Echochamber

What is an Echochamber? As the dictionary states, an echochamber is “an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas are not considered.”

Humans engage in content in many ways throughout their daily lives. People are expected to take in all they hear and read about and they are expected to take in the information and form opinions and develop a knowledge base and then interact with others using this knowledge. Understanding right from wrong in both actions and information is a key part of human interaction. But conflict is something most people like to avoid. Therefore, associating with people with similar likes and dislikes, similar behaviors, and similar interests is something people do. But when this association does not allow a person to be open-minded it can create problems.

According to an article in Forbes.com, there are 6 reasons why people tend to create a comfortable “echo chamber”.

1. Herd Instinct - People have a natural and evolutionary instinct to cooperate and be a part of a larger whole, and they tend to seek out others with similar viewpoints.
2. Polarization - the propensity to force the adoption of views in an attempt to maintain some semblance of individual power
3. Selective Exposure and Confirmation Bias - People tend to favor information that reinforces their preexisting views and avoid information that challenges them.
4. Personalization of Conflict - When it comes to personalized content, you aren’t necessarily being given the “right” answer; you’re being given the answer you’re most likely to engage with.
5. Socialization of Content - Your online connections can influence your personal reach, the ability you have to impact others and your search results.
6. Content Sharing - Much of the content we are exposed to is shared without ever going through the proxy of a rational (or even irrational) human mind.

(https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/11/21/escaping-the-echo-chamber-the-danger-of-content-and-our-new-call-to-responsibility/#5c7052fa8d54)

While an echochamber can offer a person a level of comfort because they are speaking and communicating with people who will agree with them and are likely to be non-confrontational, it can also be dangerous. Relying on information from people that think exactly as you do can prevent a person from actually being aware of the different sides of an issue and prevent them from getting a full understanding of the how’s and why’s that might lead to a conflict, a war, etc. Understand all sides of an issue allows a person to make valid, informed decisions. Scholars and journalists have argued that “the rise of social media and its creation of “echo chambers”—curated feeds comprising posts that match our political beliefs—for increasing the polarization among people throughout the world.”

(https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/10/02/social-media-echo-chambers-arent-making-the-us-more-politically-polarized-so-what-is/)

Each morning, American citizens wake up to a new tweet, statement of comment from the President of the United States. And each morning American citizens select a news medium to listen to in order to get more information about that comment from the President. If a person selects MSNBC as their news source, they will hear information one way. And if they select Fox News, they will hear the same news with a different slant. Is one reporting real news and the other reporting “fake news”? When given an opportunity to select their media choices, people tend to choose the TV channel or print outlet that shares similar beliefs to them. But shouldn’t mainstream news outlets share information without any form of bias? Perhaps, but unfortunately, this is just not happening. People select news outlets so that they hear the news the way they want to hear it. And, people often spread or share news through social media that fit within their “echochamber”. But some believe that people are smart and can discern the difference between opinion and fact. “Let’s say I’m a liberal person who reads The New York Times,” Jo said, referring to a newspaper that leans toward the left. “I know that they’re generally more liberal, so I can watch for that bias when I’m reading about a new topic. If I were a liberal person learning about a new topic from Fox News [which typically falls more to the right], it’s hard to understand their exact bias and weed out the facts from the politics.”  (https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/10/02/social-media-echo-chambers-arent-making-the-us-more-politically-polarized-so-what-is/) Individuals should not have to take the news that is delivered to them and weed out the bias in it. News should be delivered with content that is factual and not opinionated. People need to be more responsible when engaging with news stories. Small changes in an individual’s behavior, like reading an article to the end and having a full understanding of what was being reported and being more objective when listening or reading what is being reported can help spread more factual information.

Over the past year, there has been a focus on the technology behind Facebook and the news feeds that appear on people’s Facebook pages. The algorithm of the site actually monitors and evaluates activities on that site, their posts and the “friends” that they associate with. Doing so has allowed Facebook to control the information that comes up on a person’s Facebook page. This means that Facebook is creating a type of  “echochamber” to each individual. This can be dangerous, especially if Facebook has become the main news source for an individual.

Privacy

As technology has made life much more convenient, it has also made our personal lives much more public and unsafe. Any information a person enters online becomes a “digital tattoo” as described in the Juan Enriquez TED talk. Today, people have a variety of social media accounts, they shop online, and they use the internet for a variety of other reasons. And each and every move a person makes is being tracked and stored. No one’s privacy is safe. It is now possible for companies and the government to collect and store information about all of us, but why does this information we enter have to come at the expense of a person giving up their privacy?

Data is no longer safe or controllable. We have lost control of our personal data and our privacy. Ideas that gave way to search engines like Google, social media sites like Facebook, email accounts, etc are amazing and have changed the world we live in for better and for worse. It starts when a person does a basic search. The topic follows them wherever they go. And, once a person enters information on any site on the internet, the information is stored and analyzed and compared with other data to get more detailed information about a person.They are tracked further and content is then pushed to them. It starts when a person sends an email to someone. It is not like a letter as Any Yen stated in his TED talk. It is more like a postcard where anyone can read it. Once you hit send on your email, it goes through many hands/eyes before including internet providers, email providers, even the government, before it ever gets to the intended recipient.

The more technology is developed and improved, the more our ability to hide and have personal information remain personal becomes more challenging. Take for example, something we all enjoy doing on a daily basis, using the camera on our cell phone. When you take a photo, the photo is tagged with the location of where the photo was taken. It is also installing facial recognition and can potentially associate a photo with a person’s name. Now assuming you took a photo of a stranger in a park, you are now able to take that photo, find out their name and then Google them to find out more information about them and just like that, you know more about this stranger and you have never even met them. Clearly, a loss of a person’s privacy.

People are buying more online than offline these days. And in this new world of shopping, the data we provide at each website is no longer safe. Retailers store the data consumers input and that information is then “unprotected” and can be a part of a data breach. Or what about a person’s medical records. A patient file is now fully digital and many of the hospitals and medical groups provide access to this information in online websites - also at a risk for hacking and a data breach. Part of the process before seeing a doctor, is signing off to give a doctor permission to maintain your records in a digital format.

And to think that I can not even get into my car and go somewhere without being tracked represents an invasion of my privacy. In Catherine Krumps TED talk she elaborates. Advanced military weapons and equipment are making their way to local police departments. Video surveillance is now common. Location information and location trackers can reveal all the places that you visit. Government gains a detail portrait about how private citizens interact. Automatic license plate readers are everywhere -- mounted on poles, on police cars, etc  -- and they can quickly get a description of the owner of the car, their habits and whether or not person in the car to see if they are on any government hot lists. But local police are keeping track of every plate that passes these readers, and now no one’s privacy is safe. Her example of Mike showed that the police captured he was going, who he was with, where he shopped and even tracked him getting out of his own car in his own driveway. And you can be certain that Mike is not the only one being tracked. Photos of all people going about their daily lives are being captured. Personal identities are no longer safe.

And, as the cost of storing data has gone down, the ability to store tons and tons of data is that much easier. Therefore, the increase in these types of privacy-invading technologies are on the rise. A person must be smart in order to do the best they can to protect their privacy.  Each person must consider every post they make, every photo they upload, every dialog in every chat room, every tweet they make and every email they send because once a person hits “enter”, everything they post is public. Privacy as we know it today will never exist again. No one is immune!

More News Sources

People need to be far more cautious than ever before when reading the news and believing what they read. With the growth of the internet, it has become easier for many different sources to provide news to the people, anyone can have a website or blog and post information to it and anyone can “tweet” on Twitter.  It is harder to control what is written and who reads is so it is important for people to remember that news can be biased or simply inaccurate. What is the best way to find reliable, credible, factual news today? Digital media is my go-to for getting information on current events and news stories. I get all my news online. My top choice for all types of news, including entertainment and political news, is Twitter. With over 260 million subscribers, Twitter is a very popular source for, not only me, but many people, to go to get their news. But the information that I read (and the other 260 million subscribers reading the tweets) on Twitter is only as good as the person that is posting it. Therefore, it is important for me to recognize who is “tweeting” and be able to determine whether or not the source is accurate and reliable. Tweets that I read can come from reputable institutions like the United Nations, reputable newspapers like the NY Times or from a journalist and it is these tweets that I put more value or trust in. But part of the fun these days is actually reading some of the “fake news” that is posted which may be opinionated, exaggerated or just plain false. As long as you remember it is fake as you are reading it. Instagram is another way for me to become aware of top news stories for the day. I can quickly scroll through, view the images and get an idea of what might be important or happening that day. Instagram is my source for entertainment news. And often, I am viewing photos and comments posted by the actual person so I know that the information is credible. YouTube is another digital media source that provides news. YouTube pulls videos from top news sources on its network into one area they call a “megachannel”. This makes it easy for me to quickly get news. Once I review and select the specific source that has credibility and that I like to watch, I can subscribe to them and then easily return to them on a daily basis to get my news. YouTube also pulls in videos from major broadcast networks like ABC, NBC or CNN or even sources like the New York Times now have a video news channel on YouTube that I can view. And if I am curious and would like to know more about something, I visit The New York Times website to get more in-depth information. The New York Times is a newspaper that has been around for many years and has standards that their writers must adhere to and I can be certain of its accuracy. Their site is easy to navigate and provides accurate news in various areas including politics, business, technology and entertainment. Their quick summaries allow me to get an overall understanding of what is going on in the world without having to read too much. Believe it or not, a final source for me is through posts and conversations with people on gaming message boards while I am playing a multi-person game. While this might be one of the more frequent sources for me, I am listing this one last because it is clearly the most unreliable source of gathering information. However, it is a way for me to find out current events and it provides me with a variety of views and ideas about each topic. I can then go back to one of my other 4 sources, which have far more credibility, to review the topic and get a greater understanding.

We're Being Watched

When going online and making forms of social media, you are leaving a digital footprint on the internet for companies, random people, and friends to figure out about you. An even better example of this could be a website about yourself depending on the amount of information you choose to reveal. I currently do have my own domain "jonathanmoss.net", but it's owned just to hold the name for me. The owner of the .com website is asking for $1000 for it and that's just going to be a no from me. I've always wanted to grow my online presence since I was a kid. I started making Club Penguin YouTube videos at age 11, but that channel is since gone. I moved onto many different names playing Xbox, and now I currently have almost every form of social media. I feel that I don't reveal too much about myself. I post memes and sarcastic tweets, and on Instagram, no one is really what they look like. If someone even visits my social media, they'll understand that I like videography and I wouldn't say that's a shocker because of YouTube.

As I mentioned in class today, I saw a video on YouTube which was actually a livestream from a couple months ago. He made this a livestream just to show the audience that there were no cuts. The video was titled "Is Google always listening: Live test". In the video, content creator Mitchollow with 82 thousand subscribers goes live and shows what ads he is getting on the sides of his pages. He then holds up a piece of paper to the webcam with the words "Dog Toys". This is going to be the subject of the test. He states that he does not even own a dog also. After closing all of the tabs and going to his desktop, he starts talking about dog toys as if he were talking to a friend. He goes on for two minutes about these toys and then logs back on to the same websites that he was testing to see the ads on the page. The results were astonishing. In only those two minutes of talking about dog toys, when reopening the tabs, there were dog toy ads on the side.

When registering for a lot of sites nowadays, they actually make you input your phone number. Dr. Smith told the class today that he usually enters in an office number, but that wouldn't always work as of nowadays they send you a text verification to confirm it's your actual phone number. A great example of me giving up my phone number would be for Twitter. Having an online presence, even small can be a hassle. I would say people have tried to hack my Twitter twice or three times now. Because of this, a way that I've secured my account is 2Factor Authentication. What 2Factor does is after I login, it sends me a text to my phone with a code that I have to enter in just to verify that it's me. I would say this is the best way to keep your account secured.

I wouldn't say that social media makes us lonely. For me growing up, social media was my outage to meet new people from all over the world. Some were weird and some I talk to today. I have made some of my best friends on social media and I don't regret it at all.

Galaxy Fold

Every year, technology companies from around the world gather together in the Las Vegas Convention center to present their new products and technologies. Things like self driving cars, wearable technologies and full wall screens that can roll away were on display. This year, Samsung presented a foldable cell phone called The Galaxy Fold and cell phone fanatics are excited about it and so am I. This cell phone will be released soon and cell phones will never be the same. “Featuring an Infinity Flex display, the Samsung Galaxy Fold goes from a 4.6-inch display for phone mode and folds out to reveal a separate 7.3-inch display on the inside. It’s designed to be a comfortable device to hold one-handed.” (https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/samsung-galaxy-fold-news/) The fold will not be cheap when it first comes out at $1,980, but it will be the next “must have” gadget. When unfolded, the phone will be more like a table than a phone with a full screen size close to 7.3”. And when unfolded, it will be able to run multiple applications using all parts of the screens or you can choose to have the image spread across both screens. And on top of the size and clarity of the screen, the phone has a top camera as well. “There are actually six cameras in the Samsung Galaxy Fold. Three on the back make up the main camera, combining a wide, ultrawide, and telephoto lens. There’s also a dual front camera, which seems to be housed in a notch at the top right of the Infinity Flex display, and there’s a single cover camera as well.” (https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/samsung-galaxy-fold-news/ )It is a pricey phone with many uses. It can certainly target the cell phone + tablet user and suggest they combine into one device. But whoever the target audience, first adopters and the gadget gurus out there will definitely want to get their hands on this one.

Values of Free Expression

There are eight values of free expression. Each gives protection to the individual in the United States. It is debatable, but I would say that the 4th value is probably the most important of the free expressions. The 4th value, free speech, enables people to speak freely without consequences. This is unique to the United States because in other countries that aren't democratic, the things you say about others or the government can mean life or death.



Let's take Pakistan in for example. "The 16-page report's violations include officially enforced censorship, written or verbal threats, killings, harassment, arrests, abductions, illegal confinements and physical assaults, conducted by state and non-state actors and political and religious parties" (Source). Out there, people are literally being harassed and killed for what they say. Someone may argue that you could be harassed for what you say online in the United States, but that's not the government taking action. That's an angry compilation of normal people mad at you for what you posted. Just because we have freedom of speech here in the US doesn't mean that we don't have consequences. The consequences are just different. We the people create what is acceptable to say in society and what is not so acceptable to say in society and that's what makes our freedom of speech limited.

Leaving Neverland

Recently, a documentary was released on HBO called Leaving Neverland. Many have been anxiously waiting for the release of this film. It premiered at The Sundance Music Festival in January with many reporting about it but people were making judgements about Michael Jackson and the film itself way before its release. The film is a documentary about 2 men who detail their stories about being sexually abused by Michael Jackson when they were befriended by him as young boys. The film is told through the eyes of the accusers. Accounts and descriptions of the friendships they had with Michael Jackson are told in detail; both the good and the bad. “This powerful documentary chronicles their never-before-told firsthand accounts of how he endeared himself to the boys, how their families fell in love with Jackson, and how he allegedly got away with sexually molesting them for decades. They met Jackson years apart and on different continents, but both men offer disturbingly similar accounts that chronicle the manipulative process of a pedophile, the queasy emotional and physical intimacy between victim and abuser and how celebrity trumped accountability and common sense at most every turn. Leaders of the Jackson estate, who declined to appear in the film, deny all the criminal allegations, and the estate is now suing the film’s producer and director, Dan Reed.”

(https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-et-st-michael-jackson-documentary-leaving-neverland-review-20190301-story.html )

Michael Jackson’s family is outraged by the documentary. And many would have liked to have prevented it from airing. But that is not possible as a film is action and not speech and therefore it is not protected under the 1st Amendment as we learned in the 1915 case where the filmmakers of Birth Of A Nation tried to sue those that tried to ban the movie. In this instance, the family and their attorney found a loophole and have filed a claim against HBO. “The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court alleges that by co-producing and airing “Leaving Neverland,” as HBO intends to do next month, the cable channel is breaching a deal to not disparage the singer. The decades-old contract allowed the cable network to air “Michael Jackson in Concert in Bucharest: The Dangerous Tour” and included language that HBO would not disparage Jackson at any future point.” (https://www.apnews.com/4abb6b7b96f14acb85e3f51c6f540929) It will be interesting to see if this claim will stick as it really was created for the protection of Michael Jackson for a given film though wording in the earlier agreement may actually cover all future films and releases on their network.

I am not going to watch the documentary. And, it is not that I don’t believe the individuals that are telling their story. I haven't had the opportunity or knowledge to make that decision. But it is because, for me, Michael Jackson holds a special place in my heart. As long as I can remember, I have always been a big fan of Michael Jackson’s music, dancing, videos and of his great talent in general. And, I don’t want the image that I have of him to change.

Sexual abuse is terrible. It is often not discussed or goes unnoticed or untold. The film reminds people that they shouldn’t keep things like this a secret. Therefore, it is necessary for the public to hear the words of the survivors, whether they are truthful accusations or not. It is also helpful for the survivors to tell their stories as it may help them in dealing with the hurt and pain that they suffering. I am not here to decide whether or not the accusations are true or false, though it would be better if Michael Jackson was still alive to defend himself. These men felt pain, felt abused and needed to share their story with others in order to remind people of the importance of sharing rather than keeping it to oneself and in hopes of helping others who might be suffering a similar situation and are afraid to tell. I feel horrible for them. But for me, my Michael Jackson is an invincible, super talented person and I do not want to change my image of Michael Jackson.