Science

Betsy Rymes

Diggit profile: Betsy Rymes on citizen sociolinguistics

Interview
Jan Blommaert
11/03/2020

Betsy Rymes (UPenn GSE) talks about how she engaged with 'citizen sociolinguistics' and turned it into a new field of online-offline sociolinguistic research.

The (pseudo)science of profiling and surveillance

Column
Piia Varis
16/02/2020
9 minutes to read

Both online profiling and targeting as well as border surveillance are big business, but both also seem to rely on dubious scientific claims and foundations.

Jordan Peterson as a human filter bubble

Academic paper
Inge van de Ven
21/06/2019
19 minutes to read

The case of Jordan Peterson demonstrates that in today’s public spheres, the figure of the public intellectual is not necessarily free from ulterior motives in filtering information for the general public.

Health

Anti-vaccine movement: the epidemic of stupid

Column
Blean Tsige
06/03/2019
13 minutes to read

The purpose of this column is to highlight the influence of social networking platforms on society. In particular on the way in which the outbreak of measles can be blamed on to misinformation that is spread on these platforms.

migration, global compact on migration, un

The Global Compact on Migration and its discontents

Column
Jan Blommaert
20/11/2018
7 minutes to read

The Global Compact for Migration has "evidence-based public discourse" as one of its objectives. Remarkably, this requirement has led to huge controversy. Are we moving towards a fact-free open society?

fingerprint scanning

Why biometric data is not safe anymore

Article
Nataliia Vdovychenko
16/11/2018
7 minutes to read

Biometric data plays a huge role in our everyday lives. We use it to unlock our phones, for bank payments, memberships and travelling. But do we ever think about risks connected to our biometric privacy?