Major Platforms Research Articles

Making the private public: Regulating content moderation under Chinese law

With the expansion of digital economy, tackling illegal online content is an increasingly challenging task. China implemented a dual-track legal mechanism on content moderation, whereby it exempts general monitoring obligations of intermediaries under private law while imposing monitoring obligations under public law. In recent years, major platforms exercise much stronger control over flow of information, regardless of more serious consequences that impact the fundamental rights of users. Meanwhile, a series of Chinese court rulings have shown that these divergent attitudes towards monitoring obligations under public and private law have given rise to legal conflicts that may deprive intermediaries of their legitimate immunity, undermining the stability and efficiency of the safe harbor rule. Furthermore, the lack of adequate legal safeguards against the risk of abusing automatic content filtering technology might transform the internet into a digital panopticon. To redraw boundaries between monitoring obligations under private and public law, future Chinese legislation should not only provide clearer clarification on the scope of monitoring, but also include a provision prohibiting general monitoring obligations in private law. To provide legal predictability for affected parties and flexibility for future technological developments, a Good Samaritan clause should be introduced in Cybersecurity Law by learning from the substance of Article 7 of the DSA.

Open access movement in the scholarly world: Pathways for libraries in developing countries

Open access is a scholarly publishing model that has emerged as an alternative to traditional subscription-based journal publishing. This study explores the adoption of the open access movement worldwide and the role that libraries can play in addressing those factors which are slowing its progress within developing countries. The study has drawn upon both qualitative data from a focused literature review and quantitative data from major open access platforms. The results indicate that while the open access movement is steadily gaining acceptance worldwide, the progress in developing countries within geographical areas such as Africa, Asia and Oceania is quite a bit slower. Two significant factors are the cost of publishing fees and the lack of institutional open access mandates and policies to encourage uptake. The study provides suggested strategies for academic libraries to help overcome current challenges.

Contextualising Conflict: The Futures Triangle

This article offers an overview and theoretical analysis of the practical applications of the Futures Triangle framework, drawing insights from multiple case studies. It commences with the case study of “The Equal Crossing Initiative,” which resulted in the installation of a female pedestrian light symbol at the intersection of Flinders and Swanston Streets in Melbourne on March 9, 2017. The analysis of public opinions on this initiative reveals a diversity of views, with many expressing strong opinions. Major Australian newspapers, non-scientific surveys, and social media platforms reflected a spectrum of reactions, ranging from enthusiastic endorsement (“how cool is this?”) to critical perspectives that deemed it overly politically correct, questioned the allocation of funds, the necessity of gendered symbols, and even the attire of the female figure. Building upon this case study of community conflict, the article then explores the application of the Futures Triangle framework to better comprehend resistance to progressive social initiatives and to address the challenges inherent in social change efforts. It posits that the Futures Triangle offers a valuable tool for conflict resolution, fostering a deeper understanding of backlash dynamics, and enhancing the likelihood of successful implementation of innovative initiatives. Finally, it emphasizes the significant connections between change agents and change progression scenarios method, as elucidated in previously published texts.

The Making of a State‐Sponsored Heroine: Angela Davis, African Americans, and the Promise of the Soviet Union

AbstractThis article uses Angela Davis' 1972 visit to the Soviet Union to explore the continued connections between the Soviet Union and African Americans. Davis was made famous in the Soviet Union because of her victimhood and her pro‐Soviet outlook. Soviet support for her cause combined with her eyewitness testimony that the Soviet Union had abolished racism provided Soviet propaganda with ample opportunities to undercut American criticism of the Soviet Union, while inspiring domestic Soviet youth to be more faithful and proud of their home country. Yet, while Davis was used by the Soviet Union and its propaganda machine, she also made use of her Soviet connections and experience. The USSR, as it had for the Scottsboro Boys in the past, advocated for Davis and rallied leftists around the world to her cause. The Soviet Union, by turning her into a state‐sponsored heroine, provided her with a major platform that eventually extended far beyond the Soviet Union. Moreover, in the Soviet Union, she found inspiration. There, as she witnessed personally during her 1972 visit, she believed she encountered a society free of racism, prejudice and strife that she knew so well at home.

Cell aggregation activates small GTPase Rac1 and induces CD44 cleavage by maintaining lipid raft integrity

Lipid rafts are highly ordered membrane domains that are enriched in cholesterol and glycosphingolipids and serve as major platforms for signal transduction. Cell detachment from the extracellular matrix (ECM) triggers lipid raft disruption and anoikis, which is a barrier for cancer cells to metastasize. Compared to single circulating tumor cells (CTCs), our recent studies have demonstrated that CD44-mediatd cell aggregation enhances the stemness, survival and metastatic ability of aggregated cells. Here, we investigated whether and how lipid rafts are involved in CD44-mediated cell aggregation. We found that cell detachment, which mimics the condition when tumor cells detach from the ECM to metastasize, induced lipid raft disruption in single cells, but lipid raft integrity was maintained in aggregated cells. We further found that lipid raft integrity in aggregated cells was required for Rac1 activation to prevent anoikis. In addition, CD44 and γ-secretase coexisted at lipid rafts in aggregated cells, which promoted CD44 cleavage and generated CD44 intracellular domain (CD44 ICD) to enhance stemness of aggregated cells. Consequently, lipid raft disruption inhibited Rac1 activation, CD44 ICD generation, and metastasis. Our findings reveal two new pathways regulated by CD44-mediated cell aggregation via maintaining lipid raft integrity. These findings also suggest that targeting cell aggregation-mediated pathways could be a novel therapeutic strategy to prevent CTC cluster-initiated metastasis.

New features of the RootProf program for model-free analysis of unidimensional profiles

The RootProf computer program applies multivariate model-free analysis to crystallographic data and to any x, y experimental data in general. It has been enhanced with several new features, including a graphical user interface, multithreading implementation and additional pre-processing options. The program also includes novel qualitative analysis methods, such as semiquantitative estimates derived from principal component analysis (PCA) and restrained PCA to extract the diffraction signal from active atoms. Additional quantitative analysis methods have been included, involving the combination of different datasets or the application of the standard addition method as well as tools for crystallinity analysis, kinetic analysis and extraction of free crystal cell parameters from a pair distribution function profile. The ROOT data analysis framework supports the program and can be installed on the current major platforms such as Windows, Linux and Mac OSX with detailed user documentation included. Applications of the new developments are presented and discussed in the paper, and related command files are provided as supporting information.

Ophthalmology residency programs on social media.

With the transition from away rotations and in-person interviews during the COVID-19 pandemic came a search for alternative methods to represent and promote residency programs. We investigated utilization of social media by ophthalmology residency programs in response to the pandemic. Social media accounts of accredited ophthalmology residency programs were found through a manual search on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Each program's geographical region (Northeast, Midwest, South, or West) was identified, and year of account creation (2009-2021) was noted. An exponential regression model was used to model total number of social media accounts over time. Comparisons of total number of social media accounts before/after the pandemic and by region, stratified by social media platform, were evaluated through chi-square analysis. Of 125 ophthalmology residency programs, 63% (n = 79) had at least one account on a social platform. 142 acc. Instagram held the most accounts (45%, n = 64), followed by Facebook (29%, n = 41) and Twitter (26%, n = 37). From 2009 to 2021, there has been an exponential increase in social media accounts (R2 = 0.962). 45% (n = 65) of all accounts were created after March 2020. Instagram increased the most, with 45 ophthalmology residency accounts created after the pandemic as compared to 19 created prior (p < 0.001). The number of social media accounts did not vary by region. Based on current trends, the presence of ophthalmology residency programs on social media will likely continue expanding, with major social platforms becoming a vaster source of information for ophthalmology residency applicants.

High-resolution nanoscale NMR for arbitrary magnetic fields

Nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers are a major platform for the detection of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) signals at the nanoscale. To overcome the intrinsic electron spin lifetime limit in spectral resolution, a heterodyne detection approach is widely used. However, application of this technique at high magnetic fields is yet an unsolved problem. Here, we introduce a heterodyne detection method utilizing a series of phase coherent electron nuclear double resonance sensing blocks, thus eliminating the numerous Rabi microwave pulses required in the detection. Our detection protocol can be extended to high magnetic fields, allowing chemical shift resolution in NMR experiments. We demonstrate this principle on a weakly coupled 13C nuclear spin in the bath surrounding single NV centers, and compare the results to existing heterodyne protocols. Additionally, we identify the combination of NV-spin-initialization infidelity and strong sensor-target-coupling as linewidth-limiting decoherence source, paving the way towards high-field heterodyne NMR protocols with chemical resolution.

Bioinspired Non-Heme Mn Catalysts for Regio- and Stereoselective Oxyfunctionalizations with H2 O2.

In recent years, metalloenzymes-mediated highly selective oxidations of organic substrates under mild conditions have been inspiration for developing synthetic bioinspired catalyst systems, capable of conducting such processes in the laboratory (and, in the future, in industry), relying on easy-to-handle and environmentally benign oxidants such as H2 O2 . To date, non-heme manganese complexes with chiral bis-amino-bis-pyridylmethyl and structurally related ligands are considered as possessing the highest synthetic potential, having demonstrated the ability to mediate a variety of chemo- and stereoselective oxidative transformations, such as epoxidations, C(sp3 )-H hydroxylations and ketonizations, oxidative desymmetrizations, kinetic resolutions, etc. Furthermore, in the past few years non-heme Mn based catalysts have become the major platform for studies focused on getting insight into the molecular mechanisms of oxidant activation and (stereo)selective oxygen transfer, testing non-traditional hydroperoxide oxidants, engineering catalytic sites with enzyme-like substrate recognition-based selectivity, exploration of catalytic regioselectivity trends in the oxidation of biologically active substrates of natural origin. This contribution summarizes the progress in manganese catalyzed C-H oxygenative transformations of organic substrates, achieved essentially in the past 5 years (late 2018-2023).

Information quality of videos related to Helicobacter pylori infection on TikTok: Cross-sectional study.

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) poses serious threats to human health. TikTok (Douyin in Chinese), a major social media platform focused on sharing short videos, has demonstrated great potential in spreading health information, including information related to H. pylori infection. This study aims to evaluate the content and quality of the information shared in TikTok videos about H. pylori infection in mainland China. We collected a sample of 116 videos in Chinese related to H. pylori infection from TikTok. Video contents were evaluated by the coding schema proposed by Goobie et al., and the Hexagonal Radar Schema was used to intuitively display the spotlight and weight of each aspect of the videos. The DISCERN questionnaire was used to evaluate the quality of the videos. We identified two major sources of videos related to H. pylori: individual users (n = 89) and organizational users (n = 27). Regarding content, the Hexagonal Radar Charts showed that more than 35% of the videos delivered moderate to high quality content (>1 point) in terms of definition, symptoms and management of the disease, whereas risk factors, evaluation and outcomes of the disease were less discussed. The DISCERN classification data showed that 0.9% of the videos were "very poor," 5.2% "poor," 68.7% "fair," 20.0% "good," and only 5.2% "excellent". Regarding total DISCERN scores, videos published by nonprofit organizations had the highest scores, followed by videos uploaded by health professionals. Although the overall quality of TikTok videos related to H. pylori infection was medium, users should be careful when obtaining information related to H. pylori infection on TikTok and opt for videos uploaded by nonprofit organizations and health professionals.

Enhancing conversational sentimental analysis for psychological depression prediction with Bi-LSTM

&lt;p&gt;Human mental health (HMH) is a pervasive and impactful condition that profoundly affects an individual’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioural aspects in a negative manner. Among various mental health disorders, depression is particularly prevalent, with approximately 20% of women experiencing at least one depressive episode during their lifetime. Identifying depression early on is crucial for timely intervention and support. This study examines user-generated content from major social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, aiming to detect potential signs of depression through behavioural symptoms such as mood changes, loss of interest, altered sleep patterns, focus difficulties, and impaired decision-making. Leveraging natural language processing and machine learning, sentiment analysis deciphers emotional context in posts and comments. A new efficient methodology utilizing Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) is proposed for efficient analysis of the posts and comments. Knowledge distillation transfers insights from a large BERT model to a smaller one, enhancing accuracy. Integrating word2vec and BERT with bidirectional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM), the approach effectively analyses depression and anxiety indicators in social media data. Comparative assessments highlight the system’s excellence, achieving a remarkable 98.5% accuracy through knowledge distillation. The proposed methodology marks a substantial stride in identifying mental health signals from social media, facilitating better early intervention and support for those facing depression and anxiety-related challenges.&lt;/p&gt;

When Variety Seeking Meets Unexpectedness: Incorporating Variety-Seeking Behaviors into Design of Unexpected Recommender Systems

In this paper, we study the consumers’ variety-seeking behavior in recommender system applications and propose a comprehensive framework to measure such behavior based on past consumption records. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is validated through user questionnaire studies conducted at Alibaba, where our constructed variety-seeking measures match well with consumers’ self-reported levels of their variety-seeking behaviors. We subsequently present a recommendation framework that combines the identified variety-seeking levels with unexpected recommender systems in the data mining literature to address consumers’ heterogenous desire for product variety, in which we provide more unexpected product recommendations to variety-seeking consumers and vice versa. Through off-line experiments on three different recommendation scenarios and a large-scale online controlled experiment at a major video-streaming platform, we demonstrate that those models following our recommendation framework significantly increase various business performance metrics and generate tangible economic impact for the company. Our findings lead to important managerial implications to better understand consumers’ variety-seeking behaviors and design recommender systems. As a result, the best performing model in our proposed frameworks is deployed by the company to serve all consumers on the video-streaming platform.

The Genesis and Self-Reliance of Indonesian Local Game Developers as the National Creative Workers in Contemporary Indonesia

This study examines the contemporary condition of Indonesian local game developers as a part of the national creative workers. The case study method is applied in parallel with the participant’s observation and the results were retrieved by exploring and comparing interviews and observation findings. The subjects of this study include state-related ministries (The Ministry of Manpower and The Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy), 12 founders of the Indonesian first-generation local game developer studios, 10 experienced local game workers, and two representatives of the Indonesian Game Association as a labor union. The results figured out the characteristics of Indonesian local game developers as youth-subcultural movements and recent challenges of state patronage, incentives, and human resource issues. The situation forced them to survive and organize a supportive labor union as a major incubator platform and crowdfunding scheme in developing local games.

Impacts of Social Interactions and Peer Evaluations on Online Review Platforms

ABSTRACT Social technologies on online review platforms enable social interactions among users, such as establishing following relationships and commenting on others’ posts. Although it is well recognized that more socially engaged reviewers tend to be more active and generate content of higher quality, our knowledge about the impact of social interactions on peer evaluations of reviews is limited. To address this issue, we use a unique dataset from a major online review platform and find that, ceteris paribus, reviews posted by more socially engaged users receive more helpfulness votes than those posted by less socially engaged users. Similarly, users tend to vote more for reviews written by their mutual followers than for those written by nonfollowers. In addition, we find that less socially engaged users review a broader range of products and services but are less likely to stay on a platform, which may further contribute to the inflation of peer evaluations (toward online reviews). Our study provides unique empirical evidence regarding the influence of social interactions on review evaluations. Furthermore, we caution researchers and practitioners against utilizing review helpfulness scores as a sole measure for review quality and diagnosticity.

국제 게임 유통 플랫폼에 대한 게임물 등급분류 제도의 적용 문제

With the advent of the era when games can be downloaded or played in real time regardless of borders, the importance of international game distribution platforms in the game industry is increasing. However, in the case of Steam, the world's biggest international game distribution platform, it is problematic because it is not properly subject to the domestic game classification system.&#x0D; There are many discussions on the need for improvement in the game classification system, but it is problematic that games that have not been classified are exposed to the public through large international game distribution platforms unless the function of youth protection, which is one of the main purposes of the classification system, is overlooked.&#x0D; In the text, we first look at the history and institutional purpose of the game product classification system, and the rating system overseas, and based on this, we look at the disciplinary system under the current game industry law. Furthermore, it examines how overseas game products are handled in the Game Industry Act, whether the concept definition is appropriate, and how the rating for international game distribution platforms such as Steam should be classified.&#x0D; In conclusion, it is necessary to clarify the concept of overseas game products under the Korean Game Industry Act so that it can be harmonized with the current game classification system. This is because there are already separate autonomous classifications and fines for overseas games, but the establishment of a clear concept category will serve as the basis for systematic regulations and responses to flooding overseas games in the future.&#x0D; In addition, it is necessary to go through close cooperation with major international game distribution platform operators in the future, and gradually proceed with basic discussions such as the introduction of a simple age authentication system and random exposure restrictions on adult games.&#x0D; In particular, since the influx of adult games from international game distribution platforms is not only a problem in Korea, it is also possible to consider cooperating with overseas game rating agencies or organizations. Furthermore, it is necessary to come up with legislative policy measures to properly regulate overseas game products in the long-term direction of improving the game classification system, and in-depth discussions need to be conducted in academia in the future.

What matters to LMOOC learners: content and sentiment analyses of learner course reviews

This article reports on the results of an investigation into what matters to learners of language Massive Open Online Courses (LMOOCs). The study conducted content and sentiment analyses of learner reviews of LMOOCs to investigate the key themes/subthemes in learner reviews and learners’ emotional tendencies in the themes/subthemes as well as differences in learners’ emotional tendencies detected in themes/subthemes. The dataset for this study included 8,671 learner reviews collected from 42 College English MOOCs hosted at a major MOOC platform in China. The content analysis identified four major themes—course, instructor, learning, and platform—and nine subthemes, revealing what learners were concerned about LMOOCs. The sentiment analysis detected both similarities and differences in learners’ emotional tendencies expressed in different themes/subthemes, showing that learners as a whole held overwhelmingly positive attitudes towards the LMOOCs but had grave concerns about curriculum design, instructors’ personal traits, and learning management system. These results yield a nuanced understanding of learners’ likes and dislikes about LMOOCs and provide important implications for enhancing the design, delivery, and development of LMOOCs.

Escaping the Walled Garden? User Perspectives of Control in Data Portability for Social Media

Data portability--the capability to transfer one's data from one platform to another--has been described as an important tool for giving individuals more control over their data. It is defined in significant regulations such as the GDPR, and implemented by major online platforms. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research investigating internet users' perceptions and expectations of this technology in specific contexts, which is vital for building effective designs. One particularly important context for studying user perspectives is social media, since it is deeply embedded into daily life and is particularly complex regarding the value and portability of user data. This paper addresses that gap through a survey and interviews of social media users in the United States. We identify current attitudes and practices toward controlling their social media data, and examine participants' impressions about the extent to which data portability may enhance their control. Participants had generally favorable impressions, but had differing opinions about what forms of control are important and the extent to which those could be served by data portability. Based on the results, we propose future directions for improving users' control in the context of social media, such as fine-tuned filtering of data to be transferred and ways to coordinate transfers alongside social contacts.

Research on E-Commerce Platforms’ Return Policies Considering Consumers Abusing Return Policies

Currently, major e-commerce platforms are competing to improve their return services, while merchants are suffering from consumers abusing return policies. We developed a dual oligopoly model consisting of two e-commerce platforms, one offering a lenient return policy and the other enforcing a stringent one, to investigate the effectiveness of lenient return policies in the presence of opportunistic consumers. We examine the impact of the proportion of opportunistic consumers, cross-network effects, gains from dishonest returns, and penalties on the scale of users and profits for both platforms. The findings indicate that: (1) As the proportion of opportunistic consumers increases, multi-homing merchants tend to be single-homing on a platform with a stringent return policy. This reduces the number of consumers on a platform with a lenient return policy and lowers the platform’s profit. Moreover, increased gains from dishonest returns worsen the situation. (2) Network effects on merchants from the consumer side significantly affect the effectiveness of lenient return policies. (3) Enforcement of penalties for dishonest returns could prevent an exodus of consumers and merchants from platforms that offer lenient return policies. However, it does not raise profits. In other words, its impact on the success of lenient return policies is limited.

On the Translation of Online Product Promotions from the Perspective of Eco-translatology

After the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce, its development focus has shifted from scale to quality. It is urgent to improve the quality of translation for the cross-border e-commerce industry when the translation demand is soaring. Commodities are exposed and introduced to foreign buyers through online promotions on cross-border e-commerce platforms, since their translation can affect click-through rates, sales and images of Chinese sellers. Eco-translatology, which combines ecology and translation, provides a theoretical basis for many disciplines and fields. Taking footwear as an example, this study analyzes problems in current translation through the comparative analysis of commodity promotions on Amazon in the United States and AliExpress in China, two major cross-border e-commerce platforms. Then it studies the English translation of online product promotions from the three-dimensional transformation in terms of language, culture and communication under the guidance of Eco-translatology to put forward some suggestions for the online product promotions translation. It aims to provide references for Chinese sellers to engage in cross-border e-commerce and help enterprises and commodities go global successfully.

Tiktok Platform -- Brand Marketing and Business Model Behind Live Commerce

With the rapid development of the Internet era, the consumption demand, form and mode of online consumers are constantly updated. Live commerce for selling products continues to open new channels for product sales mode through major social platforms. Tiktok is one of the most popular social short video platforms in contemporary times. Tiktok live broadcast brings new and intuitive consumption mode and immersive shopping experience to users and consumers. This paper mainly discusses the communication mode and marketing strategy of "Tiktok live broadcast with goods" under the background of the times through literature search and case analysis, and analyzes its business model and the relationship between the platform and its users and consumers. The purpose and significance of this paper is to understand the improvement, contribution and future development space of Tiktok live commerce and delivery in all aspects, also aims to understand the origin and future development of the live streaming industry, and bring a reference to people in this industry or interested in this platform.