Last Thursday, Channel 1 broadcast a debate dealing with the power of social media. A few points struck me. First, I pictured some horror scenarios while considering the combination of social media data with information from the public sector, from insurance companies, or from customer programs. According to researcher Heikki Heikkilä, Facebook data has already been used by U.S. social service agencies, and in some cases that usage may have a negative effect on benefits.

F-Secure’s research director Mikko Hyppönen does not have a personal Facebook account because it would make it possible to trace his online connections. However, according to Hyppönen, despite what many believe there is no conclusive evidence that social media services are listening to our speech in order to select the advertising we receive. Until we have more proof, we should see ads that do relate to what we speak as a a coincidence.

Professor Jarno Limnéll says personal data can be a dangerous weapon. Once all our online moves are traced, with the right analytics that data can offer reliable information about our history and our likely actions. The collection and use of data should be made transparent, but we can’t reach that goal by shouting from Finland. Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon will change their actions only if their stock price falls. There are no credible European alternatives; the GAFA giants have already bought out their competition. However, privacy laywer Jukka Lång believes that GDPR could become an export product when Americans find that they have worse protection than the Europeans.

The transparency of data collection and use would increase confidence in services, says doctor Saara Jantunen and consultant Christina Forsgård. For the sake of trust, it would be important to ensure digital rights and legal protection. Just the combining of data is a critical issue: the customer must be able to trust that insurance and purchase information is retained only between the provider and the customer. On the other hand, these services also have to improve their tools for both access and response – these are currently functioning poorly in the social media services.

A bit surprisingly, everyone considered payments as some kind of panacea for all social media problems. They think that people are gradually learning to pay – with money, not with personal data – for their digital services. However, the payment has to bring some real added value to the one who pays, according to doctor Suvi Uski, otherwise people will stick to parallel, free services.

It’s time to hunt down the jargon of the year. This year, we’re especially interested in sentences that illustrate typical shortcomings in governmental documents. For the contest, we see it as an advantage if a sentence includes

• long compound words
• loanwords and abbreviations
• complex sentence structures
• attribute chains over three words
• abstract and ambiguous expressions
• passive voice ”expressed by the official”.

Send that counterproductive language to the Jargon Contest. Your suggestion could be chosen as Jargon of the Year during the FCG forum on June 7th. The contest is good-humored; its purpose is to focus attention on public sector language. Please send your nominees by the end of May. You can submit them by e-mail at info@yksityityinenkielitoimisto.net, share them with @Rsuominen on Twitter, or use the Language Police Facebook site. Happy jargon hunting!

On Saturday, I was talking to nonfiction writers about the digital world and social media. Authors and scholars often view social media with concern – even if they don’t see it as mostly negative, it’s at least problematic. After introducing a lot of benefits, I offered – for the first time in such a presentation – one slide with some disadvantages. They can include the following:

• Reading has turned into superficial browsing.
• People read less material of varying length.
• Algorithms reinforce opinion bubbles.
• People are used to getting content for free.
• Copyright is violated.
• Fake news and hate speech spread easily.
• Personal information is a commodity.
• Screens cause health problems.
• People can work 24/7.

A particular concern for the writers is the reduction in serious reading. Could it increase if the writers and their works were more present in different social media channels? People like to discuss books online, especially on Twitter. Authors taking part in conversations and offering links with sample readings could with luck invite readers to explore a wider range of topics, and could also provide more visibility in traditional media.

It has been a hundred years since the Finnish Civil War and the Battle of Tampere, which ended at the beginning of April in 1918. In Tampere, there has been a great deal of talk this week about this topic. At the University of Tampere, Finnish president Sauli Niinistö gave a speech about reconciliation; at the Vapriikki Museum Centre, historian Teemu Keskisarja strongly criticized post-war actions like hasty executions and prison camps. At an event for non-fiction writers, journalist Hannu Koskela interviewed history researcher Tuomas Hoppu, who was the expert behind Vapriikki’s 1918 exhibition.

Hoppu said he was sorry that people have once again started to argue about the name of the war. From the very beginning, Finns have used many names, such as Civil War, Internal War, Liberation War, Revolution, Red Riot, and Class War. Academics have often used the phrase the 1918 War in Finland. Both Civil War and Internal War are also interpreted as neutral. The Liberation War was the name the Whites used, while the Reds use the Rebellion and the Revolution. The Liberation conveyed the idea of freedom from Russian dominance, while Revolution emphasized the workers’ struggle for power.

Especially in Tampere, the 1918 events continue to fuel a lively debate. These tragic events touched so many local families that we still need to obtain detailed, carefully researched information. However, the name issue should no longer be controversial: according to a recent survey, 75 percent of the respondents supported the use of a neutral name such as Civil War.

We can start by rejecting the unhelpful acronym. We can speak instead about data protection or – if precision is essential –  the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.

However, “GDPR” appears constantly in headlines and seminar titles. Those writing about the regulations tend to use its exact wording for fear of misinterpreting.  And since even experts who have to apply the regulation can scarcely interpret what it is going to mean in practice, we all nervously bide our time by calculating how long until implementation (as I write: 62 days, 17 hours, 20 minutes, 15 seconds).

In general, the purpose of the regulation is to ensure the transparent and reliable processing of personal data. Only necessary information should be collected, and it should be restricted to the specific purpose. Approval is required for the collection of personal data, and everyone should have access to his own data. The regulation also stresses that “information shall be provided in a clear, easily understandable and accessible form, and in clear and plain language”.

You may wonder where such clear and simple language can be found. I can tell you I haven’t yet found it in documents and contracts about the GDPR.

It was a pleasure for me last week to hear two experienced translators of nonfiction. Pertti Ranta has translated Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle and On the Origin of Species. Scientific texts require accuracy, and Pertti amused the audience by describing his disputes with the publisher. The editor firmly intended to change the scientific name of the Sally Lightfoot crab from Grapsus grapsus to Graspus graspus – because the latter got more Google hits. On the other hand, when the Finnish edition appeared, the cover included a frigatebird and an iguana, as well as the Strait of Magellan, a place with neither frigatebirds or iguanas.

Heikki Eskelinen, who has translated nearly 40,000 pages, urged us to be careful when translating approximate figures, directions, and place names (Ventimiglia, not Ventimille). Information about Finland, especially, often needs correction by the translator – Heikki has often had to send requests for fact-checking to authors he was translating. The History of Translated Nonfiction in Finland tells us that Eskelinen’s translations include Clausewitz’s On War, Fukuyama’s The End of History and The Last Man, as well as the Toffler’s Powershift.

Do you recognize these archetypes of Twitter users?

• The Chatter: Good morning, everyone!
• The Celebrity: Read, look and listen my interview.
• The Brown-noser: Thank you for your important comment, @celb.
• The Company: You can also follow our ads on Instagram.
• The Nonprofit: Here’s the update we posted on Facebook.
• The Corporate Cheerleader: In our company, we have an awesome #spirit.
• The Obsessive: 5 people followed me, 3 unfollowed. CountThemAll.com  
• The City Government: The council agenda is available on our website. 
• The Social Media Consultant: Here’s today’s question. What do you think?
• The Business Consultant: See my “Six Innovations You Need ” post on LinkedIn.
• The Thought Leader: You need my thought of the day.  
• The Journalist: Quality journalism costs money. #Paywall 
• The Magazine: People got furious for this reason. #Paywall 
• The Language Police: The hyphen is missing. 

Add your own archetypes to the list.

I’ve often wondered why people get irritated on social media. Why can’t people just ignore annoying comments?

Last week, however, I became irritated myself. I lurked during a Twitter conversation that touched on my own field of expertise. People took sharp stances, commented sarcastically, sneered humorously — and from my point of view they were completely ignorant.

What to do? Should I try to set them straight? Block the whole gang? Stop using Twitter?

I didn’t do anything.

I didn’t want to explain the basics. I couldn’t find the right tone to intervene. I didn’t want to stop following people on the basis of a single conversation. Leaving Twitter because of its drawbacks is not an option for me. Also, I don’t understand the point of muting people. Blocking I have reserved for spam and fake accounts.

Finally, I decided to mute six hashtags and words. My user experience improved, and maybe the irritation will fade over time. #Argh

For a poor navigator like me, Manhattan should be easy. Longitudinally running avenues and their numbered cross streets help to locate yourself, if you also remember that Fifth Avenue divides the streets into east and west.

In the subway, you need to check whether the direction is Downtown or Uptown. Downtown is the southern tip of the island, the financial center with Wall Street. Uptown starts off from Central Park’s south side. On the subway, though, those are directions: trains marked “downtown” are heading south; those marked “uptown” are heading north. So the meaning of downtown and uptown varies, and disconcertingly Midtown feels like a urban center though the name refers to a section of the island.

A couple of wrong choices in the unpleasant subway quickly teach what up and down mean here. In the same way, you learn the abbreviations of names such as SoHo (South of Houston), NoHo (North of Houston), and Penn Station (Pennsylvania Station). The subway announcements also made me look up why Houston (”House-ton”) Street in New York is pronounced differently than Houston (“Hews-ton”) in Texas. The origins are different in spite of today’s spelling: in New York the name comes from William Houstoun and in Texas from Sam Houston.

I have previously drawn attention to the New York names of Dutch origin: Harlem (Haarlem), the Bronx (after Dutch settler Jonas Bronck), Coney Island (Konijneneiland ‘rabbit island’), Wall Street (Walstraat) and Staten Island (Staaten Eylandt ‘state’s land’). Now, too, the very English sounding Greenwich Village (Groenwijck ’green district’) is a Dutch import, as is Brooklyn (Breuckelen ’marshland’).

What about Manhattan itself? It was not imported by the Dutch nor the Englishmen, even though the latter renamed Nieuw-Amsterdam to honor the Duke of York. Manna-hatta ‘island of many hills’ comes from the region’s native residents, the Lenape Indians.