In other words, when participating in net-worked publics, many participants embrace a widespread public-by-default, private-through-effort mentality
It's true that most people use social media to communicate and share with people who are close to them but at the same time they are also sharing with their other friends or followers that they may not be close with or even know. As much as we try to keep what we post private, nothing is really private on the internet.
She argues that she should be able to look “because I have a connection with you. I’m your mom, but also I just feel like it would be more interesting to me than it would be to someone who didn’t know you. ... You publish it and it’s for general viewing therefore I feel I’m part of the general public, so I can view it.”
This makes a lot of sense and I hadn't thought about the situation like that before. People put their information out online for the general public to see and they forget to realize that their parents and family are part of the general public so they technically have a right to see since you're putting it out there for everyone. If people are so concerned with their parents butting into their lives then they should be more conservative with their posts (or block their parents).
“Just because teenagers use internet sites to connect to other people doesn’t mean they don’t care about their privacy. We don’t tell everybody every single thing about our lives. .
I completely agree that parents over react way too much when it comes to teens and their privacy online (at least mine do). I get that they just want to make sure that we are safe but the constant over protection just pushes kids even further and makes them want to do things that their parents don't like, causing more conflict between them and possibly pushing their child to become less private on the internet than they were originally.
Before the internet went mainstream, it took considerable effort to say something that would be heard by a significant number of people, so we regard any publicly available material as being offered directly to us. Now that the cost of posting things in a global medium has collapsed, much of what gets posted on any given day is in public but not for the public.
Nowadays, people use the internet to put their private, deepest, darkest secrets out there because it's easier. It makes them feel good to get something off their chest but now the whole world could see something that they may regret allowing them to see in the future and people that they didn't mean to address feel that their message is directly addressed to them, which could create problems.
User-generated content is a group phenomenon, and an amateur one. When people talk about user-generated content, they are describing the ways that users create and share media with one another, with no professionals any
User-generated content also makes me think of memes. How they are taken and changed in different ways to relate to different topics and how they are spread through internet users -- not professionals.
As they surveyed the growing amount of self-published content on the internet, many media companies correctly understood that the trustworthiness of each outlet was lower than that of established outlets like The New York Times. But what they failed to understand was that the effortlessness of publishing means that there are many more outlets.
It is so easy to post information on the internet that people have to dig through all of it to find out if the source they are looking at is a trustworthy one. Obviously, people will go to a well-known news site for information but people don't realize how much is actually out there and how easy it is to put information out there that is completely false and something should probably be done about it.
For participants, the messages are no longer taken for granted or quietly critiqued but can instead be challenged with regularity through internet meme culture, blogs and other citizen media. In this milieu, social change memes function as dissident art and culture – from protest theater to graffiti – have always done in offline space: by providing a creative outlet for individual and small community expression around issues that matter most to them. What is new is how the culture and structure of the internet and the very low barrier to participation have facilitated memes’ rapid spread to newer and broader communities.
People have the ability to create their own memes to fit their situations and bring to light issues that they want to be known. It is a good way for people to express their thoughts and beliefs in a public way as well as a good way to make their voice heard due to the rapid spreading and use of memes in social media today
Each image not only is visually memorable but also represents particular values: the Statue of Liberty, for instance, is more than just a statue but stands in for patriotism, freedom, immigration, and Americanness. The successful variants of the HRC meme that used various iconic figures relied on the deep meanings embedded within a specific culture to survive and thrive.
Memes succeed even more when they are edited in a way that people feel connected to. So now, not only are the original ones being spread but the varied ones are as well because more people may feel connected to them, it is like reaching out to an even bigger audience.
I argue instead that the spread of memes is an opportunity for digital activism, or instances of social and political change made possible through digital networks [3]. Memes related to causes, like the HRC logo, help draw attention to societal issues and problems and can result in increased feelings of support for marginalized groups.
I definitely feel that memes like the HRC logo can be a positive way to spread the word about a particular issue. I remember when the whole Facebook profile picture thing was happening I saw the red box all over my newsfeed. I had no idea what it was about so I was compelled to look it up. This is exactly what organizations like the HRC want to do. Spread awareness and draw attention to issues where then people will eventually help do something about it themsleves.
Few of the ideas get transmitted in anything like their original form: humans adapt, transform, rework them on the fly in response to a range of different local circumstances and personal needs.
People these days are so influenced by the culture and media that surrounds them that it affects their ideas and the way they think. Everyone wants and needs to fit in so if the culture around them changes, they change; and this may not be a very good thing.
Without certainty about what set of practices the term refers to, it is impossible to attempt to understand how and why such practices work.
It is not positive or certain about what makes a viral video, viral. It is hard for people to make videos to know if their video will become popular because they are unsure of if people will like it or share it. You can't go in to making a video and assuming that it will become viral because no one is positive as to how, why or what goes into a video becoming viral.
To some degree, it seemed the strength of a viral message depends on “how easy is it to pass”, suggesting viralness has something to do with the technical properties of the medium, yet quickly we were also told that it had to do with whether the message fit into the ongoing conversations of the community:
I completely agree with this statement. I never thought about how something became "viral," I always wondered but wasn't sure how a video of a cat always got so many hits. It makes sense that videos that people enjoy watching or are able to easily find are the ones that become viral. Obviously not everyone is going to enjoy watching the same video but the ones who do share it and like it and then their friends who enjoy it share it and like it and so on.
The first casualty of centralization has been privacy. And since privacy is essential to liberty, the future will be less free.
It makes me uncomfortable to think that the future will be less private. Even today it makes me uncomfortable to think that my address and all of this personal information about me and my family is at the fingertips of anyone in the world due to all of our information being on the internet. Our country has strived for freedom, will what all of our ancestors went through be for nothing once we have no more privacy? How else will people express themselves if the internet is becoming more monitored?
Today, technology is generating more information about us than ever before, and will increasingly do so, making a map of everything we do, changing the balance of power between us, businesses and governments. In the next 20 years, we will see amazing advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Software programs are going to be deciding whether a car runs people over, or drives off a bridge. Software programs are going to decide who gets a loan, and who gets a job.
If technology is becoming more advanced and powerful and begins to make decisions for us, how are we supposed to chose things for ourselves? Just because technology can find out so much information on us doesn't mean that it knows us well enough to make decisions for us. We are not computers and we shouldn't be treated as if we are by having technology generate all of this information about us and creating personal internet maps of everything we do.
Whose responsibility is digital security?
Who has the right to determine what we can and cannot post on the Internet? Yes the government guards the Internet and websites monitor comments but who is at a loss here? The internet is supposed to be a place where people can go and say what's on their minds but it is starting to drift away from that. Sensitivity is becoming a big deal and people who post offensive posts and comments is what I believe is a big factor in the disappearance of digital freedom.
So if algorithms are going to curate the world for us, if they're going to decide what we get to see and what we don't get to see, then we need to make sure that they're not just keyed to relevance. We need to make sure that they also show us things that are uncomfortable or challenging or important -- this is what TED does -- other points of view.
People need to be exposed to other pieces of information besides what they usually search for. They need to be made aware of everything that is going on in the world and exposed to different view points and made aware of what is outside of their "bubble".
And what's in your filter bubble depends on who you are, and it depends on what you do. But the thing is that you don't decide what gets in. And more importantly, you don't actually see what gets edited out.
I think that it's unfair that we might be limited to the information that we receive when we search the internet just because of our past searches. People shouldn't be put into categories based on what they search for because everyone searches for different things, that doesn't mean we are what we search for.
f I search for something, and you search for something, even right now at the very same time, we may get very different search results. Even if you're logged out, one engineer told me, there are 57 signals that Google looks at -- everything from what kind of computer you're on to what kind of browser you're using to where you're located -- that it uses to personally tailor your query results.
I don't know how to feel about the internet knowing everything I search for and every website I go on. At first when it started happening I thought it was pretty cool, but then as time went on and more and more websites had advertisements from my recent online shopping spree, I started to get a little creeped out. How does Google even know where we're located? It's kind of scary to to think that everything you do can be traced, even if you're logged out.
It was the people at the other end of the phone, people who had come together around Evans page, who found the MySpace profiles and the family's address and helped pressure the police department, all in a busy ten days, and all of it leading to Sasha's arrest.
We as readers and followers on the Internet underestimate the amount of power we hold. It is incredible how Evan's page had millions of followers and news stations covering it in just 10 days. This shows how once a couple people start talking about something and telling their friends, and their friends telling their friends, something as small as a post about a missing cell phone could turn into a national headline overnight.
Evan, clearly energized by the response from his growing readership, continued posting a running commentary on his webpage. He wrote forty updates in ten days, accompanied by a growing frenzy of both local and national media attention. There was a lot to update: he and the people tuning in posted more MySpace profiles of Sasha, her boyfriend Gordo, and her brother. Someone reading the Stolen Sidekick page figured out Sasha's full name, then her address, and drove by her house, later posting the video on the Web for all to see. Members of Luis's Military Police unit wrote to inquire about allegations that an MP was threatening a civilian and promised to look into the matter. Evan also created a bulletin board for his readers, a place online where they could communicate with one another about the attempts to recover Ivanna's phone.
It's crazy how the internet can bring so many people together to fight a common enemy. The thought of it is empowering yet alarming at the same time. How people have so much access to your personal information that they are able to find out where you live is a scary thought. But the support that Evan received from people he didn't even know is really special.
That is the normal state of affairs. Given the complexities of group effort, hundreds of people don't spontaneously do much of any consequence, and it wouldn't have made much sense for anyone to expend the effort to identifY and coordinate the photographers from the outside.
When people are in larger groups, it is less likely that there is a lot of participation in them. A lot of times people feel that there isn't a need to put any effort into a large group because someone else will do that for them. Given that it is hard to work together in large groups (especially for projects) people don't believe it makes sense to contribute when there are "leaders" doing all the work and making all the decisions anyways. I have definitely experienced this in high school and it sucks because even if you take an unassigned leadership role, it is still nice to have other comments and suggestions and people to help with the work.
Thirty seconds later, the first message went onto Twitter, and this was someone saying "temblor," which means earthquake. So 60 seconds was how long it took for the physical earthquake to travel. Thirty seconds later news of that earthquake had traveled all around the world, instantly. Everyone in the world, hypothetically, had the potential to know that an earthquake was happening in Managua. And that happened because this one person had a documentary instinct, which was to post a status update, which is what we all do now, so if something happens, we put our status update, or we post a photo, we post a video, and it all goes up into the cloud in a constant stream.
It's crazy how fast news and information spreads. Half a minute was all it took for the whole world to know about the earthquake that was happening. If people weren't so invested in social media and keeping up to date in the world, it could've taken a lot longer for everyone to find out about the quake. Everyone wants to be the first person to post about exciting or dramatic news.
Sometimes you come across a piece of content that is so compelling, you want to use it, you're dying to use it, but you're not 100 percent sure if you can because you don't know if the source is credible.
As much as we would like to believe everything we see and read on the internet is true, a lot of times it isn't. It is beneficial that we have people who do all of these fact and source checks before posting a piece of content, just to be sure it is reliable.
But what it tells me is that, at a time when there's more -- there's a greater abundance of information than there ever has been, it's harder to filter, we have greater tools. We have free Internet tools that allow us, help us do this kind of investigation. We have algorithms that are smarter than ever before, and computers that are quicker than ever before.
It is becoming harder to tell the difference between what is true and what is fake on the internet. We are lucky that we now have the ability to fact check at our fingertips. The information that is available to us is extensive and free and should be used to make sure that what people post about on the internet is accurate before it is shared.
It’s me and them working to create a classroom where the students who want to focus have the best shot at it, in a world increasingly hostile to that goal.
I always thought going on laptops or cell phones was a major distraction for the person using them but I never even thought about how this could also affect other students and their ability to focus and learn as well. The author brings up a very good point by saying this and brings to light another perspective of how the Internet isn't just a distraction for the person surfing it at the time.
This problem is especially acute with social media, because on top of the general incentive for any service to be verbose about its value, social information is immediately and emotionally engaging.
I definitely agree that social media causes a problem while you are trying to get work done. I probably shouldn't say it but it definitely does for me. Every time I hear my phone buzz or see the screen light up it's like an instinct I have to go and check it. This is bad because I end up forgetting what I was just learning and it takes me even longer than it should to get my homework done, which in the end stresses me out even more.
Over half of U.S. teenagers not only consume but also create and author online, whether that's by customizing their MySpace page, or running a blog, or running a YouTube channel.5 That doesn't mean, however, that all forms of participation are beneficial to the participant or others.
People all over the world have access to the internet in so many different ways. Whether they participate in social media, run their own blogs or comment on articles, the internet allows everyone to interact and express their own views and ideas. Though as the last sentence of this quote reads; not all forms of participation are beneficial to the participant or others. Meaning that with all of this participation brings less accurate information, and that could cause a problem in the future.