Blog post # 11 second EOTO presentations

 During the EOTO presentations I learned about different Policies, the Media-sphere, and different Theories. the policies I learned about were the Sherman antitrust act, net neutrality, news deserts, cord cutting, and the Restrict act. the parts of the media sphere I learned about are Alternative media and a whistleblower. the theories I learned about are the Illusory truth effect, Confirmation bias, Gatekeeping, Agenda setting, and Spiral of silence..

Policy

the Sherman Antitrust Act Outlawed monopolies and conspiracy to be a monopoly. however the same monopolization is happening within the media. Media merges are occurring at a faster pace. 37 years ago there were 50 companies in charge of most American media now 90% of the media is controlled by AT&T, CBS, Comcast, Disney, News Corp, and Viacom. These corporations are known as the big six they essentially act as a media monopoly. Media consolidation is becoming a bigger issue

Net Neutrality is the principle that ISP (Internet Service Providers) should give equal access to content applications data speeds and more without any bias towards specific websites or groups of people. No net neutrality would give us unequal internet. Internet service companies can manipulate our data without net neutrality. There is no guarantee of net neutrality as of now

I didn't get to take many notes on news deserts all I got was that news deserts are A

community that is no longer covered by daily or non daily newspapers

Cord Cutting is when people get rid of their cable or stop paying for it. Getting rid of cable is an example of creative destruction. Creative destruction destroys the age old methods of bringing in scope for development and innovation.

Restrict act's goal is to give the government clear power to ban any app that could threaten Americans’ security/privacy. while this seems good it can be used to take away any app that the government considered a threat to them and say it is a threat to Americans' security/privacy.

Media-sphere

Alternative Media is a form of media that operates outside of mainstream media. They aim to be diverse, critical, and independent. Alternative media plays an important role in exposing and challenging mainstream media bias. Alternative media Covers issues ignored by mainstream media.

There is no universal definition for Whistleblower but is referred to an individual without authorization revealing private or classified information about an organization usually related to wrongdoing or misconduct. Whistleblower releases unethical or
unlawful information.

Theories

The Illusory Truth Effect is when people hear false information repeatedly and people start to believe it. Our brains are wired to believe what we hear over and over. Commercials also use this method by repeating ads on TV using phrases on repeat to control what we believe in. Social media uses this by sending you posts with the same information.

Confirmation Bias is cherry picking info to serve as evidence to confirm opinions that we already have. Conformation bias is an inherent part of being human and having opinions. When interpreting information we need to be as unbiased as possible.

Gatekeeping Impacts the flow of information. Agenda Setting is the idea that the media has a powerful influence on what the public knows. This affects how people think and engage with the world around them.

Spiral of Silence is a theory based on the idea that people have a natural tendency to seek acceptance and approval from others and that can lead to the suppression of
unpopular opinions. This leads to Fear of social isolation and rejection

Blog post #7 the Age of AI

 I watched a YouTube documentary called In the Age of AI what I learned was Deep learning is a form of artificial intelligence. It mimics the neural networks of the human brain. Artificial intelligence could gather a vast amount of data more than humans could handle. 

In 2017, Xi Jinping (President of China)  announced the government’s bold new plans that China would catch up with U.S. artificial intelligence by 2025 and lead the world by 2030. Kai Fu Lee is the developer computer speech-recognition. Unicorn means a billion-dollar company whose valuation or market capitalization is at $1 billion or higher. Kai Fu Lee also uses Two Unicorns is $5 billion or higher. 

Chinese entrepreneurial companies started as copycats but over the last 15 years, China has developed its own form of entrepreneurship. Cao Xudong is CEO of a new startup called Momenta: self-driving cars. Life in China is largely conducted on Smartphones. I learned that WeChat is an app that’s equivalent to Facebook, Messenger, and PayPal combined into one app. China has more technology users than any other country. Three to Four times more than the U.S. and There are 50 times more mobile payments than the U.S. and 10 times more food deliveries than the U.S. 

With all the data information in China, the deep learning algorithm of the AI can predict the behavior of humans. For example, taking a loan. The app digs up features that would never be apparent to a human loan offer. An example of that would be how confidently someone types their loan application or if they keep their cell phone battery charged. The battery of their phone is related to their delinquency rate. 

Megvii a Chinese technology company was started by three young graduates in 2011.

It is now a world leader in using AI to identify people. It can describe people with what they’re wearing and characteristics  and guess their age. There’s a program in Shenzhen that discourages jaywalking by shaming the offenders in public and getting them instantly fined. 

Critics warn that the government and private companies have been building a nation database from dozens of experimental social-credit programs. The government would integrate all the individuals' behaviors or corporation records into some kind of metric and commute out a set of numbers associated with an individual and use that to implement an incentive or punishment system. 

 According to Alex Rodrigo, self-driving cars would lead to having zero rates of car accidents. As A.I progresses we can find solutions to Climate Change and incurable cancer. 40,000 women die of breast cancer in the U.S alone every year. 

Machines could predict future disease with how pixels are distributed on pictures. The limit of a human driver is 11 hours by federal law. A self-driving car would have no limits. During the 1980s, truck drivers would earn over $100,000 and today they would earn a little over 40,000 a year. 

The standard of living has dropped by 10-15% over 15 years. Offshoring is responsible for 20% of jobs being lost. Most job loss isn’t because of offshoring. The real reason behind most job loss is automation and All races and income classes are affected.

People are at  greater risk of mortality after they lose their job due to automation or offshoring for over 20 years. Children of parents that have lost their job due to automation are more likely to repeat a grade, drop out of school, get suspended from school, and have lower educational attainment over their entire lifetimes. The world is being reimagined There are supermarkets where robots guided by AI to pack items for online consumers. Women hold the jobs that are at the highest risk of automation. The work place of the future will demand different skills and gaining them will depend on who can afford them

Half of Americans can’t afford a 400 dollar unexpected expense and fewer can afford an 1,000 dollar unexpected expense. The new machines will penetrate every sector of the economy. Businesses are looking to make their business more efficient with fewer workers. The top 1% of earners used to own a relatively small portion of America's wealth then 18 years ago that changed to the top 1% of earners having the most amount of America’s wealth.AI will continue to increase the wage gap with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

The future is largely being shaped by a few hugely successful tech companies these companies constantly buy up successful smaller companies and recruiting talent. I also learned about surveillance capitalism. Surveillance capitalism claims private human experience as a free source of raw material fabricated into predictions of human behavior. A lot of businesses that want to know what we will do now, soon, and later

The founders of Google believed that Ads would distort the internet and the purity of any search engine. AI has already spread far into our lives and work. 

Blog post #9 disinformation, misinformation, And malinformation

 For my EOTO I researched the terms Disinformation, Misinformation, and mal-information. what I learned is that the definitions of these terms are similar the definition for Misinformation is false or inaccurate information. The definition for mal-information is information that is true and factual but it is intentionally conveyed in order to inflict harm or to cause the imminent threat of harm. The definition for disinformation is false information that is intended to mislead (especially propaganda issued by a government organization to a rival power or  the media) and cause harm. disinformation is often motivated by the desire to make money, have greater political influence, or sow chaos just to sow chaos. a graph from Iona university

 shows and tells that disinformation can be both misinformation if the information is proved wrong and disinformation can become mal-information with enough social media virality, shifting the initial narrative.   

disinformation is often motivated by the desire to make money, have greater political influence, or to sow chaos. the American Psychological association says Disinformation, misinformation, and mal-information affect our ability to improve public health, address climate change, maintain a stable democracy, and other things.

there are many types of  Disinformation, misinformation and mal-information i learned of them all from a factsheet. The regular types are fabricated content, manipulated content, imposter content, misleading content, false content, satire and parody, false connection, sponsored content, propaganda, and error. Fabricated content is completely false content. Manipulated content is genuine information or imagery that has been distorted such as Sensational headline or populist ‘clickbait’. Imposter content is the impersonation of genuine sources for example Using the branding of an established agency. Misleading content is misleading information like Comments presented as fact. False context is factually accurate content combined with false contextual information for example when the headline of an article does not reflect the content. 

Satire and parody is humorous but false stories passed off as true with no intention to harm, some people may be fooled. False connection is when headlines, visuals, or caption do not support the content. Sponsored content is Advertising or PR disguised as editorial content. Propaganda is content used to manage attitudes, values and knowledge. An Error is a mistake made. 

There are AI required types of disinformation misinformation and mal-information those are Deep fakes and Speech synthesis. 

Deep fakes are a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else’s likeness. Deep fake Use powerful techniques from machine learning and AI to manipulate or generate visual and audio content with a High potential to deceive. 

Speech synthesis is synthetic media that can artificially produce human speech . A computer used for Speech synthesis is called a speech computer or speech synthesizer. Synthesized speech contains pieces or recorded speech or incorporates a model of the vocal tract and other human voice characteristics to create a completely synthetic voice.

The more sophisticated ways of disinformation, misinformation, and mal-information are Sock-puppeting, sealioning, astroturfing, and catfishing 

Sock-puppeting is an online identity used to deceive. This term now extends to misleading uses of online identities to praise defend or support a person or organization, to manipulate public opinion, or to circumvent restrictions, suspension or an outright ban from the website. 

Sealioning is a type of trolling or harassment where people are pursued with persistent requests for evidence or repeated questions. 

Astroturfing are masks the sponsors of a message to make it appear as though it comes from grassroots participants. This practice aims to give organizations credibility by withholding information about their motives or financial connections. 

Catfishing is a form of fraud where a person creates a sock-puppet or fake identity to target a particular victim on social media. Catfishing is Common for romance scams on dating websites and May be done for financial gain, to compromise a victim or as a form of trolling or wish fulfillment.

Blog post#10 Diffusion of innovaton

 Through the history of video games there are many companies that made games with many successes and failures. I will be using the diffusion of innovation theory to explain the history of video games the pioneers were William Higinbotham with his creation of tennis for two, Steve Russell with his creation of  Spacewar!,  and Ralph Baer with his creation of the "Brown Box".

They were pioneers because this started the history of video games with a game made on an analog computer and an oscilloscope in 1958. A game made on a PDP-1 computer and being the first game with multiple computer installations made in 1962. Lastly a game console made for local multiplayer gameplay called the brown box in 1967 before being licensed and renamed the
Odyssey in 1972.

the companies Magnavox, Atari and Nintendo were the early adopters. Magnavox was the first of the early adopters licensing the Brown box from Baer in 1972 however the Odyssey would end up failing. Atari was the second early adopter with their home version of pong which was successful but because they got sued by Magnavox and Sanders Associates they became an odyssey licensee Atari however continued to make video games. Nintendo was the final early adopter with the creation of Donkey Kong introducing people to the world of Mario.

the early majority would be Sega. Sega is the only early majority because it started being popular after the video game crash in 1983. Sega started to compete with Nintendo the company that Brought the video game industry from the video game crash. Sega released the Sega genesis to compete with Nintendo's NES. Sega's wealth grew in the early to mid 1900s.

the late majority would be Sony and Microsoft. Sony with the release of the PlayStation in 1995 and continue to release the PlayStation 2 in 2000, the PlayStation 3 in 2006 and the consoles released presently. Microsoft with the release of the Xbox in 2001, the release of the Xbox 360 in 2005, the release of the Xbox one in 2013 and the consoles released presently. 

Blog post #6 Anti-war websites

 Have you heard about people being against war in the news or seen anti-war websites while looking for news about war. what I found is information from two websites one called Antiwar.com and another from The American conservative i will focus my information from one blog from each of these websites from the Antiwar website the blog called "Philippines Announces locations of four new US Bases" and the one from the American conservative is called "The Dishonesty of the 'Antiwar' Left"

Philippines Announces Locations of Four New US Bases

The blog talks about how the Philippines Announced the location of four military bases on Monday that the US will have access to under a deal signed by Washington and manila in February. three of the bases will be located in the northern Philippine provinces and that angers China since they can be used as staging grounds for a fight over Taiwan. 

The US will be granted access to the Lal-lo Airport  and the Naval base Camilo Osias  which are located in the northern Cagayan province in the Isabela province. The US will also gain access to Camp Melchor Dela Cruz. 

the US military will be able to expand to Palawan, an island province in the south China sea disputed waters that are a major source of tensions between the US and China the US will also be granted Access to Balabac Island, the southern most Island of Palawan 

The new locations are on top of the five bases the US currently have access to making the total number of bases the US forces can rotate between nine. the expansion in the Philippines is a significant step in the US effort to build up its military assets in the region to prepare for a future war with China. However from this information it seems like doing this will instigate a war with China.

The Dishonesty of the ‘Antiwar’ Left

The blog talks about how some of the leftist thinking progressives should embrace U.S. global dominance as a vehicle for global emancipation. only few figures openly profess it. the theory is all too alive and operative on the mainstream left albeit in unacknowledged fashion. the imperialism as emancipation theory is increasingly believing the otherwise inexplicable absence of any measurable progressive dissent from relentless U.S. escalation in Ukraine and from the way Washington has used the conflict to reassert of most on the left to acknowledge an inconvenient reality that Donald Trump was the most antiwar, anti-imperial U.S president in two generations. the hard-Marxist version is that to much of the world is dominated by feudal, patriarchal, and otherwise backwards social systems. places where for one reason or another capitalist development hasn't made much headway or failed to follow its ordinary course as a result local bourgeoisies are weak and the bourgeois political form liberal democracy has failed to emerge. that's a problem because societies must go through the bourgeois liberal democratic stage before they can achieve more radical egalitarian models.

Blog post #8 EOTO presentation

 The things I learned at the EOTO presentation were the invention of the pencil and a little bit about the telegraph there was also emoticons and emojis and the internet and WWW.

The invention of the pencil

what I learned about the invention of the pencil is that the modern day pencil was invented in 1795 by Nicholas Jacques conte. the first pencil company was called banks, son and co. pencils were a better and cheaper alternative for writing. pencils gave the common people the ability to write. having pencils meant people didn't have to use quill pens and in the time before erasers people used wet bread crumbs to erase the graphite. however pencils have a negative impact on the environment. the production of pencils has 8,200 trees cut down and the pencil factories produce a lot of pollution.

The history of the telegraph

what I learned about the history of the telegraph is that there were two types made by 2 different people William cook and Charles Wheatstone made one with 5 magnetic needles that were controlled by electric currents to point to letters and numbers that was used in British railroad signaling. the other was made by Samuel morse which was single circuit that when pushed entirely down by the operator key would complete the circuit. in 1838 morse gained political support. from 1843 - 1844 the telegraph from Washington to Baltimore was built. in 1862 the first transcontinental telegraph was
built. in 1866 the Atlantic ocean had its first permanent telegraph cable placed. in 1874 the quadraplex system of one wire, four messages simultaneously was used. the telegraph allowed for long distance communication, and faster communication. there was also new legislation and economy boosts and job availability because of the telegraph. while the telegraph was great it was later replaced with the Telephone, Radio, Television, and the internet.

The History of emoticons and emojis

what I learned about the history of emoticons and emojis the first emoticon was ;) and after :) was the emoticon used throughout the 60s and 70s. in 1999 Shigetaka Kurita created the first emojis there was competition between emojis in the states. emoji use
continues to grow in our culture. they have become standard in our communication.
they could almost become their own language  and people can communicate whole sentences only using emojis.

The History of the internet and WWW

what I learned about the internet and the World Wide Web it first started with 2 computers exchanging data over low speed dial up line called ARPANET in 1969. the idea of a more widespread version was showed off at ICCC in 1972. the world  wide web went live in 1991 and was released in 1992 this allowed the creation of domains that any computer could visit. in 1995 internet explorer was released.  the first uses for the internet and the world wide web were rapid communication, news, the stock market and digital entertainment. the uses for it now are journalism, news sites, cryptocurrency
instant messaging and email, AI and Machine learning, social media, the dark web, viruses, identity theft, and purposely spreading misinformation. 

Blog post# 4 one of the Eight values of free expression

 The first value of free expression is the marketplace of ideas otherwise known as the Discovery of the truth. I think this is true especially with news and legislation that might be passed. A post from Axios shows exactly this when it talks about the Anti Trans bills.

Axios says that the sudden flood of state level efforts to restrict transgender rights is being fueled by many of the Christian and conservative groups that led the charge against Roe V. Wade. 

Axios gets specific naming groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council, the Liberty Counsel and the American Principles Project saying these groups are behind a multi million dollar effort targeting LGBTQ rights through "parents' rights" bills. also saying the provided templates and support of the groups for similarly worded bills that seek to ban minors from attending drag shows, prevent trans youth from receiving gender affirming care, and restrict their participation in high school sports.

Axios goes on to say the groups aim to shape policy based on their theological and conservative beliefs around sex, gender and family. They add that many republicans have embraced the agenda, touting a "protect the children" platform for 2024 that targets school policies on gender identity and how racial issues are taught. also saying the vice president of the family research council's policy and government affairs said Christian activists aren't seeking to impose their beliefs on others but they're fighting against beliefs being imposed on them. the vice president goes on to saying that the ideas are presented to their children without their consent and that Americans are reacting to what they are seeing and it's being reflected in some of the laws moving

They lead into the other side of the discussion with critics and civil liberties advocates who say anti-transgender proposals reflect a narrow, religious worldview on gender and other issues while endangering free speech and non-discriminatory education. saying that they want to preserve their vision of a white, Christian America and they're willing to embrace all sorts of anti-democratic means to protect it as said by Robert P. Jones the CEO of Public Religion Research Institute.

They said the legislative proposals came at a time when roughly 8 in 10 Americans believe there's some discrimination against transgender people in our society as found in a 2022 Pew Research center survey and added that the survey found that most Americans favor laws to protect trans people from discrimination. leading into saying the survey gave a clue to why conservative Christians and republicans have focused on high school athletes in many bills saying about 6 in 10 Americans favor requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams that match their sex at birth.

they continue talking getting into the topic of the activist groups' imprint on hundreds of anti-trans bills in legislatures is clear, according to the left-leaning southern poverty law center. saying the groups have provided witnesses, model legislation and legal support to defend any measures that become law, as said by R.G. Cravens. then they talk about the Arkansas state Rep telling their reporter that she worked with three of the main Christian groups to craft a measure allowing anyone who receives gender-affirming care as a minor to file a malpractice lawsuit for up to 15 years adding the fact that the bill passed the Arkansas legislature and became law and was essentially a workaround effort to ban gender-affirming care while a ban the state-imposed is tied up in legal challenges.

this proves the value of discovery of truth true because this information sounds true and even if this information isn't true the truth will eventually be brought to light because of someone will eventually tell everyone the truth of this matter.