This study was conducted by Georgia Institute of Technology. The finding was that because Reddit banned toxic subreddits in 2015, it successfully reduced hate speech on the platform by up to 80 - 90% among users. The article also shows that while many offenders migrated to other communities like Voat and Gab, they didn't significantly increase the amount of hate speech in the subreddits that they joined. Researchers of this study concluded that by making bigotry more difficult to practice, they can effectively discourages it and eventually yield lasting positive results.

It's really interesting to see how Reddit operates on a moderation system that relies heavily on its community. The fact that volunteers who manage subreddits are unpaid provokes major debates. I think this is completely reasonable, especially when Reddit is a multi-billion-dolllar company who can do better than exploiting the free mods. Moreover, everyday users on Reddit also act like moderators who help filter content by upvoting good posts and downvoting bad ones. Thanks to this, unpopular comments are hidden. Even though the authority to shut down any group still eventually falls on the hand of Reddit itself, those moderators have contributed immensesly to the development and operation of this app.

The article discusses how autism is a complex spectrum of overlapping neurological traits like sensory processing, motor control, and social awareness. This "rainbow" of traits means that two autistic individuals can have vastly different strengths and challenges, making some labels towards autistic people misleading and harmful. For instance, a non-speaking person can have profound intellectual depth and social desire, while a talkative person may struggle with basic functions or independent living. In general, the author urges readers to stop making assumptions based on outward behavior and instead recognize the diverse support needs of every autistic individual.

I didn't know that "Doomscrolling" is a well-defined word rather than just a slang widely used to refer to continuous reel scrolling activity on social media. From my experience, this is clearly a very unhealthy yet addictive activity as it fools users into thinking that they are actually doing something while the fact is that they're just wasting their time. Sometimes doomscrolling helps me explore valuable information, but at the same time it makes my brain go numb after several hours of gluing my eyes to the screen. I completely understand how harmful it is but I have not managed to control myself yet:(

The article was about the Clinton - Lewinsky political sex scandal in the 1990s involving President Bill Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Their relationship eventually led to the first impeachment of a U.S. president in over a century. The affair was exposed after Lewinsky confided in co-worker Linda Tripp, who secretly recorded their conversations. Tripp eventually provided these tapes to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. In January 1998, Clinton publicly denied the relationship. However, a stained blue dress provided by Lewinsky, which contained DNA matching the President's, served as an undeniable evidence agaist Clinton' denial. In August 1998, Clinton admitted to the grand jury and the nation that he had engaged in an improper physical relationship with Lewinsky. The House of Representatives impeached Clinton in December 1998 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. The scandal led to "Clinton fatigue," which many believe, negatively afftected the Vice President Al Gore’s presidential campaign. The scandal also triggered a wave of collateral scandals, exposing the affairs of several Republican leaders who were leading the impeachment charge.

This makes me think of how news are spread on social media nowadays. Content creators may find pieces of news from different sources, and without any credibility inspection, they add "flour and water" to make their videos sound more captivating. For most of the time, the news that reach mass viewers have been modified to draw attention and influence public opinion. The article said that starters can not be shared, which leads to source information being gatekept so no one can actually verify the credibility of news. The fact that online information is usually illegitimate shows how this "Sourdough starters" example acts as a metaphor for how modern world works.

What Elon Musk said in this post sounds controversial but so true. I believe what he's trying to prove here is that the algorithms don't care about what you hate or love, they are designed to identify and suggest what you care. Since trashing accounts requires users to show more "interest" and "care" about them more, the AI systems will just record it and recoomend similar content because they think you'll spend the similar ample amount of time on them. This is an issue that is worth paying attention to in order to improve the functions of content suggestion and user data analysis.

Even though this sounds as simple as content creators making use of the recommendation algorithm, this reults in some disturbance. Since these AI-programmed systems analyze user data and behavior to predict and suggest items, they can easily mistaken the true users' interest with sarcasm. Apparently, the Gen Z users who make up the vast majority of social media interactions show "fake" interest in jokes and clickbait, they inherently causes the algorithm to recommend this type of content even more, creating a cycle of rampant brain-rotting reels. This also motivates creators to post relevant content to attract more followers (even through they know how harmful it is to viewers) and use some tactics, such as trolling, fake interactions, or repetitive brainrots, to boost their views. This explains for why rennovative. or very unique content, is not promoted as much as shallow ones.

This article introduces us ti the CIDER technique, which is a design evaluation method used to help technology creators create an inclusive product. There are 5 stages of CIDER, which all focus on correcting implicit biasas. Firstly, there is the Critique step where learners analyze a specific technology to indentify implicit assumptions made about users' disabilities and resources. Then, learners choose 1 assumption to write a scenario where user is excluded, in order to sympathize and thoroughly understand real experience of users. The third phase requires learners to brainstorm ways to redesign the technology to remove that issue. Subsequently, the instructer compiles a list of all assumptions identified and shows learners what they've overlooked. Finally, learners select a new assumption from that shared list and repeat the second and third steps to broaden their understanding of diverse biases. This CIDER technique helps avoid overgeneralized personas and build confidence for students who work on professional inclusive design.

This is so true, yet it remains an unsolved problem for designers and programmers. Since there are thousands types of users with varied needs, disabilities, and preferences, it is really hard to design a platform that takes all those aspects into account. Because developers usually have limited resources to satisfy each individual, they often end up prioritizing the majority just to get the product launched. This creates a cycle where the same groups of people are left behind over and over again.

The movie trailer of "Catch Me If You Can" follows the life of Frank, a 17-year-old who discovers that people trust a uniform and that they don't always inspect carefully. He successfully disguises as a pilot, allowing him to fly millions of miles for free and cash forged checks. He also poses as a doctor, then a lawyer. From the trailer, we know that there's FBI Agent Carl Hanratty who is assigned to track Frank down. The film develops a unique cat-and-mouse relationship between them, which eventually ends with Frank’s talent to spot forged checks being used by the FBI.

It’s a common reality that most of us, including myself, rarely take time to read and fully grasp the terms and conditions of the websites and apps we use. Since user the agreements are often pages long and filled with jargon that not every new users can understand, they allow companies to exploit privacy protections under the guise of informed consent. It's sad to know that there's hardly any way to completely solve this problem; however, I suggest that instead of forcing users to navigate a 10-page legal document, platforms should be required to display a simple table on the sign-up page. This label would clearly categorize data usage into some must-know information, such as tracking, data mining, data retention, message security, and data sold.

The article discusses the methods that Facbook uses to infer users' interests and preferences. According to Nicole, even when users don't directly have a Facebook account, their content history can be tracked from other social platforms they use as those websites are run on Facebook Pixel algorithms. Companies will then base on those information to show ads that suit users' interests. This explains so well for our question of how those apps can know literally exactly the goods we put in our wishlist, or saving up to buy.

I knew after reading the "Your Friends’ Online Connections Can Reveal Your Sexual Orientation" article that researchers use shadow profiles to predict, if not saying exposing, personal information of non-users. This actually scares me rather than surprises me as it shows that users' privacy can be indirectly exploited just from their contact lists. Even when it's not guaranteed that this information is completely accurate, it concerns both social media users and non-users as it's now known that their personal information can be "inferred" and potentially sold for marketing firms. This reminds me of the Facebook's 5-billion penalty regarding their violation of users' privacy that leads to Facebook changing their personal information protection terms and conditions.

After I read this article "A Modest Proposal", I was most impressed with the "Public Reaction" part. It shows the letter from Lord Bathurst who found the message funny instead of offensive. The message sent by Swift targetted the wealthy people in that society. Given that, Bathurst used that same satire method to mock the greed of the aristocratic families and the corruption of the English government. I found this really fun to read and appreaciate Bathurst's sharpness in responding.

I've seen this on social media a lot:) I feel like people even feel more excited about spreading the information, like sharing, reposting, or commenting on the reels, when it's wrong or intentionally misinformed. They sometimes make fun of those who try to correct the misinformation, which make that targeted user feels like they're being bullied. I found those comments funny, but at the same time I feel bad for those who didn't get the jokes as they'd be trolled even more.

The article discusses the digital autonomy that cause harm to female users. According to survivors and feminism activists, being anonymous gives users the authority attack female/queer users without anyone knowing their real identities. Historically, women have been monitored by their community, and the Internet can either be another surveillance tool or a safe space where they can speak without fear of being tracked. However, in modern days, male users use anonymity as a weapon to escape accountability, and saying that they're just trolling. The reading states that getting rid of the real name policies would make sure the Internet doesn't protect attackers or help them live without fear even after what they've done. If we forced everyone to use their real identities, we would expose the most anonymous voices and force them off the web.

This is actually a very sad reality that happens everyday on social platforms. Since accounts are aninymous, people tend to develope a mindset of a keyboard warrior, where they will say the most unhinged and disrespectful words that they would never have the guts to say in person. Moreover, because there's hardly any way to trace things back to anonymous users, people believe that they would not have to take accountability of what they commented online. They can attack others, make them get depressed then hide away from the unwanted consequences easily. This encourage inauthentic behaviours that can cause real harm to other users.

The reading shows that affordance is the key to for true robotic autonomy because without it, robots are just precisely repeating what they're programmed to do. However, in order for it to operate in an unpredictable way, it has to follows three steps of recognize if an object is interactice, find the right grip/learn how to grab the object, and connect that grip to a specific goal/learn how to use the object. This hammer problem is the perfect example for teaching robots common sense through sight and experience.

Reading about Affordances remind me of the design of social platforms that we use everyday. For example, Instagram stories don't have any buttons that show "back" or "next"; however, even new users are aware that tapping the right side of the screen will lead us to the next stories. There is no button, but it feels so natural that we don't even think of it as using an interface. This shows how affordances are used in social platform screen design, as well as how they are manipulating our thumbs into moving and using the functions naturally.

I didn't know that Amazon can also be considered social media:) It's actually interesting to know that a website/app only needs some features of a social platform to be categorized as social media. Given this, what are the preliminary factors that determine whether a web/app is social media or not since it's kind of vague when we decide which is and which is not?

From what I know about Virtue ethics, the values listed above are accurate but not sufficient since it hasn't touched on the aspect of community's flourishing. I believe that in order for a person to flourish, they have to also show their act of caring towards the others, in stead of only individual's flourishing.