Final Blog Post

  

 This semester we have talked a lot about technology, social media, and our internet footprint. Most recently we watched two videos, one from the 1964 World’s Fair and remix by Moby of “Mad World.” Both videos were about technology and its impact of the world. The first envisioned a futuristic world improved by technology, while the second depicted our current world and highlighted the negative aspects of technology. Both videos, as well as what we have studied over the semester got me thinking about whether technology, especially social media is a good or bad thing, especially in my personal life. 

 

    For example, I thought about what I have posted on social media and who can see it. For me social media is Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. For the most part I try to keep my social media clean because you never know who is going to see it. For example, my sorority reviews the social media of all possible new members to see if their image is something that we would want in our sorority. If a girl is posting pictures of herself breaking the law by participating in drug or underage alcohol use it raises a red flag and there are girls, we rejected just because of an Instagram post or tweet from Twitter. Girls in my sorority have also been fined for things posted on social media and that is one of the many reasons I am so strict about what I post and what I am tagged in. On a national level, some sororities and schools have taken disciplinary measures (and rightfully so) of students who have posted racial slurs or similar things. https://www.lsureveille.com/news/lsu-sorority-has-taken-all-actions-to-remove-member-after-using-racial-slurs-in-viral/article_23888942-a6b9-11ea-a92c-6f51ccaecb4b.html

 

    As much as I try to keep my social media clean, I still have issues sometimes, not with things I post but things I am tagged in. For example, my dad likes to post extremely unflattering pictures of me on Facebook or pictures of us smoking cigars and will tag me in them even though I have asked him not too. While smoking a cigar with my father is legal, it is not something my sorority would approve of, and I could potentially get in trouble for it, and no one likes to see unattractive pictures of themselves on the internet. I currently just un-tag myself from the pictures which means they're still online and people could still find them, but you don't see it right away if you're looking at my page. The issue is; however, they are still out there and if I don’t notice that I’m tagged in something, it might be very visible to someone who was looking at my profile. One of the things I would like to see social media companies do, is restrict the ability of people to tag others in posts unless the person tagged approves it. 

 

    Another thing I worry about with social media is the idea of Geo tagging. On Instagram if I post a picture on my main feed or my story, I can tag the location of where I am down to the point where I could put my own physical address on there. There is also similar feature on Snapchat where you can have your location on, and someone can see where you are based on the last time you opened the app. This seems incredibly dangerous to me because you do not know who can see the location and who might show use this information the wrong way. There have been stories of criminals using these features to stalk people. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-man-used-social-media-to-track-stalk-and-steal-from-women And even thought I try to keep my settings as private as possible; I don’t know if all of my friends do the same. Since so many of the pictures etc. that my friends post, include me and our other friends, if their settings aren’t as private as mine, I am concerned that my location might be more publicly accessible than I think or want. 

 

    

Location sharing isn’t all bad however, sometimes it can be a good thing. For example, a few weekends ago one of my friends Helen went “missing” and she was found using Snapmaps. She had wandered off and her sister was able to track her last location via Snapchat and spread out from there and was eventually able to find her. Another example of the benefits of location sharing happened when I was in high school. I was with friends one night and we were in a car accident. None of us knew exactly where we were but because I had Life360 on my phone, my mom was able to figure out exactly where we were and come help us. This shows location sharing can be a positive thing, I am just not sure if the positives outweigh the risks or how to control it, so only the people you want to see your locations can. 

 

    I do love the way social media can be a way to keep in contact with people even when you are away at school or do you live in different states or countries. I use it to keep connected with my friends from high school and camp. Social media is the main way I stay in touch with my friend Julia in Germany. Because of the time difference, it is really hard to call but with social media we know what is going on in each other’s lives. 

 

    Social media can also have some downfalls. I'm very self-critical about the pictures I post online because I don't want people to judge me based on what I'm wearing or how I look or how I'm posed, and I am not alone in this. Instagram for example has been linked back to depression and suicide rates in teenage girls. https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/facebook-instagram-self-esteem-issues-teen-girls This is because people only post the good things and people feel that they need to look a certain way or act a certain way or feel a certain way to blend in and be normal. There's also studies that show other social media sites like TikTok that can be bad for your mental health and can increase depression. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sen-mike-lee-releases-study-145410571.html This is one of the main negative impacts that I've noticed throughout social media because something I felt myself. As I said, I worry what I post and what I am tagged in and how that portrays me.

 

    Overall, I see the good and the bad with social media. While I can use it to stay in contact with friends it also increases depression. While I can see where my friends are and make sure they're safe people like stalkers can also see where they are and stalk them. I don’t think technology like social media has made the world a perfect place like it was envisioned during the 1964 World’s Fair, but I also don’t think it is a terrible as it is portrayed in “Mad World” video. I think there are good and bad qualities and I think it should be limited but it will not ever go away, nor should it

 

Age of AI

 Watch the video “In the Age of AI” was very eye opening to me. I had not really thought much about AI, although after watching the video I realize that it is part of my everyday life. I use Siri for all sorts of day-to-day tasks, like setting an alarm or to call my parents. Then I realized that AI is probably responsible for the fact I can search for something online and then suddenly that same item or similar ones show up on my Facebook and Instagram feeds. I have even had that opportunity to ride in a self-driving vehicle in my hometown of Columbus, OH. Columbus is actually leading the way in self-driving vehicles. https://smart.columbus.gov/projects/self-driving-shuttles. 

 

I am not really sure that AI is a good idea however. There are still problems with it. For example, Columbus had to stop its bus service after one of the self-driving buses had an accident and it was unclear why it happened. https://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/after-woman-injured-on-driver-less-shuttle-in-linden-feds-shut-down-autonomous-vehicle          

 

The idea of something watching everything I do is also really freaky. In high school I had to do a project on serial killers. What if the AI review of my Google searches of killers led the computer to think that I was somehow dangerous? That could be really bad. I thought the example in the video of using the way people typed or the how charged their battery was as a reason to approve of deny a bank loan was really scary. It reminded me of the claims that Uber looks at your battery life on your phone and surges the pricing if you have limited battery life. While Uber denies doing this, the fact that it is even possible is a problem in my view. https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/verify/verify-does-uber-charge-you-more-if-your-battery-is-low/507-3b1c0166-0d82-4f91-9d96-c4aa01921b12#:~:text=When%20VERIFY%20reached%20out%20to,one%20individual%20rider%20or%20driver.  I think we need a lot more regulation on AI and what and how it can be used.

Propaganda

 Today I was asked what propaganda is and does it exist today. Now when I think of propaganda, I think of my history classes and when my teachers would pull up pictures from World War One of Uncle Sam saying, “We Want You”. In my opinion, that is the most basic type of propaganda and what most people think of.  So, when I was asked to define exactly propaganda is and if it still exists, I decided to do some research. 

 

According to dictionary.com, propaganda is information especially of a biased or misleading nature used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or viewpoint or the deliberately disseminating information that is untrue. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/propaganda

 

What this basically breaks down to is, that propaganda is something given out or produced to try and change your viewpoint. A quick review of social media shows that propaganda is alive and well in today's world. Governments, including the United States use it to promote particular ideas or concepts. This can be a good thing, especially if the government is promoting something like eating healthy or recycling but it can also be misused especially in today’s world with all of the various forms of social media. 

 

Currently the big thing in my generation is the app called TikTok.  TikTok is an app where you can make videos between 15 seconds to three minutes about whatever you want. It is the second most popular app among teenagers, who usually create videos of themselves dancing or singing along to a song. Some of these videos have also been used to spread propaganda though. Some of this might be considered positive, such as Alabama’s TikTok video contest to promote the Covid vaccine https://www.alabamapublichealth.gov/news/2021/07/16.html or the White House’s campaign to raise awareness of the vaccine among young adults. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/01/technology/vaccine-lies-influencer-army.html

 

Lately though users have been using the app to produce propaganda related to Covid and the vaccine that is very different. A Russian marketing firm tried to hire influencers to promote false information about the vaccine, while China has utilized it and other forms of social media to promote the idea that the virus was created in a lab in the United States. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-57928647  Deep in the Data Void: China’s COVID-19 Disinformation Dominates Search Engine Results – Alliance For Securing Democracy (gmfus.org)

 

TikTok is not the only app or social media form that is or has been used to push various forms propaganda. A recent review found that Facebook’s algorithms had resulted in almost half of all Americans seeing content that had been created in Eastern Europe as part of a massive propaganda campaign in the months leading up to the 2020 presidential election.  This sort of disinformation campaign occurring is bad enough but the fact that the algorithms promote it is even worse, especially since the more we see something, the more likely we are to believe it is true. Facebook's algorithms fueled massive foreign propaganda campaigns during the 2020 election – here's how algorithms can manipulate you (theconversation.com)https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/16/1035851/facebook-troll-farms-report-us-2020-election/

 

All of these examples show that propaganda does exist is today’s world and it is just one reason why the people of America need to become more informed about what's going on in the world and not just believe what they are seeing on their screens. We need to actively need to research out multiple different sources and viewpoints prior to making decisions on things like our health, social issues or political candidates. Cornell University has provided some tips on how evaluate what we find online which I think everyone should be using on a regular basis. Infographic: Spot Fake News - Fake News, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Learning to Critically Evaluate Media Sources - LibGuides at Cornell University  After doing this study on propaganda I am extremely concerned about where our country is headed with everything that is being posted on social media unless we start to do our own fact checking. 

Anti War

The United States doesn't show antiwar propaganda in the mainstream media or news for a few reasons. One Of the reasons is because our government controls the news and the media. our government wouldn't want to post information about how America seems antiwar because it would make us seem weak and it would cause other countries to feel like they could take us over an attack us. 

Also, the United States government is pro military and having the media talk about how we are antiwar it's just not a good image for us to uphold. Our government also likes to keep it pro war and pro-military media strong because our country is mostly ran by Republicans and they are extremely pro war and or pro military and pissing them off by having antiwar stuff is just not good for our country and our economy and it will not help keep the peace between everyone in the country. 

 

Someone else's Key post

Someone in my groups gave a presentation on false flags and I found that to be extremely interesting. A false flag is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on another party. The way she explained it was some ships will use a flag of another country to get other ships to come by and then attack them causing a war to start. Another example of this is what pirates did by flying a flag that wasn’t there’s to get other ships to come before raising the correct flag and attacking. This is a practice still used today where countries will attack themselves and appear to be enemies or terrorist to give reason for said countries to invade whoever they want. A false flag can also be done by individuals to create issues between countries. A false flag like this can also be called a set up. Here in America, there are people who see things that have happened and believe that they are false flags. 

People think that false flags are still happening today some people believe that 911 was a false flag and that we flew planes ourselves into the twin towers just to cause a war people also believe that things like the Sandy Hook shooting was a false flag or that it just didn't even happen.  file false flags or something that happened every day all over and whether actually be a false flag or the people just blaming it on a false flag will never know but it is still something that happens, and people need to be aware of. 

 

Blog Post 12

 

  

    In class the key thing that I took away was the video we watched of our military shooting from helicopters and killing eight people. We watched photographers be killed and children be shot and injured. Our government claimed to see these men carrying weapons, but I did not see any. Everyone in the class seemed so upset by it, but if I am being honest, it did not affect me in any way. At this point I feel like I have seen this happen so much that I am just numb to it. And that is a scary way to feel. I know our government will continue to do this no matter how terrible it is. They did not want to release the footage of this shooting till years later and if I remember correctly, it was actually leaked and not officially released. 

   

  
 It is videos like this that make me think our country is going to shit and its going downhill quickly. I do not think there is any way to fix what is happening and I wish there was. We vote in presidents and cabinet members to make changes, but they do not do anything. I hope someday someone can fix us and change the way we run but I do not think it will ever happen. 

The iPhone

  Last week in class everyone gave a presentation on a piece of technology that changed the world. While everyone spoke on something different, they all a had key similarity each presentation was something that impacted us today. I for example talked about the creation of Netflix and how it changed the game when it came to people watching movies. 

While everyone gave presentations on different topics the one that stood out to me the most was the presentation on the creation and history of the iPhone.  The student whose name I sadly do not remember talked about the creators and how they came up with the idea. He also talked deeply about the timeline of each different phone and the similarities and differences of each up grade. He seemed so passionate about different parts of his presentation that it kept me interested the whole time. His biggest take away in my opinion was how upset he was about the headphone jack being removed about four phones ago. 

His presentation caused me to want to look into the iPhone more and learn about everything my phone can do besides text and call. After doing my own research I found that Apple has just come out with the newest iPhone called the iPhone 13 and it has two different types of the iPhone 13 Pro and the iPhone 13. While similar to other phones out there the iPhone 13 has more features including a longer battery life with up to two and half extra hours and an even better camera. I can’t wait to check it out and see everything I can do with it. 

https://www.apple.com/iphone-13/