How have your views on automation and programming changed (or been reinforced)?
I never really noticed how all the bots I usually saw on social media are programed by people. I never really thought the impact of bots and using ethical approach to look at these problem. The coding practice we did for this class is how people make bots. I now understand how bots are created, and how different the creation of purpose of bots can be judge by standing in a ethical view point.
As a social media user, we hope you are informed about things like: how social media works, how they influence your emotions and mental state, how your data gets used or abused, strategies in how people use social media, and how harassment and spam bots operate.
I think this course has definitely helped me understand the side of social media that I didn't pay attention to more. This course also taught me that actions have consequences, and there are different ethic framework that we can use to approach to actions. Its been a great quarter.
Now, since many people do speak other languages, you can often find comments, variable names, and even sometimes coding libraries which use non-English languages, but the core coding terms (e.g., for, if, etc.), are still almost always in English.
I am now taking a CS class so I understand. All the coding language we are learning right now is in english. I think the reason why almost no one is using other language to code is because even if you are a foreigner, when you first learn coding there aren't even an option you can choose. So even if there are other languages coding program that exist, it is still really unlikely for people to learn it again.
Surveillance capitalism began when internet companies started tracking user behavior data to make their sites more personally tailored to users. These companies realized that this data was something that they could profit from, so they began to collect more data than strictly necessary (“behavioral surplus”) and see what more they could predict about users. Companies could then sell this data about users directly, or (more commonly), they could keep their data hidden, but use it to sell targeted advertisements. So, for example, Meta might let an advertiser say they want an ad to only go to people likely to be pregnant. Or they might let advertizes make ads go only to “Jew Haters” (which is ethically very bad, and something Meta allowed).
This is something that I noticed myself, but it is pretty scary for me. It is like whenever I am deciding to buy something, the ad will automatically pops up the thing that I wanted. And example was like when I start working out and thinking I should get more supplements. The ads about protein and other work out supplement all of a sudden appear on the page.
What do you consider to be the most important factors in making an instance of public shaming bad?
I think shaming itself is bad in anyway. Shaming in my opinion could never be justified and good. Making fun of others could be entertaining for everyone else but the actual person. It may leave scars or harm one's mental health in many ways.
The consequences for being “canceled” can range from simply the experience of being criticized, to loss of job or criminal charges.
I think we all live in a world that everyone has the freedom of speech to say and do anything. I think the one example that I can recall is Andrew Tate getting cancelled. Although he has a lot of fans following his thought, his social media page still got taken down by the official which make the "cancel" official.
A target is identified as breaking the norm of a community (often not their own community, so this is a case of context collapse). This provides a justification for people to harass the target.
This is something very important in my opinion. I think even the textbook said something breaking the norm could make the harassment "justified", the act of cyberbullying could be detrimental to one's mental health. I think in any circumstances, harassment to people are never justified.
Bullying: like sending mean messages through DMs
This is something that is noticeably the toxic and violent side of social media. Violent language is a big existing problem on social media which people are being cyberbullies through the comment section. This is while social media is something parents want prevent there children in using.
Cultivated: Intentionally created misinformation that is planted in a community. It is then spread by real users not aware they are part of a disinformation campaign.
I think this is a pretty common thing that you can see on social media. This is also one of the reason why people said using social media could be bad. There are tons of unfiltered information that is online, so sometime it can de hard to determine what is real and what is fake online.
Wikipedia: Is an online encyclopedia whose content is crowdsourced. Anyone can contribute, just go to an unlocked Wikipedia page and press the edit button. Institutions don’t get special permissions (e.g., it was a scandal when US congressional staff edited Wikipedia pages), and the expectation that editors do not have outside institutional support is intended to encourage more people to contribute.
I notice that Wikipedia is one of the most well known crowdsourcing example. People can all contribute by editing in wikipedia. This makes wikipedia really different from every other encyclopedia. It may have false information, but it is also the place with the combination of all information from different sources.
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is crowdsourced by volunteer editors. You can go right now and change a Wikipedia page’s content if you want (as long as the page isn’t locked)! You can edit anonymously, or you can create an account. The Wikipedia community gives some editors administrator access, so they can perform more moderation tasks like blocking users or locking pages. Editors and administrators are generally not, paid, though they can be paid by other groups if they disclose and fill out forms
I think Wikipedia was a really good idea at first. Giving anyone on the internet to have a chance to change to content and do research together to compose a big page with tons of information. However, the problem that this leads ti us how false information can be existing on the page since everyone was able to edit.
Sometimes individuals are given very little control over content moderation or defense from the platform, and then the only advice that is useful is: “don’t read the comments.” But some have argued that this shifts responsibility onto the individual users getting negative comments, when the responsibility should be on the people in charge of creating the platform.
One thing that I am connecting to is my writing assignment of this class. The topic I am writhing on is social media censorship. This can link all the way to how censorship should work and should it be present in the social media platform?
One form of digital self-harm is self-bullying, where people set up fake alternate accounts which they then use to post bullying messages at themselves.
Never hard of this. Probably one of the weirdest things I have ever heard. Why would anyone make a burner account just to make bad comments to their own post and contents. WEIRD.
While taking a break from parts or all of social media can be good for someone’s mental health (e.g., doomscrolling is making them feel more anxious, or they are currently getting harassed online), viewing internet-based social media as inherently toxic and trying to return to an idyllic time from before the Internet is not a realistic or honest view of the matter.
I have noticed that social media indeed have some of the down side physiologically. The content on it and the nature of comment section could be really toxic and cause anxiety. I think this also applies to social media chatting.
before the printing press, when someone wanted a book, they had to find someone who had a copy and have a scribe make a copy. So books that were popular spread through people having scribes copy each other’s books. And with all this copying, there might be different versions of the book spreading around, because of scribal copying errors, added notes, or even the original author making an updated copy. So we can look at the evolution of these books: which got copied, and how they changed over time.
This is something that I learned in my history class. Before the printing press was invented, knowledge and believes are not shared, the society improve at a slow rate. This shows how the technology that help spread thought and message like printing press during the renaissance and social media nowadays can really change the world fast.
A meme is a piece of culture that might reproduce in an evolutionary fashion, like a hummable tune that someone hears and starts humming to themselves, perhaps changing it, and then others overhearing next. In this view, any piece of human culture can be considered a meme that is spreading (or failing to spread) according to evolutionary forces. So we can use an evolutionary perspective to consider the spread of:
Personally, my favorite meme is the Josh Hutcherson whistle meme. That was one of the best meme last year. I burst out laughing every single time I saw it. Meme is really interesting.
Recommendations can go poorly when they do something like recommend an ex or an abuser because they share many connections with you.
I think this is something that I always worried about. The recommendation system really helps when you find someone that you are interested in or want to connect with. But just by thinking my profile might be recommended to some random strangers who might stalk me is a creepy thing to think of.
Now, how these algorithms precisely work is hard to know, because social media sites keep these algorithms secret, probably for multiple reasons: They don’t want another social media site copying their hard work in coming up with an algorithm They don’t want users to see the algorithm and then be able to complain about specific details They don’t want malicious users to see the algorithm and figure out how to best make their content go viral
I think although the company keeps the algorithms a secret, it is still really noticeable for people and the content creator. I saw countless videos about how the algorithms work and how content creator was complaining about. My friends also complains to me sometime about why the algorithm recommend him boring video, was he because he looking at some of them.
Assistive technologies give tools to disabled people to help them become more “normal.” So the disabled person becomes able to move through a world that was not designed for them. But there is still an expectation that disabled people must become more “normal,” and often these assistive technologies are very expensive.
I noticed that there are many accessibility tools that are built in phones. These application and function are added to help people with disability. For example, there are the voice over for blind people.
Assistive technologies give tools to disabled people to help them become more “normal.” So the disabled person becomes able to move through a world that was not designed for them.
This is something I noticed as I grew up. Technologies have been rapidly improving, making many people's life easier. One example is the color blind glasses which I saw videos about it. The glasses were designed to let color blind people finally see colors.
Hacking attempts can be made on individuals, whether because the individual is the goal target, or because the individual works at a company which is the target. Hackers can target individuals with attacks like:
Hacking was something that has happened to me multiple times before. I have been alerted multiple times about someone attempting to login to my account in some random country. It is pretty scary.
In some cases we might want a social media company to be able to see our “private” messages, such as if someone was sending us death threats. We might want to report that user to the social media company for a ban, or to law enforcement (though many people have found law enforcement to be not helpful), and we want to open access to those “private” messages to prove that they were sent.
Yes. I think this can be a really debatable issue, whether or not the companies should be able to get informations such as messages. Many people would use data of private messages as an evidence in the court. This is really common. However, it could also be really scary that all my messages can be seen by some random stranger.
One of the main goals of social media sites is to increase the time users are spending on their social media sites. The more time users spend, the more money the site can get from ads, and also the more power and influence those social media sites have over those users. So social media sites use the data they collect to try and figure out what keeps people using their site, and what can they do to convince those users they need to open it again later.
Before, I only know how youtube make money from ads. It is about the time the viewer watch the ads. And the content creator would be credited with the amount of people that watched the video and the ads before the video. Now I understand how platforms like instagram make money. They have ads in between posts which will be viewed by their user.
Online advertisers can see what pages their ads are being requested on, and track users across those sites. 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 something that I noticed and can relate to it a lot. Whenever I searched up something to buy, the internet would record what I have searched. When I was checking out protein, my ads later on in any social media platform will all be protein shake all of a sudden.
RIP trolling is where trolls find a memorial page and then all work together to mock the dead person and the people mourning them. Here’s one example from 2013: A Facebook memorial page dedicated to Matthew Kocher, who drowned July 27 in Lake Michigan, had attracted a group of Internet vandals who mocked the Tinley Park couple’s only child, posting photos of people drowning with taunting comments superimposed over the images.
This is something that I can relate to. This also happened recently and went trending in my country. I celebrity that was long passed away was mocked to be came back to life. It was all over social media. Someone even posted photoshop picture of him winning the presidential election that was going on in Taiwan just a few days ago.
Trolls often find the posts amusing, whether due to the disruption or emotional reaction. If the motivation is amusement at causing others’ pain, that is called doing it for the lulz.
In my opinion, I think people do trolling for fun most of the time. I have also leave troll comments or posts before on social media, and I do it only for fun too. I think this is a big part of social media's nature nowadays.
Separately, in 2018 during the MeToo movement, one of @Sciencing_Bi’s friends, Dr. BethAnn McLaughlin (a white woman), co-founded the MeTooSTEM non-profit organization, to gather stories of sexual harassment in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). Kyle also followed her on Twitter until word later spread of Dr. McLaughlin’s toxic leadership and bullying in the MeTooSTEM organization (Kyle may have unfollowed @Sciencing_Bi at the same time for defending Dr. McLaughlin, but doesn’t remember clearly).
The development in technology have a huge impact in spreading movements like this. This happened recently in Taiwan. It is also the MeToo movement which multiple celebrities were accused of harassing. It lasted a while and the movement encourage many people to expose the things that celebrities have secretly done.
live within and around land-based nations and their various borders and laws. To ensure the survival of their ethnicity, cultures, and languages, they depend on being able to trust each other. The nations whose land we are living and studying on here also knew the importance of being able to know who can be trusted.
The one thing I notice here is that the gypsies are similar to the Aztec Virtue Ethics. They also live in a society that work in groups and rely on each other. This is the connection I made when I first read this.
Around the same time, phone texting capabilities (SMS) started becoming popular as another way to send messages to your friends, family and acquaintances.
This section of the textbook alone tell us how fast does technology improved. From having the wed 1.0 as the only social media platform. Also, people can only chat though email before. All of a sudden, there are so many social media platform in nowadays. It become so easy to share information and text with your friend.
Books and news write-ups had to be copied by hand, so that only the most desired books went “viral” and spread
I remember learning this in the European history class. The first ever make printing press make publish of books with thoughts available to the general public, which started the Renaissance. This is when personal though of government or any thing could be easily spread. This shows how the availability of spreading message could change the world.
Images are created by defining a grid of dots, called pixels. Each pixel has three numbers that define the color (red, green, and blue), and the grid is created as a list (rows) of lists (columns).
This is really impressive for me. I have heard before something like the screen can only produce certain colors, and these certain colors made each pixels to make an actual image. I am still curious does a more complex picture is also created like this?
Binary consisting of 0s and 1s make it easy to represent true and false values, where 1 often represents true and 0 represents false. Most programming languages have built-in ways of representing True and False values.
The Booleans is what I have learned in my CSE class too. This kind of code is to come out as true or false in a statement. I have only learned when it apply on math, but I don't know what else can this do.
Fig. 3.1 A photo that is likely from a click-farm, where a human computer is paid to do actions through multiple accounts, such as like a post or rate an app.
I do not know this is actually a thing. I do not know people are paid to post specific things or rate app like how the figure shows. I thought actual "bots" are coded to do jobs such as this.
These are much harder for social media platforms to track, and they normally ban accounts doing this if they are able to figure out that is what is happening.
When I am on instagram. I always notice a lot of bots that do either advertisement or post adult content. They are all over the social media page which seems like the platform aren't doing enough to track and ban all the bots.
Act with unforced actions in harmony with the natural cycles of the universe. Trying to force something to happen will likely backfire. Rejects Confucian focus on ceremonies/rituals. Prefers spontaneity and play.
I really disagree with this framework since I think this kind of framework result in putting no effort in anything. I think this totally underestimated the ability of human and what we are capable of. Instead of making changes and putting in effort, they just choose to let things happen and accept how it is.
Live a rooted, balance d life of moderation. Virtue is a group effort. Individuals can’t be virtuous on their own because “the earth is slippery, slick” (meaning it is easy for an individual to fall into bad actions, they need support and moderation)
I think a framework like this is really good and healthy. It is really useful in a small community which everyone should work and help each other. People would be less selfish and make everything a group effort. People can become great together.