Web tracking is the practice of collecting information from people’s activities in the word wide web and it is generally used by the operators of the websites. By collecting these information, it helps the operator of the website to know what people’s preferences are when visiting their sites. Web tracking could be used by any operator and is especially used by advertising companies to keep track about their users. By using web tracking, people’s IP address, interest and browsing behavior are revealed to the operators of the website. As a result, many people have started using protection tools to prevent their data being collected.

My ad profile was pretty accurate except for that it thinks I'm in a relationship yet I'm currently not. I went to the page about my recent ad topics and this part is more inaccurate. It has been providing me with ads about gaming yet I don't usually game. I'm just curious how the system would assume that I'm in a relationship and how it thinks that I'm into gaming. I would hope that google could provide more information to what data they have collected to reach this conclusion.

This article was about Jaboukie Young-White who is a comedian that posted a controversial quote on Twitter. He impersonated his own account as the official FBI and he tweeted, “Just because we killed MLK doesn’t mean we can’t miss him.” This quote was deleted by twitter immediately and Jaboukie’s account was suspended. People reacted differently to the suspension, some believed it was justified as they see that these type of jokes should not be made lightly. However, there are others that think that the joke was clearly satire and it isn’t that serious.

I think the best way to deal with trolling is to first not respond and not take them seriously as they are looking for an emotional reaction. People could try to mute and restrict comments to avoid trolling. If the trolling starts to become serious where it involves threats or other kinds of misuse of language the best way would be to report it.

This source was about a science fiction thriller web series called lonelygirl15. It was a series released on Youtube from 2006 to 2008. The story was about a 16 year old girl, Bree Avery, who escapes from her parents' with her friend Daniel. The series was presented through vlogs where Bree would record the story from her bedroom. It gained popularity due to the fact that it made people believed that Bree was an actual person sharing this unique experience online. However, the viewers of the show found out that the whole show was fictional as they found her IP address was at the offices of Creative Artists Agency when they were trying to message Bree on Myspace.

I think that it does matter whether a human typed the tweet or a bot, especially for a public figure. By letting a bot post on their behalf it just makes the message loss its authenticity and emotional impact. I think that people who follows these tweets are interested to see what messages Trump personally tweeted. Learning the fact that it's bot generated tweet can make people feel like they have been deceived and it takes away the emotional connection they might have felt with the message. I think that the messages that contained "anger" would still lose it's authenticity as people have already know that half of the tweets are made by bots.

The Bulletin board system was one of the precursors of modern social networks. The main functions are allowing users to upload and download software and data, providing public message boards for people to interact with each other, and offering online games. BBS became on of the major platforms for people to engage online. However, after 1995 the BBS software providers went bankrupt which led to the disappearance of the platform.

I like how we are given examples of the good and bad parts of friction. Friction that are used on advertisements usually interferes with people's engagement online where it annoys people where they have to take extra steps to close up the ad. I often wonder what's the intent of adding this feature as wouldn't it discourage users from furthering engaging with the platform as it disrupted their experience with its content. On the other hand, friction that are used in twitter helps users to become more aware of the articles they are reading. It can act as a reminder for people to double check if their sources are reliable. In this context, it actually helps people to become more responsible with what they are engaging online. I was wondering if removing infinite scroll could reduce friction, why don't platforms offer users the option of turning it off.

This article is about twitter where it’s one of the largest social media platforms in the world. The platform is well known for it’s features where it allows users to share short post and engage with eachother. These post are generally called “tweets” where people could like, comment, and reply to each individual thread. In 2023, the app was rebranded and it is now known as X. The rebranding has sparked major controversy after Elon Musk acquired the app.

I find it interesting that even though data needs to be simplified, shouldn't it be easy to add the country option selection (as shown in the example). Without it, wouldn't it actually make it harder and more confusing to collect these data when users are not from the U.S? I think this reflects on how people are designing these websites in their own view of the world onto the options they provide.

This article was about how click farms operates which is a corporation that's created to boost popularity in a content and manipulate algorithms in people's social media pages. I thought this article was very insightful as I get to learn that a popular content isn't always generally popular and it could be boosted in different ways. It helped me to understand that I should be mindful of my perceptions to a post where the amount of likes and views shouldn't be the deciding characteristics of the importance of the content. The digital platform reflects on the reality of the world where those with more attention and resources gets a better opportunity to be seen regardless of the quality of their work.

I think that creating bots helps us to work more efficiently in a digital platform. For example, there are good bots that helps us to block out advertisements that usually pops up in website. This allows us to stay focus on the content we are searching for. Some of these bots are created to help us improve our online experience by making it easier for us to navigate digital platforms. On the other hand, bots are sometimes misused where they can be created to spam people. Overall, bots are created by people to serve a specific purpose on how they want the digital platform to be like.

In Hinduism, it elaborates on how there's a cause and effect principle of people's actions and consequences. Every action a person has whether good or bad would influence future experiences. Karma is essential in shaping the life experience of a person. For example, if a person has negative actions they would be more likely to face a more challenging life and negative occurrences. Essentially, karma follows the law of the nature where your actions would decide and lead you to a certain experience. The person who chooses how they want to act would be responsible for what they would face in the future.

I think this is great information to reiterate as people would see social media as a digital platform that has no restriction and people have complete freedom of speech. This isn't necessary true as in reality digital platforms reflects on people's beliefs and biases. These systems are created by people which means that they are shaped by societal influences. I think that while we are navigating through the web, we should still be more mindful of the content that we are engaging in as every content is created under perspectives that are influenced by society.