Is Your Privacy Really That Private?

In a word, no. Our privacy today is not private. Pretty much anyone can access any information from anybody from anywhere if they have the right tools. This is the last blog post for my Media Law and Literacy class, and one of our primary focuses in the class, among other things, has been privacy and what that means in today's society. Fifty years ago, there was no Internet so everyone's information was private, which according to the Oxford dictionary, means "the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people." In other words, there was not much people could do to access someone else's personal information without their consent. Today, however, that is a much different story. In several different TEDTalks I watched and listened to, the main theme was that information today is not private, mainly due to the development of different kinds of technology. In one Talk, the speaker talked about how the license plate readers work. They take pictures of peoples license plates and convert them into text a computer can read, and it logs this information to track where everybody goes and who they are with. These cameras are noticeable at intersections to record who runs red lights, but the cameras can also be attached to the sides of police cars, which is something I did not know about. These cameras take pictures of virtually everyone's license plates to be logged in a computer. This can easily be accessed by the police station, but also the government. 

There was another TEDTalk where the speaker talked about a child's toy, a doll named Cayla. This doll can be connected to an app to interact with children as is advertised, but in the terms and conditions, it says the doll can listen to and send recordings of conversation that happens in the comfort of people's own homes. If that doesn't creep you out, I don't know what will. To know that someone can always be listening to you in your own home is a scary thought. 

I think privacy today is a serious issue. With all that's going on in the world politically, I think we need privacy now more than ever. There was another TEDTalk where the speaker spoke of a new Internet, and what he said resonated with me. He said "we need to build a new Internet where privacy is no longer just an option, but also the default." I don't know that we necessarily need to build a new Internet, but with how easy it is to access someone's information just by scanning a picture of their face, we do need more privacy in our lives. 

Citizen Journalism

This week in class, we presented our EOTO projects, which as stated in the previous blog, stands for Each One Teach One, where each student selects a topic to present and "teach" to the rest of the class. For this blog post, we are supposed to pick someone else's topic and write a post about it, and I chose to write about citizen journalism. According to the Oxford dictionary, citizen journalism, also called participatory journalism, guerrilla journalism, or street journalism, is "the collection, dissemination, and analysis of news and information by the general public, especially by means of the Internet." I interpret this as being similar to the role of the press in that they are considered the "watchdog" for the government, acting as a part of the checks and balances system. It can also be, I think, the best kind of journalism, because it is essentially citizens telling other citizens what is happening, instead of citizens being told by the government or by large news companies that could be biased to one side or the other of an issue.

As there is with almost everything, there are advantages and disadvantages of citizen journalism. I found an article detailing some advantages and disadvantages, but I will summarize what the article talks about. One advantage is that it addresses the gaps in mainstream media. It enables people who don't have professional training to use modern technology, such as social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, to "fact-check, augment or create media." This means that anyone who has access to these tools can start a blog and report events on their own. Another advantage is that it empowers local communities. It enables people who were previously excluded from certain types of media to play an active role in creating it. It is said to help improve local economies, as well as allowing people to actively tell their story that might have been otherwise understated by mainstream media. There is a TEDTalk linked in the article, and it helps to explain the advantages of citizen journalism. But, as it usually the case with everything, there are some disadvantages as well.

One of the main disadvantages is that it poses difficulties to the audience about what to believe. Unlike traditional journalism, where it is safe to assume for the most part that the information given is factual, it is difficult for people to decide what is true or not when it comes to citizen journalism. It is human nature to edit information to best suit our own likeness, so this can make unofficial journalism unreliable. Another disadvantage of citizen journalism is that it typically has a smaller audience than mainstream journalism. If somebody has a Twitter page dedicated to citizen journalism, the only people who would be expected to see it would be their friends and people who know about it. The same goes with blogs; if someone has a blog, they would reach a good amount of people, but not nearly as much people that would be reached by a mainstream journalism broadcast. There was another TEDTalk linked in the article, and it helps to further explain the drawbacks of citizen journalism.

Overall, I think citizen journalism is an important part of the media and information cycle. I think it has overall good intentions, but does not have the same widespread effect that mainstream journalism has.

Disinformation vs. Misonformation

Disinformation is false information created with the intent of harming a specific person or organization. Misinformation is false information, but it is not created with the specific intent to harm. In simpler terms, it is the concept of a deliberate lie versus an honest mistake. This week in class, we did another EOTO, Each One Teach One, where each student picks a topic to teach the rest of the class about, and my topic, if you hadn't guessed already, was disinformation. In doing research, I found that the word "disinformation" wasn't in the English language until the Cold War. It comes from the Russian word "dezinformatsiya" and comes from the name of a KGB black propaganda department. This department was responsible for Operation INFEKTION, a Soviet disinformation campaign which stated that the United States invented the AIDS disease. This was done to harm public opinion of the United States, therefore boosting public opinion of the Soviet Union.


This can and has affected society as a whole in, I think, a negative but nonetheless powerful way. In keeping with the example of Operation INFEKTION, this campaign was launched during the middle of the Cold War, and in times of war, I think people will believe what their government tells them because they, especially in the Soviet Union, have no real way of finding out what is really happening unless they are actively participating in the war. It is also a time when fear is high among lots of people, and they will cling to what little information is fed to them. In this way, disinformation is a very powerful tool that can be used not just in times of war, but also times of peace. However negative and morally wrong it may be, governments have still used it to try and influence public opinion one way or another. Either way, I enjoyed learning about it and doing research about it. I was able to learn new things about the Cold War, which is one of my favorite time periods to learn about. I love learning about history, especially World War II and Cold War history. I have always thought it's fascinating, so I enjoyed learning about this.

My Own Online Presence

I have a very minimal footprint online. I googled myself to see if either my Twitter or Instagram profiles came up in the results, and after several minutes of combing through the many, many pages of search results, I was unable to fine my profiles. I assume this is because I have them set to private mode, so none of my information is publicly available. It also means that I have to approve someone to follow me; I don't let any random Billy Bob follow me. In addition to this, I don't have a personal website, so that's even less of an online footprint that I have. When I searched for just my name, the first result was a musician who shares my name, whom I will admit I have never heard of or have ever heard his music. You can read more about him on his website.

As I mentioned earlier, I only have accounts on Twitter and Instagram, and they are both private. Both are also linked in the "About Me" section on my homepage. I don't really post that often on Twitter, if ever. I mainly use it to keep myself updated with news about things I am interested in, such as Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, and other things. I also like to scroll through my feed and find funny posts people have tweeted, and it's a nice way for me to wind down at the end of the day. I post regularly on Instagram, with one to two posts a month. I mainly post pictures of what I'm doing with friends and family. For example, my most recent post is of my family and I together for Thanksgiving, and the post before that was of when I went to visit my friend in Chicago over fall break. As with Twitter, I use Instagram to keep myself updated on the things I'm interested in.

If someone who had never seen my social media before stumbled upon my accounts, they would be able to see that I am a big movie fan. I am deeply invested into the Marvel movies, as well as Disney and Star Wars. I am always checking to see what new developments are taking place with them. They would also be able to tell that I love spending time with my family friends. Most of my posts on Instagram are of my family and friends, but there are also a couple pictures of sunsets I've taken and other things like that. I really enjoy using the social media outlets I have, in part because they also give me a way to easily share things with my friends.

Diffusion of Innovations and Instagram's Popularity

The Diffusion of Innovations theory tries to explain how, why, and at what rate new innovations are spread. The theory was published by Everett Rogers, a professor of communication studies. He argues that diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated over time among the members of a social system. Rogers also points out in his book that members of the "early adopters" and "early majority" category tend to be younger, better educated, more affluent, better connected, more extroverted, and are willing to take more risks. As is shown in this diagram, a population is divided into different groups of people who adopt the innovation over time, represented with the blue bell-curve. The yellow S-curve represents how much of the market is saturated with the innovation, in other words, how many people adopt the innovation over time. If you want to learn further about the theory, I suggest you check out the website linked here.

Instagram was launched on October 6, 2010, and is the third most popular social media platform, following Facebook and YouTube, with around one billion monthly users. In its first eighteen months, April 2012, it only had 50 million users, so in accordance with the theory, it started out slow. It then started to pick up speed as more and more people were downloading it and using it. This diagram matches with the first half of the diffusion S-curve, and I imagine the amount of users will start to level off.
According to several studies about why Instagram is so popular, most have said the same thing, and it makes sense. As humans, we prefer to interpret visual images rather than written text. Instagram was the first social media platform that allowed people to share only images, and it took off from there. Visual images is not only what makes Instagram so popular - it is also the reason why visual marketing has been booming recently as well. I personally love using Instagram and seeing the pictures all my friends post. I agree that it does cause lots and lots of mental health issues for a lot of people, but I enjoy using the platform.

The Eight Values of Free Expression

As we discussed in class, there are eight values of free expression. Free expression is defined as "the right to express one's ideas and opinions freely through speech, writing, and other forms of communication but without deliberately causing harm to others' character and/or reputation by false or misleading statements." This is guaranteed to all American citizens in the first amendment through freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition. The eight values are (1) Marketplace of Ideas, (2) Participation in Self-Government, (3) Stable Change, (4) Individual Self-Fulfillment, (5) Check on Governmental Power, (6) Promote Tolerance, (7) Promote Innovation, and (8) Protect Dissent. Out of these eight values, there are two in particular that stand out to me: (2) Participation in Self-Government and (5) Check on Governmental Power.

Participation in Self-Government says that citizens will not make wise and informed choices in elections if candidates and supporters of certain policies are restricted in their ability to communicate their positions on certain issues. Citizens need to be informed on which candidates support the same issues they do and which ones don't so they can elect the person they think would best represent them in office. This is obviously big for the presidential elections, but it is important for every single election, whether it's for a local mayor or for a congressman. The next one I think is important is Check on Governmental Power. This is also known as the "Watchdog Role." This essentially says that the people, as well as the press, are a part of the checks and balances system that prevents the government from overstepping its boundaries. I read an article from Harvard Politics that gave a quote from Thomas Jefferson on the role of the press: "'Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter,' Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter in 1787." The press is able to (or supposed to) keep the public informed as to what is going on inside the government to help citizens make the best possible choice at the ballot box. These two values go hand-in-hand in this way as they relate to citizens making informed choices about who they vote for. I think they are both very important and necessary to keep the country running smoothly.

High Point Mump-iversity

Mumps. High Point University has the mumps. So does Elon with six confirmed cases, but I don't go there, so it's not as relevant to me. As per the last official email from Campus Concierge, there were eleven confirmed cases on campus. As is to be expected with any campus-wide event like this, there will always be talk and rumors about what is happening. I heard a rumor saying that there were forty-two (42) students in quarantine, but again, this is just a rumor. The quarantine is set up for people who show symptoms, but haven't officially been diagnosed with mumps yet. There was even a girl in one of my classes who had it.Other rumors include that students might be evacuated from campus, a rumor that we might not be allowed to leave campus, and another rumor that HPU might extend fall break to allow for the campus to be sanitized.

HPU is also providing booster shots on campus this week, and I am sure most everybody will be getting one. I will, despite my hatred for needles. In addition to these booster shots, High Point University has also sent out precautions to take to reduce the chance that students will contract it. "It is important to remember that mumps is a virus, transmitted very similarly to the flu or other diseases spread by droplets in the air. The recommendations for reducing the spread of mumps are similar to the steps we take to avoid the flu." You can help prevent the virus from spreading by:

• Covering your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze and putting your used tissue in the trash can. If you don't have a tissue, cough or sneeze into your upper sleeve or elbow, not your hands
• Washing your hands often with soap and water
• Avoiding sharing objects that might have saliva on them, like water bottles or cups. Do not share drinks, cigarettes or other nicotine devices
• Disinfecting frequently touched surfaces, such as doorknobs, tables and counters

I know everybody on campus is worried about it, even though they may not show it. Everyone is aware what is going on, and I hope everyone takes the necessary steps to prevent it from spreading further. I myself am not that worried about getting it, but I know there is always a possibility.

History and Impact of the Typewriter

For the past two weeks in class, we had to split up into groups. We each were assigned a different technology that shaped communication since the beginning of mankind. My group consisted of the typewriter (which I will discuss), Instagram, CD's, Drones, and the Personal Computer.

Since the 14th century, scholars have unsuccessfully attempted to create what they called a "writing machine." This machine allowed for the user to press a button and have a letter inked on paper, rather that writing everything out by hand. The first successful attempt at this was in 1873, when Remington & Sons Co. developed the first commercially available typewriter in history. It got its name from the movable-type printing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 1440's. (A "type" was what Gutenberg called each letter in his printing press.) Throughout the rest of the 1800's and into the 1900's, many different improvements were made to it, such as the addition of the "shift" key which literally shifted the keyboard over to access the uppercase letters. The standard layout of the keys was the QWERTY layout we know today, but the layout could vary depending on what country you are in. Typewriters allowed many women to join the workforce in World War I and World War II, and typewriters were standard in many offices until around the 1970's and 1980's. In the 1970's, a company called Diablo Systems created the first ever electric typewriter, and this would eventually give rise to the electric keyboard as we know them with computers today.

I personally found it very interesting to research the typewriter. I knew it was invented after the American Civil War, but I also learned several things I didn't know about it. For example, I learned that the concept was born and people had been trying to invent it since the 14th century. I am kind of surprised that this wasn't invented sooner after the invention of the printing press in the 1440's. Especially since the printing press was invented during the Renaissance, it makes sense that the typewriter would be the natural progression from that.

Click this link for a timeline of the typewriter's history.

The Mad World

For this week' blog, I wanted to write about a video I watched. The video is an animation in black and white of a little boy walking through a crowd. He notices that everyone around him is looking down at their phones, and don't even know that he's there sometimes. He keeps trying to get their attention, but everyone else is so preoccupied with their phones that they are unable to see him. The only time people do notice him, however, is when he accidentally interrupts what they are doing on their phones and they become angry at him. This causes him to become very sad and to sit on the sidewalk and not even attempt to get anyone's attention because they will either ignore him or become angry with him.

The video shows how everyone today is extremely hyper-connected and obsessed with their phones. We as a society have become so addicted to our phones and being connected to the world that we have lost our ability to connect with others. We spend so much time on Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat and Facebook that we have almost forgotten what is means to have a real, genuine relationship with someone else. I think this video is very representative of our society today and how we worship technology and being connected and the temporary validation we get from a certain number of likes and comments. There is another part in the video where it depicts everyone watching a video of a girl happily dancing, but everyone makes fun of her. This leads her to be ashamed of herself and eventually leads her to commit suicide. And this does happen today. People do become depressed or commit suicide because of mean things people day or do online.

The video ends with a massive crowd of people looking down at their phones, unaware of the cliff they are about to walk over. It is only once they reach the cliff that they realize what has happened, but by that point it is too late. Being connected isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can become very detrimental to society once it gets in the way of face-to-face connection with people.

The American Conservative and Anti-War

For this week's post, I explored two websites - Antiwar.com and The American Conservative. Both websites are news sites, and both largely portray a conservative point of view of America and what should be done about the issues that face this country. AntiWar is a website whose slogan is "Your best source for antiwar news, viewpoints, and activities." The website focuses on world news as a whole, not just what happens in America. It does have news articles that have United States news, but they are very heavily focused on global news. You can even search for news by country on the site. The American Conservative, however, only deals with United States news, if you couldn't tell by the name of the website.

I did find it rather difficult and confusing to navigate the Antiwar website, as all the links to articles were the entire headline, and there would be multiple headlines smushed into each other. This makes the homepage look like one giant block of text with a few images interspersed here and there. The American Conservative, however, was very easy to navigate. Everything was nicely organized and each news article had a picture with it and was in its own little box. They advertise themselves much more elaborately and give a better statement about themselves than AntiWar does. "The American Conservative exists to promote a “Main Street” conservatism that opposes unchecked power in government and business; promotes the flourishing of families and communities through vibrant markets and free people; and embraces realism and restraint in foreign affairs based on America’s vital national interests."

If I were to pick one of these sites to get my news from, I would pick The American Conservative because they present their information in a more professional manner that it seems AntiWar does. AntiWar also sounds like more of an extremist group than The American Conservative does.

Fakebook: How a Loophole Allows for Fake News

I recently read an article about a loophole that allows Facebook users to get around their updated policies and post untrue things. Since 2016, Facebook has been part of the fight against fake news and the spread of misinformation. In order to combat these things, they have recently updated their policies and disabled a feature that allows people to do this. This was possible the "link preview" feature, which allows users to post a preview of a link or news article on their feed. The preview includes an image, sample text, and headline of the article, and all of these elements are taken from the website to be formatted on Facebook. This feature allowed people to edit the headline of the article to make it say whatever they want. As I said before, this feature was disabled in June of 2017, and Facebook no longer allowed it's users to edit anything about the link preview.

However, someone has discovered recently that this feature is still available. An anonymous source notified Mashable of this glitch, stating "If I am posting something from Mashable from a Facebook Page about how important vaccines are, I could now change the headline to say 'New Report Finds Vaccines Are Bogus.'" A few days later, this person messaged Facebook directly notifying them that the glitch had resurfaced. Facebook responded saying "We received your report and appreciate your patience as we work to fix technical problems on Facebook," the company said. “Though we can’t update everyone who submits a report, we’re using your feedback to improve the Facebook experience for everyone.”


This seems like a pretty standard Facebook response.

Also recently, Facebook has had issues with their Groups feature, which allows people to communicate with each other privately, Some groups have been created for the use of propaganda, conspiracy theorists, or for things that violate Facebook's terms of service. They issued a statement saying that their policies still apply, and are enforceable, to Facebook Groups.

It seems to me like Facebook has a lot of work to do in regards to the spread of misinformation.

The U.S. Supreme Court: A Very Brief History

The United States Supreme Court has been around since the beginning of our country. It was established on March 4, 1789 in accordance with Article III of the United States Constitution. It established that the Court would have judicial power over all cases that come to it, but that's about it. It doesn't say how many people are to be on this court or the process by which they would receive a case. It just simply states that the Supreme Court would exist and have judicial power over cases. So at this time period in the country, they had just declared their independence from Great Britain and fought and defeated them in a war over it. Later, in 1803, the court case of Marbury v. Madison set the precedent of "judicial review." A precedent is a case decision that can be looked back upon to help decide more recent cases. Judicial review means that the Supreme Court has the power to "review all actions by all departments of government and deem them constitutional or not." This basically means that the Court has the power to decide whether or not the rest of the federal government is complying with the Constitution. This is part of the checks and balances system in place to make sure that no one branch of government is more powerful than the other two.

I did find the video very interesting. I liked getting to hear the justices opinions on what the day-to-day life of a Supreme Court justice is like and how the Court has evolved over time. They mentioned that they all shake hands with all the other justices before they sit down to discuss a case, because if you make that physical connection before you argue, you are less likely to "hold a grudge," as one justice put it, with someone else who disagrees with you. I also found it humorous to hear that there are three kinds of arguments in the Court: the one you prepare to make, the one you actually make, and the one you with you would have made. They used a lot of terms in the video I am not familiar with, so it was kind of challenging for me to understand what they were talking about, but I found the whole thing to be very interesting and to see how the Court has grown and evolved over time.

And if anyone wants the links to the videos, here they are: Part 1 and Part 2.

A Defense for College Athlete's Free Speech

I recently read an article about an incident of First Amendment rights, specifically those of freedom of speech, being violated. This particular article was published in January of 2018, so this happened not that long ago, and told of a university violating the First Amendment rights of one of its student athletes.

The student's name is Donald De La Haye, and he was a football player for the University of Central Florida (UCF). He received an athletic scholarship, which he said is the only thing that allowed him to attend the university. Donald, like most teens and young adults these days, is an avid user of social media. He had a rather large following on Instagram and YouTube, with over ten thousand YouTube subscribers. He posts his own content regularly about his life and what it's like being a college student. These videos are monetized, meaning that YouTube essentially pays Donald for uploading his original content. UCF, however, doesn't like that he gets paid for uploading videos to YouTube.

According to the University of Central Florida, this violates NCAA by-law 12.4.4, which is part of a larger by-law which "limit[s] student expression, including when a student receives compensation in connection with the use of a student’s name, image, appearance, or physical attributes." The university then kicked Donald off the football team and rescinded his athletic scholarship.

The First Amendment states that all citizens have freedom of speech, and this right to freely express oneself should not be limited because that person decided to attend a university that adheres to the NCAA by-laws. I do believe there is something to be said about following rules, but when the rules begin to limit a person's freedom of speech, I believe that particular rule should be rethought. Being represented by the Goldwater Institute, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and Roetzel & Andress, LPA, Donald has asked the University of Central Florida to undo its unlawful decision by restoring his scholarship. The court case is De La Haye v. Hitt.