I found this article earlier today through a link on Drudge Report. Pretty interesting in how Facebook is somewhat censoring what content they do allow and what content the don't. It seems that during the Egyptian uprisings we didn't hear about this happening at all but when the Palestinians use social media to organize their people, we see a different outcome.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110329/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_facebook
I would love to hear what you all think about this also.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
March 24 Class Period
When we walked into class today and were given our assignment there was a lot of confusion as to the best way to go about this process. There were so many different ways to go about the assignment so we all through out a few different ideas. After much debate we came to the consensus that the best way to proceed was to spend the first part of class discussing the readings and then we could all blog for the remainder of class. This seemed to be the only way to be able to accomplish this assignment as we quickly figured out how difficult it would be to blog and discuss the readings at the same time. The way I went about it all was taking notes as we discussed the readings and then started my blog post about the reading.
Chapter 6 is about how the government is instilling fear into the citizens which in turn tricks us into giving up our privacy rights. By giving up our privacy rights to the government it allows them to take a closer look into our lives and have tighter surveillance of the American citizenry. This is the first time that the government has done this as we enter our first war that has began during the technological age that we are now in. Because of this, the government adapted new ways to fight the war and this is one of these new strategies.
Chapter 7 takes a look at the new intrinsic ties between politics and surveillance. There has always been a form of surveillance that was used by the government to keep track of the citizenry. However this often created huge problems when this was discovered. A great example of this was when Nixon was busted during his presidency for authorizing the wire-tapping of citizens. This is ironic because when it was discovered that Bush was wiretapping citizens, we turned a blind-eye to this because it was deemed appropriate in the interest of our national security. People have let their guard down when it comes to issues of national security as we discussed as a class when talking about Chapter 6. The government has instilled so much fear in us that we are willing to do so much, and give the government the liberty to do anything that we think may make us safer.
This all begs the question of how ethical this surveillance is? As a citizen are you alright with the governments increase surveillance in the interest of national security (or so as they claim?).
While working on these posts we were joking around about this whole project and said, Do we think Professor Dean is watching us right now as we work together on this project? Is there a hidden camera somewhere that she is watching back in our office? This was a pretty funny joke that we all got a laugh from, but the truth of the matter is that we would never know. You never know and that is the fact of our modern surveillance culture.
Overall, this was a very interesting and for sure different way to go about class. I will admit though, I feel that we do get a lot more accomplished during a regular class when we spend the majority of class discussing the readings. I feel the problem that we encountered today was that it was hard to have a good discussion when the main emphasis of the class was on writing our blogs.
Chapter 6 is about how the government is instilling fear into the citizens which in turn tricks us into giving up our privacy rights. By giving up our privacy rights to the government it allows them to take a closer look into our lives and have tighter surveillance of the American citizenry. This is the first time that the government has done this as we enter our first war that has began during the technological age that we are now in. Because of this, the government adapted new ways to fight the war and this is one of these new strategies.
Chapter 7 takes a look at the new intrinsic ties between politics and surveillance. There has always been a form of surveillance that was used by the government to keep track of the citizenry. However this often created huge problems when this was discovered. A great example of this was when Nixon was busted during his presidency for authorizing the wire-tapping of citizens. This is ironic because when it was discovered that Bush was wiretapping citizens, we turned a blind-eye to this because it was deemed appropriate in the interest of our national security. People have let their guard down when it comes to issues of national security as we discussed as a class when talking about Chapter 6. The government has instilled so much fear in us that we are willing to do so much, and give the government the liberty to do anything that we think may make us safer.
This all begs the question of how ethical this surveillance is? As a citizen are you alright with the governments increase surveillance in the interest of national security (or so as they claim?).
While working on these posts we were joking around about this whole project and said, Do we think Professor Dean is watching us right now as we work together on this project? Is there a hidden camera somewhere that she is watching back in our office? This was a pretty funny joke that we all got a laugh from, but the truth of the matter is that we would never know. You never know and that is the fact of our modern surveillance culture.
Overall, this was a very interesting and for sure different way to go about class. I will admit though, I feel that we do get a lot more accomplished during a regular class when we spend the majority of class discussing the readings. I feel the problem that we encountered today was that it was hard to have a good discussion when the main emphasis of the class was on writing our blogs.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
iSpy Chapters 1 & 2: The Loss of Privacy
As we become more and more dependent on technology and digital networks, we are quickly losing control of our personal privacy. These networks are able to track the websites that we visit and able to record the products that we purchase. Using this information, they are able to suggest advertisements that may be pertinent to us and suggest other products that we may want to by. A great example of this is when you are looking at an item on amazon.com and there is the bar halfway down the page that says "Customers who bought this item also bought...". Companies are working as hard as possible in order to facilitate additional sales and they have found a way to do these through tracking our trends on the internet and our purchases.
All of this informational recording is something that is generally overlooked by most consumers. We often disregard the advertising on the side bar of our webpages and disregard suggestions to buy other products. In essence, we don't realize how we are being tracked. After taking a step back and looking at all of this, I was perplexed by one question that arises from points discussed in the text and preconceptions that I have always had: Are these companies just doing their jobs or are they completely invading our privacy?
I truly have no answer to that question because I see it from both angles. These companies are doing their jobs after all because they are figuring out what we the consumers want and desire and trying to make it easier for us to access said goods. There are no online regulations that prevent them from doing what they are doing. At the same time this is a complete invasion of our privacy. When the internet came out, it was said that it was beneficial to users who wanted to be able to shop in the privacy of their own homes. This is hardly the case because you really aren't getting any privacy at all. The information is received and spit back out by the sites that you are visiting and purchasing from. Any sense of privacy thus is completely dissolved.
I obviously don't have the answer to this question but would love to hear everyone else's opinion as it comes to this question because this is undoubtedly a debate that will continue to rage on as we become more and more plugged in.
All of this informational recording is something that is generally overlooked by most consumers. We often disregard the advertising on the side bar of our webpages and disregard suggestions to buy other products. In essence, we don't realize how we are being tracked. After taking a step back and looking at all of this, I was perplexed by one question that arises from points discussed in the text and preconceptions that I have always had: Are these companies just doing their jobs or are they completely invading our privacy?
I truly have no answer to that question because I see it from both angles. These companies are doing their jobs after all because they are figuring out what we the consumers want and desire and trying to make it easier for us to access said goods. There are no online regulations that prevent them from doing what they are doing. At the same time this is a complete invasion of our privacy. When the internet came out, it was said that it was beneficial to users who wanted to be able to shop in the privacy of their own homes. This is hardly the case because you really aren't getting any privacy at all. The information is received and spit back out by the sites that you are visiting and purchasing from. Any sense of privacy thus is completely dissolved.
I obviously don't have the answer to this question but would love to hear everyone else's opinion as it comes to this question because this is undoubtedly a debate that will continue to rage on as we become more and more plugged in.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality
After reading Clay Shirky's article Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality I have gained a new view on the blogosphere. In the article he discusses the power law distribution and how it relates to blogging in that a small percentage of blogs receive the majority of the views. This being said, I don't see that there is anything negative about this fact. Prior to this year I was not a big blogger and it was not until I was introduced to blogging in my class Ideological Media that I became immersed in the blogosphere. Now I find myself going to different blogs everyday to get my news. With my experience in blogging as an example, I would say that my blogging does follow the power law distribution model that Shirky discusses. I do find myself viewing the same blogs everyday and the blogs I do view are those that are the most popular. I was referred to these blogs by fellow classmates and professors and feel that they have been invaluable in me being more informed about what is going on in the world.
I feel that Shirky sees the power law model of blogging as a negative aspect of the industry. Personally though I see nothing wrong with it. I feel that the blogs I view provide me with the best information in the most efficient way. I have looked at other blogs to get my news and did not find them as appealing or as informative. Hence, there is nothing wrong with a small majority of the blogs getting a majority of the views. They are undoubtedly the best blogs and in a capitalist society they will continue to get the most views until a better blog has been developed.
Obviously I have made some contentious points in this blog post and I would love to hear feed-back from you all as to how you felt about this article also.
I feel that Shirky sees the power law model of blogging as a negative aspect of the industry. Personally though I see nothing wrong with it. I feel that the blogs I view provide me with the best information in the most efficient way. I have looked at other blogs to get my news and did not find them as appealing or as informative. Hence, there is nothing wrong with a small majority of the blogs getting a majority of the views. They are undoubtedly the best blogs and in a capitalist society they will continue to get the most views until a better blog has been developed.
Obviously I have made some contentious points in this blog post and I would love to hear feed-back from you all as to how you felt about this article also.
Reflections on Lanier
Towards the end of Lanier's book You Are Not A Gadget we begin to see the authors reflections on the role of computers in our lives. In this section I feel he makes one of his most important points in that humans need to play a more important role than computers. We cannot let computers take over and rule our lives like we have thus far. We have let ourselves become stupid and allow our computers to run our lives. Things that were once basic tasks we now rely on computers to get accomplished. As Lanier preaches, we cannot precipitate this trend and instead need to defy it. While computers will always play a major role in our lives going forward we can't allow computers to completely take over our lives. As I discussed in an earlier blog post, computers have already started to take a dominant role in our economy, replacing millions of jobs. While this has certain benefits for sure, we are still uncertain of the long term effects, long term effects that in my perception are not going to be quite as good as the current benefits.
While I am not preaching that computers are terrible and that we can't rely on them to do certain tasks, I am saying that we cannot continue to rely more and more on our computers. We continue to create applications for them that dumb tasks down to make them easier. What we are in turn creating however is a society that without their computers is lost because they can't get anything done. We cannot let this happen and while I don't have the solution to this problem myself, this is something that we need to continue to work towards finding a solution for.
While I am not preaching that computers are terrible and that we can't rely on them to do certain tasks, I am saying that we cannot continue to rely more and more on our computers. We continue to create applications for them that dumb tasks down to make them easier. What we are in turn creating however is a society that without their computers is lost because they can't get anything done. We cannot let this happen and while I don't have the solution to this problem myself, this is something that we need to continue to work towards finding a solution for.
Question from Class on 2/3/11
Going along with my last blog post, I saw an intrinsic tie between technology and the job market. As a senior right now who is trying to be employed in three months when I graduate this is obviously a hot topic on my mind. That being the case I structured my question around these points.
Given the current state of the economy today what effect do you think the developments of technology have had on the job market? We have seen computers replace millions jobs that one employed a large majority of our population and unemployment numbers continue to rise. Is there any way to reverse this trend or will this continue as computers evolve even further?
Given the current state of the economy today what effect do you think the developments of technology have had on the job market? We have seen computers replace millions jobs that one employed a large majority of our population and unemployment numbers continue to rise. Is there any way to reverse this trend or will this continue as computers evolve even further?
The Technological Age
As computers become more and more advanced, they seem to have taken over a role in society that was unthinkable only a few years ago. This is especially true in regards to the job sector where we have seen thousands of jobs disappear because companies realized that they could replace their workers with computer operated machinery. Lanier alludes to this point when he discusses how one of the dark sides to industrialization is that computers are making the skills that humans worked so hard to master completely obsolete. No longer does GM need to employ as many employees at their factories to produce cars. Rather the majority of the construction is done primarily by a robot who is able to build the car cheaper and faster than a human.
The key question to ask of all of this is what are the long term effects of computer operated machines becoming more and more of a fixture in the workplace and replacing the individuals who used to work those jobs? The answer to this question is not simple for one has to examine both the economic benefits and pitfalls of this development. In my opinion I feel that we can not place all our eggs in one basket and rely on computers to accomplish jobs that we do have trained workers to do. While computers are able to save these companies money, they are also hurting our economy by making jobs obsolete.
All this being said what we need to take out of this all is the fact that computers have assumed an important place in our economy. We can't change what we have already done now. What we need to do going forward though is analyze the pros and cons of using computers to replace workers. We cannot let our skilled employees disappear because they have been replaced by computers. We need to be able to both embrace this new technological age but also be weary of its implications.
The key question to ask of all of this is what are the long term effects of computer operated machines becoming more and more of a fixture in the workplace and replacing the individuals who used to work those jobs? The answer to this question is not simple for one has to examine both the economic benefits and pitfalls of this development. In my opinion I feel that we can not place all our eggs in one basket and rely on computers to accomplish jobs that we do have trained workers to do. While computers are able to save these companies money, they are also hurting our economy by making jobs obsolete.
All this being said what we need to take out of this all is the fact that computers have assumed an important place in our economy. We can't change what we have already done now. What we need to do going forward though is analyze the pros and cons of using computers to replace workers. We cannot let our skilled employees disappear because they have been replaced by computers. We need to be able to both embrace this new technological age but also be weary of its implications.
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