Blog Post #8: Privacy Online

    It was extremely eye opening watching these Ted videos. The lack of privacy on our phones, computers, and everyday life is terrifying. While we have been told this over and over again that nothing is private. That we are not the only ones who have access to our search history, videos, texts, and emails. It is very difficult when watching these videos and how each speaker uses different ways to teach. 

    How do these issues effect me, my friends, and my family? For me and the people my age we have been raised in a world that revolves around technology and being online. My whole world is online from saving passwords to my aunts Facebook page it is no shock that anyone could find out anything they want about me. In the first video "Your Online Life is a Permanent Tattoo" that analogy resonated with me. This is because when you are a kid posting stupid videos and looking up silly things online you aren't thinking about how those videos could come up and haunt you in the future. But it is true, when something is put out on the internet it will be there forever as permanent as a tattoo. 

    What should the government be doing about this? Simple put, end it. However, I don't think that will ever happen. For example, over the summer, Google was sued for stealing personal data from millions of users without getting any consent, this data was gathered to help out AI. This company violated federal laws and owes billions of dollars in return. However, the government works with Google and if they request data then for legal reasons Google will share. So they work hand in hand. 

    Lastly, what can we do to protect ourselves from an invasion of privacy? While this question is hard to answer, because they will still get information on us no matter what, unless we get rid of all technology. The only thing you can do is be safe and think before you do things. Don't save passwords or card information in computers, cover cameras, never stay logged into accounts and always clear history. While these things might seem silly they are the only thing getting us closer to not having every aspect of our lives being saved. 

 Blog Post #7: Ring Diffusion Theory

    When you hear the name Ring Doorbell nowadays, I'm sure you know exactly what it is, this is because of how common it is for many people nowadays. However, a couple years ago we would have never heard of this company. This all stems from The Diffusion Theory, how overtime people adapt and add new things to their everyday lives. Overtime companies, such as Ring become a household necessity. With the brand mission "To reduce Crime in Communities" it is a statement that resonates with so many people especially parents and families. So lets start from the beginning and dive into when this company started picking up pace. 

Innovators

    Innovators are the people who want to take the risks in businesses. They put money into a company and work hard to make it what the want it to be. Jamie Siminoff, founder of Ring, decided he wanted to make a product. According to Siminoff, "he wanted to build something cool and important". He built a team of five people, three of which were engineers, and they got together in a garage and created Doorbot, the original name of Ring. This group of innovators would be the first people to adopt and create the idea of Ring in the diffusion theory because they devoted time and money into making this product a success. 

Early Adopters 

    The Early Adopters for the Ring doorbell would be the people who bought it within the first year of sales in 2013. This is while the company was still know as Doorbot and before Siminoff had gone on the hit television shoe Shark Tank to sell his product. There was $1 Million annual sales the first year of Doorbot, these investors are considered the Early Adopters in the Diffusion Theory. 

Early Majority 

    The Early Majority are the groups of people who purchase the product that is a significantly longer time than the Innovators and Early Adopters. For Ring, Sales started exponentially rising in 2019. In December of 2020 online sales in the US had 180 percent compared to the previous year. It is estimated that Amazon, a partner of Ring, sold 400,000 units in December of 2019. This would be viewed as the Early Majority while it took a few years for it to reach that goal, it is still impressive how quickly the sales skyrocketed in 2019. 

Late Majority

    The Late Majority would be the people who adopt an innovation after the average person. It is shown on the Ring Doorbell sales that it is expecting a drop in sales and revenue this year and next. This doorbell isn't something you have to buy over and over again. So when sales went up it was great, but now these are so common and there is a lack of sales in the near future. The people who are buying Ring in this year and next would be considered the Late Majority because they are purchasing this product after the majority of people already have it. Often times these might be older people who don't think the need the product or people who don't have the money for it. 

Laggards

    These Laggards are the last people to purchase the invention. While we aren't quite in the time of Laggards yet because Ring is still a fairly new product that people are still eager to buy we can already tell who are Laggards could be. The old school people who are happy with their simple doorbell and doesn't care to have notifications and videos every time someone walks up to their door or the people who simple don't have the funds to purchase a video camera doorbell. 

 Blog Post #6: Antiwar

   When I first got on to Antiwar.com I was overwhelmed by the abundance of information that I have never heard before. The main title that immediately caught my attention "For NYT, Cluster Munitions Are Completely Wrong- When Russians Use Them". Before even reading this article, the title insinuates that cluster munitions are acceptable unless it is Russians who are the one using them. However when the article came out on NYT they left out the part that shows that the US is okay with cluster Munitions. In this front page article on the New York Times the words "internationally banned" were used when describing cluster munitions. This article was posted in March of 2022 when the invasion of Ukraine was still new. Now, New York Times has posted multiple articles in July 2023 explaining how they will now be sending cluster munitions to Ukraine. 

    Why is this so concerning? In this first post that sparked this talk about Cluster Munitions NYT mentions that neither Ukraine or Russia are members in the treaty that bans cluster munitions. However, one very important detail was left out of this article. America is also not a member of the treaty that bans cluster munitions. This goes against our first amendment right as citizens, freedom of speech and freedom of press. Why are these journalists leaving out key information, why are they making other people sound like the bad guys when they are the ones with holding information. 

    When looking at The American Conservative, there was one article that stood out beyond the rest. "Yes, Social Media Censorship is a First Amendment Issue" this title relates back to what we have learned in previous classes. This article starts off with an engaging hook, causing me to keep reading. It dives deeper to say that the FBI is driving social media companies to get rid of all covid and election related news. How is this allowed? It shouldn't be. The government has messed up so many things to the point that we as a society don't even know what's going on around us because they hid everything. Citizens are simply loosing their First Amendment rights. 

 Blog Post #5: EOTO Review

    Instead on focusing in on one specific technological advancement, I decided to look at Group 4 as a whole and write a little blurb on three of their technology that was mentioned. 

Netflix- 

    

    To begin, Netflix, a streaming service that started in 2003. This was created by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph as a DVD rental service and has sky rocketed since. While it was started in 2003, as I said it only focused on rentals until 2007 which is when the company turned into a movie and TV streaming service. Now Netflix is making more than any other streaming companies. In the year 2021 it was showing that Netflix had roughly 200 million members and now in 2023 they are up to almost 240 million. While Netflix was an amazing addition to our everyday lives it has had a negative impact on Blockbuster and movie theaters. This service has caused usage rates for Blockbuster to go down exponentially. 

Facebook- 

    Next up, Facebook, commonly know now a days as the social media for parents and grandparents. However, this was not the intent while creating this social media platform. It was originally created by Mark Zuckerberg in 2003 as a platform for university students to rate people. Zuckerberg was a Harvard University student who wanted a place for other students to simply objectify each other by ranking who was hotter than others and he called it "Facemash". Now it has completely changed and gotten rid of all things including "the wall". It now is a center for keeping families in touch and mainly taken over by adults. In 2023, Facebook continues to be the largest social media platform and is now even know by the name Meta. 

TikTok- 

Lastly, Tiktok, a short form video service that was formerly known as Music.ly. In 2017, the Chinese company, ByteDance, bought Music.ly and created Tiktok. This is a video sharing platform that allows users to post videos anywhere from 3 seconds to 10 minutes long. This service has 1 billion monthly active users and this number is continuing to grow.  While Tiktok has gained so much popularity, there is still a lot of suspicion and negative things around the app. Many believe that this Chinese company is collecting our personal data and information. This has caused so many to be hesitant about downloading the app or continuing to use it. 

    I found this project so interesting and as I wrote about each platform I continued to look up new information to expand my knowledge on the topics and history of each technology.

 Blog Post #4: EOTO Youtube

2004- 

The year was 2004, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, former PayPal employees, were at a dinner party in San Francisco when the original idea of Youtube came to be. This group was tired of how hard it was to find and share clips online. "People were collecting video clips on their phones... but there was no easy way to share them" said Hurley. This is when they knew something had to be done.

2005-

This was a huge year for these three men. This social media platform was registered on Valentines day of 2005. The first video was posted titled "Me at the zoo" on April 23. Shortly after, in May, Youtube was attracting 30,000 visitors a day. By the time that the website went public in November of 2005 they were rapidly gaining popularity. In that same month they received $11.5 million to boost their project and in December they were getting more than 2 million views per day. 

2006- 

In January of 2006 video views were up to 25 million views per day. This continued to go up, once the summer came it was up to 100 million views. In February of 2006 Youtube had their first advertisement on the platform. This was an ad about Prison Break a Fox show and it was a great new way to bring in revenue for the platform. On October 9th Google offered to buy Youtube. This started from Google having a failed attempt at a video sharing platform in 2005. They agreed to sell to Google for $1.65 billion in November. Google negotiated deals with companies to reduce the risk of copywrite, which was one of the problems that this platform ran into. Such including, the company constantly had to buy more computer equipment and broadband connections to the internet due to the high traffic levels on the website. As well as, looking for more financial resources because of the copyright that was continued to happen. This is what caused them to start looking for a buyer and Google was the perfect fit.

    Youtube continues to grow and gain users everyday. It is now the year 2023 and we are reaching roughly 5 billion views everyday. This innovation has changed the world. Being the first video sharing platform that gained popularity and succeeded, it is no surprise that this was a necessary invention.  According to israrkhan, "It has facilitated global connections and provided creative opportunities to content creators, while also transforming the way people consume media and entertainment." It has provided so much information and careers for many people around the world. 

    While there are many positives since the start of Youtube it also brings some negatives too. This can include misinformation, inappropriate content for kids, and even cyber bullying. Creators often post content that is like to boost their view and like counts even if it means it can be inappropriate for young viewer. Parents began to notice that these content creators were bad role models which lead to the start of Youtube Kids. Yotube Kids, created in 2015, was added as a place for safe content for young kids to browse. It quickly gained popularity and it gains about 11 millions views weekly. 

    In conclusion, Youtube continues to grow and gain popularity and viewers. It is amazing how far this company has come in the few years it has been around. I look forward to seeing where else this platform will take us and what new things are to come. 

   

 Blog Post #3: 8 Values of Free Expression

    There are eight different values of freedom of expression, these include, marketplace of ideas, participation in self-government, stable change, individual self-fulfillment, check on governmental power, promote tolerance, promote innovation, and protect dissent. Each one of these has its own unique values however, the one that resonates the most with me would be idea number seven, promoting innovation. This stems from the fact that I am a creative person and I feel that innovation and creativity need more credit. For example, I am a graphic design minor and last semester in class we all created social action posters. This is when each student could take a cause that they are passionate about and make something that can get the point across to anyone by reading the sign. This idea is seen often in protests but often times people get yelled at about them or in trouble for standing up for what they believe in. This is wrong and needs to change. We need to listen and understand where people are coming from even if we don't necessarily agree with them. 

    While I do believe that promoting innovation hits the hardest with me I don't think that this value is overall the most important. Promoting tolerance stands out to me amongst the rest. This is based on the simple idea that everyone comes from different places and believes and sharing these ideas will create a more pleasant environment. According to John Mill, "The free exchange of ideas should be encouraged to promote the discovery of truth and enhance the cognitive facilities of individuals." This states that we should listen to the ideas of people and enjoy freedom of speech without limiting their ideas or shutting them down for their opinions. 

    As I mentioned before, I find that promoting tolerance is the most important and plays a huge role in today's society because everyone believes in different things. To build on this more we come across the idea that is the most prominent in today's world, protect dissent. Everyone has the right to criticize the government in simple terms. Nowadays, especially during the Hillary and Trump elections people have become very vocal about their views and what they do and do not believe is right. This resulted in many people criticizing and hating the government. The protect dissant value is all about this. Everyone has a right as citizens to criticize what the government is doing.

   In conclusion, each one of these eight freedoms of expression is important in its own way. Whether it is to enhance their creativity or criticize the government every person has a right to speak and listen to everyone's opinions. This is what the eight freedoms of expression are all about. While these theories revolve mainly around the government and politics these values can be applied to anything. These have taught me to be proud and stand strong with what I believe in whether I am the only one or no, and you should too.

 Blog Post #2: The Supreme Court

    I decided to read the article instead of watching the videos and learned a lot. While I know what the Supreme Court is I did not know what its job entails. The most interesting fact was how it got started. It took some time to get the Supreme Court up and running. From the first meeting being postponed to not hearing any cases in the first term, it was not a quick process. On top of that, I learned about West v. Barnes which is a case that I had never heard of but this article led me to look it up and learn more about how it was the earliest case calling for oral argument. 

   

 I believe that the most important takeaway is how these justices come into power. The article states that the justices are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. I didn't know that it had to go through both to be finalized. In addition, there is a chief justice who acts as a manager by setting agendas and presiding over the Supreme Court. This surprised me because I always thought that each person in the Supreme Court was at the same level. This article changed my view of the Supreme Court because it opened my eyes to what these people actually do and how they earn this job.

Blog Post #1: My Top Five News Sources    

    As a 20-year-old college student, I don't find myself going out of my way to search for news on what is going on in the world. I have never enjoyed reading, watching, or listening to the news unless, it is included in a short clip online. While I am not super proud of this, it is not something I am looking to change any time soon. I enjoy scrolling on TikTok and staying up to date on the drama online, including celebrities and influencers sometimes I will stumble across a video of something more relevant to the world. Due to this, I don't have many serious news outlets that I get stories from. My top five news sources would be TikTok, Google News, TMZ, Media Law Class, and Instagram.

TikTok

    TikTok can be a touchy subject for many people, especially adults. This all stems from the simple fact that they don't trust it. While this can be understandable as it acts the same as Wikipedia, anyone anywhere can post information on any type of story. Whether they inform the audience about the sunken submarine or a famous couple breaking up, you don't know if the information is factual. However, this is what keeps it entertaining. The short clips hold the attention of our generation and give a brief synopsis of to topic on hand which is exactly what we need. Then it leaves it up to the audience if they would like to take a deeper dive into the story. For quick and easily understandable news TikTok is the one-stop shop. 

Google News

    Google News has an organized layout with so much to offer. As you have probably already picked up I love to find news quickly and easily, I lose interest fast. Because of this, Google News is great. When you click the link it simply takes you to a web page filled with headings of stories making it super simple to find something that spikes your interest. However, if that isn't working for you they have tabs along the top to create a specific news interest such includes, sports, health, world, and so on. This site has something to interest everyone!

TMZ

    As I mentioned earlier I thoroughly enjoy staying up to date on pop-culture news and TMZ is one of the main places I get most of my celebrity news.  The headlines are always catching my attention as well as the photos that they use. According to TMZ, their site is "one of the most-cited entertainment news sources, utilized by national network and local newsgathering organizations across the country." Take a look at TMZ for all of your entertainment news needs.

Media Law and Literacy

    While this might sound like a silly addition to my top news list it's true. Professor Smith teaches in a way that interests me about the news. He is so passionate while talking about the news and the world around us that it makes me excited to learn. He has explained topics to me that I never understood before. While not all the news that we discuss is recent, that isn't a problem. Because looking back at older stories can be the building blocks of today's news.

Social Media

    Lastly, Social Media apps such as Instagram and Snapchat are constantly keeping me up to date with news. Snapchat especially works with other news companies like People Magazine and Cosmopolitan to post stories. This is great for people in high school and college because it is a simple way to stay up-to-date without even having to try. While posting photos and texting your friends occasionally you will stumble upon a news story. This keeps the younger generations in the loop of what might be happening around us while not making us go out of our way to find it.