may have encountered it in updated Facebook profile pictures. Or an advertisement selling idealism through service projects to Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania Africa. Or, maybe, you watched ‘Who Wants To Be A Volunteer’; a satire of the stereotypes perpetuated by volunteers […]
A Second Look: Shaping Public Opinion
By now, most of the world has heard the story of Ahmed Mohamed. On September 14, 2015, this high school freshman brought a homemade clock contraption, complete with a ticking timer, to school. A teacher who thought the device was suspicious reported it to the principal, who then called police. Police questioned Ahmed for about […]
Lessons from the School of Trumpian Politics along the Venezuelan-Colombian Border
Xenophobic ideology is not new to politics. It is, however, relatively new to Venezuela, which has been one of the more welcoming South American countries to immigrants throughout the second half of the 20th century. On August 19, 2015, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced “Operation Liberation of the People” (OLP). Since then, over 1,500 Colombians have […]
Don’t Snooze, S-News!
While one might not see applications like Facebook, Twitter, or even Snapchat as anything more than entertainment, that perception is changing as more and more of these companies creatively combine knowledge of current events alongside the entertainment options they offer. Popular applications such as Facebook and Twitter incorporate news and current events headlines into their […]
Mr. Xi Jinping, Tear Down This (Fire)Wall
In Beijing, signs throughout the city read: “Patriotism, Innovation, Inclusiveness, Virtue.” Like most political slogans, this particular one relies heavily on wishful thinking and an element of deception. China ranks 22 out of 50 OECD economies in innovation, a surprisingly low number given the prowess of the Chinese economy. Innovation itself is synonymous with taking […]
Snapchat Terrorism: Liberty and Security in Britain
When two gunmen stormed the central Paris office of Charlie Hebdo in early January, and slaughtered the magazine’s most prominent cartoonists, Europe stood still in shock. Across the English Channel and a mere 2 hour 15 minute journey away by train, policemen poured into sensitive sites across London, visibly increasing their presence in the British […]
Not Another Hashtag: Social Media’s Failure to Fight #BokoHaram
The power of social media can only extend so far. While our tweets, Facebook statuses, and tumblr posts may be effective at generating publicity, their effectiveness at actually catalyzing change is questionable. A recent example of social media’s failure to catalyze tangible change is the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign that dominated twitter this past […]