X (formerly Twitter)

Project ‘Truthy,’ a program that detects and tracks misinformation, political smears and other social pollution issues on Twitter has been backed by the U.S. Federal government, which has given nearly $1 million to develop and implement the database. Researchers at Indiana University began in September 2010. The National Science Foundation heads the project. The project team says the service could mitigate the diffusion of false and misleading ideas, detect hate speech and subversive propaganda, and assist in the preservation of open debate.

Truthy uses a sophisticated combination of text and data mining, social network analysis, and complex networks models. To train our algorithms, we leverage crowdsourcing: we rely on users like you to flag injections of forged grass-roots activity. Therefore, click on the Truthy button when you see a suspicious meme!

A case-study published in the Journal of Nervous And Mental Disease says that Twitter may have been the cause of psychotic symptoms in a woman called “Mrs. C.” The article says she showed no signs of mental illness until she became obsessed with Twitter and developed delusions of hidden messages behind people’s tweets. The researchers say Twitter could aggravate psychosis in at-risk populations:

The amount of symbolic language (caused by the limitation of 140 characters per Twitter message), the automated spam responses with seemingly related content, and the general interactive features of Twitter might combine several aspects that could induce or further aggravate psychosis

The hashtag #twitterpurge circulates on Twitter and involves posting nude photos of people who do not consent to it. The hashtag is inspired by the movie The Purge: Anarchy, where all crime is legal for one night per year. It is started by the account @Scv_Purge, which releases 17 photos of nude teenagers, and is followed by the account @Scv_Purge_1, which releases a further 20 after the first account is banned. A Twitter spokesperson tells Flavorwire that they are not responsible for this incident:

We do not proactively monitor content on the platform. Users should report potential violations of our rules through individual Tweets and forms available on our site.

Twitter updates its bird logo for the first time in the company’s history. The new design is more simplified and darker in color:

Our new bird grows out of love for ornithology, design within creative constraints, and simple geometry. This bird is crafted purely from three sets of overlapping circles — similar to how your networks, interests and ideas connect and intersect with peers and friends. Whether soaring high above the earth to take in a broad view, or flocking with other birds to achieve a common purpose, a bird in flight is the ultimate representation of freedom, hope and limitless possibility.