Questões: Centro de Educação Superior a Distância do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (CEDERJ) — com gabarito

TEXT 3

A pandemic of change?

Many researchers and wildlife organizations are urging scientists to use this unprecedented time for a close examination of the impact of human activity on the natural world. They argue that the information that researchers gather during this time could help improve conservation and biodiversity efforts.

It may also improve their ability to predict global environmental changes and potential cases of zoonoses, the transmission of disease from animals to humans. This could save millions of human lives, and economic losses, going forward.

Realistically, it will take years to assess exactly how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected wildlife, the environment, and the climate. Moreover, the impact of the pandemic on the natural world is unlikely to be linear. Research suggests that a reduction in some pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, may result in the rise of others, such as ozone.

Understanding how this pandemic has changed humans’ relationship with nature may be just as complex. But for now, these positive changes may be enough to give some people, and Mother Nature, the hope of a better future.

Avaiable from: <https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-covid-19-has-changed-the-face-of-the-natural-world#A-pandemic-of-change?> Access: 10 Oct. 2021. Adapted.

Big Tech made the social media mess. It has to fix it

Analysis by David Goldman, CNN Business

Social media has given people a platform to spew hate speech and radical beliefs to other people, amplifying what are otherwise fringe opinions. A few have turned that hate into violence.

Silicon Valley has built the biggest, most powerful companies in the world. Now, tech leaders have a responsibility to rein in the creations that have grown too unwieldy for them to control.

These are businesses, and their leaders will have to And out how to do that without destroying their companies. So far, balancing Big Tech's responsibilities to society and its duties to investors has proven difficult.

A difficult balance

Facebook (FB) announced in July it would invest billions of dollars a year to improve safety and security on the platform. The company said the effort would come at the expense of user growth and profitability. The company's stock lost about a third of its value because investors were concerned about Facebook's growth stalling.

Twitter has largely rid ISIS recruiters from the social network. Facebook and YouTube have labeled fake news stories as such. Yet, the work isn't close to done. Google has also made significant changes to YouTube's advertising policies after ads from 300 companies and organizations ran on channels promoting hate groups.

"YouTube has strict policies that prohibit content which incites others to violence or promotes hatred," a YouTube spokesperson said. "We quickly remove videos violating our policies when flagged by our users."

What seemed to cross no one's mind a decade ago was the potential downside to building a platform with billions of customers. So many posts can't possibly be monitored in real time. The networks gave the dregs of society the ability to reach like-minded people and poison the minds of others.

Without that foresight, Silicon Valley allowed their creations to break down. They're not beyond repair, but fixing them will be costly and difficult. Whether Big Tech is up to the task will determine the fates of their platforms.

Available: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/29/tech/social-media- -hate-speech/index.html. Access: 30 may 2019. Adapted. 

Glossary: spew: lançar; fringe: periféricas; to rein in: controlar; unwieldy: desordenado; duties: deveres; profitability, lucro; stock: ação (no mercado); stalling: interrupção; flagged: sinalizados; dregs of society: pessoas inescrupulosas; like-minded: pessoas que compartilham ideias semelhantes; poison: envenenar; foresight: visão; beyond repair: sem conserto; up to the task: à altura da tarefa.

Big Tech made the social media mess. It has to fix it

Analysis by David Goldman, CNN Business

Social media has given people a platform to spew hate speech and radical beliefs to other people, amplifying what are otherwise fringe opinions. A few have turned that hate into violence.

Silicon Valley has built the biggest, most powerful companies in the world. Now, tech leaders have a responsibility to rein in the creations that have grown too unwieldy for them to control.

These are businesses, and their leaders will have to And out how to do that without destroying their companies. So far, balancing Big Tech's responsibilities to society and its duties to investors has proven difficult.

A difficult balance

Facebook (FB) announced in July it would invest billions of dollars a year to improve safety and security on the platform. The company said the effort would come at the expense of user growth and profitability. The company's stock lost about a third of its value because investors were concerned about Facebook's growth stalling.

Twitter has largely rid ISIS recruiters from the social network. Facebook and YouTube have labeled fake news stories as such. Yet, the work isn't close to done. Google has also made significant changes to YouTube's advertising policies after ads from 300 companies and organizations ran on channels promoting hate groups.

"YouTube has strict policies that prohibit content which incites others to violence or promotes hatred," a YouTube spokesperson said. "We quickly remove videos violating our policies when flagged by our users."

What seemed to cross no one's mind a decade ago was the potential downside to building a platform with billions of customers. So many posts can't possibly be monitored in real time. The networks gave the dregs of society the ability to reach like-minded people and poison the minds of others.

Without that foresight, Silicon Valley allowed their creations to break down. They're not beyond repair, but fixing them will be costly and difficult. Whether Big Tech is up to the task will determine the fates of their platforms.

Available: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/29/tech/social-media- -hate-speech/index.html. Access: 30 may 2019. Adapted. 

Glossary: spew: lançar; fringe: periféricas; to rein in: controlar; unwieldy: desordenado; duties: deveres; profitability, lucro; stock: ação (no mercado); stalling: interrupção; flagged: sinalizados; dregs of society: pessoas inescrupulosas; like-minded: pessoas que compartilham ideias semelhantes; poison: envenenar; foresight: visão; beyond repair: sem conserto; up to the task: à altura da tarefa.

Big Tech made the social media mess. It has to fix it

Analysis by David Goldman, CNN Business

Social media has given people a platform to spew hate speech and radical beliefs to other people, amplifying what are otherwise fringe opinions. A few have turned that hate into violence.

Silicon Valley has built the biggest, most powerful companies in the world. Now, tech leaders have a responsibility to rein in the creations that have grown too unwieldy for them to control.

These are businesses, and their leaders will have to And out how to do that without destroying their companies. So far, balancing Big Tech's responsibilities to society and its duties to investors has proven difficult.

A difficult balance

Facebook (FB) announced in July it would invest billions of dollars a year to improve safety and security on the platform. The company said the effort would come at the expense of user growth and profitability. The company's stock lost about a third of its value because investors were concerned about Facebook's growth stalling.

Twitter has largely rid ISIS recruiters from the social network. Facebook and YouTube have labeled fake news stories as such. Yet, the work isn't close to done. Google has also made significant changes to YouTube's advertising policies after ads from 300 companies and organizations ran on channels promoting hate groups.

"YouTube has strict policies that prohibit content which incites others to violence or promotes hatred," a YouTube spokesperson said. "We quickly remove videos violating our policies when flagged by our users."

What seemed to cross no one's mind a decade ago was the potential downside to building a platform with billions of customers. So many posts can't possibly be monitored in real time. The networks gave the dregs of society the ability to reach like-minded people and poison the minds of others.

Without that foresight, Silicon Valley allowed their creations to break down. They're not beyond repair, but fixing them will be costly and difficult. Whether Big Tech is up to the task will determine the fates of their platforms.

Available: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/29/tech/social-media- -hate-speech/index.html. Access: 30 may 2019. Adapted. 

Glossary: spew: lançar; fringe: periféricas; to rein in: controlar; unwieldy: desordenado; duties: deveres; profitability, lucro; stock: ação (no mercado); stalling: interrupção; flagged: sinalizados; dregs of society: pessoas inescrupulosas; like-minded: pessoas que compartilham ideias semelhantes; poison: envenenar; foresight: visão; beyond repair: sem conserto; up to the task: à altura da tarefa.

                   Fake news could ruin social media, but there’s still hope

by: Guðrun í Jákupsstovu

Camille Francois, director of research and analysis at Graphika, told the audience of her talk at TNW Conference:

“Disinformation campaigns, or fake news is a concept we’ve known about for years, but few people realize how varied the concept can be and how many forms it comes in. When the first instances of fake news started to surface, they were connected with bots. These flooded conversations with alternative stories in order to create noise and, in turn, silence what was actually being said”.

According to Francois, today’s disinformation campaigns are far more varied than just bots – and much harder to detect. For example, targeted harassment campaigns are carried out against journalists and human-rights activists who are critical of governments or big organizations.

“We see this kind of campaigns happening at large scale in countries like the Philippines, Turkey, Ecuador, and Venezuela. The point of these campaigns is to flood the narrative these people try to create with so much noise that their original message gets silenced, their reputation gets damaged, and their credibility undermined. I call this patriotic trolling.”

There are also examples of disinformation campaigns mobilizing people. This was evident during the US elections in 2016 when many fake events suddenly started popping up on Facebook. One Russian Facebook page “organized” an anti-Islam event, while another “organized” a pro-Islam demonstration. The two fake events gathered activists to the same street in Texas, leading to a stand-off.

Francois explains how amazed she is that, in spite of social media being the main medium for these different disinformation campaigns, actual people also still use it to protest properly.

If we look at countries, like Turkey – where there’s a huge amount of censorship and smear campaigns directed at human right defenders and journalists – citizens around the world and in those places still use social media to denounce corruption, to organize human rights movements and this proves that we still haven’t lost the battle of who owns social media.

This is an ongoing battle, and it lets us recognize the actors who are trying to remove the option for people to use social media for good. But everyday you still have people all over the world turning to social media to support their democratic activities. This gives me hope and a desire to protect people’s ability to use social media for good, for denouncing corruption and protecting human rights.

Adapted from:<https://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2018/05/25/> . Access 09 Oct. 2018.

Glossary

bot: (short for "robot"): um programa automático que roda na Internet; to flood: inundar; trolling: fazer postagem deliberadamente ofensiva para provocar alguém; popping up: surgir, aparecer; stand-off: impasse: smear campaigns: campanhas de difamação.

Texto 2

Campeonato de peão

Bota parafuso no bico do peão

Bota prego limado, bota tudo

pra rachar o pião competidor.

Roda, pião!

Racha, pião!

Se você não pode rachar este colégio

nem o mundo nem a vida,

racha pelo menos o pião!

(Mas eu não sei, nunca aprendi

rachar pião. Imobilizo-me.)

(Carlos Drummond de Andrade. Nova reunião: 23 livros de poesia. Vol. III. Rio de Janeiro, Bestbolso, 2009. p.267) 

Text 1

                      The global warming controversy

The global warming controversy is an ongoing dispute about the effects of humans on global climate and about what policies should be implemented to avoid possible undesirable effects of climate change.

The current scientific consensus on climate change is that recent warming indicates a fairly stable long-term trend, that the trend is largely human-caused, and that serious damage may result at some future date if steps are not taken to halt the trend.

Mainstream scientific organizations worldwide (Royal Society, American Geophysical Union, Joint Science Academies, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, American Meteorological Society, and American Association for the Advancement of Science) concur with the assessment that most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the human-caused increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.

However, there is also a small but vocal number of scientists in climate and climate-related fields that disagree with the consensus view.

Adapted from:< https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/global_warming_controversy.htm.> Access 30 Sept. 2017. 

Text 2

             Climate change label leads to climate science acceptance

On the heels of President Donald Trump's decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, a new Cornell University study finds that labels matter when it comes to acceptance of climate science.

The U.S. public doubts the existence of "global warming" more than it doubts "climate change".

In a nationally representative survey, 74.4 percent of respondents said they believed that climate change is really happening. But only 65.5 percent said they believed in global warming.

Nonetheless, it's important to remember that 65 percent of respondents did indicate that global warming is occurring, said co-author Peter Enns, associate professor of government. "In other words, although the term matters -- climate change versus global warming -- an overwhelming majority of people still state that global warming is happening," he said.

Adapted from:<http://mediarelations.cornell.edu/2017/06/21/climate-change-label-leads-to-climate-science-acceptance/>. Access. 23 Sept. 2017. 

Glossário

Text 1

                      The global warming controversy

The global warming controversy is an ongoing dispute about the effects of humans on global climate and about what policies should be implemented to avoid possible undesirable effects of climate change.

The current scientific consensus on climate change is that recent warming indicates a fairly stable long-term trend, that the trend is largely human-caused, and that serious damage may result at some future date if steps are not taken to halt the trend.

Mainstream scientific organizations worldwide (Royal Society, American Geophysical Union, Joint Science Academies, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, American Meteorological Society, and American Association for the Advancement of Science) concur with the assessment that most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the human-caused increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.

However, there is also a small but vocal number of scientists in climate and climate-related fields that disagree with the consensus view.

Adapted from:< https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/global_warming_controversy.htm.> Access 30 Sept. 2017. 

Text 2

             Climate change label leads to climate science acceptance

On the heels of President Donald Trump's decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, a new Cornell University study finds that labels matter when it comes to acceptance of climate science.

The U.S. public doubts the existence of "global warming" more than it doubts "climate change".

In a nationally representative survey, 74.4 percent of respondents said they believed that climate change is really happening. But only 65.5 percent said they believed in global warming.

Nonetheless, it's important to remember that 65 percent of respondents did indicate that global warming is occurring, said co-author Peter Enns, associate professor of government. "In other words, although the term matters -- climate change versus global warming -- an overwhelming majority of people still state that global warming is happening," he said.

Adapted from:<http://mediarelations.cornell.edu/2017/06/21/climate-change-label-leads-to-climate-science-acceptance/>. Access. 23 Sept. 2017. 

Glossário

                           Alice Munro’s road to Nobel literature prize was not easy

                                         Nobel literature prize winner Alice Munro.

Alice Munro has been awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in literature, thus becoming its 13th female recipient. It’s a thrilling honour for a major writer: Munro has long been recognised in North America and the UK, but the Nobel will draw international attention, not only to women’s writing and Canadian writing, but to the short story, Munro’s chosen literary genre and one often neglected.

The road to the Nobel wasn’t an easy one for Munro. She found herself referred to as “some housewife”, and was told that her subject matter, being too “domestic”, was boring. A male writer told her she wrote good stories, but he wouldn’t want to sleep with her. “Nobody invited him,” said Munro. Maybe as a consequence of this initial reaction towards her, when writers occur in Munro stories, they are pretentious, or exploitative of others; or they’re being asked by their relatives why they aren’t famous, or – worse, if female – why they aren’t better-looking.

The chances that a literary star would emerge from her time and place would once have been zero. Munro was born in 1931, and thus experienced the Depression as a child and the Second World War as a teenager. This was in south-western Ontario, Canada, a region that also produced equally talented writers and poets such as Robertson Davies, Graeme Gibson, James Reaney, and Marian Engel. It’s this small-town setting that features most often in her stories – the snobberies, the eccentrics, and the jeering at ambitions, especially artistic ones.

Shame is a common driving force for Munro’s characters just as perfectionism in the writing and courage in her profession have been driving forces for her.

As in much else, Munro is essentially Canadian. Faced with the Nobel, she will be modest, she won’t get a swelled head. The rest of us, on this magnificent occasion, will just have to do that for her.