social media audit

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Let's talk about me! In terms of my online footprint, I have been fairly careful with where and what information about me exists in that sphere. I have accounts on pretty much all of the relevant social media channels, but they are generally minimal in activity and I have taken good steps to keep private what I need to keep private. 

My Instagram profile is not under my name, and is not associated with my mobile number, so people generally have to ask me for my handle or I will find their account first. My Twitter has been inactive for years but is still private, I keep the account usually to see what other people are up to or if something is in the news. Snapchat is by request only, and I personally know well everyone I have "added" on there as a friend, so I know who's seeing what and only communicate to people I don't see in person on a regular basis. Facebook is essentially my harmless public front, I accept personal and professional contacts through there which is necessary because a lot of college groups rely on that service for group communications. 

My use of social media differs, I tend to look at it more when I'm bored or am looking at the platform to find something or see content. I post infrequently, but I post what I think will be most relevant and entertaining to those in my follower feed. I dislike the use of social media for personal self-promotion. I understand why celebrities or those in public life use that medium to spread messages or promote themselves, but so many people without that kind of a job tend to use the medium as an endless scroll of bragging or more often, bluffing. I think people that do this are for a lack of a better term, full of shit, and are perpetuating a cycle amongst their peers that is neither healthy or productive. I think if you're using social media to tell stories, entertain, connect with those you can't see in person, or spread meaningful messaging, that's the ideal use for it. But that's my personal preference, and others have their own philosophy on it.

In terms of personal information, I give cell numbers and email addresses, because that is what social media sites need for registration. I don't really care what they do with those, because I can ignore calls and delete spam email easily, and I have nothing to hide that they could track that way. As long as no one has my financial information or sensitive identification information, that's fine. Those sites don't ask for that anyways, so I've never worried about how my data is used. 

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In my experience, social media can be empowering, or it can be debilitating. Having spent a lot of my formative years using social media platforms when they were still new, I learned several lessons the hard way from my own mistakes and others. One being, if you're beginning to tailor your posts so that a specific person or people will respond or like them, you're posting for the wrong reasons. At the end of the day, these mediums are about you and your self-expression, so if you're adjusting that self-expression to someone else's fancies, you're not being honest and you're not expressing fully. Entertainment is great, and giving your followers something relatable or interesting is great, but always consider the cost and who you're really doing it for. 

Eight Values of Free Expression

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Hello. It's more than about time for another (6 more) blog posts, isn't it? Well, let's get started. In class, we covered the Eight Values of Free Expression, a concept pretty self-explanatory with some elements we don't always think about. Check them out:

1. Marketplace of Ideas
2.Participation in Self-Government3. Stable Change
4. Individual Self-Fulfillment
5. Check on Governmental Power
6. Promote Tolerance
7. Promote Innovation
8. Protect Dissent

These are all undeniably important elements that protect and reinforce free expression in our nation, but of all of them, I felt one was most important. The value of a Check on Governmental Power is what protects our society from overpowering voices to challenge, suppress, or discourage free expression beyond what is reasonable.

I think that while the rest of these elements matter, without our checks and balances system in place, the rest of those values could be easily rejected and ignored. If any one branch of government holds a great deal of power without oversight, those who do no value free expression could take power and take the other values away from us, no question.

From the checks and balances between governmental agencies, as well as the checks and balances on our system constituted by the people and the media, all elements of society and government are in play to keep each other honest. This is particularly important, because human nature is to act in one's own self-interest. If a government agency or its leadership finds that freedom of expression is not working in their own or its own self-interest, what's to keep that agency or leadership from deterring that action within the legal system? 

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Self-interest will always exist, and often freedom of expression will come at a cost to the reputation, power, etc of someone within that standing. Therefore, the value and institution checks and balances puts in place maintains that this self-interest can be contained in its impact on our liberties. What could be more important than that, y'all? 

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http://medlawlit.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_9.html

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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MASHABLE

"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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NPR ARTICLE