Question 1: Look back over the activities we did in class over the semester. Then write about 3 things did you learn this semester that you can apply to coursework here at Baruch (if you’re graduating this spring, think of the classes you’ve taken in the past) and what is 1 thing that you wish we had covered in this class that would have helped you in your other classes?
The most important thing that I learned from the class and actually applied in other classes was:
i) Databases: I had a huge project in one of my Management classes and had to come up with a business plan by the end of the semester. Learning about using databases in our LIB3040 class turned out to be very helpful, as it eased my research work. I had almost never used the databases for any of my research work until this class.
ii) Mindmeister: Mindmeister was a great tool that I picked up from the class, and though I did not use it for any classes this semester, but I know for sure that I will be using it in the near future. It was very easy to use and helped me learn about concepts graphically.
iii) Screenshots: This may sound a bit random, but I always preferred using a Mac in the library because I did not know about the Snipping Tool in Dell Computers. I aggressively used the Snipping Tool right after I learned of it in the class, and this I tell you, was a life saver.
The one thing that I wished was covered in class which would have helped me would be:
More Videos: I learned a lot of new, interesting things in the class, but would definitely recommend more videos as a way to stay more alert. The most things I learned in class were any topic that had a video incorporated to it. It just helped me become more alert and focused in class and wished there had been more of those.
The changes I made in the Wiki are:
Under What Is There Now
Current Amenities: Linked the 25th street plaza’s Facebook page.
Current Policies: Made an addition to the Plaza’s rules and regulations.
Under What Should be Planned
What Plazas Are: Added two pictures of what a plaza looks like in NYC.
Under Stakeholders: Added a picture of Bagel Express
Under History: Linked Philip Habib & Associates to its website.
: Added more events to the History.
April 15, 2013. Two bombs exploded during the Boston Marathon killing three people and injuring 282 people.
April 18, 2013. FBI after taking over the case, released photos of two suspects, asking assistance from the public to help identify them.
The media went frenzy, and the manhunt had begun. Stories started on social news site Reddit, with several users claiming on the forum that a Brown student, Sunil Tripathi was being sought by thousands of police and SWAT team officers over the attack. Different leading newspaper followed suit and wrongly printed stories on the student being one of the culprit. Within hours, the story gathered pace on social media, with tweets about Tripathi being retweeted more than 3,000 times, his Facebook page being attacked, and dozen news vans camping outside the family’s home in Radnor, Pennsylvania.Yet all chose to ignore the fact Tripathi had not been named by police as a suspect.
However, the student was no where to be found. He was already missing! And Police, on Tuesday found a body near the Providence River, Boston and thinks it is ‘very possible’ that it is Tripathi’s body. And beside Reddit, no other major media company that posted the story have come forward to apologize for their mistake.
Student Missing After Wrongly Accused in Boston Bombing
In the book, The Filter Bubble, Eli Pariser mentions the importance of companies being responsible for their actions in chapter, “Escape From the City of Ghettos”. He explains how online companies have to ‘recognize their public responsibility soon’ (pg229). People trust these huge companies to provide them with honest information, and these companies in return should honor that especially when they have so much power and strength in their hands. After all, ‘it is an institution invested with enormous power in the community, the power to affect thoughts and actions by the way it covers the news- the power to hurt or help the common good.’ Therefore these companies should take more time, put in more effort to find their new sources then just blatantly post uncertain news they themselves are unsure of, just so as to increase traffic. This is a very serious matter, given that a small mistake of theirs could lead to some innocent person’s life.
Identify what you think is the strongest idea and the weakest idea that he has for combating the filter bubble and the excesses of personalization.
In the last chapter of The Filter Bubble, ‘Escape from the City of Ghettos’, Eli Pariser provides solutions to help ‘combat the filter bubble and the excesses of personalization. Pariser provides an array of recommendations on, what ‘we’ as individuals should do, what companies should do and lastly what the government should do, so as to help blow off the steam from the growing bubble.
Pariser provided a great number of good ideas, but I felt that none of the recommendations, despite being great for good reasons, would work efficiently on its own. It is impossible to bring and see change if we picked and implemented one of his solutions only. I believe that if we worked cohesively with one another, then we will be able to achieve some sort of a result.
What Individuals Can Do? : The most critical thing a person can do is to just be cautious and alert. We are becoming lazier and impatient by the day, and almost always agree to anything without even looking or reading to the agreement. This is only making it easier for companies to trap us right into their paws. An example being that while using Twitter, unless ‘you go out of your way to lock your account, everything you do is public to everyone’ (225). Therefore, the best advice Pariser gives us individuals, is to ‘change our own habits’ (222) first, by being more careful and taking more time and effort in looking into the rules and regulations online.
What Companies Can Do? : The biggest responsibility, undoubtedly, falls on the companies that are entrusted with millions of people’s personal information. Companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, to name a few, need to take a huge step forward to understand and ‘realize their responsibilities’ (229). As Larry Lessig puts it, ‘a political response is possible only when regulation is transparent’ (229), therefore, companies need to be more public friendly and not keeps their codes under tight wrap. This is because doing so only shields ‘companies from accountability for the decisions they are making, because the decisions are difficult to see from the outside’ (230). So Pariser encourages companies to opt for open systems and take responsibility for their actions.
What Governments and Citizens Can Do? : Almost all companies are working and moving ahead with the main objective of earning profits than genuinely serving and doing good for the people. Therefore it is risky to sometimes, leave problems that are of huge magnitude, ‘in the hands of private actors with profit seeking motives’ (237). This is where the government makes use of its status and bring into play rules and regulations that limit such companies from trampling over their customers. An unsettling example I came across was while ‘it is illegal to use Brad Pitt’s image to sell a watch without his permission, Facebook is free to use your name to sell one to your friends’ (239).
The weakest idea that Pariser recommends for us would be a solution he provides for the individuals. Pariser advises us to ‘stop being a mouse’ (223), and that with us routinely checking certain sites only, allows the network to track us more easily. So Pariser advises us to do otherwise. Despite Pariser making perfect sense, this would be difficult to work to. Firstly, I check my emails every morning. Does that mean I should stop checking my emails or should I have to open five email accounts just to throw off the network from trapping me? Then comes the dilemma of when should I check my emails. If checking them every morning, when I am free, is not a good idea, then when is a good time? Also, after checking my emails, I check the weather report. The reason I check a certain website is because that website actually gives accurate information. It would be risky for me to check a different weather report every day. Even though I agree with Pariser, on how companies are able to identify users because of the way they routinely check certain websites, his advice does not work that well.
The could be consequences of Google glass are:
1. It can casue accidents because people cannot do two things at once. For eg. crossing the street while reading on your Google glass.
2. People can take videos or pictures of you without your consent and this is a big privacy issue.
3. This is a serious hazard when driving and is similar to texting or talking on your phone when driving.
4. It may be inefficient, and not work as well as the advertisement puts it. We could relate to the Siri, on how the advertisement made it look so convenient, but in reality it had a hard time getting people’s mixed accents.
5. This could also be a health issue, because of the rays and with it being stationed near your eye and brain all the time. This could cause cancer with the antena stationed so close.
6. A bad fashion statement, however this could be the new norm in the future, which is equally frightening.
7. Google glass is made up of a wire and a freak accident is possible, with the wire splitting and hitting your eye.
I recently read two articles Adding More Bricks to the Great Firewall of China and China Toughens Its Restrictions on Use of the Internet, from the New York Times, that covered China’s growing restrictions on the use of Internet. I was glad that Pariser mentioned this issue in his book, The Filter Bubble and criticized the Chinese government for openly removing a lot certain searches and blocking many leading services, just so as to control the flow of information and manipulate the content that reaches its citizens.
The Chinese government recently strengthened its Firewall, however the daily newspaper Global Times, which is affiliated with the Communist party labeled it as an upgrade; an upgrade that ‘blocks online searches of politically sensitive terms, smothers embarrassing news events, blocks online messages from dissidents and simply deletes any micro-blog posts that it dislikes.’ Pariser mentions similar incidents in his book with the Chinese Internet Police (seriously, one of a kind) vowed to maintain order in all online behavior, stating that the ‘Internet is not a place beyond law’, which is completely understandable in the case of hackers and online hoaxing. Just because you are anonymous online does not mean you have the right to do illegal things, however, since when is wanting to know more about the history of your country a crime? I am still baffled at the Chinese government wanting to stay on top of all these firewall issues and investing millions of dollars in trying to catch users online, while turning a completely blind eye at the growing problems regarding poverty, education and health in its remote areas.
The list of technologies I encountered today are divided into two categories:
| PUBLIC |
PRIVATE |
| Electricity |
Bulb |
| Satellite |
Toaster |
| Tracks |
Microwave |
| Metro card |
Internet |
| Subway trains |
Laptop |
| |
Ipad |
| |
Samsung Notebook |
| |
Charger/ Batteries |
| |
Computer |
| |
Elevator |
| |
Baruch swiping card |
| |
Turnstiles |
| |
Printer |
| |
Apps |
| |
Webpages/Websites |
| |
Mouse |
| |
Keyboard |
| |
|
| |
|
US Government asked Google for user data 4,601 times.
I came across the above article from a dashboard from The Filter Bubble website, where different contributors share their thoughts on the ideas discussed in the book, The Filter Bubble, by Eli Pariser, and this article by Matt Maiorana caught my attention.
Maiorana shares and explains to us on what happens after, to the ginormous amount of data collected by Google to make “relevant search results and news” for its users. Apparently Google provides its users with a transparency report that shows ‘a detailed look at who’s asking for data and how much Google gives up’ and how the US Government has ‘asked Google for user data 4,601 times’ in a six month period alone. Scary! Not only that, our information even seems to travel out of the US, with Google providing our information to countries like France, Brazil, the UK and India to name a few. Why? I can only wonder.
Well yes, it is great news that Google shares with its users what else they do with our information and who they provide it to, and maybe profit a lot from. However, that does not settle my heart that information about me is going around, making its rounds, oblivious to my knowledge. Just because, Google is showing the entire world, every step they are taking, does not mean that the action they are doing is justifiable. I may be going off topic, by this is an exact replica of ‘the cheating boyfriend’ story, where the boyfriend expects his girlfriend to forgive him for cheating on her, because he told her the truth. Does not make sense, right? Just by putting up stats on a nicely arranged (its actually pretty plain) website, and letting its users know what they are up to, does not justify their actions. It is wrong of them to even share our information that they, in the first place, collected without our consent, or tricked us into giving. Google should not be able to get away with this, just because they are playing the ‘nice guy’ card.
How do you feel about this?
Well, you at least know how I feel about it.
Facebook Owns You.
I recently came across the above video above on Youtube. Even though this video dates back to 2010, it is of surprise to me that I did not know about this matter until now.
Facebook, apparently altered some its ‘Terms of Use’ in 2010, removing the language that read, Facebook’s “ownership of our content would end when we remove or close our account’ meaning that Facebook will save and continue to use our personal information and pictures even after we close or deactivate our account. What is even worse it that Facebook ‘quietly and suddenly’ changed their terms without sharing and bringing it to the attention to its Facebook users, as this matter was only found and publicized by an independent blogger. After much protest, Mark Zuckerberg replied with only a post to reassure Facebook users stating that ‘in reality, we would not share your information in a way you would not want. The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work.’
But the problem is Facebook already lost my trust by ‘quietly and suddenly’ changing the terms without publicly announcing it to its users, meaning they knew it was something sort of shady as well. And no reasonable person would trust a website that would still retain their information even after they deactivated the account. What is the point of deactivating it then? However the most disturbing thing of all is that Facebook has the right to keep all your information, to sell it to a third party if they like, and there is nothing you can do about it; no undoing the done. This scares me and reminds me of one of my classmate’s post Facebook Legal Notice- where Facebook, without her permission used her pictures. This is definitely an invasion of privacy and I wonder if Congress has done anything to stop it.
Discuss whether Facebook or Google does a better job of understanding who you are.
I think Facebook and Google, both have the same capacity in understanding who I am. The only difference is the sort of information I provide the two medias that allows them to have an advantage over the other. Facebook, unfortunately, has become a ‘face’ of me to reach out to my friends, and families, and since most of the communication is happening among them, I give facebook real, solid information about myself. This is because, my friends, families and other people I care about stay in touch with me through this medium. However, with Google, the information I provide is very general.
For instance, I have two cats in my house. And facebook knows it, because I post and send pictures about them to my friends and families all the time. They even know the names of my cats, age, gender, breed, you name it. And if I am looking to buy a cat food, I will go on google and do some research on the best food for my cats. After the purchase, if I really like the product, I am most likely to go on facebook, and ‘Like’ the brand on its page. Google knew that I was looking for to buy some cat food, however facebook knows what product I bought. To boil it down, I think facebook does a better job of understanding me, only because I provide them with specific information about myself. This proves and verifies the fact that Facebook knows me well only because, “of the bits of data we (i) give off, as we (I) go about our (my) lives (life)” (pg.155).
I recently watched a documentary titled ‘Never Sorry’ on the life story of the outspoken, Chinese global art star, Ai Weiwei. It was an inspiring story on how one person, despite sounding totally crazy, uses art and technology to change and ‘push the boundaries of freedom in China’.
Ai Weiwei is a political artist and he tries to dissipate China’s strict regime by presenting underground exhibitions, publishing coverless books and posting regularly on his website, until the Chinese government took it down in 2008 and limited his work by setting cameras inside his house. But that did not stop Weiwei, he turned to twitter, and has not slowed down since then.
Eli Pariser explained in his Ted talk how the Internet was initially thought to be used for ‘great things’, how it would be a gateway to connect to the world, to introduce new ideas and most importantly to help democracy drive forward. And even if the web is looked upon as devilish, it rings a completely different tune in the East. Ai Weiwei uses the social media as a vehicle to his express himself and get justice in China. Weiwei urges his countrymen to use the social media and he himself has shamed and exposed many politicians via viral videos and tweets.. The point I am trying to make is that maybe the Internet is not doomed for failure after all. If the web is serving as a platform for these activist to vocalize themselves and bring to attention the corruption-fueled Chinese government, then there is still hope that the Internet is being used for a far greater purpose.
Here is a small clip where Ai Weiwei states his feeling and applauds the web stating that ‘the Internet and social media constantly puts the (Chinese) government on trial’. In the end, it boils down to the fact that the Internet CAN be used for far greater things, but it is up to the user to make that decision.
Ai Weiwei: The Internet vs. The Chinese Government
Challenge started off with us having to search for an article on Facebook posted in the New York Times on 28th of January.
Initially, I took the harder route of trying to find the article through the Baruch library website, which I failed miserably. I tried typing in the key words in the search bar, searched the database, even got transported to some gogale.com website, but none of that helped, after which I resorted to Google, who threw me off the bus as well. Therefore, with no other options I finally HAD to go to the New York Times website and after typing in the key words, I found THE ARTICLE, mockingly staring at me. Oh! The shame.
The article titled, For Search, Facebook Had to Go Beyond ‘Robospeak’, was written by Somini Sengupta, an Indian-American journalist who generally writes about topics on
‘technology and why it matters.’ Sengupta dishes to us about Facebook’s newest plot in trying to secure and cash in more users. This time they intend on using a different route to connect people- making Facebook the new Google. They want their billion users to make facebook their go-to search engine and this article ravels on how the young facebook team is on a go, working feverishly to make it happen.
This is an interesting read and I would encourage you to read it and decide what you think of it.
Comments:
"Honestly, the Siri did not work well for me, and I have very low expectations of GoogleNow.
Siri's advertisements were great; mind blowing! I was excited about the new app and desperately wanted to try it. I got my 4S, and nothing happened. The Siri apparently had a hard time understanding my accent, which is not really that thick. I thought it was very unfair (though common) of them to hype up a product, only to it not match up to that standard.
And I think GoogleNow is just a knock-off of Siri. I most probably will not use it given that I have switched to Samsung."
posted on May 17, 2013, on the post Siri v. Google Now"First things first, I wonder why he is using that name for the company? Sherpaa? I cannot make anything of it.
But getting back to the article, I am quite iffy about this topic. I like the idea that if I experience a small medical emergency, I can quickly just ask my online doctor, instead of running to the hospital and getting examined by a doctor for something that is most probably nothing. I would save a lot of money, especially me being an international student and having no medical insurance.
However, there is the issue of the doctor not actually being able to see you in person and with this, anyone could pretend and play sick and ask for certain medications. This is very dangerous. Also looking at the company's website, majority of the doctors look very young (age is experience), and this makes me question what you pointed out, if this is done just so as to make money. Young doctors do not need to be paid much, and this makes me wonder if they genuinely care about their patients or not."
posted on Apr 10, 2013, on the post Did somebody call an… Online Doctor?"I may be straying a bit off the topic but, this post in some way reminded me of my grandmother. My grandmother is in her eighties, and is not very fluent in Nepali, where we live. So she likes to ask us from time and again, what is happening in the news and if anything is going around in the world? She is an old lady, so we normally tend to leave out the bad things in the news, which normally is most of the news anyways, so that she does not feel uneasy and her day is not spoiled. However, if there is something really good happening around, we always make sure she knows about it, because this could just turn her day upside down, and she is in a great mood for a long period of time.
And I think the article pointed out that 'people need to be aroused one way or the other, and they preferred good news to bad', and I hope this helps news companies change the way they broadcast news, and try to move away a bit from 'the more suffering and mayhem, the more coverage' part.
I can also completely relate to the piece, 'Good News Beats Bad on Social Networks'. The news is almost always filled with 'bad news', however on social networks, you have the option of reading or playing videos that show something funny, hilarious, an act of kindness and that just changes your day. I normally tend to avoid anything that I know will make me feel uneasy, and yes I know I am building my own filter bubble right here, but lets just say, I am a very frail, sensitive sort of person. I cannot sleep well for days if I read something disturbing (Maybe I got it from my grandmother).
It is important for news companies to deviate away from personalizing and selling only certain types of news (bad stories) to its readers and leaving out the 'good news.'"
posted on Apr 10, 2013, on the post Good News Beats Bad on Social Networks"And what annoys me even more is that Google trying to mask a homely image and putting up these overly friendly videos (the ones Professor showed in class), where they have one of their 'guy/girl next door' employee trying to explain to us on how they are very grounded, that they are here to help us, why the ads are a good thing and so on. They pretend like they genuinely care about us, and try to teach us how to block cookies and blah blah blah, while at the same time they are trying to come up with more sophisticated ways to chip in cookies into our computer. Hypocrites!
I think I am venting a bit too much."
posted on Mar 13, 2013, on the post Google’s Direction"To ibosenko:
Yes I completely agree with you. I think here in the west, people are taking the Internet for granted, and misusing it to a great degree. We are not thankful for having the right to freely use the Internet, nor are we aware of the greatness that can be achieved by using Internet, 'the right way.'
To Jayeon:
Firstly, you make a great point on how the Chinese government could use personalization filters that promote their views and do away with controversial topics. I am not from China, but I do know that the Chinese government do practice such methods. When a person in China googles the word, 'Dalai Lama' a Tibetan monk fighting for human rights, the searcher will not find any positive content about Dalai Lama (for instance, that the Dalai Lama won the Noble Peace Prize for his human right efforts), however he will be filled with negative information about the Dalai Lama, leading that searcher to make an assumption based on that information alone.
I wonder how the people in West would react to this, if the US government did such a thing."
posted on Mar 13, 2013, on the post Ai Weiwei: The Internet vs. The Chinese Government"I am actually surprised that the black-box is getting this much of attention. I personally think more cars companies should incorporate black-boxes into the cars, so as to make driving more safer, but with blackbox's sole purpose being that of a blackbox, and nothing more. With a black-box installed in your car, you know that if you do something stupid, it will be relayed out later, putting you in trouble, and this way, causing people to be more cautious thereby making the roads safer, and eventually saving more lives.
And as Anthony mentioned in the above comment, the black-box would not be a bigger threat, if not less, than an average smart phone. We have come to a point, where majority of anything we do are via the web; the web knows us, and we know that. We have no problems shooting away our information to some random websites, punching in our credit card information, giving away our addresses, but having a black-box in a car has become a touchy topic because it may invade our privacy is beyond ridiculous."
posted on Mar 5, 2013, on the post Car black boxes: Privacy nightmare or a safety measure?"Yes, this was an amazing documentary. And I applaud Weiwei for his fierceness and fearlessness of the strict Chinese government. Like his mother states in the documentary, "How can one person change the entire nation? But if nobody stands up, how can change ever come to the country?" Weiwei states that the Internet is one of the strongest tool that can help them outdo the Chinese government. Therefore he urges the young generation to embrace the latest technology, and to use it as a tool to bring change and do greater good."
posted on Mar 5, 2013, on the post Ai Weiwei: The Internet vs. The Chinese Government"I think Rushkoff completely makes sense. And I think Eli Pariser will agree with me on this one.
Pariser talks in the 2nd chapter of The Filter Bubble, how back in the days the traditional gatekeepers, despite being many, were at least conspicuous. But with time and the rapid development of technology, we have seen the disintermediation of these barriers, and have given ourselves a pat in the back for the achievement. However not visible to our naked eyes, we have been deceived by even more sophisticated, state of art barriers- the invisible gatekeepers that personalize our information for us, without our knowledge.
Rushkoff explains a similar scenario; facebook meddling with things behind our back without our permission. And only later when everything is done and over, do we find out about it. The personalizing signals that facebook uses to detect us are very sophisticated barriers that are not visible to us. We do not see them, and therefore think they do not exist, which is sadly untrue. Unfortunately even being inactive on facebook does not allow us to escape from it. And thus causing Rushkoff and many other people to delete their facebook accounts, but the damage may have already been done, as facebook will still save all our information despite us deleting our accounts."
posted on Feb 27, 2013, on the post When Your Likes on Facebook Spiral Beyond Your Control"Wow! Thanks for sharing this topic. I am actually hearing about Klout for the first time and I think it is completely wrong of companies to use such scores when looking to hire employees.
It is disturbing to know that a person who spends majority of his time in front of the computer warming his seat, trying to 'friend' strangers, has a competitive edge over a person who actually limits his facebook circle to his friends and families and spends his time doing something more productive. I must then be wrong in not accepting all the creepy facebook friend requests, as I am obstructing myself from creating a larger network for myself. Ridiculous!
In the end, should I advise my little cousin to start a facebook at a young age, so that she can start working on her online image from a young age?"
posted on Feb 27, 2013, on the post You are not hired because your Klout score is not high enough."Wow. Private citizens spying on the borders for illegal immigrants. That is intense! Maybe they get a prize money or something if they catch people, or else this seems painfully awful.
However your topic on the decisions being based on what we do on the Internet is very frightening indeed. I think this is what Eli Pariser touched on too, during his 'Ted' talk. He mentioned how back in the days, the Internet was expected to be used for 'great things', where the web was thought to be a gateway to connect to the world, to introduce new ideas and most importantly to help drive democracy forward. However, with the increase use of personalizing signals, this is backfiring. We are being confined to ourselves and a time has come where every action you make is via the web, which allows the web to know you more than you know yourself. Scary!"
posted on Feb 14, 2013, on the post Privacy Information on the Web"I received an email (more like an email blast) from Dr. Ben Corpus, the Dean of Students of Baruch College, explaining about this matter and a couple of hours later read the article after Professor put it up on blog.
This was an extremely interesting read and after finishing the article, ended up with mixed feelings towards the students involved in the matter- a bit sympathetic, yet annoyed at their machiavellian tactics to get ahead.
The only thing the students did was, in short, devise a program that allowed them to register ahead of everyone. But to achieve such an advantage, they tampered with the CUNY system and that according to Dr. Corpus seem to have been an offense. For more info, I have added the CUNY Computer User Policy that every student have to agree to before joining Baruch.
All in all, I think it was not fair that the students used such tactics to try to get ahead of everyone, but again at the same time, they had no malicious intentions, so I am not sure if they should be punished or not. However, if they did hack into the email system, then I think that is a very serious offense and they should be punished accordingly.
CUNY Computer User Policy: http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/bctc/student/CUNYsComputerUserPolicy.htm"
posted on Feb 14, 2013, on the post Using Technology to Get a Leg Up"Thankyou for your comment Professor. We will edit them."
posted on Feb 14, 2013, on the post Team 4 on Sources in The Filter Bubble"Hello."
posted on Jan 31, 2013, on the post Hello!
