Is there a way to use social media for good? Scientists say yes
The Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal shone a light on dubious misuse of social media data. But it doesn't have to be this way – and the science proves it
By Stephen Armstrong
Friday 20 April 2018
Is it time to turn social media off? After the flurry of stories on Cambridge Analytica, Zuckerberg and Congress, personal data and political advertising, the question is whether Facebook – or social media in general – has any genuinely useful social purpose. The answer, according to psychologists and social scientists, is affirmative.
For Pete Burnap, reader in data science and cyber analytics at Cardiff University, social media – in the guise of Twitter – offers a possible way to predict riots and unrest. Burnap’s team mapped data with hashtags referencing riots at the height of the street unrest in the summer of 2011.
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/facebook-cambridge-analytica-social-media-data-science-psychology
