With many news stations relying on viewer engagement to support their newspapers, online journalism has seen an overwhelming prevalence of clickbait and paywalls, so much so that it has become the new norm for online newspapers. As journalistic standards are an expense, what happens to those who can’t afford it?
In concept, removing “dislikes” from social media platforms seems like a good idea and a practical way to reduce harassment and negativity, but it might not be in practice. In reality, this is more superficial than it seems because rampant harassment persists. While there may be no public like-to-dislike metric anymore — having since been removed on platforms like Facebook and YouTube — this change is not enough. Many times, it seems that the most that any platform does is advise members to be respectful of community guidelines, with a possibility of flagging spam comments. Due to the popularity of sharing material, moderation of sensitive material or anything that violates community guidelines is often difficult.
It’s a scenario that is all too common: You finish your meal in the Dining Commons and pick up your plates and cups. As soon as you enter the dish drop-off area, you are overcome with the thick and suffocating smell of who-knows-what. With a low droning sound, the conveyor belt rattles against tipped-over cups. The sides of the belt are splattered with sauce, milk, yogurt, coffee and sticky fluids; crumpled tea bags, pieces of food, stray forks and soggy napkins litter the space. Accidents happen, but this is a disaster on its own level.
If Mount Holyoke College is truly concerned with making innovative, adventurous education available to its students, then why is its administration limiting our resources and refusing to adapt our academic policies as technology progresses? Artificial intelligence is a polarizing new sector of technology rife with ethical issues and questionable privacy possibilities. AI has been known to perpetuate biases, spread misinformation, collect invasive amounts of online data and lift information from existing spaces online without proper accreditation or permission. Despite this, AI is still used and experimented with — often enough that, according to a survey by BestCollege, 56% of undergraduate and graduate students admitted to using AI on their assignments or exams.
Maybe you spent countless hours scouring YouTube for the most recent compilation video of Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson, either in press interviews or sorrowful “Hunger Games” edits set against the song “Just A Game” by Birdy. Or, if you felt a need to categorize yourself with a fictional group as the basis of your prepubescent personality, perhaps you took the same “Divergent” faction quiz multiple times until “Dauntless” shined through your laptop screen, hidden under the covers on a school night.
Saying that TikTok promotes an unhealthy standard for young women and their body image is about as uncontroversial a take as you can get. Between videos touting buccal fat removal surgery and recommending Botox™ injections for teenagers, the platform is rife with content that could leave even the most conventionally attractive person in shambles after just a cursory scroll of their For You page. However, a special kind of damage is dealt by a prolific genre of “glow-up” videos: ones that show people, nearly always women, in a “before” and “after” side-by-side of their weight loss journeys.
The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists strike recently came to an end after 118 days, with actors celebrating the prospect of returning to work. The union came to a historic deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, with the largest increase in minimum wage in 40 years, according to The Washington Post. However, because the deal is so new, it remains to be seen if it will be honored and if actual change will occur in the industry.
On Oct. 11, Wadea Al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy, was stabbed to death by Joseph Czuba, his family’s landlord, in a horrific tragedy. His mother was also attacked but survived. Their attacker was reportedly obsessed with coverage of Hamas’ attack on Israel and had begun to associate the actions of Hamas with every Palestinian.
Opening a play — or any literary work — that was written hundreds of years ago can be a tremendously daunting task. The English language is incredibly dynamic and has evolved so much over the centuries that old texts might seem indecipherable through a modern lens. However, by reading these texts in their original forms, we can better appreciate the artistry of their creators and gain insight into the past.
In a critical new development, the Writer’s Guild Association reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, putting an end to the 148-day strike. While this is good news, the fight is far from over. The Screen Actors Guild’s labor union is still on strike, and writers have yet to see whether or not AMPTP will honor this new agreement.
Five current and former female professors at Vassar College, another member of the Seven Sisters, have filed a wage discrimination complaint against the college. The class action complaint, which was filed on Aug. 30, 2023 alleges that Vassar has been paying them less than their male counterparts for decades.
