Author: The Conversation

Since the early days of social media, there has been excitement about how data traces left behind by users can be exploited for the study of human behaviour. Nowadays, researchers who were once restricted to surveys or experiments in laboratory settings have access to huge amounts of “real-world” data from social media. The research opportunities enabled by social media data are undeniable. However, researchers often analyse this data with tools that were not designed to manage the kind of large, noisy observational sets of data you find on social media. We explored problems that researchers might encounter due to this mismatch…

With British billionaire Sir Richard Branson’s successful flight to the edge of space, he and his company Virgin Galactic have firmly established themselves in the history books as space tourism pioneers. While not the first tourist to enter space, 70-year-old Branson is the first to make his journey with a commercial spaceflight company, marking a giant leap for the space tourism industry being championed by some of the world’s most famous billionaires. Unlike its rivals, Virgin Galactic launched its spacecraft from a carrier craft – not from the ground. Branson and three Virgin Galactic mission specialists travelled along with two pilots in the…

Over the next fortnight, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson will take off into space, because they can, on spaceships designed by their respective companies. It’s a big moment for the private space industry. But the question comes to mind: who has the smarter plan? A billionaire’s space race On May 5 Blue Origin, owned by former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, announced it would fly its first crew of astronauts into space on July 20 — the Apollo 11 Moon landing’s 52nd anniversary. After 15 successful test flights, this will be the first crewed flight for Blue Origin’s New Shepard…

Good-faith disagreements are a normal part of society and building strong relationships. Yet it’s difficult to engage in good-faith disagreements on the internet, and people reach less common ground online compared with face-to-face disagreements. There’s no shortage of research about the psychology of arguing online, from text versus voice to how anyone can become a troll and advice about how to argue well. But there’s another factor that’s often overlooked: the design of social media itself. My colleagues and I investigated how the design of social media affects online disagreements and how to design for constructive arguments. We surveyed and interviewed 257 people about their experiences with online arguments…

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog! These words from Peter Steiner’s famous cartoon could easily be applied to the recent ransomware attack on Florida-based software supplier Kaseya. Kaseya provides software services to thousands of clients around the world. It’s estimated between 800 and 1,500 medium to small businesses may be impacted by the attack, with the hackers demanding US$50 million (lower than the previously reported US$70 million) in exchange for restoring access to data being held for ransom. https://twitter.com/TheHackersNews/status/1412336467490209796? The global ransomware attack has been labelled the biggest on record. Russian cybercriminal organisation REvil is the alleged culprit. Despite its notoriety, nobody really knows what REvil…

Three astronauts on China’s new space station have just performed the country’s first space walk and are busy configuring the module for future crews. Named Tiangong (“heavenly palace”), the station is the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA)‘s signature project to develop China’s ambitions for having humans in orbit around Earth for a long amount of time. In planning since the late 1990s, the Tiangong station’s core module, Tianhe (“heavenly river” and the old Chinese name for the Milky Way), launched on April 29. But it isn’t yet complete. Yang Liwei, chief designer of China’s human spaceflight programme, has said the astronauts “have a lot of tasks to…

On June 25, astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet successfully completed an almost seven-hour EVA (extravehicular activity, or spacewalk) to install solar panels on the International Space Station. What does it take to don a spacesuit and venture out on such a technical and dangerous mission? Surprisingly, one of the main criteria (besides the years of astronaut training) is body size. EVA capabilities blossomed during the era of NASA’s space shuttle. Astronauts rode robotic arms, floated tetherless through the void using jetpacks to steer, corralled satellites by hand, and built the International Space Station (ISS). They’ve done it all while wearing spacesuits…

If like many Muslims you have reported hate speech to Facebook and received an automated response saying it doesn’t breach the platform’s community standards, you are not alone. We and our team are the first Australian social scientists to receive funding through Facebook’s content policy research awards, which we used to investigate hate speech on LGBTQI+ community pages in five Asian countries: India, Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia. We looked at three aspects of hate speech regulation in the Asia Pacific region over 18 months. First we mapped hate speech law in our case study countries, to understand how this problem might be legally countered.…

Euro 2020 is one of the biggest events in football, a festival of goal scoring and glory seeking – and for many, yet another opportunity to gamble. Anyone following the action – whether it’s at a stadium, on TV or online – will never be far away from an advert inviting them to place a bet on what may or may not happen next. How about a quick punt on the next player to score or which match will go to penalties? Many of these suggestions come with the seemingly attractive offer of a free bet, just a click away…

Many of us vaguely remember the word “hacktivism” from a decade ago. This was a time before serious ransomware attacks dominated current cybersecurity concerns, when certain hacking techniques were being used to send political messages to governmental and corporate entities. Hacktivism has since retreated as a form of protest, in part due to the prosecution of prominent hacktivists, sometimes with what appear to be disproportionately severe sentences. But with the ongoing pandemic restricting physical protests globally, and new bills being drawn up to curb offline protest, it looks as if hacktivism may be set for a return. My research into hacktivism and cybercrime helps place hacktivism in its historical context – from which…