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ISIS Worldwide Recruitment
A New York Times piece caught the attention of United States readers, and the world, when it told the story of a 23 year old woman in the United States who was actively recruited by ISIS. ISIS mainly uses Twitter to catch the attention of those that sympathize with their cause. They connect with users, sending them information about Islam and eventually their cause. The article highlighted not only Alex, but relayed that over 100 Americans had joined ISIS since 2014. -
Brexit: The UK votes for withdrawal from the EU
The United Kingdom's official decision to withdraw from the European Union was a decision of much controversy, and notably much disruption. Cambridge Analytica, a company founded to harvest the data of social media users and create political advertisements based off of that data, targeted certain audiences in the UK to draw support of Brexit. Now that the decision to leave the EU has been made, many are beginning to wonder if the actions of Cambridge Anaytica are ethical in modern society. -
National School Walkout
Students from all over the United States came together to walk out of their selective school in response to the many school shootings that had taken place, specifically in response to the Parkland Shootings. Mainly Twitter and Facebook were used to share the #Enough! and users encouraged one another to walk out of their schools at 10 a.m. in their local time zones. Although many teachers supported the walking out, some schools were appalled at student behavior disrupting classroom activities. -
Cambridge Analytica Data Mines The 2016 Election
Again, Cambridge Analytica was involved in Facebook data mining for political purposes. Their efforts in the 2016 election aimed to sway voters to vote for Donald Trump with pointed political advertisements. The whole thing came to a head, after the election, when Mark Zuckerberg was called to a senate hearing to investigate Cambridge Anaytica's use of Facebook data during the election period. It was later discovered that Cambridge Anayltica was directly hired by the Trump Campaign. -
Youth Climate Strike
Three days before a World Climate Change Summit, youths from all over the world left their classrooms for a united demonstration on Climate Change. Through Facebook and Twitter posting, teachers, parents and youths alike created a rolling effort for an international strike to gain the attention of world leaders. The most polarizing moment came following the strike, when Greta Thunberg (who played a huge part in the climate strike) gave an emotional plea at the world summit.
