This article by NPR, discusses the lawsuit that two families of parents put up against Amazon after their children had killed themselves due to a purchase made of sodium nitrate off the website. The sodium nitrate that the two children had purchased was deemed to be lethal at just a teaspoon of ingestion. Sodium nitrate is a chemical used to cure meats at micro-doses; hence why the parents of the two children argue that this sort of chemical substance shouldn't be accessible on a site like Amazon. It was later revealed that the same supplier of sodium nitrate that the two teenagers used for suicide, also had 10 other people who bought sodium nitrate from the same seller with the same intention (suicide) within the past two years.

I find this statement to be true across social media sites, especially Twitter and Instagram. Recommendation algorithms can be really good at reinforcing the same idea or form of content, especially if a user interacts with it on a frequent basis. Their feeds end up becoming so personalized that it has to at some point, become opinionated. This matter is okay when it comes to things like animals and cooking videos, but when there's no diversity of posts that contains news or important pieces of content that are meant to inform, a user's ability to learn and make productive conversations when it comes down to discussing important topics, is then hindered. I agree that social media isn't necessarily the best place to follow for news, but it's a start and people can train themselves to be able to know when a piece of information is credible or not. Keeping yourself informed in a world that's already so polarized is vital to be able to not have this translate over to social media (which it already has).

As someone who doesn't have a disability that's visible on the surface, architectural designs are the designs that I notice almost instantly in public places. And by this I mean the addition of ramps, placement of braille on signs, bathroom rails, entry ways (bigger doors, glass windows etc.). These mostly categorize physical disabilities, but as our society has progressed and has started to acknowledge that people have mental disabilities/illnesses, I have noticed that more public spots have accommodated spaces for people to have mental/brain breaks. These are mostly populated in work offices, but outside of the U.S, you can see these spots in very public spaces, like malls and parks. I definitely think that architecture needs to be updated for all categorizations of people with disabilities, but it's nice to know that the disabilities that didn't once get attention, are now being factored into designs.

The company under the name "Liftware", designed two models of spoons to assist individuals who have physical disabilities, like hand tremors or other mobility issues. Both of the spoons have stabilizing labels that are triggered by sensors that are translated through a user's hands. The stabilizing levels either stop the spoon from shaking, or prevent the spoon from moving in level -- keeping itself flat and level. One spoon is specifically designed for hand tremors and the other is designed for individuals who have trouble with arm mobility/range of motion. The product was designed with the intention of helping these people eat more confidently, but also easily.

This article discusses the ways in which an employee can get into trouble for discussing work-related complaints with another employee on a work-affiliated device. Sites such as "Slack" make it easy for the company hosting its employees on the app to be able to access private information, such as direct messages and group chats between employees, when warranted. More so than often, the employees are unaware that their chats are not as private as they think, especially since their employers will purchase a premium subscription to be able to access all sorts of private information, beyond just DMs. The advice the article suggests is to just avoid venting on work-devices and to just use your own personal devices/emails/accounts, as those can't be traced back to you as easily.

I've always wondered which companies partake in this genre of data invasion. It's ironic because they call the direct messaging "private", but it's really not. It makes me question if this sort of invasion of privacy is explicitly listed in the company's user policy guidelines, or if it's something that's sort of unspoken. This ties back into how companies will provide its users with a hefty policy description that a user has to agree to in order to use the app, but more than half the time, the user doesn't even read it and clicks "agree" regardless. It may be so that a lot of what the company classifies as "private" is not actually private and is instead listed in the overwhelmingly long user agreement that absolutely nobody reads as something that the company has a right to access freely. I guess I will never know because I don't read the user agreements.

This Vice article talks about how the cereal company, Kellogg, is searching for new employees to fully replace the union workers who are trying to fight for better pay and working conditions. The current Kellogg employees work anywhere from 12 to 16 hours per day on end with hardly any days off, with the exception of vacation time. In support of the union, many people are creating bots that essentially fill out fake applications to work for Kellogg in the areas where the workers are striking. The intention is to flood the application portal and make it hard for Kellogg to decipher real forms. The fake applications even have falsified resumes as well as addresses and zip codes to make this task even harder.

I feel like this is something I do unconsciously a lot of the times. Correlation doesn't always mean causation, and we need to be aware of this especially on social media where graphs and other tables and such could be misconstrued. I feel like coincidences happen too often to where we will believe anything we see. Just because two things may sound like they can have a harmonious relationship, that isn't always the case and they most likely aren't related at all. This issue lies beneath the surface; it can be prevented by doing your research and making sure sources are credible.

The spaghetti-tree hoax was a broadcast act preformed on April Fool's Day in 1957, portraying a family in Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from a tree. This hoax was aired on the UK's BBC, as many people from the UK were unfamiliar with spaghetti and its origins. Because of their natural curiosity, many of the viewers called BBC the next day to ask for guidance and tips on growing one of their own spaghetti trees. CNN deemed this April Fool's prank as one of the greatest scams that any news corporation could've pulled. This is a form of trolling that I can get behind, as it doesn't cause anyone any harm and really only has the intention to make fun of a situation.

I believe that the best way to deal with trolling is to avoid it as much as possible. Responding to trolls only gives them more leverage to invoke negative feelings and to garner a response. Whether the response in question is hostile or not, it's a reaction and it gives the troll satisfaction. Plus, it's also so mentally draining to put that much energy into responding to essentially a "nobody". I think this situation becomes a little tricky when the troll threatens the victim in some certain degree. This could be done through some form of leaks (addresses, photos). Only then is when I think it's okay to take some form of combative action where applicable.

Some examples of parasocial relationships I see on social media are when celebrities/artists make videos to their fans, addressing anything from the release of content, or to just thank their fanbase for something. The celebrity will often refer to their fans with a certain name (ex: Swifties, Directioners, Little Monsters), which instills a feeling of closeness on the fanbase's part because it feels as though the celebrity is really talking to them. Another example I often see is when fans will learn so much about their favorite celebrity to the point where it feels like they know them personally, and then proceed to act like they do. Sometimes it can even be a little invasive, especially if they act upon what they learn (address leaks, etc).

From this article, I learned that Donald Trump typically wrote the more controversial and angrier-toned tweets on his page, whereas, his staff and campaign managers wrote the more calm and 'educational' tweets. This was determined after looking at what device the tweet was posted from; Trump tweeted from an Android while his staff tweeted from an iPhone. This detection isn't necessarily groundbreaking, as a celebrity's team will often post/monitor the celebrity's page for them. Even though the tweets from the iPhone were generally more 'positive', those sets of tweets were trying to mimic Trump's behavior. It's interesting to think about how his staff would go about that, since Trump has a pattern of being pretty hostile on the internet.

This is something that I think frustrates a lot of people. Especially with online advertisements. The 'x' button will either be so incredibly small that when you click it, you inevitably click on the advertisement, which brings you to another list of ads, or the app store to purchase something. I found that when these advertisements pop up on my computer, they're easier to navigate, but the genre of ads are different and have a greater potential to generate some bug onto my device. I think the concept of friction can be helpful in certain scenarios, such as making sure a user really wants to move through with something before they do it (deleting an email, etc.), but otherwise, it seems like it only gets in the way and makes users' experiences more challenging.

Rage comics have been something that I've been familiar with for awhile, I just didn't know the formal term. I originally interpreted it as a genre of a meme that always expressed anger. However, that's not the case, the meme just uses a disgruntled, large, and comical head that appears to be angry to execute a scenario that is almost always silly, but often relatable. The meme even has a widespread way of computing sentences. For example, instead of saying "the", a rage comic will say "le". The characters "Rageguy" and "Trollface/Coolface" are the rage comic characters I'm most familiar with.

An ordinary woman by the name of Angela Fisher, visited a small African village named Neno, in which she took many photographs of her time there. While on the trip, Angela realized how drab and dull her Facebook page and profile picture was; this realization came to her once she had gotten photographed with the African children of the village. Angela knew right away that she must change her profile picture to a photo of her and the African children -- "I don’t think my profile photo will ever be the same, not after the experience of taking such incredible pictures with my arms around those small African children’s shoulders." While this may seem normal on the surface level, it can be debated based on the subject of whether or not it's okay to post non-consenting minors. Especially ones who she didn't really know. Her attitude towards the whole thing could also be relevant to charity tourism, since she's basing her whole Facebook profile on her trip. To others it can seem like she's doing it to make herself look like a highly charitable person.

Last quarter, I took CSE 121 and we sort of touched on how data is oversimplified. We didn't really get into the ethics of this topic in class, but I could only imagine how programming and code, exclude marginalized groups of people. I find that most of the servers and extensions I use on a daily basis, aren't user-friendly to all. And by this I mean people who are visually impaired and hard of hearing. That just goes to show that most of the companies who go on to hire programmers to make their sites and such, always don't have accommodations and the interest of people different than them in mind.

The company under the brand "SocialWick", allows aspiring content creators and social media users to purchase a large sum of followers at once, along with views and free likes. The company has a long list of guarantees to their promotions, such as fast delivery, "real" followers, and the assurance that their users' accounts will grow exponentially over time with the use of SocialWick. They offer followers, likes, and views across all popular social media platforms, as well as streaming and listening services like Twitch and Spotify. They also claim to be the "#1 Social Media Marketplace since 2017", which makes them evidently more appealing.

People's expectations will vary in different ways between a bot and a human/normal user. I think efficiency and accuracy would be the greatest contenders. Even though bots and the computer programs that run them are very intelligent, humans are smarter and have the capabilities to fix and easily identify errors. Computer programs can do this as well, but at times if there's multiple bugs, it can be unclear where the bug originated, which in turn makes it harder to assess all of the other bugs. However, I do think that bots are more efficient and fast, which is at times prioritized more over accuracy and quality. Humans are able to deliver more authentic results that have character and real opinions to them.

The first thing that came to mind when I heard the phrase "the internet isn't real life", I thought of the prevalent issue that is photoshop and how people and influencers often portray a false persona to their viewers in order to maintain a certain image. This problem has popularized itself heavily with Gen-z, as we tend to use social media the most, and keep seeing this falsified image of who were to supposed to be circulated and repeated all over the media, constantly. We as a society need to realize that what's being shared on social media isn't exactly real or raw and to take everything with a grain of salt.

While I don't necessarily navigate through life on the essence of ethics (at least consciously), I find Taoism to be rather adjacent to how I pursue challenges and difficult scenarios. I find that when I "go with the flow" when presented with tumultuous situations, the outcome is better than what would've happened if I was overly stressed or trying to force something I know wouldn't work. I also find that while yes, I can be a very planned and organized person when I need to be, granted, I typically notice that spontaneity has blessed me more in a way. Sometimes spontaneity will even eliminate room for error for a multitude of reasons; my reason being fate -- everything will fall into place how it's supposed to because of it.