REVIEW: Moruroa Files: The files, the book and the lies

Toxique: Enquête sur les essais nucléaires français en Polynésie, by Sébastien Philippe and Tomas Statius, and the Moruroa Files microsite. Paris: PUF/Disclose, 2021. 192 pages. ISBN 9782130814849https://moruroa-files.org/ THE COMBINATION of nuclear expertise (Sebastien Philippe), inquisitive journalism (Tomas Statius) and the investigative approach by Interprt (a collective of architects specialising in the forensic analysis of environmental crimes) of around 2000 declassified French government documents in 2013 called the Moruroa Files, resulted in the explosive book Toxic about what was already known to the Ma’ohi Nui (French Polynesia) people. That since 1966 (55 years ago), the French government has consistently lied about and concealed the deadly consequences of their nuclear tests, which they now seem to acknowledge (French admit nuclear test fall out, 2006), to the health of the populations and their environment.

Insults – between dysphemisms and markers of emotional closeness

The present investigative approach proposes an analysis of insults from a socio-, psycho- and pragmalinguistic perspective, aiming to reveal the complex character of this type of communication. Given that insults, as reactive acts of speech, are dependent on both the intentions of the speaker and the way the receiver decodes the statement, we suggested a classification based on the illocutionary point (motivated insults—with negative or positive illocutionary point—and unmotivated insults) and on the propositional content (direct insults—within this category, we analyzed the lexical innovations generated by the Covid-19 pandemic, especially the dysphemic use of the participle (substantivized) adjective covidat—and indirect insults). Although the oral communication provides the necessary data for the manifestation of insults, in addition to the sequences selected from TV shows, we chose messages written on various social networking sites and excerpts from online forums. Under the protection of anonymity, users are uninhibited and they violate socially imposed linguistic norms without fear of being held accountable for their actions.

Automation on Twitter: Measuring the Effectiveness of Approaches to Bot Detection

The effectiveness of approaches to bot detection varies, with real-time detection being almost impossible. As a result, this article argues that the general Twitter using public cannot be expected to judge which accounts are bots with certainty and therefore do not know to what extent they are being manipulated online. In this article, the challenge of detecting bots and fake accounts is demonstrated by constructing two distinct methods to bot detection. The first method takes a fixed criteria-based approach, by building on commonly cited identifiers for bots. The second method takes a more flexible, investigative approach in order to uncover bots involved in coordinated efforts to influence online debates. As well as profiling the specific mechanics of how each one operates, we argue that they can be compared against an evaluative framework that specifies a set of key criteria that bot detection methods should meet in order to perform. Here, we identify four key criteria on which these methods can be evaluated and then examine how they perform in terms of the key criteria of accuracy. The results of these methods are then compared and cross-checked against an existing and widely used bot detection service. The findings show that different bot detection methods can present significantly different results and that only confirmation from Twitter, through suspensions or announcements, can truly allow users to know whether an account is a bot or not. We argue that this development could have a significant effect on the level of trust that social media users have both in the information they receive through social media and also in the political process.

HIGHER EDUCATION IN ONLINE ENVIRONMENT – CHALLENGES AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

In the current national and international context, the education “hosted” in the online environment, which was once only a secondary solution, rarely used, has become the main way to ensure the continuity of the learning process. In this study, we aimed to capture the reactions of those who were the first to experiment an exclusively online, learning process, i.e. the reactions of the students. We used an investigative approach focused on the following objectives: identifying the perception of students/learners regarding the efficiency and quality of the educational process carried out in the online environment and highlighting ways to improve teaching activities conducted online. The main research method was the questionnaire-based survey. The questionnaire was administered online, integrating a series of items that addressed issues such as: students’ participation in educational activities, problems encountered, solutions to optimize the didactic process conducted in the online environment. Following the investigative approach, the main conclusions are the following: most of the surveyed students consider that the educational activities carried out in the online environment do not have the same efficiency as the direct activities (face to face); the main problems highlighted by the respondents were: overload, fatigue, demotivation, learning difficulties in understanding and operating with certain content, poor Internet connection, but also the lack of necessary indications to facilitate learning. We appreciate that the results of our study may be relevant for practitioners in the field of education, especially for those from higher education, but also for all those interested in digital education.