IM's impact on communication : )

People have a lot of ideas about what Gen-Z'ers like myself know or grew up with technology wise, often veering towards the idea that we have no idea what it was like before the internet and before instant gratification was God. While absolutely, the later half of Gen-Z (2002-) probably doesn't remember life before iPhones or beyond (!), the earliest children of our generation (1997-2001) actually has a fairly solid understanding of what that was like. 

the latter half of gen-z, essentially (see link for source)

I honestly believe that we got the best of both worlds, because while internet certainly existed when we were born and beforehand, it still wasn't all the way there yet in what we could do with it, and we used a lot of technologies that sort of carried over from the previous century or are at least familiar with the concept. When I thought about something I might do in terms of a technology for our presentations, I knew I wanted to take on a technology that had its origins in the 20th century, but evolved through the 21st. Instant Messaging was the perfect choice. 

this would have been my second choice tbh (see link for source)

While IM as a concept existed in weird, specific, places in the early years of its existence, the idea of instantly communicating a personal message to someone's device has prevailed and evolved into a practice that has truly revolutionized the way that we communicate with each other. IM went from operating from screen to screen on the same computer, all the way up to the iMessage app or Facebook Messenger that allows us to instantly engage with someone on the other side of the world if we so choose. 

the windows xp era rlly was a time to be alive (see link for source)

When I think about how crazy it is that this caught on so quickly and evolved so fast, I am even more floored by how it has increased efficiency in our school communications, organization communications, business communications, etc. We really wouldn't be as connected a society globally as we are today without IM building the way for texting and social media direct messages. Though I don't really know a way we could further build upon improving the technology, I think we can't rule further innovation out. I'm sure the people building peer-to-peer IM in the 60s and 70s wouldn't have been able to fathom the path their new technology would take. IM is a classic, yet futuristic field of technology, and I'm excited to see where it might go next. 

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"Right to Be Forgotten" Decision Supports Global Free Speech.

Hello. I'm feeling pretty low energy today, so let's just get right into this. Back in 2014, a whopping FIVE years ago (is it permissible to feel old at 20? even if not, I still do), the EU released a new standard to allow individuals in EU countries to demand search results containing damning but not crucial to the public interest to be removed from the internet. However, a large discussion has surrounded whether these results should be removed just in EU countries, or applied globally. 

to remove or not to remove, that is the question (see link for source)

Today, a court in Europe ruled that the EU "right to be forgotten" policy shall only apply to internet users within EU states. Google had long been using a 'geoblock' feature that based on your geographic location, certain search results would or wouldn't be omitted. However, the CNIL (Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés) was let's just say, not cool with this. They figured it would be easier to just get rid of the search results from all of Google, and that the only way to really make sure a certain person's reputation is protected is to get rid of search results on that level, so they sued the Google over it. 

The courts didn't go for this argument, and ruled that while all domains within the EU need to comply with the "right to be forgotten" policy, that coverage will not extend beyond those domains. Here's a direct quote from the ruling: "it should be emphasized that numerous third States do not recognize the right to de-referencing or have a different approach to that right".

if you didn't know, now you know (see link for source)

So, the decision's been made, which is certainly a win for Google. However, in theory it is also a win for free speech. This decision, while protecting the decision of EU members, does not infringe upon the information and speech available to the rest of the world. While yes, this information available abroad has been deemed non-relevant to the public interest if it has earned removal from EU domains, it is still a really important thing that states outside the EU have the right to access that information regardless. Leaving the decision up to individual states as to how to handle this situation is most beneficial for the public and its role in managing the impacts of our highly connected landscape that's emerged. Woohoo on that. Later for now. 

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