Post #4

 Post #4

EOTO #1 Com Tech Timeline 

    X once known as twitter is a social media platform. Twitter is a platform for which you "tweet" and post your opinions. Before, Musk twitter was being "censored". Musk's platform X is all about the 1st amendment and non censorship. Jack Dorsey sent out the first tweet on march 21st, 2006. I assume he didn't know that he was the first tweet on one of the largest social media platforms. 

   

    Twitter was born from brainstorming while working at a company named Odeo, a up in coming San Francisco podcasting firm. The original creators of twitter are Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams and they were on a mission. Dorsey spear-headed the idea of a status-updating service, which was inspired by the way people back then delivered sms messages. The problem they were solving was to create a sort of venue where people can share there ideas, emotions, and whatever they feel comfortable sharing.

    The term "Twitter" comes from how birds chirp and how when they chirp it is a quick burst of data or communication. The original character limit was 140 characters thus a chirp or tweet. This caused twitter users to have to be creative on how to say certain things in a concise way.

    Cut to 2020 and Elon Musk buys Twitter and rebrands it as X. The rebranding was apart of of Musks plan to make X an "Everything app". X is now used as an app for messaging, payments, and content sharing all in one platform. The impact is that now the 140 character limit turns into a 280 character limit. Twitter changed the world and became the app to use for political movements, overall news, celebrity scandals, ext.

    X created a sort of Communication revolution. Before Twitter/X public discourse was mostly through brands, celebrities, and media audiences. twitter flipped all over this head over heels. In an instant, anyone could reply to a politician or become a viral star overnight. Twitter democratized voice in ways we haven't seen since the internet began. Activists were made overnight and became very prominent very quickly. There was a new aspect to people that did this though. You could give real time visuals of what was going on. Almost like you were there. In America, movements like BlackLivesMatter became the centerpiece through hashtags and shares. Transforming a platform built for status updates into a platform for social transformation.

What comes with Twitter?

The Good

-Gave voice to smaller communities

- Established instant access to current events

- Spearheaded grassroots organizing

- launched career for a ton of people

The Bad

- Cyberbullying

- False information

- Echo chambers and polarization

- Mob Mentality and cancel culture 

    The shift from Twitter to X with Musk has introduced new levels of controversy. With paid verification all the way through relaxing moderation policy, critics view the platform changes as resulting in increased disinformation and confusion and detractors for its assumed evolution towards free speech and innovation.

    X is not like posting. blog of your life anymore. It a global influence machine. While the service continues to shift under Musk's guidance, the globe holds its or descends into an internet pandemonium. Either way, though people cannot ignore the legacy. Twitter redefined the manner in which we converse and mostly argue and sometimes rally together. it propelled the internet ahead and made it almost more interesting and attentive. 

   

    

post #5

Post #5

Privacy on and offline

    We share so much more than we realize not just our birthdays and names, but our habits, preferences, where we are, and even moods. These are not coincidental correlations; they are tracked, filtered, and exchanged in bulk. One message that resonated starkly across the TED Talks that I watched was this: privacy invasions are not a glitch in the system they are the system. Companies like Facebook, Google, and many others profit from knowing us better than we know ourselves. They don't just collect information they examine it, build profiles, and predict our behavior with unnerving accuracy. That kind of intimate information about our lives is powerful and in the wrong hands, dangerous.

    This issue isn't just about me. My family members use social media, smart home devices, and cloud storage without necessarily considering the trade-offs. The convenience of these devices has a way of hiding the cost: spying. I'm really scared at how little control we really have over our personal information. Even if I do choose to be cautious, my relatives and friends might not, and their actions can put me in danger inadvertently. That's the awkward truth: privacy is no longer a personal virtue. It's a communal fault. One over-sharer's information can bleed into their entire community.

    The governments need to catch up with the times. We need detailed, enforceable laws that place human beings over profit. Such laws as the GDPR in the EU are a good start, but we need something just as strong if not stronger elsewhere. Companies need to be held financially and legally responsible for abuse and violations. And users need to have easy control over what is being collected, how it's being utilized, with whom it's being shared, and for how long.

    There are things we can do on an individual level. We can use end-to-end encrypted messaging apps, limit app permissions, review privacy settings from time to time, and be cautious about what we post on the web. It is necessary to read privacy policies yawn as it might be. Even with that, though, the battle appears to be uphill. It's not data; it's about our dignity, our liberty, and our right to control how much of ourselves we give to the world. Privacy is not about cover-up it’s about control.

Post #10

 Post #10 

Living in the age of AI

    Frontline's In the Age of AI is an amazing piece of investigative journalism, both inspiring and unsettling. Being an MPE major, I was particularly blown away by sheer production effort that went into creating a timely, hour-long, visually rich documentary dissecting such a massive subject within weeks. But apart from the technical competence, the content itself was stimulating and provoking.

    The second hour of the documentary delves into the double-edged nature of Artificial Intelligence. On the positive side, the potential rewards are immense. AI is already helping doctors diagnose disease with greater accuracy, making supply chains more efficient, and even combat climate change by processing enormous amounts of information. All these advances could change human life in a radical way, making everything from transportation to education more effective and personalized.

    But the dark side is chilling. One of the most powerful things to me was the way the AI is being used to conduct wholesale surveillance, particularly in China. The idea that social scoring and facial recognition systems can track all the steps a person makes is profoundly dehumanizing. It raises extremely urgent questions about privacy how much of our private data really is under our control, and who does it belong to?

    Another concern the documentary raised is national security. AI is not just clever assistants or better Google searches it's also about cyber warfare, deepfakes, and even deadly autonomous weapons. As countries compete to outdo each other in an AI race, the risk of abuse becomes a higher likelihood. That race could become a new kind of arms race, one that is unregulated or morally defined.

    Online security and identity theft are on the increase as well. The more advanced AI technology gets, the more advanced the cybercriminals get. Identity theft is not just stolen credit card information anymore it can be performed using deepfake videos, AI-assisted phishing attacks with AI-synthesized messages, and AI-assisted manipulation of the public narrative. That was a truly terrifying take-home point for me.

    All this being said, I appreciated the even tone of the documentary. It didn't paint AI as either completely good or evil it portrayed the technology itself as being neutral. The question is what we do with it, how we build and command it. We're only in the first chapters of this era of AI, and the choices we're making today will shape the world for decades to come.

    My biggest question mark is: Who decides where AI leads? And how do we ensure that the people making those decisions are acting for the good of humanity?

Post #9

 Post #9

Final EOTO: Illusory Truth Theory

    Have you ever caught yourself believing something simply because you've heard it so many times and then realized that it's not even true? That is not forgetfulness and insufficient effort; it's an actual psychological phenomenon called the Illusory Truth Effect. And it's more powerful and prevalent than we might be ready to acknowledge.

    The Illusory Truth Effect is when people start believing misinformation simply because it's been repeated over and over. Even if we know the truth, constant repetition of misinformation is likely to wear down our doubt in the long run. Over time, what is familiar becomes true even if it's not.

    This phenomenon was originally reported in the 1970s, but in today's culture of constant news, social media curators, and echo chambers, it's more timely than ever. Consider it: TikTok trends, viral tweets, YouTube personality repetition is omnipresent. And not everything is based on reality.

    On the surface, repetition is not inherently bad. It's how we learn language, create habits, and memorize facts for tests. In education and marketing, repetition is used to reinforce important messages. But when the message is false — that vaccines are dangerous, or that some groups of people are less than others — the Illusory Truth Effect is a significant threat.

    Disinformation spreads faster than ever, especially on the internet. One lie might raise an eyebrow, but a hundred. That is where the danger lies. It can sway public opinion, influence elections, exacerbate divisions, and even incite violence.

    Even though everybody is open to this effect, some sectors could feel itstronger. Seniors, for instance, would struggle to differentiate reality from make-believe due to diminishing thinking skills or being foreign to cyber media. However unexpectedly, teenage digital natives aren't excluded from it either. Gen Z could be confident dealing with social media, but it does not qualify us as being misinformation detection specialists, especially if presented in the guise of current looks and pleasing sounds.

    Socioeconomic status comes into play as well. Those who have limited access to quality education or critical media literacy skills are more likely to internalize repeated lies. And minority groups already targeted by stereotype and bias can be further disenfranchised when lies about them are legitimized through repetition.

    When I heard about the Illusory Truth Effect, the first thing that came to mind was how many times I've spewed something I'd read online about without verifying. If it's a quote from some celeb or a health "hack" or a bit of political gossip I've surely been duped. So have my friends. So have my relatives. We are in an era where becoming well-informed isn't about being smart it's about being wary.

    This phenomenon has made me pause before I click "share" something I've heard. It reminds us that even when we're not consciously sharing misinformation, we might be doing it anyway. And if we all get that little bit wiser about what we consume and share, we can curtail the tide of deception and maybe, just maybe, begin to spread a little more truth instead.

Post #8

 Post #8

Diffusion of Innovation 

    When I first read Everett Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations theory, something clicked. It gave shape to the way that we talk about new tech not just as inventions, but as cultural shifts. Rogers breaks down the process of how innovations are diffused into stages: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Once you see this chart, you start seeing it everywhere. And nowhere is this more visible than in TikTok's rise.

    Back when TikTok began, it was easy to dismiss it as a lip-syncing application for teenagers. Yet, those teenagers were the early adopters. They saw something fresh, fun, and creative in the app's short video format. The early adopters quickly followed creators who used the app to showcase comedy, dance, fashion, and even informative content. Those users turned TikTok into something larger than its inception.

    As it gained popularity, TikTok reached the early majority. It was not just Gen Z anymore millennials, companies, and even news outlets were creating content. The algorithm's ability to immediately tailor content to a user's interests made it addictively accessible. But still, the late adopters typically older demographics or more privacy-conscious individuals waited back. And then, naturally, there are always the non-adopters: those who expressly opt not to use them due to concerns about data privacy, screen time, or a desire to stay off social media in general.

 

 

    Rogers' theory accounts for not just who adopts and when, but also why. TikTok offered low barrier to entry, high entertainment value, and strong social incentive especially during the pandemic, when humans were starving for connection. These made the "cost" of adoption low and the benefit high.

    What about the cons? As with all innovations, TikTok is not immune to criticism. Issues related to mental health, surveillance, misinformation, and addictive design have become increasingly pressing as the app has aged. These are the dark underbelly of speedy uptake something Rogers' theory invites us to think about in our examination of any innovation.

    Personally, I'm still on the fence about TikTok. I see its creative potential, but I also weigh the time suck and privacy concerns. Rogers reminds us that adoption is never only about the tech it's about values, needs, risks, and rewards. Whether we're talking about apps or activism, that's a useful frame to consider.

Post #7

 Post #7

The Progressive Era

    The Progressive Era, Marketplace of Ideas and the Modern First Amendment was the final episode of our Media Law history tour. It closed a chapter that has shown how fragile free expression can be, especially when it runs up against powerful institutions. World War I stoked a fire of patriotic fervor in the United States during the Progressive Era but not everyone was on message. Antiwar critics, driven by conscience and principle, spoke out against American policy. What did the government do? They cracked down on them. Dozens of Americans were imprisoned simply because they were war critics. In theory, the First Amendment was meant to protect them. But in practice, they were disregarded or better yet, turned into weapons against them.

    So now let's move to today. America is militarily engaged all around the globe drone strikes, clandestine operations, troop deployment. And you scarcely ever get a critical examination of this on the mass media. Browsing the big news outlets, you'll have bipartisan support for defense budgets, military interventionism, and stories that portray war as unavoidable or imperative. Where are the doubters?

    It seems they're still here just not where everybody can see them. Web pages such as Antiwar.com and The American Conservative are rife with trenchant antiwar commentary, piercing denunciations of American foreign policy, and voices of prudence against war without end. These sites, however, are far from household names. Why? Why do we have to go digging so deep just to be able to hear voices critical of the war consensus?

    It's a disturbing trend. During WWI, protesters were jailed. Today, they're simply ignored. Their audiences are small, their niches restricted, and their messages relegated unobtrusively to the background. In theory, they're entitled to speak. But in a media culture dominated by corporate interests, government control, and algorithmic click-ratings, that right can become empty if nobody is listening.

    The First Amendment is not paper and ink it's a living idea that has to be fought for day to day. Real free speech is not just the right to speak, and it's being heard. And today the citizens who object to war are still barely managing to be heard at all.

Post #6

 Post #6

EOTO #2 Misinformation

    

    For my EOTO response, I decided to discuss disinformation because it pairs well with another topic, I am interested in echo chambers and has a tendency to overlap in fascinating ways. Disinformation is the intentional distribution of false information to achieve a specific agenda, which sets it apart from misinformation, where false information is shared without awareness.

     One of the things that I was surprised to learn is that disinformation has the effect of creating a sense of unity among groups that share the same beliefs. It can reinforce their worldview, justify them, and even give seemingly straightforward answers to convoluted or confusing issues.

    In contrast, the harmful effects of disinformation are much more serious. Disinformation destroys public trust in reliable sources, deepens social polarization, and manipulates feelings in duplicitous manners typically inflaming frustration, resentment, and fear. At times, the harm is notemotional but literally fatal, as when a person foregoes proper medical treatment on account of conspiracy-driven anti-vaccination propaganda.

    I also discovered it is proactive and reflective to combat disinformation. Itis extremely important to investigate where you are learning something, be careful of your assumptions, look up the date of the information, and, when unsure, ask someone who is an expert like a professor or subject matter expert. And yes, it is important to double-check that you are not being too literal with satire. People have actually been confused and received actual articles from satire websites like The Onion for real news.

    As with echo chambers, confirmation bias is what fuels disinformation. When information confirms what one already holds to be true, they're less apt to disbelieve it and more apt to discredit anything that does the opposite. That's why being aware of your own biases is most important in dealing with both of these problems.

    Lastly, whereas echo chambers are bad, they do not have to be out of malicious intention. Disinformation, however, usually relies on intentional intent to mislead. In this case, despite the difference, both can be bridged by getting your facts right fact-checking, diversity of sources, and frequently checking yourself, especially in cases involving divisive issues.