Blog 12: Privacy

While we have discussed internet privacy several times in class, there are some aspects that have previously been untouched. After watching several TED talks I learned that there are other ways outside of social media that our privacy is invaded.

One of the speakers, Catherine Crump, addressed something we encounter daily but often do not consider: the police are gathering information about us in ways that were previously considered impossible. Via location tracking, the government can obtain a detailed picture of how citizens act privately- several pictures actually. In addition, automatic license plate readers allow the police to capture images of every car and convert their license plates to readable text in order to catch people for wrongdoing, but also to observe everyone that passes by. Crump then explains that the government has hundreds of photos of people's daily life and that the police just hang on to all of these just in case it is needed some day.

The next speaker, Finn Myrstad, brought up the seemingly innocent children's toy known as Cayla. This was a doll that anyone who had a cell phone could connect to within a certain distance. This entire concept was clearly an invasion of people's right to privacy and was soon banned in Germany, taken off the store shelves, and put in the German spy museum in Berlin. Simple instances of privacy invasion from location tracking to children's toys show that despite there being rules to protect us, there are loopholes that give unknown users too much of our information without our consent.

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni4FV5zL6lM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E_1AB1rsSw

Blog 11: EOTO

This past week in class 4 groups of students presented on certain types of false information which can be categorized into disinformation meant to deceive or misinformation caused by an honest mistake. One of the concepts that really stuck out to me was the echo chamber.

From what I heard during the presentation, an echo chamber is an effect in which media surrounds its user with similar beliefs. This is a lot more common than one might expect as social media such as Instagram and Facebook allow us to pick and choose what we see. We can follow the accounts and hashtags we like or agree with and we can also unfollow or block the ones we dislike or disagree with. When we narrow our feed down to just our own interests, we accidentally create an echo chamber.

Another thing I learned about echo chambers is that they amplify the user's thoughts, beliefs, and opinions by repeating so much of the information that he or she agrees with. These typically lack any sort of counterpoints.

What I have learned from this is that while it is perfectly fine to follow whatever interests us on social media, we shouldn't only follow the things we agree with. We need to be aware of what is happening in the real world and although we should absolutely have our own opinions on events, people, etc. we should not become so absorbed in ourselves that it clogs our feed with the same opinions.

Blog 10: Gatekeeping

Gatekeeping refers to the process of filtering out unnecessary information on news outlets and other media. Sometimes this is used to filter out irrelevant or conflicting information. Long story short, gatekeeping only shows the information that is important to us. Sometimes this can be good, sometime it is bad. For an example of good gatekeeping, news outlets might examine clickbait or hateful articles toward a corporation to see if there is genuine evidence to the situation or if it is just defamation. In other words, good gatekeeping keeps fake news filtered out of our news feed.

Bad gatekeeping can be a tricky subject as well. While it can keep misinformation away from us, gatekeeping can sometimes distract from negative information. For example, some news source could be setting a political agenda and intentionally keeping criticism from being released to the public. This could affect our society as a whole by sending us some of the truth rather than the whole truth. Where we should see the light and dark sides of things, some news outlets might only show one side or the other.

With this being the case, news outlets could be tricking me without me even realizing this. For example, I could be watching the news on my TV and the headlines could be absolutely the truth. However, there is always the possibility that certain news is just being faked or refocused so that we think a certain way. While I generally consider gatekeeping to be a good thing for us, I am sure that some outlets might misuse it.

Blog 9: Online Footprint

When we use social media, it is important to consider our online footprints and how we give out information. On my end of things, I have accounts on Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I would say that for Snapchat, Facebook, and LinkedIn, I am pretty moderate. For Snapchat I mostly send my friends funny pictures and generally don't share information. I rarely use Facebook but I only post if it is something I would be comfortable with everyone seeing. Like Dr. Smith has mentioned in class, the thought of Facebook selling my information also keeps me away from it at times. And LinkedIn is only used for business purposes so I just list my professional and community service experience. I treat Instagram similarly to Facebook, yet I post more frequently and include more things like vacations and events. As for YouTube, I watch videos but I never post any unless I absolutely have to for assignments.

So how can these be viewed by an outsider? Someone on Instagram could see my physical appearance, who I spend time with, where I have gone on vacation, etc. but I have a private account so not everyone has access. Then for Snapchat, I doubt people really save data from my account as posts disappear within a day and if somebody screenshots or replays anything I get a notification. And then for YouTube, people would not learn much directly about me but they could probably see what sorts of videos I like. With Facebook, however, everything is public so anyone could pick up on what I look like, where I am from, and where I went to school. LinkedIn is similar where I have to pick and choose what I feel comfortable showing to the public. It's a scary thought to imagine stalkers going through all of our social media. So information has to be managed accordingly.

Alexis C. Madrigal on The Atlantic article brings up how Facebook saves information about what we like in order to encourage purchases. While this may seem innocent at first, he explains that Facebook "the product" works through Facebook "the business" and that "Facebook has 242 million North American users, and if 50 percent of them would feel uncomfortable with Facebook’s core business practice, then that’s a lot of potentially angry people" (Madrigal). If this article is anything to go off of, this is very much an invasion of people's privacy. Add this to the compare-and-despair effect that social media already has on people and social media can really harm an individual both in terms of self-esteem when they are missing out on something and in terms of privacy when media like Facebook sell personal information.

Link to article: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/facebook-users-still-dont-know-how-facebook-works/580546/

Blog 8: Instagram and the Diffusion of Ideas

Over the past decade, there have been several innovations, not only in technology, but in social media. One of these innovations was Instagram. Kevin Systrom, who was involved in marketing, pioneered an app called Burbn which would allow people to check in to different places. Later on, he met up with capitalist firms at a party and raised $500,000 for Burbn. A man named Mike Krieger agreed to join the development of this app and the idea of Burbn evolved into a social media platform focused solely on photographic communication. This became known as Instagram.

On October 6th, 2010 Instagram grew almost instantaneously. Medium states that "From a handful of users, it soon became the number one photography app gathering 100,000 users in one week, increasing to 1 million in two months." As this article shows, Instagram experienced a strong launch and in a short matter of time grew exponentially in its following. These people who installed Instagram during this release period were the early adopters of this medium.

Some could also argue that 2010 was also the tipping point for Instagram given how exponential its growth was. While the technology might not yet be old at this point, I would argue that today's teenagers are late adopters. The people who hopped onto the Instagram train during its initial release are now adults and in an age where social media and cell phones are constantly coming out with something new, today's teens may be a little late to the party but they are making more use of it than ever with the occasional added features.

Link to article here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10355980/How-Instagram-took-over-the-world-in-just-three-years.html

Blog 7: The Marketplace of Ideas

 

Last Tuesday, Leo and I partnered up to discuss the eight values of Free Expression. After some conversation, we narrowed the topic down to our favorite value: the Marketplace of Ideas. This concept, founded by John Milton, states that "the test of the truth or acceptance of ideas depends on their competition with one another and not on the opinion of a censor, whether one provided by the government or by some other authority." (https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/999/marketplace-of-ideas)

In other words, expression of ideas should not be censored by the government as competing ideas and truths can form a "market" of sorts. And in a market, the better items will absolutely sell more than the lesser ones.While certain items could be controversial, putting bans on items that could sell well is a bad idea because unless the item is clearly dangerous, it would disrupt the marketplace.

Does this sound like a concept mentioned in class recently? The marketplace of ideas perfectly describes the concept of prior restraint and why we should not have it! The first amendment gave us freedom of speech and the press, yet we had controversial books banned by the government for a while because they were "offensive". This was considered constitutional until the Near v Minn case in 1931. Like the Marketplace of Ideas, texts with controversial messages should not be censored by the government as they can only be banned if they involve fighting words or incitement. There can be a subsequent punishment for causing violence; however, controversial opinions are not meant to be censored by the government. This is the most interesting value because it perfectly fits prior restraint into terms of business.

Blog 6: The Petroglyph

For my media presentation in this class, I chose to research the Petroglyph. I learned throughout this project that this medium originated in 3500 BC and that it was primarily used by the ancient Egyptians for many purposes such as illustrating real-life events, transmitting information, or even religious or ceremonial events. These were so historically significant because they were the first written, tangible form of communication

While I was browsing Google for information, I came across a Smithsonian article titled "Eight Spots in the United States Where You Can See Petroglyphs". The article states that "while we may naturally think of petroglyphs and pictographs being out west, in reality, they are found in more than half of our country's states and territories—meaning you don’t have to travel far at all to get a glimpse of native history." So while petroglyphs are an ancient art, they can still be found at certain places in our country.

The locations for these petroglyphs vary. One of these can be found on a boulder in San Diego portraying the voyage of the ship San Salvador in 1542. Another 40 petroglyphs are visible at Petroglyph Beach in Wrangell Island, Alaska which were supposedly carved by the Tlingit, an ancient tribe that lived there thousands of years ago. These depict faces, spirals, and a whale, but the situation being portrayed is unclear.

Petroglyphs can also be found at Dighton Rock State Park in Massachussetts. This is a half-submerged rock in the Taunton River that Cotton Mather could only describe as being "filled with strange creatures". This one has been speculated to be from the time of King Solomon's reign described in the Old Testament while others believe it is a depiction of a Portuguese journey in 1511. In addition, some people took it as a warning for anyone who was about to enter the river.

So what do these Petroglyphs show about communication? There is not one definitive way to communicate. The petroglyphs were essentially miscellaneous images that once meant something but are now too abstract for our understanding. On other forms of communication today such as phone calls or texting lack the nuance and/or emotion that can be performed during face-to-face conversation. Another thing that comes to mind is our social media; we only post and follow the content we want while filtering out what we do not want to see of ourselves or the rest of the world. In all these different forms of communication, there is always a little bit of context that is not touched upon.

Blog 5: Mad World

This video is a re-edit of the music video titled "Are You Lost In The World Like Me" with the song "Mad World" by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules. While the original felt like a mix between an old-fashioned black-and-white cartoon mixed with an energetic anime-esque theme song featuring caricatures of today's cell phone users, the remix casts a far more depressing tone over the video. The video revolves around a child who is surrounded by several different crowds of people in different environments such as subway trains and a city. These people are staring at their cell phones with wide eyes every second that they are on screen. Several instances of cell phone use are showed, such as people staring at them in a restaurant while several animals are about to be slaughtered, presumably the same child's parents allowing him to wander off because they were checking their phones right after his birth, as well as several people recording a girl committing suicide while the child watches in terror. Lastly, the video shows everyone staring at their phones while slowly walking off to their deaths.

While this video is clearly an exaggeration of the real world today, there is some cold truth in it. Everyone is spending too much time on their cell phones while they should be focusing on the real world. There are several times in the video where the child tries to get the people's attention yet he simply cannot because they are so immersed in their cell phones. And there are certain situations in which people really do not need to be on their cell phones as well as situations in which it is absolutely unacceptable to pull out a cell phone. With the popularity of social media and the constant obsession over new content, this animation really shows how social media is harming our ability to interact with others and ultimately, our lives.

Blog 4: The Implications of Cell Phone Interactions

Article link: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/edward-snowden-kamila-bendova-surveillance-state/

Continuing with the topic of antitrust investigations on social media, Edward Snowden has recently released a new memoir known as Permanent Record. In the past, Snowden has leaked confidential information from the National Security Agency. In this memoir he discusses STELLARWIND, a program that is designed to collect every existing piece of electronic communication and permanently store it all. So in other words, every bit of personal information that has ever been put on a device is available to the NSA: your name, your address, every location you have visited, and everyone you have texted. One thing Snowden points out is that there is no agreement the cell phone user signs for how much information is shared. He states the following:

“Your devices are constantly communicating for you whether you want them to or not. And, unlike the humans you communicate with of your own volition, your devices don’t withhold private information or use code words in an attempt to be discreet. They merely ping the nearest cell phone towers with signals that never lie.”

This quote explains that we have no control over what is sent to the government. Any data that is on our phones or sent to other people’s phones will be sent to the cell phone towers and certain people will in fact have access to this information. And that is the worst part; people who have detailed, personal conversations over text are essentially being stalked by the government. So everything you have ever done electronically is visible. While people think that openness is good for the US citizens and government since the citizens are innocent, anything the citizens have ever said online can be accessed by the government. And if that is the case, does America have any sort of online privacy at all?

Blog 3: Antitrust Investigation

As Americans, we are in an age that is defined by the developments in social media. Over the past couple of decades, the internet has seen the emergence of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and more media that stores our information. As Dr. Smith emphasized in class, these media advertise the idea of building a strong community, Facebook especially. Facebook does more than create a community- it is paid to sell your personal information. This creates a lot of suspicion in the users and they are thus hesitant to post too much. Letitia James, the New York Attorney General, assembled a multi-state coalition of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, and Tennessee “to determine whether Facebook’s actions may have endangered consumer data, reduced the quality of consumers’ choices, or increased the price of advertising” (Fung). All of these states are participating in this antitrust investigation towards not only Facebook but also Google.

The article states that there will be several court cases against several people to see whether or not Facebook uses this information with harmful intent. In addition, the article mentions Jeff Landry, Louisiana’s Attorney General who believes Google is dominating online advertising because it is inefficient to advertise on any other platforms. This is interesting because if somebody searches Google for something, that thing will come up on an advertisement 5 minutes later on a different website, so Google definitely keeps track of the user’s information. This is a somewhat disturbing concept to consider seeing how reliant our culture is on social media and the internet. People post on social media and use Google every day. Thankfully Facebook is not used as much as Instagram for example but still, what the user puts in is what the company makes its money off of. Facebook is disrupting our privacy and raises the following question: Do Instagram and Snapchat sell our information too, and if so, does this also apply to private accounts? Surely users cannot access these without a follow request but can the owners? And what becomes of the personal information that is sold? These are all complicated questions that show how careful people need to be when they post on social media, as there has to be a balance between being inoffensive and also being sure not to post too much personal information.

Link to article: https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/06/tech/facebook-antitrust-investigation/index.html

Blog 2: History and Function of the Supreme Court

In the year 1789, the Supreme Court was created. This branch of government was created to safeguard liberty, preserve the union, and uphold the rule of law. It determines the boundaries between the president, congress, and the states. In 1801 when the US government moved to Washington, the Supreme Court was held in the unfinished capitol. Chief justices were given the greatest judicial powers and when the new court was made, John Marshal established it as a well-respected form of government. One mistake made, however, was the Dred Scott Decision in 1857 which gave western territories the right to own slaves. This was the court's greatest self-inflicted wound so they amended it after the Civil War with the concept of due process- the idea that people cannot be thrown in jail without a fair trial- in the 14th Amendment. The "We the people" mentioned in the Constitution, therefore, applies to everyone who lives within America.

The fascinating thing about the Constitution is that it gave advice and certain truths that are still relevant to the problems that the Court deals with almost 200 years later. Every year, the Supreme Court deals with 1,000 different petitions and 7,000 new cases. 9 justices consider these, whether it involves defending a wrongly convicted prisoner or defending the president's power. The oral argument that follows is essentially the court having a conversation with itself through the attorney and talking to 9 different justices about a case can be overwhelming as there are at least 4 different trains of thought being juggled through. A few days after this argument, the justices meet in a conference room and reach a decision for the case, which the law clerks explain legal reasons for doing. Reporters find out about these soon and briefly explain the new decisions. Opinions are later sent to all 9 justices and amendments might be made along the way. Thus, the law is maintained in America.

Blog 1: How Social Media Undermines Careers

A few years ago, if people performed well at their jobs and had good résumés, they would realistically be allowed to keep their careers. However, social media has become more dominant in our culture than ever with the likes of Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Because of this, people online can dig up offensive posts from the past. For example, James Gunn who directs Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, had his past offensive tweets uncovered and was fired at one point from finishing his story in the third film. Reading Howard Kurtz's article on Fox News illustrated another side to this problem: not necessarily using old tweets to decide whether or not someone is fit for a job, but instead using it towards writers and journalists who are always tackling these uncomfortable issues.

Politically speaking, Trump supporters have been using these sorts of tweets to call out the reporters who might be criticizing Trump. One editor, Tom Wright-Piersanti, was called out for blatantly anti-semitic tweets, but the article pointed out that he had apologized a decade ago yet he was still being thrown under the bus for it. These Republicans are bringing attention to past tweets which were put out by the journalist for public consumption, yet these are the same standards the president is held to. The New York Times explained in response that it is acceptable for people to look for this sort of information to see whether a President is fit for his position but it is not acceptable for people to do this as any sort of retribution for previous criticism. Overall, the problem with these Republicans is that they are harassing these reporters who are handling uncomfortable truths about our government and thus, are stifling the freedom of the press. This article also is a good illustration that the media has the ability to remove people from their jobs, so it is important to monitor what type of content gets uploaded.

Article link:https://www.foxnews.com/media/paper-says-past-tweets-should-be-used-against-politicos-but-not-journalists