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.