Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • What Harvey and Irma Taught Us About Using Social Media in Emergency Response

    Hurricanes Irma and Harvey showed the power of social media to share real-time alerts and information as well as get resources to people more quickly when official channels like crisis hotlines are clogged. Officials originally discouraged the use of social media fearing panic and misinformation, but those attitudes changed as they saw the immediate impact it had on getting people help. More local and national organizations shifted to using social platforms to guide their emergency response efforts.

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  • This Police Department Is A Smash Hit On Social Media

    Bangalore's police department had an image problem and their successes weren't reaching the public. Crowd Kart Media took over their social media making memes, popular shows, and humor in order to help the department's image, which sparked a huge rise in their facebook and twitter followings.

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  • Tweet Streams: How Social Media Can Help Keep Tabs on Ocean Health

    In an effort to collect data about the environmental health of high traffic destinations, researchers are examining the text and images of geotagged social media posts. Tweets about the Great Barrier Reef were analyzed for relevant information about specifically where people visited, common activities, and common complaints. While people passively provided data by geotagging posts, researchers are also proposing creating hashtags that allow for people to actively communicate data to researchers through social media posts.

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  • Across the Arab world, a 'Women's Spring' comes into view

    Women’s right activists are gaining traction in Jordan and Tunisia. Their efforts have led to the rejection of old laws that protected rapists, and more representation in parliament. The progress women activists are making is sustained through cross border collaborations, and is part of a larger movement happening in Arab countries.

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  • Taking Guns Off the Streets, $100 at a time

    As professor of medicine and gun-violence researcher Dr. Garen Wintemute notes, gun buyback programs are sometimes perceived as ineffective: attracting only older and non-violent gun owners, for instance, and in some cases leading people to use the cash to buy superior firearms. But after Gun by Gun, a violence prevention nonprofit, successfully raised prodigious sums through a customized funding campaign, this perception is changing. The nonprofit has used more than $100,000 of nationally-sourced individual donations to create demonstrably sustainable, more successful buyback programs across California.

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  • Can "E-Responders" on Social Media Prevent Gang Violence?

    A pilot project at New York University called "E-Responder" trained 26 anti-violence counselors at five sites across the city to interpret online posts threatening violence and intervene before virtual violence turns real. Nearly all their interventions ended peacefully. That is not conclusive proof that this prevented violence, but it's a strong correlation that inspired spreading the program to 18 more sites. Social media "cyberbanging" is the virtual equivalent of threatening gang graffiti that turns deadly. E-responders work with on-the-ground intervention teams and police to change risky behavior.

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  • Some single parents are turning to GoFundMe as a way to pay for college

    Single parents are increasingly using GoFundMe to raise money for their own college costs. However, as GoFundMe has started to acknowledge, "crowdfunding is more difficult when one’s crowd doesn’t have extra funds." The platform is brainstorming ways to spread the word about individual campaigns and make donations to individual campaigners tax-deductible.

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  • The War On Fake News

    In order to mitigate the impact of fake news crafted and spread for political purposes, social media sites and independent organizations are developing media literacy tools. These range from changes to social media algorithm, flagging posts with disputed content, and having staff investigate a flagged article’s claims.

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  • Student Drama Is Rampant—Can This Rural School Stop It?

    Schools nationwide are dealing with the ramifications of social media and cyber bullying. Pittsfield Middle High School in New Hampshire has created a new elective, “Drop the Drama,” where students discuss bullying and develop campaigns to improve their school’s environment.

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  • Changing the Face of National Parks

    At the vanguard of initiatives to increase diversity among visitors to the National Parks are groups like Oakland-based H.E.A.T. (Hiking Every Available Trail), which uses social media and group expeditions to increase minority groups' awareness, use, trust and enjoyment of the outdoors. Emerging alongside changes in policy, such as the Park Services' creation of a Diversity and Inclusion Office, H.E.A.T. demonstrates how local organizers in minority and, often, urban regions around the United States are moving the needle on diversity within the National Park system.

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