Blog 5 Sensorship

As class we know exactly why we have never heard of these websites or heard these voices. That is because of the Sedition Act of 1861 which made it a crime to criticize the government. This was the same year the Civil War started and journalists began to speak out against the war. The government didn't like this so they passed the act. Even though this was created in 1861 we still see this today especially with the websites linked here. The government will purposely make it difficult for you to find people with these opinions online. The government pairing up with technology companies such as Apple, Google, etc. can cause this making the internet unfair. This country claims to not have sensor-ship but its very ironic that some things are easier to find than others. Part of our Democracy is to have your own opinion and to be allowed to express your thoughts but we aren't always allowed to do that according to this issue. 

Blog 5 Pivacy Issues

After watching the TED talks I am now more concerned than ever about my privacy online. What I am most worried about is my social media pages. What we learned from the videos is that when you delete something, you are not really deleting it. Everything online will always be out there in a computer somewhere. It's very concerning to know that my information is tracked and recorded somewhere for technology companies to access. It's even scary knowing that the messages I send to my friends or family could be somewhere even though that is personal information. 

I don't think there is much the government can do about this issue. They can help by putting laws in place to keep companies from tracking our information but I think these companies would do it anyway. They benefit so much from stealing our information so I don't see it stopping anytime soon. I also don't know how to reverse this problem. Our society is so deep in the privacy issue that reversing it would be so difficult and would completely change the whole industry.

I think the most we can do about the issue is to try our best to not put anything online thats too personal. We need to be careful with what we share and not keep anything on our devices that could be used against us in anyway. I think social media should be limited and Amazon Alexa's should not always be turned on. It's also important we listen to the individuals who give TED talks or others trying to give advice on how to stop or prevent these issues. 

Eight Values of Free Expression

I think out of all the theories of free expression number 4, Individual Self-fulfillment, resonates most with me. "Free speech enables individuals to express themselves and thereby create their own identity. " As an artist and musician this one seems close to home. Being able to express myself and have my own identity is very important in the creative industry. Artists need to have the ability to share their message and have an individual unique identity for fans to relate to. Without having this, this world would have no creativity. No art, music, or dance which we all innately need. I also love the idea of theory 3, Stable Change. This is important to me because certain things can really set me off sometimes but Im not a violent person. What I mean by this is that I can get very angry but Im not going to react by becoming violent with someone-most people feel the same way. When I feel angry I tend to "vent" to someone I trust or feel would understand where Im coming from. I think this expression is very important for people to be able to get their anger out without having to resort to violence. Its a much safer way to get your feelings out there and work it in a healthy way. 

Theory 2, Participation in Self Government, seems like the one that might be struggling in todays society. This theory states that citizens should be well informed on all candidates when voting on an election. I think with todays issues with censorship and social media this isn't completely accurate. There is a problem with algorithms to where you are force-fed certain information. Yes, anyone can post whatever they want so all candidate information is out there somewhere, but that doesn't necessarily mean its going to get to you and your feed. Therefore, information is getting lost and rumors and fake news have become so prominent we don't know whats real and whats fake.

Going back to theory 4, not only is this seen in music its also seen in social media. Being able to have our own identity a part of all fields across communication. When we look at social media today we know its a huge industry that has a lot of opportunity to make a lot of money. A lot of people get their fix of individual self fulfillment just off of social media. People use their Instagram, Snapchats and Facebook as an extension of their personality. Many people pour out their whole lives onto these platforms for hundreds, thousands, or millions to see. This theory shows us why people do this. As human beings, we want to be relatable and we want the approval of others. We want to show people who we really are and be accepted for that. Many people use social media to do this and find others who are similar to them. This is also why people photoshop themselves to be acceptable to society. For some people in order to feel self fulfillment they think they need to change what they look like so people will approve of them. Over time this has become a huge problem in our society and has led to more complicated issues in mental health. Linkedin has an article that describes these issues that are very important to our society today. 

EC Technology Blog

I was very intrigued watching the technology YouTube video we watched in class. I was scared at the same time as fascinated seeing where technology is moving towards. Watching Will.I.Am recreate himself in a digital copy was really interesting because thats something we could have never imagined a few years ago yet soon that might become the new normal. Something I thought was very cool was when they mentioned that the robots/computers are not programmed by the individuals who created them but instead they program themself. What this means is that the creator isn't manually inputting all the information into this robot. The robot instead learns like a baby or human would. The creator has the ability to "teach" it certain things so it then can make connections and observe. It does this by using a neural network which is a more simple version of a human brain. These machines use object recognition to learn which is using a small camera so you can show it an object and explain what it is. This helps it learn what the object is as well as what it does and how it should feel about that object. 

While watching the creators team up with Will to create his digital duplicate, he expresses concerns for making it look too realistic to where "his mom can't tell the difference between him and the fake him". This is a very realistic concern that I think a lot of people face. This film didn't really explore that too much but rather touched on the idea. I hope that the upcoming episodes in the series talk about that a little deeper so we can hear from the creators on how they feel about these drastic changes to technology in society. 

EOTO Presentations

After watching the presentations today the carrier pigeons stood out to me. I find it very interesting that pigeons were even capable of sending messages but if there was no technology people had no choice.  Carrier pigeons started in Rome where they were originally used for racing. People would go to an arena to watch the pigeons race each other. After this people then realized they can use them to carry messages from place to place. This was very important for the military. This was how they were able to communicate with each other and share important messages amongst the troops. To interfere with the messages people would send falcons to attack the pigeon so the message never arrived at its destination. 

Looking back at this invention it seems crazy to us now however, if it weren't for this invention we might not have the communications we use today. It was this invention that inspired the radio which then eventually lead us to phones and instant messaging that were all familiar with. 

Apple Announces the First Ever iPhone

On January 9, 2007 Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs, announces the first ever iPhone.  After the Macintosh computer and the iPod this was a highly anticipated release. He first announced this at the Macworld convention in San Francisco. This immidaelty started the hype for its release for sale a few months later on June 29th. However this was not the first Apple phone. Many people don't know this but Apple had teamed up with Motorola in 2005 to release the ROKR E1 mobile phone. This collaboration between Apple and Motorola was for the sole purpose of iTunes. Steve Jobs was worried that another company was going to release a phone that was capable of playing music so he had to do it first. This Motorola phone was able to play music through iTunes. Steve Jobs was not happy with this phone because of the terrible camera, cheap look, got a 100 song limit on iTunes. However, this failure lead to a huge success for Apple. Here you can view a list of other failures Apple ran into when creating or updating the iPhones throughout the years. Because of the problems with the Motorola phone, Apple was set out to build something better- and that’s exactly what they did. Steve wanted a phone that was able to play music when in fact it did much more than that. At the same time Apple introduced safari which we still used to this day as our main source of Internet. Not only was it capable of many things but it was easy to use which was very new for this time. It was the first phone to use multi touch as well. This means it was a touchscreen that can use your fingers (many of them at once) without using a stylus. This invention along with the iPhone changed the industry and world all at once. The first iPhone was five years ahead of any phone out on the market at the time. In November 2007 they had sold 1.4 million phones and five years later they had reached 200 million phones sold. Each phone was sold at $500 or $600 a piece which added to Apple‘s financial success.

This invention changed our world in a huge way. It made access to the Internet, social media and music right at our fingertips. This was huge for the communication industry in many ways. It was easy to communicate with others through phone. It also had better message sending which was huge for daily communication. This also started the age of social media. Once this phone was available and offered apps it allowed for people to create media platforms as well as many other applications which is now a huge industry. It also completely changed the music industry which is very important to communication. In terms of negative affects of the iPhone I think we can say that many devices have created the social media issue. The first iPhone was a major breakthrough in technology but along with more technology comes more opportunities for negative affects when taken too far. I don’t think that the first iPhone necessarily created this issue but sparked an industry for social media that we had not had access to before this phone. Despite all of this, Time Magazine named the iPhone the invention of the year which it rightfully deserved. iPhone has updated several times since with almost one new iPhone a year. It is arguably one of the most successful inventions the world has ever seen considering almost everyone across the world either has one or is very familiar with the product. 

Supreme Court Review

1. One thing I didn’t know about the Supreme Court that I found to be very interesting is that they receive over 100 cases every week which is about 7,000 a year. I wasn’t aware that there was that many cases that would reach the supreme court. Its interesting to see how many don’t actually get chosen as well.
2. I think the most important take away is how non-biased the Supreme Court really is. These people do everything in their power to defend the constitution and keep our country in order. Its important for them to do this because if not there would be no order in the country and no set of rules. 
3. What is surprising to me is the approval process. They only select about 100 a year out of the 7,000. I find this surprising because that means a lot of cases are going on that are considered to be “incorrect” which I think is very unfair. 
4. After watching the videos I learned a lot about the Supreme Court. I always knew what it was but I never understood how it functioned. Its interesting to see the way the justices work together and the process of a case moving through the court. 

My Top 5 News Sources

 1. Twitter- I use Twitter as my main source of information. At any point in time I can go onto my Twitter feed and see the latest news and gossip. I like it because it’s accurate and easy. Even though anybody can write anything word travels very quickly on Twitter and for the most part everything I’ve seen has been true. I’d recommend it because it’s a quick way to get quick information. You may not get the full details on a story but if you want to get the gist of what’s happening Twitter is a great place for the basic facts of the story. 

2. Snapchat- Snapchat has a really great feature called snap news. This is a really quick and easy way to get very accurate news. Real news companies have partnerships with Snapchat to deliver their news stories. Daily mail is one of the most popular news channels on Snapchat. This gets updated every day and is served as a mini newspaper.

3. TMZ- TMZ is a news source that gets information quickly. They get their information from inside sources. This site is probably best for drama rather than serious news stories. I would go here for current events in popular culture such as influencers and celebrity drama. 

4. Google- I don’t use a specific source on Google. When I search something in the search bar google populates the best answer and puts it right at the top for a very fast way to get anything you need. To get a deeper story I will go to the Google news tab for the latest most updated information.

5. FOX- Fox is the most official television news sources. This source is very popular for their political views but is also notifies viewers on local news as well. This can include things such as weather, traffic, and crime in nearby areas. Unlike the other news sources listed above, this one is broadcasted to larger audiences due to the fact that older audiences are typically not on social media. This sources target audience is directed at older generations whereas the other ones are meant for younger generations.