Who do you know?

You scroll by a comment on an Instagram post. You read a tweet on someone's timeline. You watch a video on someone's story. The internet has brought about so many new methods of interaction. You can see other people anywhere, and wherever we go, just by pulling up their social media on your phone. However, with all this space to interact in, why do nearly half of all Americans always, or sometimes, feel alone or left out?

In this age of universal connection, one of our biological needs remains relevant. We are lonely. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how many people you know, or friends that you are close to. Sometimes we just feel lonely, so we are lonely. This phenomenon can be compounded by social media. Rather than relieving our isolation with pictures of our friends, it adds to your growing unease. There is no replacement for face to face interaction. Every post on social media is a glimpse at what your friends are feeling, but it is a permanent glimpse at a fleeting moment in time that has already passed. We are inforgs, but our digital persona can sometimes be so mind numbingly different than our non-digital persona that there’s a sense of discomfort similar to the uncanny valley. We see other people on social media, but they’re not exactly human. They’re a facsimile, and one that prods our real need for human connection.

Loneliness is an epidemic, but not one that attacks viciously and quickly. It will wear at you. Hiding behind the guise of a savior is one of it’s key perpetrators. At the same time that social media permeated into society, Pestilence rode his ivory horse among us as well.

Who else will fall victim to these internet "truths"?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/nothing-on-this-page-is-real-how-lies-become-truth-in-online-america/2018/11/17/edd44cc8-e85a-11e8-bbdb-72fdbf9d4fed_story.html

When I first joined social media, I was naive and believed almost everything I read online without source checking or even thinking about what I was reading and how that could actually be true. 

I had the mentality that "the internet never lies". I had the hope and belief that people were good and didn't deliberately post lies on social media platforms with the intent to deceive. 

I was very wrong. 

Eli Saslow writes in his article about a man who writes absurd news articles for his political satire facebook page in order to make fun of the who share and like these articles without knowing they are fake. 

In reality, there are many people who just scroll through Facebook and just see posts with giant black bold headline that reads something absurd like 

"Hillary Clinton had died during a secret overseas mission

to smuggle more refugees into America."

and immediately believe what they read. It creates excitement and

becomes a topic of conversation and just like that, the news is spread.

I, and many people I know have fallen victim to this.

Even today, I catch myself sometimes taking

an article as absurd as this, screen-capturing it and

sending it over to my friends and family. Because in reality

who reads the whole article? There are so many people who have

liked and shared the post so it has to be true!

As ridiculous and maybe entertaining it may be to watch people

share these types of news across social media. I think it is very

unethical to post intentional lies and bullshit on social media.

Taking advantage of people's gullible nature and trust in other

people to get a "kick" out of it is unnecessary.

America

The Right to be Forgotten

Roughly 56.1% of the world’s population has access to the internet and over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is created every day through online activity. Due to the immense amount of personal data generated, the Information Age marks a significant period in time where the history of individuals are documented on a massive scale. According to Floridi, information and communication technologies such as the internet are re-ontologizing our social environments and, “in the near future, the very distinction between online and offline will become blurred and then disappear.” In the information society we live, our reputation is no longer based solely on real-life interactions. To those outside your vicinity, you are your online presence.

In the past, if you were arrested for a crime it would be published on your local docket and forgotten with time. The evidence would still exist in public records but get lost in physical archives. Now, if you were arrested for a crime and an article about it was published online, people may never forget. Do you have the right to be forgotten? Even if the crime was a decade prior and you have turned over a new leaf, if someone searched your name on Google the article will likely be found. In such a situation, the past mistake may be irrelevant to your current life. What if you were wrongly accused of a crime and an article was published? Regardless of your innocence, future employers and anyone interested in your past can see the article.

Personally, I fear a future where mistakes are not forgiven.  People should have the right to control information about them if it is irrelevant and harmful to their life.  

The Importance of Being Kind

What does it mean to be kind?

I often find myself asking that question regularly. I believe that kindness is the most important value that a person can have, and I feel that many of us are too focused on 'who deserves kindness' as well as the outcome of their actions; this includes myself sometimes.

We often find ourselves not wanting to associate with certain types of people. For me, I don't enjoy associating with people who consistently lie because it impedes on the trust of our relationship. As writer Harry Frankfurt wrote in his chapter, On Truth, Lies, and Bullshit, "Lies are designed to damage our grasp of reality. So they are intended, in a very real way, to make us crazy." It makes sense... we don't want to be around people who bring us down or make us crazy, but rather we want to be around people who will uplift us, and that's totally OK; however, that doesn't mean that we can't be kind to everyone. 

There's this beautiful story of an unlikely friendship between an African American parole officer and a former neo-Nazi/white supremacist. The parole officer, Tiffany Whittier, simply gave Michael Kent a chance, and they ironically became friends. Ultimately, Michael Kent's friendship with Tiffany Whittier helped him leave his life of hate behind him. Stories like this make me believe why it's so important to be kind to everyone.

Now, even when we are kind, many of us feel the need to receive praise for our actions. Cary West, a carpenter, writer, and blogger, wrote an article on how kindness can change the world. He says to "focus on the act of giving, rather than the results of your actions. Detach from outcome, and you'll be free to make a difference in ways you never imagined."

Little acts of kindness go a long way. Things like:

• Smiling at others
• Giving compliments
• Even just saying "hi."

All of these things can really have a positive impact on someones day.

One of Frankfurt's main points is to relay how important the truth is, but sometimes the truth is harsh. Nonetheless, it is still important to be truthful, and at the same time it's important to be kind about it. 

For example: I strongly dislike seafood. If my friends asked me to go out to lunch with them to a seafood restaurant, I wouldn't say to them, "Seafood is disgusting, no thanks." Instead, I would say something like, "Thanks so much for offering! Unfortunately, I am not a fan of seafood, but you guys go ahead and have a fun time!"

Moving forward in our lives, lets strive to be kind to everyone. Lets not reject people for who they are, but rather uplift them with love and kindness. Lets be more generous, more courageous, and more truthful. Lets stop the bullshit, and lets start the spread of ideas, information, and happiness.

The Moor you know

The “Mean Girls” might tell you ‘more is always better’, and Charmin might tell you ‘less is more’. The question of ‘more’ is always up for debate, but let’s look at ‘more’ a little differently. Moore’s Law states that “the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles about every two years”. Moor’s Law states “as technological revolutions increase their social impact, ethical problems increase”. In a sense, one can argue that Moore is Moor. 

Moore’s Law has held up since the ‘70s, and it’s no surprise we’ve seen a boom in technological advances since then. We’ve also seen a boom in issues since then as well. Take for example the number of auto accidents due to distracted driving. After 2005, when cell phones started becoming widely available, such accidents increased 28% in a three year span. Since 2000, we’ve seen an increasing number of identity theft cases and data breaches. The advances and issues from social media could warrant its own dissertation.

Moor describes ‘technological revolutions’ similar to that of the Gartner hype curve. There’s an introduction stage, which brings us up to the hype curve ‘trough of disillusionment’, followed by a permeation stage similar to the curve’s ‘slope of enlightenment’. It’s once we reach the power stage (plateau of productivity) that Moor’s Law really kicks in. 

I’d like to thank Mr. Moor for not only bringing this to light, but for making some recommendations as well. From his essay “Why we need better ethics for emerging technologies” I believe the best place to start is with his suggestion of “... better collaboration between ethicists, social scientists, and technologists…”. This trifecta of experts is a great way to understand how new technologies work, how the public might use them, and what can be done to prevent major issues. 

New technologies can be both exciting and terrifying, and different people will make arguments for both sides. Regardless of which side you’re on, I think it’s fair to say we can all benefit from ‘more’ thought on the topic. 

The Symbiosis of Artificial Intelligence and the Brain

Around 2016, Elon Musk founded a neural tech company Neuralink dedicated to three goals: advance towards a possible symbiosis with artificial intelligence, inventing a brain-machine interface allowing hands-free control, and to help in the treatment of those with brain disorders or suffered traumatic accidents. Musk announced his plan to connect humans’ brains directly to computers using a microchip implanted within the brain to perhaps attain a “symbiosis with artificial intelligence.” Link 

Musk looks to start human experimentation in the early half of 2020 and has already carried out tests on rats and monkeys, stating that test results have been very positive and that a monkey had been able to control a computer within its brain during experimentation." The microchips are measured at 4 mm by 4 mm and are designed to stimulate neurons in the brain using threads of electrodes to communicate with other cells using a precision robot for the brain surgery. Musk also stated that the system could be used to treat disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease fundamentally preserving brain function. 

However ethical problems arise from connecting AI to the human brain, such as managing how to protect the information in the interface." The operation to implant the microchip as is classified as a brain surgery which are very high-risk. Another issue, the microchip is meant to be controlled by an iPhone app, and any breach in security could be catastrophic to the brain. In Moor's paper, "Why We Need Better Ethics for Emerging Technologies states that genetic, nano, and neurotechnology are favored due to their high convergence with the human brain. 

Halting the progress of these new technologies could create problems through bureaucracy and a battle between governments and corporations. However these emerging technologies are becoming far more immersive in the human brain, and a balance must be obtained to control what is ethical in this area. Link 

The Forgotten Man in “Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer”

Last year, I came across a documentary called “Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer”. The documentary is about how a group of tech-savvy was able to hunt down Luka Magnotta, a notorious animal abuser who was also charged for the First-degree murder of a Chinese student. Nevertheless, this blog post is not about the power of digital footprints in tracking. Instead, I would like to focus on a man that the documentary barely mentioned, and you will soon find out why. 

In 2010, Magnotta uploaded a video of him suffocating two kittens with a vacuum bag. This enraged numerous animal lovers, and a Facebook group was later formed to find the perpetrator. They tried to analyze everything that was featured in the video in order to identify and locate Magnotta. 

Meanwhile, a guy named Jamsey posted a video of a cat being burned alive caught their attention, and his Facebook profile photo resembled Magnotta. Most importantly, he later admitted that he was the Kitten Killer. People were FURIOUS, and plenty of threatening comments were left on Jamsey’s Facebook page.

Soon after, Jamsey’s true identity was discovered by one of the group members. He turned out not to be who they were looking for, and his real name was Edward Jordan. Unfortunately, people later learned that Jordan had taken his own life,  and that he was just trolling online to avoid the severe depression that he was going through.

This also reminded me of the Human Flesh Search Engines (HFSE) in China. It is a means of search powered by the cooperation between netizens to “learn the truth and exercise their rights of supervision and criticism” (Yang and Zheng 2010). As traditional search engines are based on keyword matching, superfluous information are hard to avoid. And therefore human power is a more sophisticated tool for sifting through information. However, the process of seeking justice often involves personal information leakages, and just like the manhunt of Magnotta, these “hunters” are only human after all. No matter how meticulous they are, they can still make mistakes and people can get wrongly accused.

Fast-forward to today, I still often think to myself whether the activists should be considered entirely innocent for Jordan’s death just because they had good intentions. “The animal activists, in my opinion, they are a disgrace. You are not the police, and you are also acting like stalkers”. Regardless of this being a quote by Magnotta’s mother, I think it still does point to the fact that there is a thin line between hunting and stalking. 

What's In A Cookie?

When we think of what goes into a typical cookie, we typically come up with harmless ingredients such as flour, sugar, eggs, and chocolate chips. But what goes into an Internet cookie? Surprisingly, you can summarize it into one ingredient; your privacy.

The base internet cookie is a small file that stores online information such as your login, shopping cart, and your browsing history for a specific website. Just like with edible cookies, Internet cookies come in different types; however, the base cookie is the same.

First-party cookies are cookies that are created from the website that you are currently visiting. These are generally considered safe and help to create a better user experience when visiting the same website by facilitating login and remembering what you were shopping for. The danger to your privacy, however, comes from the other type of cookie.

Third-party cookies are cookies that are created by websites other than the one that you are currently browsing. For example, if you go to a website such as the NY Times you will get a cookie from NY Times and possibly another cookie from an advertising company. The advertising company can then track what websites you are visiting and personalize ads towards you. The dangerous part of this all is that you did not consent to this third party storing your browsing history.

This data privacy breach comes back to Moors article and how we must be more proactive when thinking of the ethics of new technology. A simple question of “should we be storing an individual’s data without their permission” could have prevented this. However, in 2018 a law called the General Data Protection Regulation was enacted only in the European Union that says companies/websites must make sure users know what information is being stored about them.

This resulted in cookie notifications that popup right when the user loads a website. However, the information is either too complicated to read or is not right in front of you; no one has time to read whole privacy policies. This comes back to the idea of “bullshit” because the company does not care whether the user understands the privacy policy, they just want to be able to store your information. As you can see in the examples, they market it as giving you a “better browsing experience” but do not even mention the third-party implications.

The Bullshit Exception

Allow me to let you in on a little secret: ethics professors can’t bullshit! They just aren’t capable! At least, according to the Princeton University professor emeritus of philosophy, Harry Frankfurt, that is.

What is bullshit?

In his 2009 version of On Truth, Lies, and Bullshit, Frankfurt explains his personal definition of bullshit at a dawdling pace akin to a garage truck. To Frankfurt, bullshit consists of two main pillars: (1) a disregard for the “real truth” and (2) An attempt to persuade.

Unlike the poetic liar, bullshitters do not need to know or care about the truth at all. The only goal of the bullshitter is that their listener believes their impression. Whether what they are communicating is true or not, this actor’s raison d’être is to misrepresent him or herself. 

Frankfurt fondly citing Shakespeare.

What is an ethics professor?

Taken literally, a professor is a person who professes. They are teachers of the highest rank and experts in some field, meaning not only do they proclaim things, but they are affirming their own faith or allegiance to their field.

Of course ethics, or moral philosophy, is a little more complicated than that. It’s true definition varied depending on the source of the information. But it’s something to do with behaviors and their consequences, or lessons about what is acceptable versus what is not.

Therefore, with those definition in mind, we can say that a professor of ethics is one who professes morality. A person who both teaches and seeks to remove problems of morality through the concepts of “good", “right”, “virtue", and “justice”. 

What does that spell?

Putting these two ideas of bullshit and ethics professors together constructs an interesting exception of bullshit. Taking the definition of bullshit literally, a person who cares about the truth is unable to bullshit. Therefore professors have any stake in the value of truth aren’t able to bullshit because they value it.

Superior much, Frankfurt?

BREAKING: He's a Liar!

Bustatroll.org

It is no secret that the internet is filled with a vast amount of information that some of it will happen to be false. However, with strong opinions and beliefs ingrained in the minds of technology users, you can’t change their opinions. News flash: Fake news is real! 

            Christopher Blair, a 46-year sitting in his darkroom feeds off of the obliviousness of Trump-supporting conservatives. His website America’s Last Line of Defense with over 225,000 followers dons warnings and statements declaring that the content being posted it satirical and “nothing on the page is real.” From posts like Donald Trump is NOT a Racist – Here’s a List of All His Black Friends to On This Day in 2007, Obama Awarded Jeff Epstein The Medal of Freedom, Facebook users are sitting back, reading, sharing and without a doubt internalizing this content as if it was truly happening right in front of their eyes.

Once your Facebook friend Likes or Shares a post, it then shows up on your timeline. The issue with sharing content from a website such as Blair’s is that the warning of satire and disinformation is no longer attached to the work being shared with the masses. It gets lost and oftentimes forgotten unless the website is visited. Blair saw an opportunity after Hurricane Harvey struck Texas. He wrote an article about an Imam that refused to let people who were not Muslim to seek shelter during the storm. His article included a photograph of an actual Imam in Canada, Ibrahim Hindy, who was then a target of fake news. His picture and story appeared and reappeared on twitter which was shared more than 126,000 times. Blair realized that his platform and reach that he has obtained from his website have consequences when he doesn’t completely think through his actions. Something terrible could have happened to Hindy because of the spread of that article. Blair took down the photo of Ibrahim Hindy and apologized for his actions. 

The effect that these articles have is immense especially when people do not realize that what they are reading is satirical content. We need to be smarter when it comes to the actions that we make whether that is creating satirical content online and clearly stating that it is satirical and sharing misleading information. 

THAT'S F*CKING BULLSH*T!

All of us have uttered those words either in one way or another during our lives. 

But what happens when you can no longer tell when something is precisely that? 

The Duality of the Facebook User

If you have ever taken a Psychology class, the term "Confirmation Bias" is likely familiar to you: We tend to believe what enforces what we already know or think we know. 

In the article, "'Nothing on this page is': How lies become truth in online America," Eli Saslow explains the two sides of fake news: The producer and consumer. 

Christopher Blair runs the Facebook page, America's Last Line of Defense. Despite the satirical nature of his page, it has become a news source for older pro-Trump conservatives. His lies confirm what people supporters think they know: Democrats are indeed Demoncrats.

One of the many warnings on America's Last Line of Defense.

Blair has numerous warnings on the page about nothing being real, as well as some explanations below photos, but none of these warnings have worked. People read and understand what they want to know, instead of critically thinking about the content of his posts. 

For some Americans, Facebook has become their only news source; everything else is fake news. Shirley Chapain is one of many Americans who get their news from Facebook. She didn't like then-Senator Obama during the 2008 election for understandable reasons: his inexperience and arrogance. 

After the election, Chapain learned more. President Obama wasn't just a liberal, he was a socialist! She continues further down the rabbit hole and eventually found Blair's America's Last Line of Defense.

There was a post of a photo that circled Chelsea Clinton and Michelle Obama. It claimed they flipped off President Trump after Trump extended an olive branch to them. 

Chapain and many others liked, commented, and shared the post without honestly questioning whether it was them or not.  

Who is to blame for the plethora of misleading or disinformation online? Some point to Facebook and its algorithms, effectively filtering people into their own bubbles with posts that will cause them to spend more time on Facebook and increase ad revenue. Others blame the decline of traditional local newspapers and declining trust in TV news, or the posters of the false information. 

Our deep trust in our critical thinking skills causes us not to be able to recognize truths from falsehoods. 

We may laugh now, but fake news has the chance to do great harm to us and society.  

Spittin' Straight Lies

Rap is more popular than ever, and as time goes on its influence will likely only continue to grow. On social media, fans of rap are blasted repeatedly with images of opulence and wealth, as rappers flaunt their jeweler, cars and shoes. On YouTube, videos of rappers buying tens of thousands of dollars worth of shoes gain millions of views. Popular perception among many is that rappers live the best kind of lifestyle their is.

When digging deeper into the lives of some of America’s most famous rap artists, a different story surfaces. Famous rappers like 50 Cent, MC Hammer and DMX regularly end up losing their fortunes after living unsustainable lifestyles. DMX was one of the most popular artists of the late 90’s, yet by 2013 he had only $53,000 in assets and was millions in debt. The growth of social media and the internet has made it easier than ever for rap artists to show their wealth and reach millions of fans.

The way rappers portray their finances and lifestyles on social media is a particularly harmful form of bullshit and lying. False images of wealth and success lead some rap fans to attempt to mimic the lifestyle of their favorite artists. These attempts to replicate the lifestyle of a rapper will likely lead fans down their own path of financial ruin. Philosopher Harry Frankfurt writes that “the most irreducibly bad thing about lies is that they contrive to interfere with, and to impair, our natural effort to apprehend the real state of affairs.” When rappers bullshit about their wealth and lifestyle, they impair their fans’ ability to apprehend the reality of those lifestyles. The reality is that spending more than one makes, especially on things like jewelry and cars, will lead to a life of poverty. 

In his essay “On Truth, Lies and Bullshit,” Frankfurt writes about the essence of bullshit, claiming bullshit is represented by an indifference to reality. Rappers often are not purposely lying about their lifestyle and finances, but rather they simply do not care to know what the truth of their financial situation is. Instead of tracking their finances, they instead continue to use online technology to flex their supposed wealth and motivate their clueless fans to make poor decisions. Rap fans need to know the truth about their favorite musicians and learn from their mistakes.

Influencers: Bullshit Edition

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube. These are names you cannot escape in this day and age. In fact, the act of using these platforms is almost vital to any millennial's lifestyle. It is the quickest way to keep up with your friends and your favorite celebrities. What was Kylie Jenner up to today? How is Justin Bieber doing? What did Ariana Grande eat today?

But what do you do when your favorite influencers tell you to buy a product that supposedly helped them lose 20 pounds?

This is what one popular Youtuber, Trisha Paytas, has continuously been promoting on her social media. Her feed consists of ads publicizing products such as boombod, as well as other dietary fads like juice cleanses and water detoxes.

She claims that these are the ways that she "LOSES WEIGHT (FAST)!" However, diets like the juice cleanse have been debunked and proven to be very unhealthy, even detrimental to one's health. However, younger kids who see these kinds of promotional posts on their social media can be easily influenced. They don't know that copying their favorite influencer could hurt them. All they see is the before and after pictures, and that image is forever etched in their mind.

Trisha is not the only influencer who promotes these kinds of things. If you take a look at Khloe Kardashian's Instagram, you will see her promoting flattummyco meal replacement shakes. Keep in mind, Khloe has 103 million followers on Instagram. Khloe has gotten a lot of flack for posting these types of ads, but it has not stopped her or others from continuing to do so. 

In essence, the things that these influencers post on their socials is bullshit. Most of the time, they don't use the things they promote. But their followers don't know this, all they know is that Khloe said that she's "seriously feeling so good."

As Frankfurt says, the bullshitter "does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out... to suit his purpose." Influencers do not care about the truth value of their statements, they just care about whether what they are saying is helping get their job done: making more people buy the product. They don't realize, and probably don't care, that people will blindly follow them and pay a price for it, a price more than money.

When Do Jokes Stop Being Funny?

Have you ever wondered why it’s so hard to get people to admit they’re wrong? Why when you’re having an argument with someone, and refute their every point with facts and evidence they will still refuse to admit their beliefs are false? I’ll tell you why: facts don’t change our minds one bit. As humans we like to think our existence is based on reason and logical thinking, but this is simply not true. Neuroscientists have known the power of the anchoring heuristic for decades, and there have been dozens upon dozens of studies that corroborate this idea that we resist facts. The why is complicated and has to do primarily with humans evolving to maintain social cohesion and snuff out any “troublemakers.” The net effect, however, is that once a percept is formed, it is extremely difficult to change. In fact, when evidence is provided that contradicts our beliefs a backlash effect has been documented, where people become even more resistant, or even hostile. This has become especially poignant recently in relation to politics, where people engage in heated arguments about differing political ideologies, tearing apart families at dinner tables on Thanksgiving and Christmas across America. 

Beyond family squabbles, however, this can have far greater and more insidious effects. For example, what happens when a propaganda machine with a huge influence distributes lies as new information or breaking news? Or even worse, what happens when someone with hundreds of thousands of followers’ posts satire material as a joke and people actually believe it? This is exactly what Christopher Blair is doing on his Facebook page. He believes he is catching his intended audience looking like fools, but all he is doing is radicalizing them. The followers of his page integrate this new information he puts out as fact, regardless of how ridiculous it may seem because it aligns with their anchored views, merely feeding their conformation bias as a result. And he believes of his “gotcha” moments where he reveals the falsity of his post, he is making people understand the error of their ways. Let me tell you a secret: he isn’t. Regardless of how many facts he provides about how Chelsea Clinton wasn’t even at the White House that that day, the damage is done. So I ask you, are his jokes, his messing with people many of us like to poke fun at, still funny?  

Netflix's Mistake

Netflix recently released Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez. It is a three-part documentary that tells the story of the late NFL star and convicted murderer's life. It uses interviews of friends, other NFL players and insiders to tell this story. As a huge football fan, I remember the tremendous player that Hernandez was and I remember this tragic story. This Netflix documentary, however, offered a lot of new and shocking information about the life of Hernandez. During the trial, there was a lot of media speculation about Hernandez's sexual orientation, and whether that had anything to do with the murder of Odin Lloyd. The most shocking piece of information revealed in this documentary was through an interview with Hernandez's high school quarterback, Dennis SanSoucie. He revealed that he and Aaron were in a sexual relationship throughout high school. With Hernandez taking his own life in 2017, the ethical question arises: is it right of Netflix to throw this information out there with Hernandez not being able to comment on this fact or any of the other information revealed int he documentary?

Hernandez, left, and SanSoucie, right

One might think, "Why would SanSoucie make this up?". But making things up to stir up conversation is exactly what Christopher Blair does. He creates anti-liberal fake news stories to stir up conservatives. Many people believe these stories and like and share them on Facebook. However, they are easily checkable. But because Hernandez is no longer alive, the information in the documentary is not easily verifiable, and mostly going off the words of the people interviewed. I'm not saying that SanSoucie, or anyone else in the documentary lied or told misleading information, as I can never know. But, I do not believe Netflix should have put certain information out there without any way for it to be backed up. Who knows if Christopher Blair thought he'd be getting comparisons to Netflix when he first started blogging. 

Amazon Factory Workers Living Their Best Life

https://twitter.com/amazonfchannah/status/1161910397336768512?lang=en

In August of 2018, tweets started circulating from recently created Twitter accounts with the handle "AmazonFC" and that user's name. A majority of the tweets that were being sent were pertaining to the benefits that these employees were receiving - healthcare, stocks, etc. These tweets were in response to Twitter threads about Amazon treating their factory workers poorly. These replies died down until this past February when some of these accounts replied in a thread about unionizing. All of these accounts were vehemently against unionization, claiming that Amazon provided them with more than enough benefits and unionization was unnecessary. After another hiatus of replies, many of these accounts sprung back into action this past August. People were definitely skeptical before, but the tweet above from ambassador Hannah raised quite a few eyebrows.

Many people speculated that these were bots, fake accounts set up by Amazon to make people think everything was going great in Amazon warehouses and factories. However, they are apparently real people. If you go through and read the tweets these people have made, they all have their own lives and stories - they are all actual people. What is terrifying about this whole thing is that all of these replies give off the vibe that a gun is being pointed to their heads, you can almost hear the forced smile and happiness in their tweets. Nothing about it is illegal or anything, but it really makes you wonder if all Amazon factory workers are being treated fairly if they have to pay these ambassadors to say they're living their best life.

There's nothing huge that has come of this or anything, but I thought it was an eerie real life example of social media being used to manipulate and twist people's perceptions. Fortunately for us, the way these ambassadors are delivering their messages, we're not quite able to buy it. These posts reminded me of Saslow's piece about the lack of reality in social media and how people will eat up anything as long as it fits within their echo chamber. This isn't necessarily the same exact scenario, but the responses from these Amazon accounts are actually horrifying. I urge you to look into this yourself as some of the tweets are absolutely absurd.

For a more in-depth description of these posts, check out this article I read:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/style/amazon-fc-ambassadors.html

Do Not Believe What You Believe

Have you ever received some information from your parents or friends? Often they will tell you that is very urgent and you should really pay attention to it. However, when you browse the Internet you will end up finding these things are just unauthenticated rumors or even fake news.
In fact, this is a thing that we should really pay attention to. Eli Saslow reported an issue in his article "How lies become truth in online America." In this article, he reveals that several people are posting short messages and blogs containing totally made-up information. At first, readers can distinguish those from true news, and thus they only treat those as jokes. As time flies, however, those writers improve their writing proficiency. Their posts are more and more similar to works by professional journalists and scientists. At this stage, people lose the ability to evaluate the accuracy of the posts and may believe them more easily.
Also, there is a tendency that people are more willing to support opinions similar to theirs. Saslow indicates in his article that rumors about Donald Trump and Clinton Hillary are very popular and be more easily treated as real news though a large amount of news does not seem so trustworthy. This suggests that people will not doubt the accuracy of the articles when they find them supportive, because we can easily tell that people take them seriously.
In this case, people are vulnerable to mass information. We must pay more effort to fortify the facticity of any resources. Bad resources may also trigger worries and panic of the public.  Therefore, in this age of rumors, do not believe what you believe, check it first.

A Closer Look at 23andMe's Terms and Conditions

Consumers have long been aware that our online data has been sold to third parties and data brokers. When signing the terms and conditions on a webpage, there is usually a disclaimer that your data from interacting with the page will be recorded. This valuable information is either kept and used solely by the business who obtained it or it is sold, usually to a third party or a data broker. This means that your data could be in the hands of anyone with the resources to buy it -- which include industries involved in advertising technology, business IT, risk data, and customer management.

23andMe has taken this concept of selling consumers personal data to the extreme by selling consumers genetic information to a third party. When someone buys a testing kit, they are agreeing

to selling their genetic data to an outside company. This company is called GlaxoSmithKline which is a multinational pharmaceutical company. The way it works is that 23andMe sell customers a test kit, the customer spits in a tube and sends it back, 23andMe analyzes the DNA and sells the information.

Although this information is currently being used for researching drugs that could potentially save and better the lives of millions of people, the process is wrong for two reasons:

1. Consumers are unknowingly exploited for profit.

2. This data could end up in the wrong hands.

The first reason is reasonably intuitive -- if we are giving someone something of value, we should receive compensation for it. 23andMe can sell our information for $100 - $200 which they charge the consumer a minimum of $99. Consumers are already profited from by selling them a hundred-dollar plastic test tube but then are exploited even further by having their genetic information then sold to large pharmaceutical companies.

The second reason is one that is far more catastrophic. Although the data is being used for good, it could easily be sold to a company that will use it for self-interest. For example, if this data was sold to an insurance company, it could be used to see who is more likely to have a disease before they even have it! If you have a healthy blood line, this could mean lower insurance costs since you are less likely to be sick. To people who have a family history of a disease, this person may be subject to high premiums and poor coverage due to a disease this person may never have.

Ultimately, 23andMe could be a company that helps in the research to save and better peoples lives. In order to achieve this, they need to be more transparent with the consumers. First, consumers should be able to opt in or opt out of their genetic data being sold. This could include some sort of compensation for consumers that opt in since profit is made from the transaction. Second, consumers should be able to see who is buying this data. Most people would agree to allowing a company to access their genetic information if it was for a good cause, but would deny a company access that would use their information for exploitation. 23andMe's slogan is "Welcome to You", but we have to be aware that you aren't the only one who is