ML&L Final Blog Post: Relationships with Technology

 In today's Media Law and Literacy blog post, we will discuss our relationships with technology and how the previously mentioned technology can control us. 

What is our relationship with Technology?

Photo Credit (reviewed.com)

All in all, I personally believe that technology has a strong connection to our lives as a whole. Personally, I live on technology 365 days a year, 24/7. I use a Fitbit watch to track my sleep, workouts, and daily activity to monitor myself and make sure I am on the right track within my workouts and daily requirements to stay healthy and perform on the field as best as possible. While I am monitoring myself on my watch, I use my phone and laptop to stay up to date with my school work, family, work of multiple jobs as well as keeping in touch with friends and teammates.  Personally, I believe that technology and my time away from the screen are skewed because of school, but in regular times, I tend to try to steer clear of as much technology as possible and let my screen time come while I am on the grind at school. Sometimes, technology is no better than an addiction. It has its positives or negatives, but either way. It is apart of our society and how we communicate every day. 

How it connects to my Friends and Family + My Online Presence 

Photo Credit (facebook.com)

Technology relates to my friends and family in a positive and negative way.  The positive part of this is that both groups can stay in contact with me and keep in touch among the many activities people do in relation to technology. Negatively, having friends and family connected to technology could create "paper trail" and "bread crumbs" which could lead to secure documents as well as more familial contacts. Footprint wise, upon googling myself, I found multiple obituaries in my name along with my social media as well as my Linkedin (professional networking account). As one who is more of a scroller than a poster, I am confident I put off an important yet professional image. I show my affiliations as well as my current and previous employments on LinkedIn. An employer would see the same as I just described. 

Photo Credit (HPU Men’s Club Lacrosse/Roger Davis)

On social media, I do not post much. When I do, I make sure what I post is positive and celebrating something. An example of the former would be our Spring 2022 NCLL conference championship and National Elite 8 placement for lacrosse or a picture hanging out with my family. In fact, I could already tell you what my next two will be, my lacrosse senior day here on April 23rd, 2023 and walking across that stage on May 7th, 2023 at Roberts Lawn. One social media site I never post on is Twitter. There, I would consider myself as a serial scroller. Especially with the current climate on the application/social media service is pretty open for debate, especially with the new ownership of the company. On Twitter, I follow just about 150 people and have tweeted maybe 50 times. I use the site for most of my news from around the world and sports news, especially the NFL. 

EOTO Reaction #2: Total Information Awareness

 In today's Media Law and Literacy blog post, we will be reacting to another presentation conducted in December 8th's class meeting in the Qubein School of Communications. 

Major Factors

Photo Credit (Wikipedia/ US DOD)

The overall pieces of the Total Information (later Terrorist Information) created by the US Department of Defense. The program itself focused in the areas of Data Mining, a way in which to decipher data and pluck/pull out data of interest that could be flagged for dangerous use. A massive piece of this TIA program was the extreme interest in Predictive Policing, a way to stop terrorist acts and attacks. The TIA (Total Information Awareness program) was called and considered the "Manhattan Project for counter-terrorism services"

My Reaction

Photo Credit (US Department of Defense)

All in all, I enjoyed the presentation pieces of this course. In the second and final EOTO presentation of the semester. For todays reaction post, I am reacting to Tyler B's Total Information Awareness. It was a program that was created by the DOD, or Department of Defense. Originally created in 2003, the program lasted less than a year due to privacy concerns and their program funding was cut. The government also looked at discrimination, especially against the Arab community. As a society, one that typically tries to use their voice, if this was to happen today, I personally believe that there would be multiple large protests  and this program would last less time than what it did back in 2003, which was a total of about three months. 

EOTO on Policy: Sherman Antitrust Act and Media Consolidation

 In today's Media Law and Literacy blog post, we will be discussing the Sherman Antitrust Act as well as Media Consolidation.  

The Sherman Antitrust Act 

Photo Credit (US National Archives)

The Sherman Antitrust Act was a measure passed the United States congress to ban "Trusts." The act itself was passed under the Secretary of Treasury in the President Hayes administration on July 2, 1890. Trusts themselves are "arrangements by which stockholders in several companies transfer their shares to a single set of trustees. In exchange, the stockholders receive a certificate entitling them to a specified share of the consolidated earnings of the jointly managed companies. " (Archives.gov) The act itself allowed the government to dissolve trusts and charge those involved.  Those involved in trusts were subject to a one year sentence in jail as well as a 5,000 dollar fine. The original meaning of the act was designed to restore competition in all business markets but because of the loose wording of the  act itself. Five years after it was signed into law, the Supreme Court dismantled the act. More recently, the federal government used the Sherman Antitrust act against against then media giant, Microsoft. "The investigation aimed to determine whether Microsoft was trying to monopolize the personal computer market. The federal agency soon ended its investigation, only to be brought up against the company by the US Department of Justice in 1998. The charges brought against the company "involved sections of the Sherman Antitrust act, which included laws designed by governments in order to ensure fair competition in the market." (corporatefinanceinstitutue.com) All in all, Microsoft lost the case against the government, the judge presiding, the late and Honorable Thomas Penfield Jackson, "ruled that the company violated multiple sections of the Sherman Antitrust act."  This decision was landmark for competition in "big tech" as it paved the way for companies like Google and Apple. 

Media Consolidation

Photo Credit (WJLA/Wikipedia)

Media consolidation is the collection of ownership of news stations and channels that have been purchased by massive and monetarily well off corporations. For something that sounds so positive, especially if you are in a company that holds an apparent monopoly, "only about 20 percent of Americans have confidence in television and in newspapers." (billmoyers.com) Those who even view their news online have less trust than most in what they read from their preferable sources. A true issue of Media Consolidation is the creation of narrative's by the ownership companies as well as home/national headquarters of the news agency the local station is contracted by.  An example of the media consolidation and narrative making is the Sinclair broadcasting message regarding "fake news and social media" The ownership company made all of its contracted stations read the same statement at the beginning of a news hour in their "fight" against fake news. The compilation of the stations delivering Sinclair's message went viral on Twitter, a well known social media website/app. This was a honestly hilarious way to deliver a message when all the company had to do was release a statement and tell the news stations to mention it on the air and in online media, instead they embarrassed themselves. 

Privacy

 In today's Media Law and Literacy Blog Post, we will be discussing Privacy and how it relates to me, my family and friends along with what the government should be doing about these issues raised along with some ideas on how to defend ourselves for invasions of privacy. 

How do Privacy issues affect me, my family and friends?

Photo Credit (avast)

Privacy issues are universal. They could be physical, emotional, or most commonly and recent over some type of technology. Just like anyone, these privacy issues have affected me, my family and my friends as much as another person! In fact, just recently, as my friends and I were playing the just released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, my neighbor, who lives 250-300 yards from me, was DDoS'd by a hacker on the game. DDoS is a way to remotely turn off all wifi and cut service to an entire home network. The reason why this occurred was because my neighbor was winning more games than the hacker, who got upset and took it out on my friend. My family has also been affect by these attacks, which seem to be at random, in relation to their email accounts. Their passwords and accounts were hacked and held for ransom, of course which was never paid. Attacks like the one my family suffered happen almost every second of every day in our country and around the world. 

What should the US Government be doing in relation to these issues + How do we defend ourselves?

Photo Credit (Fortune)

All in all and realistically, the government has very little control over what these issues of privacy mean to their civilians as well as themselves. In fact, The government itself has been accused of spying on its own people. This information was obtained by Edward Snowden, a dissident of the United States as well as former intelligence operative who worked for the CIA, NSA, as well as Booz Allen Hamilton. In June 2013, Snowden leaked thousands of classified documents which in the eyes of the government, violated the Espionage act of 1917.  Another question is how do users of technology protect themselves. There is no real answer to that question because users would have they would have to spend money to have some degree of "protection." If one was to spend money for protection, most people who need security use VPNs or secure servers that cannot be tracked. 

Living Age of AI

In Today's Media Law and Literacy Blog Post, we will be discussing the Living Age of AI and how it relates to Privacy, National Security and Online Security / Identity theft. 

What is AI?

Photo Credit (US State Department)

Artificial Intelligence is the gathering of information by machines in opposition to human and animals that have preceded the former. As defined by Oxford,  AI is "the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages." (Oxford, AI)  A few examples of AI are IBM's Watson,  Apple's Siri along with others. 

How does AI relate to Privacy and what are its Pros and Cons?

Photo Credit (Law.com)

AI is a major risk for consumers' privacy in relation to their security on their devices as well as their privacy in their homes and daily lives. As a an example, Google Chrome is advertised as one of the most secure enhanced browsing systems available, not to mention its "private" Incognito mode which rivals Safari (Apple) and Firefox. The one issue with Googles incognito mode is that while it says it is not collecting data and location data from searches, it secretly is. This has been caught and challenged by 40 American states for just near 400 million US dollars. The lawsuit challenged that the app and company at large tracked its users even they had turned location services off. Positively, AI allows users to easily assist searches as well as pieces of home technology (Amazon Alexa/Echo dot, Ring cameras, etc). But negatively,  users will not be aware when the AI and the persons who created the AI begin watching and recording the user's tendencies without their distinct permission.

How Does AI relate to National Security and Online Security + Identity Theft?

Artificial Intelligence relates to National Security in both positive and negative ways. Positively, our military structure and system are using AI to one day create fully autonomous ships, have facial recognition as well as create software which informs service members when items need replacement among others. Negatively, our biggest national competitors like China and Russia are using AI for defense purposes as well as ways to cyber attack other states. Defensively, the Ukraine is using AI, more specifically Javelin AI and DJI AI systems (drones)

In comparison, there are still many uncharted waters in relation to AI. Some of these pertinent questions pertain around the overall security of AI along with the systems that they support along with the possible theft of people identities and their personal information. This includes usernames, passwords, credit information and so much more. These items are free and accessible to  AI and that should be address sooner rather than later. 

Diffusions of Innovation

 In today's Media Law and Literacy Blog Post, we will be discussing the diffusions of innovation and its related theory. 

What is Diffusions of Innovation?

Media Law and Literacy Chart in Relation to DoI-(HPU/Smith)

According to Wikipedia and [Everett] Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations "is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread" (Rogers,Wiki). Rogers believes that the diffusion itself "is communicated over time among the participants in a social system." (Rogers,Wiki) Overall, he proposed that there are five main elements that influence the spread of a new idea; "the innovation itself, adopters, communication channels, time and a social system." 

How do the ideas spread; My opinion

Overall, ideas spread from person to person. It is kind of like playing the social and team building game telephone. In the game, main ideas are passed from the starting point to those all the way down the line of people all the way back to the start. By that time, the reaction and overall topic has been spread to many different people, socially. This allows for people to become early adopters of a new invention. This falls under the experimental and pioneer areas while moving into the early adopter. Once the early adopters begin to spread their opinions about the new technology, the critical mass and majority/late adopters begin to get involved and pump up the popularity and user friendly ability of a new technology. 

How this connects to my EOTO presentation

Photo Credit (en.wikipedia.org)

Facebook is a company that follows this chart almost to perfection. A few Harvard students created thefacebook.com which was originally meant for college students to have a community and discuss their experiences. This social media site went from the pioneers to early adopters, and jumped all the way to the critical mass in which made Facebook one of the most popular social media sites if not the most popular in a matter of 3-4 years. 

EOTO Presentation Rection

 In today's Media Law and Literacy blog post, we will be discussing the EOTO Communication Technology Timeline Presentations that took place on November 10th, 2022. 

Twitter in Connection to Technology Timeline

In the world of Communication and Technology, many different things have changed how we as people have communicated. From smoke signals to twitter, humans have always found a way to upgrade the ways that we communicate. 

Photo Credit (apps.microsoft.com)

Twitter has changed the way that many people, especially now, communicate. They communicate with one caveat, that being their messages and posts are limited to 280 characters (the previous number used to be 140 characters allowed but was upped to 280 in 2017). On twitter, a user can type out a message and include a picture/video or another attachment like a .gif or a poll for other users to vote on. Another piece of twitter is the "hashtag." Users use hashtags to put their tweets into categories within the service. As an example, if one was to say #Ravens within a tweet, another user can click on #Ravens and see all of the tweets users and news media organizations sent out regarding the hashtag. 

Another piece of twitter is the connection between Organizations and Users that follow them. As an example, the Buffalo Bills (an NFL team) have a massive social team which creates content daily for their fans as well as fans across the league. These fans take to Twitter to view and react to the posts which those previously mentioned engagements lead to more followers and more fans of the team.