25 Matching Annotations
  1. Last 7 days
    1. How can you participate in cultural exchange without harmful cultural appropriation?

      Honestly, this is hard. While exploring cultures that I'm not familiar with at all, I feel hard to find the boundary of appropriation. To avoid that, I usually ask if I could talk about ... that I think may be insulting to them. I will change my tone into a kinder and moderate one in order to avoid any potential conflicts. When people ask me about my culture, I would love to introduce it to them, and I don't mind them saying something insulting because I would explain those to them. I suppose if people on social media are nicer, and be respectful to every culture, they won't have conflict.

    1. Posting content about others (that they don’t want to go viral) can also be a way of trying to get justice, such as two videos recorded on May 25, 2020, that went viral:

      Viral content could distort the content and create misunderstanding. In Amy's event, it seems like Amy is the victim who feel threatened while a man approaches her, which is a normal reaction when someone is taking video with no sense. However, the social media platform put emphasis on what she said that could create misleading information that Amy is a racist, trying to catch users' eyes. However, I don't think it's easy to get rid of such attribute on social media, because these platforms are designed to catch people's eyes.

    1. Replication (with Inheritance) An organism can make a new copy of itself, which inherits its characteristics Variations / Mutations The characteristics of an organism are sometimes changed, in a way that can be inherited by future copies Natural Selection Some characteristics make it more or less likely for an organism to compete for resources, survive, and make copies of itself

      I'm wondering if other factors could influence evolution too. For instance, I remember I watched a documentary called "The Cove," which was about how Japanese fishers killed dolphins and sold to public. I believe human's interference in nature has been a rising issue now, and I'm wondering how that would influence the natural evolution? Similarly, in technology, if data breaches happened, will that influence the change in social media? I suppose if data breaches happen, that would influence how social media is designed to prevent those breaches, thus, influencing the evolution of technology.

  2. Apr 2024
    1. What responsibilities do you think social media platforms should have in what their recommendation algorithms recommend?

      I think social media platforms should take the responsibility to spread some meaningful contents. I don't think they should put too much on product advertisements. They have the responsibility to raise social awareness on societal issues because they are a good medium that help to spread content.

    1. What experiences do you have of social media sites making particularly bad recommendations for you?

      Instagram usually gives out recommendations on products. When I searched some products online, instagram will immediately recommend me the same products while I look through stories. It makes me feel bad because sometimes I just want to take a quick look on some products, but is not thinking about buying that. Further, it ignited my desire to buy products, which I would realize that it's a waste of money after I spent money on them.

    2. What people near you have been liking, interacting with, or hovering over (they can find your approximate location, like your city, from your internet IP address, and they may know even more precisely)

      I think the recommendation algorithm based on distance is significant. I can tell that the system is examining the distance between me and other users, which makes the content we get similar to each other. I remember I read a book on how this neighborhood recommendation system works, and the advantages and disadvantages brought by that. Personally, I feel bad when me and people around me get the same recommended content because when I share the content to them, they've already seen those recommendations before, making the human interactions boring.

    1. the goal is to make environments and buildings have options so that there is a way for everyone to use it

      I've heard about this in designing multiple times. However, I don't think it is possible to create a platform or environment that have options for everyone. There must be someone that we could not empathize on. In Utilitarian approach, as long as our design maximize its potential of usage in groups of people, it should work.

    1. A disability is an ability that a person doesn’t have, but that their society expects them to have.1 For example: If a building only has staircases to get up to the second floor (it was built assuming everyone could walk up stairs), then someone who cannot get up stairs has a disability in that situation. If a physical picture book was made with the assumption that people would be able to see the pictures, then someone who cannot see has a disability in that situation. If tall grocery store shelves were made with the assumption that people would be able to reach them, then people who are short, or who can’t lift their arms up, or who can’t stand up, all would have a disability in that situation. If an airplane seat was designed with little leg room, assuming people’s legs wouldn’t be too long, then someone who is very tall, or who has difficulty bending their legs would have a disability in that situation.

      I remember in my learning of INFO360, our instructor mentioned the word, "empathy" in designs. One group of people that we should empathize is people with disability. I'm wondering the disability mentioned in this book would also count as a disability in design? Are they similar?

    1. What are your biggest concerns around privacy on social media?

      I'm concerned that one day personal chats will be exposed to the public due to data breach. I wish social media could create a platform where I could freely express my emotions to my friends at any time, and I won't accept anyone else having access to my personal chats. I'm also concerned that the lack of privacy on social media could create cyberbullying.

    1. Sometimes the metadata that comes with content might violate someone’s privacy.

      I remember I've read an article about metadata that talks about the threats of metadata on humans' privacy. The article talked about some extreme situations, such as how companies sell the data they collected to other companies for profits, and how metadata could spread porn photos and videos without permission. I believe if there is a metadata breach, the consequence will be devastating because millions of datapoints of humans are all shown to the public.

    1. How comfortable are you with Google knowing (whether correctly or not) those things about you?

      I don't feel comfortable about personalized advertisements, and I'm usually hesitated to give out all the accurate information about me to google. However, I do think some personal information is needed to keep track of the behavior of users, in case they will do something harmful to the online environment. I think they should get rid of the customized advertisement even though they are monitoring our behaviors.

    1. So, if an advertiser sees their ad is being displayed on an Amazon page for shoes, then the advertiser can start showing shoe ads to that same user when they go to another website.

      This is the situation that I met. I found the recommendation algorithms extremely powerful, making me feel insecure because my data can be viewed by an online website where I use to buy my daily supplies. Personally, I think this data mining process should be illegal because I don't feel comfortable when I know my behaviors could be monitored by businesses. Further, the advertisements recommended usually don't match my taste, and I don't feel much engaged into those advertisements especially when I suspect they are inferred from my online browsing behavior.

    1. What do you think is the best way to deal with trolling?

      I think the only way that could deal with trolling is to give immediate respond to any victim who posted complaints about the troll. It is important for platforms' management teams to recognize the effect of trolling on users, and they should put more focus on filtering contents that have trolling tendency. Further, it is important to educate users how to avoid trolling, and how to identify them.

    1. When the goal is disruption, it might be attempting to derail a conversation (e.g., concern trolling [g4]), or make a space no longer useful for its original purpose (e.g., joke product reviews), or try to get people to take absurd fake stories seriously [g5].

      I think this is a method that businesses use. I remember I saw some posts that provoke readers' anger first, and talk about how their products deal with the situation. For instance, Chegg can post something like: Are you feeling stressful to find out steps of answers? Join Chegg, which could... I think this emotional disruption is trying to make users feel sudden changes in emotion so that they are more likely to remember this advertisement.

    1. How do you think about the authenticity of the Tweets that come from others in Trump’s campaign?

      I doubt the authenticity of the Tweets that come from Trump's campaign. Politicians will express their viewpoints on social media, and they will make the public think that they are thinking for the citizen to gain appreciation. People in Trump's campaign are those who support his idea, meaning that they prone to post speeches that protect Trump. When there is a tendency or intention of speech, the content's authenticity will face skepticism.

    1. Although such communities are often pictured as being prehistoric, primitive, and obsolete, we now know that such societies were and are highly sophisticated, often developing and depending on highly specified legal codes

      I agree with this idea. I've seen some artistic works from prehistoric people in museums, and some of the painting skills are lost nowadays, making them remaining in history forever. Thus, prehistoric society can be highly sophisticated, with well defined laws and social norms. Further, some of the prehistoric histories have demonstrated that they already has the hierachy and the ruling system.

    1. In the 1980s and 1990s, Bulletin board system (BBS) [e6] provided more communal ways of communicating and sharing messages. In these systems, someone would start a “thread” by posting an initial message. Others could reply to the previous set of messages in the thread.

      I've never seen or heard about this system. This is similar to Reddit nowadays. It allows people to communicate with each other, and provides a platform for people to share useful information. Some disadvantages in this system is that the style of this system makes it hard to look through comments, because it looks like original code. Further, I'm wondering how it manages information. Does misinformation exist in this system?

    1. In this period of time, these sources were roughly in agreement and broadcast news out to the country, making a more unified, consistent news environment (though, of course, we can point out how they were biased in ways like being almost exclusively white men)

      I've read a book regarding the bias and conspiracy theories in previous newspapers. It talks about the big 3 TV networks's tendency in political parties. I do think social media could provide us with more information on the same news, but I don't think it will mitigate the bias created in news. Since the information on social media can be more diverse than centralized newspaper, the voices from people will be more diverse. Thus, more bias will exist, and the possibility of misinformation will be higher.

    1. Age Name Address Relationship status etc.

      I think the address is special in this list because the system has to detect whether the address is correct or not in order to make sure the information is accurate. Thus, there should be metadata in the system that stores the address of every place in google map, so that when the user didn't enter the appropriate address, the system will give out notice.

    1. and our metadata might be information about our download process, such as when we collected the tweet information

      In an INFO course I took previously, there was a concept called "stage of status," which is usually hidden from users. I suppose metadata is a similar concept to "stage of status," as it is also used to help facilitate users' use of the function. I think metadata can be very powerful, especially in the number of data it could collect from users, which they could use to analyze user behaviors.

  3. Mar 2024
    1. On the other hand, some bots are made with the intention of harming, countering, or deceiving others. For example, people use bots to spam advertisements at people. You can use bots as a way of buying fake followers [c8], or making fake crowds that appear to support a cause (called Astroturfing [c9]).

      Is it necessary to prevent bot from being created for the intention to harm the social media environment? Or keeping those comments can be helpful sometimes?

    1. Bots, on the other hand, will do actions through social media accounts and can appear to be like any other user. The bot might be the only thing posting to the account, or human users might sometimes use a bot to post for them.

      I don't think bot is only about posting things on social media. I asked ChatGPT whether it considered itself as a bot, and the answer was yes. Bot can also be a chatbot that interact with people to answer questions to them. I suppose Siri, ChatGPT and other AI online chats are all bot.

    1. Ethics is a way of investigating these habits of thought about what is morally right and good, about what we should do, and about how the world should be. Most people have ethical beliefs; for example, many believe that stealing is wrong. When we stop and ponder why stealing is wrong, or what makes it wrong, or when it is wrong, we are doing ethics.

      Though ethics are generally defined in this way, giving a standard for everything to decide whether it's right or wrong, I've seen rebuttals on this idea in other places. There shouldn't be a clear standard on what is right and what is wrong because everything that exists has a reason behind their existence. Deciding whether something is right or wrong is based on the aspect people look from. For instance, stealing from a wealthy people can be right when a person is trying to save their mother by paying their medical service fees. From the perspective of the thief, they have a justifiable reason for stealing, and it can be right because they are doing it for their family. Thus, I could hardly agree with this definition of ethics since the aspect it is looking from is not detailedly explained.

    1. How do you think about the relationship between social media and “real life”?

      I think social media has a close relationship with "real life." Social media is an indispensable part in our life because people rely on it for building connections with with each other. Further, it provides a lot of information that people would want to know to keep up the trend. It is hard to live without social media unless people want to be left behind.

    1. What do you think is the responsibility of tech workers to think through the ethical implications of what they are making?

      I think it is the responsibility of tech workers to think about "empathy" of the tech design. A good design has to be inclusive to minorities in society, making sure that everyone has the ability to access the tech tools. I think heuristic evaluation and cognitive walkthroughs can be some good ways to evaluation whether the tech fulfills the goal of being inclusive because the designers get the chance to understand different users' behaviors and accommodate the tech created to make everyone convenient.