Daisy Cassidy, DTC 206

Part 1: This article opens by shedding light on the pressure that government departments have undergone to use social media as a form of surveillance. With this new ability to screen people's online activity has come many positive preventative actions, which have quite literally saved lives. The downside to this social surveillance is rooted in the way this research is conducted. This process threatens Fourth Amendment rights, which protect against unreasonable search and seizure by the government. Social media has been manually filtered for a long time, leaving the door open to biased searches. These searches are only now starting to be automated. Because the online space is so new, there is a significant learning curve in order to understand the nuances of the medium. Part 2: Online culture operates differently than that of the physical world. Social media lists our connections solely as 'friends' while in reality there are many levels and types of relationships between...

Part 1: This article opens by painting the image of the general bias involved in bank loaning before the introduction of FICO scores. Once FICO scores were introduced, many people who could never borrow before were suddenly able to take part in this process. Predigest ideologies no longer stood in the way of financing. However, this concept has been taken and warped into e-scores which are compiled from information such as search history and location, assigning values to different demographics. These e-scores determine what ads different groups of people see, bringing back the inherent difference in opportunity that FICO had brought us out of. According to the article, the effort to protect the privacy of individuals' FICO scores has driven class, race, and gender boundaries deeper than ever. Part 2: I've had many conversations about credit scores with my previous partner. He and his family are Puerto Rican, and while I prioritize raising my credit score quite a bit, he didn...

Part 1: This article opens with a description of the shooting of Michael Brown, and the social reaction it inspired. Within a month #ferguson had been shared over 8 million times on Twitter alone. After this, the reading starts to delve into what kind of social research can be done on a topic such as this through the platform of Twitter. While social media is a great way to spread information, it comes with inherent bias, that only builds as it is shared person to person. As the article explained, many related posts were shared without #ferguson. Ignoring those would mean ignoring another very real piece of the Ferguson puzzle. Continuing on, the article discusses the risks of hashtag activism. The benefits of awareness, and the downfall of swift replacement movements pushing one another aside. The article closes out by recognizing that the internet alone is not enough of a reliable platform to understand every angle of these social movements. Part 2: The complications involved in ...

Part 1: This article opens by questioning a tool/tech based approach to accessibility. Many schools are striving towards a more universal learning experience, though the only issue is centering in on what that experience looks and feels like. While there might seem to be an easy solution to accessibility for one specific disability or another, many of these needs contradict one another or students don't fall into one specific category. There are programs in place that help universities recognize where their programs or course layouts aren't user friendly, these programs have helped improve the potential student's overall experience, if only a little bit at a time. Unfortunately, there are many complex things that a program simply cannot recognize to flag for revision. As time passes, a fear of litigation fades from the forefront of why these campuses are adjusting. The motivation seems to be shifting to catering to the students as more opportunities and clear paths become a...

Part 1: There is a silent population of skimmers keeping our social media PG. These 'skimmers' spend their days clearing out porn and graphic content, so the internet is more friendly for users of all ages. It is estimated that well over 100,000 people moderate in this way, doubling google's employees. These moderators are paid terribly, and sign non-disclosure agreements in order to maintain the illusion of godly algorithms and coding carrying the platform. The mental toll on many of these moderators meant leaving before even having their position for a year. While many of these employees have counseling provided for them, it simply doesn't undo the damage already done. Part 2: How am I supposed to respond to this article? Even with the in-class warning, I was unprepared for the content of this article. Knowing the fragility of my own mental health without seeing things like that every day, I can only imagine the horrible effects that has on those who's job it is...

Part 1: In nearly her opening statement Malkia Cyril shared a few statistics, sharing that Black and Latino communities are more likely to use mobile devices, and younger black people use social media at a higher rate than anyone else. Cyril goes on to explain that so many technological advances have been made by people of color, yet the credit is rarely given. Diversity deserts have been spotted throughout history, and the digital realm is no exception. Cyril described a conference she attended years prior, asking where the women bloggers were. Thanks to awareness and active engagement, there are many women with live blogs to be found across the web. The idea of waiting for the media to tell the right story is disavowed in the reading, as there is a strong platform available for all of us to tell our stories. This means that recognition of this lack of representation is only step one. Step two is making sure others hear you, and you connect with people in your communities who also hav...

Part 1: This week's reading opened by describing an initiative in Peru to incorporate connectivity into zones of rural production. Bringing IP claims into these areas were seen as a way to bring people together, but have actually had the exact opposite effect. This new development has created ripples of distrust through these communities, turning artisans against one another. The governmental drive for this project went beyond helping these communities. Much of the hope behind developing an IP system was as a way for Peru to find and maintain footing in a developing world economy. Many other countries have been doing the exact same. Claiming an IP means giving it a definition, and the article showed how thin and fragile that definition can be. Instead of this 'genuine' art that was originally granted protections, now the artists have become laborers, all trained exactly the same way to ensure they remain within their copyrights. Part 2: I think that placing a protection o...

For our first reflection, I was able to focus in on the topics I wanted to use fairly quickly. I chose to incorporate the myth of digital universalism, digital colonialism, digital social activism, and the geopolitics of the physical internet into my design. These topics fit seamlessly together as we went over them in class, and they certainly seemed to be the obvious choice for this project. I feel as though the lines of these individual subjects blur into one another, which does make separating them for the written portion of this assignment considerably more difficult than combining them for the visual portion.   The myth of digital universalism:   Digital universalism is the idea that everyone on earth needs access to the same digital products in the same way. This line of thinking ignores the needs of individual communities and cultures, leading directly into the concept of digital colonialism. Digital colonialism: Oftentimes when wealthy people in west...