Final Post

Technology

Technology. The effervescent foundation of our modern-day society has been sanctioned into some sort of flexible vivid framework, set up in such a way that's restrained enough for humans to have the power. My question is, has technology outrun us this time? Have scientists created technology that even they fear the side effects of? Does technology fool us into thinking humanity has all the power when it has all the control? The short answer is yes. Obviously, the right to privacy is something we should all feel abused by with tech companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, and even our own government. However, as this is my final blog post, I'd like to expand past the obvious (at this point I feel like privacy is a dead horse and I just can't bring myself to beat it anymore). If you'd like to see my take on privacy in the world of technology, I welcome you to view one of my favorite posts, privacy. For this post, I'd like to expand on not only the personal relationship I have with technology but society's as well. 

Society

Society is what can spin some of us to the bottom of the spiral of silence. It can sway mass public opinion by calling on its close friend, the media, to do its dirty work. Society can bring revolution, create communities, cultivate awareness, build culture, and create acceptance, but it can do even more harm. A community banded on similarity that promotes individuality is inherently confusing. We grow this false concept of acceptance and falsely believe it will bring peace. We think that with peace comes equality, equity, an end to pain, and all negativity and wrong in the world in general. What we forget to do is take care of acceptance; to look after it like it's a child of our own. To nourish, clothe, bathe, and care for it. What we do instead is act like we accept, when really we only accept those who deem fit in the social normative model. So, how can we expect people, especially the youth, to navigate and find themselves in society by giving them a tool that deepens isolation, breeds comparison, and feeds off constant interaction? Ok, let's bring it back to technology now that I've addressed my grievances with the best actor out there you know and love, society. 

Our Relationship with Technology 

The reason technology has become such an integrated part of mankind's life in this timeline is because we crave to be accepted by society. Sure, it makes life easier if we ignore the depth of its effects with software like Siri, iPhones for communication and safety, and innovation to bring resources to third world countries. However, in America, the population sees the newest iPhone and thinks "I gotta have it!", but do we really? Should we continue to harvest minerals to create new iPhones? Does communicative technology need to get better or realistically, are we just making it weird now with how "close" we want to be with people? I'll let you decide. Technology has turned into a trendy fad that leaves those who aren't accustomed to its ways out of the loop (and if you're out of the loop, you might as well buy a few cats and get comfortable being alone). What I mean is that if one doesn't have access to the communicative technology the world does, they'd miss out on current events, emergencies, familial and friendship relationships, fluctuations in society, politics & the economy, and all digital culture in general. The one thing you would know about is you. Huh, a society that uses technology after they have individually discovered themselves fully and can understand mankind as an empath while living in a world governed by the great marketplace of ideas--just something to think about. In this story a part of the collection called The Privacy Divide, a fourteen-year-old girl quits social media as she discovers her mother and sister have been documenting and commentating her life online since she was born. It's scary to hear how even if one does not join social media, they are not an exception to appearing on it. Teenagers have become obsessed with technology to the point of screen time averaging close to eight hours a day due to isolation during the recent pandemic. Most of us know the harmful effects of social media with its incessant need to learn more about us so it can choke us with entertainment to grasp our attention (which furthers the isolation gap), but I'd argue that now that most of us know how it affects our privacy, mental and physical health, the economy, relationships, its purpose and who controls it--isn't that enough information for us to decide for ourselves how we want to go about using it? It's not like we're a child...right?

 Steve Cutts Animation

Technology can be used for good if we choose to do so. AI technology is amazing and allows people to dabble in desires leading them to self-actualization rather than completing menial tasks. AI can help ensure national security, and safety. If I can be frank, is just super cool. However, AI can be extremely dangerous. For instance, if it were used for surveillance, AI drone software could potentially target an innocent civilian, get people mixed up (they could be acquitted for a crime that they didn't commit), and deep fakes could cause defamation. Just yesterday I was working out and a drone appeared while I was on the treadmill. It stayed there for 5 minutes, just watching me run and I was so confused and uncomfortable. Although, that's my attitude with most technology. 

If we give into all that technology has to offer and become so immersed in it that we lose ourselves, it turns negative. If we use technology for the greater good to ensure public safety, security, health and wellness, and efficiency-then it turns positive. Technology remains in our hands, now it's up to us to develop it further, but with regulations guiding it and neutral parties to monitor its hopefully ethical use. Needless to say, society is dependent on technology now, more than ever. We've become enslaved to our phones and I encourage you to check out this animation by Steve Cutts to see just how eerie of a position humanity has put itself in with technology. 

Technology's Relationship with Us 

Technology has an impartial relationship with us. It's not alive (for now), so it doesn't care whether we flourish or fall. The computer software engineers create algorithms to perform as instructed. Due to the need we have to make our lives easier, safer, and longer, technology must progress exponentially just to keep up. Technology saves lives every day and it's a truly beautiful tool that can take on the role of a hero. However, since technology was created by mankind, mankind has the power to manipulate it for evil. By evil, I mean creating weapons of mass destruction, inventing new diseases, toxifying the political climate, fooling the public, and invading our privacy. 

My Relationship with Technology 

The personal relationship I have with technology is one of gratitude and detest. In my junior year of high school, I went through an unfortunate journey battling illness and was unable to go to school for most of that academic year. Technology allowed my home-hospital teacher to communicate with my teachers and my parents to find new facilities and doctors to go to for a cure. This beautiful invention allowed my support system to communicate quickly and efficiently as my illness was aggressive and erratic. Technology also creates community, and for me, this was the best part about it during this hard time. My parents would play motivational videos for me, we'd listen to the newest progress in the field of medicine, and friends/family would use it as a communication device to send me their best. It was technology that allowed my staff to find a doctor in Connecticut (I'm originally from MD) that agreed to treat me. It was the technological innovations in the medical field that led to my diagnoses, cure, and integration back into society as a fully functioning member of our world. To technology, I say thank you for saving my life. 

To technology, I also say watch yourself. My detest with technology is rooted in social media, which is nothing unusual for someone of my generation. Honestly, I go back and forth with the concept of social media. For starters, it's a great networking app that connects people, builds industries, creates jobs (influencers), and entertains everyone- but at what cost? Social media has evolved into a concept that has control over what our society deems as acceptable. I gravitate to social media apps like Instagram, Snapchat, and occasionally YouTube to watch videos, see what my friends are up to, or share content. The one thing I've actively tried to do with regulating my phone usage (which I think people could potentially take away and implement in their lives) is setting my phone down in those awkward moments of silence. This forces me to be more observant and connect with whoever is around me; I think the awkward moments of life tend to be the little bits of beauty a lot of us miss out on in experiencing humiliation and vulnerability. It's what some of us rely on for our happiness, sanity, and support. I see parents swapping an iPad for a pacifier, teens using their Instagram and TikTok feed to cope with anxiety, and adults choosing to preserve their ideal appearance on social media in fear that they will get left in the past. Personally, I dislike the idea of keeping up with an online presence or spending my time constantly watching what others are doing instead of going out and experiencing life myself; including the good, the bad, and especially the ugly. If we take the very thing that creates the human experience, what does that make us? Inhuman, or robotic. We are slowly devolving into becoming these robotic beings as we let technology take on our role of carrying identity.  

I do think my relationship with technology is healthy. During my junior year of high school I wasn't able to use it at all to speed up the healing process, so I think that period of detoxifying from it taught me what life could be without it. I use technology but I'm not dependent on it. I love typing essays on my laptop instead of handwriting everything because it allows me to keep up with my coursework. I use my university resources to complete assignments and surf the web to answer my curiosities. Technology has even allowed me to communicate with a university in Peru, La Universidad de San Ignacio, to get the opportunity to study abroad there next spring! I enjoy watching movies, calling friends, texting, watching funny videos, and creating content, but I could live without it if I had to. Its sole purpose is to make my life easier, not more stressful or difficult. I think a lot of the time people miss this step. If it's not benefiting you, say goodbye to it (just technology, please don't live by this motto). It's the technology that satisfies the physiological needs that I couldn't live without. Daily screen time for me averages around anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour and a half. Most of that time is spent communicating with people, calling home, or listening to music during my morning workouts. I don't feel guilty about watching my feed because I give it an appropriate amount of time in my life-it doesn't consume it. Now as for television, that's a different story. Television is what I go to, to relax after I get back from class. After an episode (or 5) of Seinfeld, I feel refreshed and ready to complete a task or see people. It became my pacifier last fall when I was having a rough time in my personal relationships and served as a distraction from actual problems. After a reset over winter break, a trip abroad to India, and time with myself--I was back to the old me, if not better. Hopefully next time I don't have to fly 24 hours to a different country to escape my dependency on using technology as a coping mechanism. Technology also has the power to connect people and allow us to share ideas which inherently makes us smarter. The more we take in, understand, and apply-the smarter we'll be. I'll give all the credit technology deserves in my successful academic career and my conceptual understanding of our society. However, people can abuse it, making technology manipulative by producing misinformation, fake news, and defamation. Thus, technology can make us dumber by feeding us one point of view, misleading us, or shaping us into what its owners want. 

My number one priority is always my family and in this case, it's how technology impacts their lives. Technology allows my mother to network as she builds her business so fast and so well that she's able to pay for my college. Surveillance, weaponry, transportation, security, and privacy have all allowed my father to stay safe and perform his best at his job by having the best technology in all of those categories, at all times. It helped my siblings stay on track with their education during COVID-19 and served as a tool that could increase their happiness during that odd time. My youngest brother is where technology does some harm. Since he's the youngest of 5, tools are made accessible to him that weren't to us (iPads, phones, YouTube, video games) that used to take up a majority of his day as he'd toggle back and forth from one device to a streaming platform and back. It wasn't until he got his first nanny and went to Preschool that he was able to separate from his devices and wished to interact with us, his friends, and explore his imagination. I will say that technology has allowed him to learn in ways that benefit him in an academic and cognitive development sense. I also think it broadened his imagination and increased his desire to create. 

As you can tell, I have a lot to say about technology. Its beauty and ugliness entice me. Over the course of this semester alone, I feel my relationship with safeguarding my privacy with technology has increased along with my admiration for it. 

The Most Vexing Issue of The Digital Age: Privacy

Ted Talk Videos

Juan Enriquez spoke on big data, tattoos, immortality, and the Greeks in his talk on privacy issues. Tattoos convey without speaking; intimate, attractive, mistake, intriguing, and allegiance are a few of them. Metaphoric electronic tattoos can convey without speaking too. Dare I say, with facial recognition in mobile phones progressing to an almost scary point, our devices know us on a more intimate level than our loved ones. My iPhone has this feature where it analyzes the faces in my photos and uses their face as a template to create albums filled with photos of just them...weird. Today, people talk about having their fifteen minutes of fame, but what if in the future you could only be anonymous for fifteen minutes. These electronic tattoos will live far past our physical existence allowing the human race to achieve virtual immortality. He applies Orpheus (charming, partier Greek god) as one who charmed their way into the underworld to release his beauty on the condition that he would not look at her until they were out of the darkness of dating today. He says it's smart to use technology and give your next date a Google search or go into the digital past of those you love, but warns you to not go too far. Narcissus is used to remind us to not fall in love with our own reflection.  

Dating sites have access to all of your (if you choose to use dating sites) photos, chats, location, preferences in a partner, and content you post (making it irrevocable and its existence perpetual) to distribute and sell you information. All your dating history can be used for any purpose, at any time. The next few speakers address privacy issues as a matter you mustn't take lightly. As I was doing more research on privacy leaks, I made the connection between companies selling user information to third-party sources and an episode from one of my favorite shows, Criminal Minds. There's this criminal minds episode I watched where the killer picked out his victims and stalked them based on the information a fertility clinic sold to his place of work, a telemarketing company. He knew the women's likes, wants in a man, favorite things, location, appearance, and more private details. This is a Hollywood example showing how dangerous selling third-party information can be. If it's legal for a place as intimate and vulnerable as a fertility clinic to sell information to third-party users, it makes me wonder where all of my personal information goes on a daily basis in the bidding war over my digital footprint and trail of my digital cookie crumbs.  

Catherine Crump exposed the small detail the police track about you-which could be the most surprising of them all. Advanced weaponry is making its way to local small police department regions like surveillance systems. Police departments are tagging people's license plates in their system to track them, and that means you too. They write it off as being crucial to watch private citizens interact to maintain public safety, but that sounds like not only a major invasion of privacy, but dangerous as well. With this, there's no more wondering what happens behind closed doors for any of us. Let's say someone hacks into their system, finds my license plate, and is now able to use the thousands of cameras set up where I live to track me down (gross). I even get concerned with using Waze that someone will hack into the platform and direct me elsewhere; it's super easy to do and since I'm using Waze, it proves I'm already shaky on where I'm going so it would be easy to pull off (creepy). My grievance with automatic license plate readers doesn't deal with their ability to be converted to cross-check a hot list of people wanted for wrongdoing, because that's obviously one of the few positives of this whole thing. It's more so that they have this mass data collection where Americans have gone. What do I mean by "where they've gone." I mean they know the date, time, location, where you're going, where you went, who you're going with and even when you leave your house. So, you may be asking, Sophia-what's the actual issue? Well, the federal government is collecting these individual pools of data to show where all Americans are at all times; it's almost like we're trying to be the surveillance state, also known as China. The government abuses their power in many aspects, but in this one specifically, they profile Muslims who frequent mosques as potential terrorists and use its fancy surveillance system to keep track of them. May I remind you that they are now targeting a location, group of people, culture, religion, and race of people; it's absolutely sickening. Crump calls on cell phone towers as another way for the government to invade your privacy as they use a technique to ping your phone to tell where you are based on the tower you're pulling service off of...creepy. In this case, it's not about seeing to believe, because they don't want you to see it. No, they rather fool you into thinking it's not there, it's just easier that way. 

Darieth Chisolm shares her experience with the dark side of technology in her story of how revenge porn turned her life, and thousands of others, upside down. One of the things cyberbullying and digital domestic violence have in porn is they both stem from a relationship gone bad. Chisolm said it best when phrasing how cases of revenge porn become so detrimental; its power is derived from jealous ex-partners who can't handle the rejection by the other partner, so they use the weapons of cellphones and laptops and their ammunition is photos texts, and videos. In Chisolm's case, the photos were taken of her while she was asleep to make her seem loose and sleazy. Victims suffer silently across the world. Forced into isolation by the rejection and shame put on by society to face pain, depression, and humiliation on their own. We all let this happen, one like at a time. By feeding into the algorithms and using social media at a rate that can be defined in the prospective restraints of addiction, we give it the power to make or destroy us. However, there is little legislation to protect these people which points to the reason why most of these cases go unreported. The Enough Act by Kamala Harris and the 40 states (and D.C.) punishing the act with a $500 fine are the two minor laws to prohibit this. Chisolm vowed to accomplish two things: (1) PFA protection from cyberstalking and abuse and (2) for third-party websites to be required to remove the damaging content due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (protects copywriters and consumers). I used this Ted Talk because I found it showcased the shame we've displaced on those who did not deserve it. Technology is an instigator and a tool for digital violence. I encourage us all to promote extrinsic social responsibility by demonstrating intrinsic motivation to restore dignity to ourselves. Once we reach this step of self-actualization, let us release the shame surrounding the victims of revenge porn and help put an end to their silence. 

Finn Mystrad spoke on Cayla, the Toy Doll, who can now be found on display at the German Spy Museum in Berlin. However, Cayla remained on the market for a year after her recall despite sellers knowing how dangerous this toy was. Mystrad brings up a great point in his talk of what's the point of locking a house with a key if anyone can enter through connecting to the internet and your devices. The popular children's toy, Cayla, was able to listen and respond to her owner, but she also was able to be misused and hacked as a surveillance system. Mystrad's talk about his friend Cayla reminded me of a personal experience I had with a toy I was advertised to buy for my baby brother. The toy's original concept was similar to Cayla, only he was named Miko, who was marketed as the ultimate companion for social-emotional learning for the next generation, retailing for $249. Its competitor on the market, is an AI bot named Moxie who is similar but includes a faster response time and cooler color design options and retails for $999!! It essentially was a robot that was small and could follow my brother around-acting like his companion. The toy aims to teach cognitive and social skills to young children, modeling how one should behave in society through acting as a consistently present empath. Miko would also be able to read his emotions, use speech recognition for his voice, and respond to his questions, thoughts, and needs. This past Christmas I was in charge of shopping for my 5-year-old brother who was obsessed with action figures and his tablet. I found Miko as a suggested purchase for me on Amazon when I was shopping for my little brother. After looking at the price, I thought it wasn't too bad and could be a cool gift that he would love to play with. Since I'm at school, I feel guilty about not being as present in his life as I wish to be and thought Miko could provide him that in-person comfort that I couldn't. However, after doing my research on the toy--I was actually scared of it, and of course, I did not purchase the children's surveillance robot from hell. Although just because I did my research doesn't mean that the other hundreds of thousands of parents out there who bought this toy for their child for Christmas did. Companies put unrealistic lengthy terms out so people hit accept, waive their (and their child's) right to privacy, and move on. To solve this, I demand companies are regulated to put out understandable terms to ensure consumers have all of the information before they purchase and agree to the terms of an item. So, you see these issues not only affect me but my friends and family as well. 

Do these privacy issues affect me? Absolutely. I choose to use social media (and that's on me), but I do not consent to the dangers that should not come with having a digital presence or using the internet in general. Due to his career, my father is very careful about any of the members of our family sharing images of him as he curates what we can post based on our location, who is in the photo, and the political climate at the time. He's also taught me the government has its reasons for everything, including how they monitor us 24/7. I believe the government can place stricter regulations on what companies are allowed to do with our information. They can also follow through when their organization violates the 4th Amendment with its illegal searches and seizures which I know (because of Dr. Smith's insight) applies to the digital world too. It's about putting regulations into place, educating people on how to be safe online, and maintaining the very same policies we've created to protect us. My family is one of the tech-savvy types who have the newest invention of something or all of our appliances are also digital (like our Samsung fridge with pretty much a full-screen iPad on it). However, technology banned for our household includes Alexa, Miko, Google Home, or any device whose sole purpose is to listen in to you around the clock so that it can assist you whenever it's called on in our house, ever. This makes me wonder, what does he know that I don't. Probably a lot, but I don't know if I want to know. For my sanity, it would be best not to but for the privacy of my loved ones, of course, I'd like to know so that I can protect and educate them on how to live a life in the modern era, but safely and with some dignity. 

Christopher Soghoian teaches how to avoid surveillance with your phone in your pocket. He explains how the core of the network is wired for surveillance first, acknowledging that someone (hacker, stalker, the government, a foreign government) is always listening. Soghoian brings to our attention that to keep up with the market and secure financial success, Silicon Valley companies intentionally make it hard to tap into seeing your facetime calls and texts so that foreign competitors have a harder time when trying to steal their target markets away. Where tech companies have messed up is democratizing encryption, believing all of that information should be available at their disposal. Our own government officials are even worried (for their agenda, not ours, let's not get it twisted) because most technology companies have turned on surveillance by default. Are they worried because the tech companies may know more about surveillance than they do or that their people's privacy is being invaded? What do you think? Since there's no device that the bad guys use (terrorists, criminals..you get the picture), the government cannot legally, but does, wiretap all devices to maintain national security and safety. The solutions to maintaining your presence and privacy in today's age: use apps and tools that are heavily encrypted communication tools rather than more vulnerable platforms (like Firefox instead of Google as your primary search engine). I'd also encourage you to practice digital hygiene. What does that look like? It centers around masking yourself on the internet; creating fake Gmail accounts, using encrypted apps, and using VPNs.

Awareness-The Smith Mundt Act

Smith Mundt Act of 1948

The United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, known as the Smith-Mundt Act can specify the terms in which the U.S. government can engage in public diplomacy through prohibiting domestic distribution of information intended for foreign audiences. This act gained support due to the fear some people held exchanging a free flow of information was contributing to the outbreak of wars. After World War I, Americans used the precedent of the United States involvement in WWI and WWII as their reasoning. The official reasoning rooted in the belief this act would strengthen cooperative international relations, by the ease attitude shared amongst America's people. How did this happen? Two key cases in history served as stepping-stones for the Act that restricted American viewership. The first being President Wilson's Committee on Public Information which was America's first official government propaganda program. The second was Truman's Campaign of Truth programs designed to combat Soviet propaganda; this Act was developed to regulate broadcasting programs for international audiences made only under the guidance by the State Department. This Act implied programs like Voice of America was not allowed to share their programs intended for audiences outside America, to be spread within the states. 

During this time, all American agencies and organizations were able to withhold the information, missions, and materials they would show to foreign audiences. 

Smith-Mundt Modernization Act

The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, inspired by Representatives Thornberry and Smith was an amendment to the previous Act of 1948. Under this amendment, people could view what other countries had to say about America and spread it as they wished. Dissemination was allowed to operate on all levels, except the federal government, as they were able to be transparent with content they produced for their foreign audiences. Authorized parties included the Secretary of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) who committed to sharing all information the U.S. would produced for foreign audiences. This also lifted all prior restrictions that prevented Americans from getting news from "outside" sources like Radio Free Europe. It's important to note there were three provisions of this amendment. The first dealt with allowing authorized parties to disseminate information about its internal policies and operations. The second prohibited the Department from altering material only if they assumed American audiences would see the content. The third stated this amendment only applied to the Department and the BBG; any federal department or subsequent agency was not required to adhere to this amendment. 

My Thoughts

Operation Mockingbird operated on the principle of federal agencies being allowed to do whatever they want, without the American public knowing. In this operation, that goes as far back as the Cold War, the CIA purposefully put agents to pose as people in the media to control what information that went out to the public. My fear is that because federal agencies do not have to adhere to the Smith-Mundt Modernization Amendment (they're not forced to share information they produced or missions overseas) these undermining things could still happen. The risk of a breach in national security takes priority over transparency to the public. The implications are that at the end of the day, the media controls all propaganda we view; it's that content which fill our heads, are our topics of conversation, and shapes our view of perception. The good: the public remains calm in times of crisis; if we all knew what really was going on mayhem would break out. The bad: we don't know the truth and what we're made to believe or what what actually do believe. The media's ability to control our perception, and further who we are, is an insane amount of power that no person, organization, or otherly being should have. 

The Progressive Era/ Anti-War Voices

Progressive Era-A widespread period of social activism and political reform

The Progressive Era recitation is comprised of three timelines: world history, 14th Amendment, and 1st Amendment, that work together to create a conceptual understanding of this era. In fact, this historic timeline starts with World War I in 1914 because the Progressive Era was kickstarted by antiwar voices who opposed America's involvement. Due to where the legal power lay at the time and the exclusion of protection for those who voiced dissent, the antiwar party was the major target at the homefront amongst Americans. After WWII ends in 1918, America is left with speech/action doctrine, the Espionage Act, and the Sedition Act (anyone who said anything bad about the government could be thrown in jail; no longer valid after 1964). The Espionage Act developed when Woodrow Wilson (President who ironically ran on a peace platform and then entered WWI) got his buddies in Congress to pass this act that focused on punishing government employees and was used to wrongfully put those who spoke out about being anti-war in jail. In 1919 the Quartet Cases were comprised of antiwar voices. For example, Schenck, Debs. Frohwerk, were all against the war and wanted to extract America from WWI and were all communists or socialists. In these cases, the court rules that under incitement, speech intended to cause violence or lawless action is not protected by the First Amendment so all of these people stayed in jail under this new speech/action doctrine. Under the Quartet Cases, Holmes' famous dissent leads to the first major theory-the marketplace of ideas (allowing beliefs to freely be expressed and compete with each other on a transparent battlefield); the worst thing that can happen is when the government interferes with the peoples' ideas. 

**Dissents from cases lost are often used because what once was a minority opinion could one day be the majority's view. In Plessy v. Ferguson, the dissent was used in Brown v. Board of Ed. to prove the court got it wrong the first time and used its written language to back the majority.**

The Roaring 20's 

Although the court was still stuck on separate but equal, the people weren't...well some of the people. In my opinion, musicians can be credited for integrating society long before the court with

jazz influencing the culture at the time. The prohibition subsequently corralled people to a speakeasy to illegally enjoy their alcoholic beverage while listening to America's triumphant music and integrating with the musicians. This is where Americans start to let go of the death grip they've had to bite their tongue for so long (especially women) as we mosey into the roaring 20s. Along with the creation of the radio which revolutionized communication by creating instantaneous news, the 19th Amendment (suffrage) was passed, giving women the right to vote. 1921 there's a shift in court where Congress rewrites immigration laws to be more strict, exclusive, and tight (until 1965); it's always one step forward and one giant leap back, isn't it? 

To go along with the metaphor of America being the mother of Democracy, let's picture 1925 as the year she gave birth to the modern court system. The Judiciary Act granted certiorari, granting the court the power to decide what cases they want to take. Gitlow v. N.Y. creates incorporation and changes the way the first amendment works; now any agent or entity of government at any level cannot violate your first amendment rights without being susceptible to a lawsuit. Then, Pierce v. Society of Sisters uses Substantive Due Process to help people. The final addition to the legal section of the timeline was Near (a man who ran a weekly newspaper and was an anti-Semitic writer) v Minnesota (got a court to issue an injunction to stop Near). In this case, prior restraint is deemed to be almost always unconstitutional with the three expectations: (1) are obscene, (2) threaten national security, and (3) threaten to incite violence. Under this, the press is now protected up and down the chain and the court established the bedrock rule that the government stopping you from speaking or writing before you have done it, is the worst thing they can do. 

The timeline of anti-war voices in America dates back to when the country was founded. Whenever there was a war, internal dissent spawned among those who objected to all wars on the condition that military dissension was wrong in all of the four categories where Americans place so much value: morality, religion, politics, and economy. The Revolutionary War had theological opposition from the Quaker population who didn't believe in violence, thus refusing to participate in the war at all. The War of 1812, America's debut war as the first war we'd declare, jump-started the trend of anti-war protests, movements, and voices. The main rejection of the war was rooted in the Federalist Party for economic and political reasons. As you'd expect antiwar voices only grew stronger as the movements to end all war (domestic and abroad) grew stronger. 

The Vietnam War created a major division in America-those who were pro-war or anti-war. The anti-war party believed the United States had no business being in that war and if they were going to be in, the way the U.S. military behaved and methods used to 'gain control'-were believed to be inhumane, tortuous, and dehumanizing. When America pulled out of the war (which in my opinion was the most cowardly, disrespectful, and weak way they could've) upon their return home from the war, Vietnam veterans were welcomed with disgust by the anti-war party. The American media played a major role in cultivating dissent and sparking political unrest in what was supposed to be a United country (it's literally in our title guys...the UNITED States of America) by showing it in American homes in a vivid and powerful way. The Civil War, Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf War/Iraq War were all stepping stones to a pacifist pool where anything anti-war was drowned. By drowned I mean mainstream media's mirrored development and its desire to cover entertainment and news; so to end something like say, a war (that's changing every day and requires constant coverage which means more content, viewers, and money for the media outlets), just isn't economically smart for mainstream media outlets alone--the country, well that's a story I'll save for another time. 

EOTO: Terms & Concepts

Mediasphere

 A whistleblower is someone who informs a group about a corrupt activity. Oddly, it's not what the whistleblower chooses to expose, but who the person is, that interests me the most. I mean what kind of a person ignores war crimes, invasion of privacy, or any illegal activity in hopes of not breaking out of group conformity? They decided rather to not say anything at all to preserve the secrecy and safety of the act to protect those who would suffer if the information was disclosed to the public, freely. 
A couple of scenarios in history that were exposed by whistleblowers include MKUltra and more recently, Operation Phoenix. MKUltra occurred during the cold war when the government wanted to test the possibility of brain control using human puppets drugged with LSD. Operation Phoenix was in the Vietnam War as a collection of war crimes with the goal of pacifying the Viet Cong. Over sixty thousand people were imprisoned with another twenty-one thousand killed with various torture methods like mauled by dogs, starvation, rape and electric shock. The infamous whistleblower was Anthony J. Russo who interviewed the prisoners and observed the effects of torture. He then wrote a detailed report exposing the entire operation. 

Another idea to think about is why some shame whistleblowers to deem them as a tattletale rather than an unsung hero? Has our naiveness to their bravery overthrown our inner monitor of ethical morality? Other than Snowden, why are most whistleblowers often forgotten about and left as targets for those who were harmed by the truth (just something to think about)? Something I would think about if I were a whistleblower would be if I would want to be remembered for the thing I exposed for the rest of my life; including if what I did expose was serious enough to be targeted. If I had to answer, I'd say yes because it's better to help others than save yourself. On the other hand, it's important to think about if I exposed something, like if the government had a secret weapon, even worse people now know about it and could steal the technology to use for means of mass destruction. Some whistleblowers who are now tied to what they exposed include John Marks, Cathy O'Brien, and Whitey Bulger. Bulger's case reminded me of this scene from the movie RED where a character played the role of paranoia and deception as he believed the government subjected him to LSD testing. In the film, the audience can see how the decade-long period of LSD testing affected the character as he chooses to stay off the grid, is constantly paranoid and can break out into bursts of violence. 

Theories

The illusory truth effect is when we hear or repeat false information that causes us to believe it's true, despite our initial better judgment to know it's false. This effect is what allows advertising to be so successful. For someone whose majoring in communication, specifically advertising, I have to thank this effect for making the market so successful. On the downside, the illusory truth effect is what makes fake news and controversy in political relationships. In the Netflix apocalyptic production Don't Look Up, this effect is used to divide America in two. The current president played by actress Meryl Streep convinces her party everything will be okay to the point where nothing gets done to try and save humanity from their impending doom because they were so sure everything would be okay-repeating that mantra to themselves, their friends, and the media. With the recent pandemic, misinformation seemed to spread faster than the virus seemed to! Despite science refuting such claims, social media, blogs, and news outlets would take false information then share it with the public and be there to cover whatever mayhem ensued to the public. It's a weird system to drum up things to report, but it's effective nonetheless. 

AGE OF AI 

Deep Fakes are used to replace one subject with another in digital media. A video that has been edited using an algorithm to replace the person in the original video with someone else is a better explanation of it. This technology allows movies to continue with stand-in actors to model for the real person if they've left the film, passed away, or want their privacy protected. Deeps fakes advanced technology and have gotten almost too good; computer software AI engineers (the very people who created the deep fake software) can't tell the difference between what's fake and what's real. If you can't tell what's real from what's fake, then what can you really believe? The eyes deceive us to make sense of all the randomness in the world and organizes it in familiarity. With deep fakes that are slightly off, the mind can still trick the eyes into believing it's the real deal when it's not. The negative impacts of deep fakes include the spread of misinformation, compromised national security, and defamation of character. It's scary to think about how someone could work their entire lives building a good and credible career and reputation, just to have the possibility of a deep fake unraveling it all. 

Transhumanism is the theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical limitations by employing science and technology. Meaning that your physical body could die, but your brain could be uploaded and used to power machinery. Hollywood depicts it as putting a person in an everlasting machine by uploading their consciousness to something robotic, like Transcendence. It's also thought of as homo sapiens being superseded by humanity 2.0 where humans have short lifespans with their final years characterized by a drop in physical and cognitive capacity while the machines get even keener and more intelligent as the years' progress. I have to wonder if we're far from this. I like to think of how crazy it was when the hard drive came out and people couldn't believe that a device so small could carry so much information on it. I feel like if some secret government agency has done this already, we wouldn't know about it unless a whistleblower came forward. 

EOTO Technology

Each One Teach One 

Technology is built on the basis of logic and prediction, yet there are still so many unanswered questions within it. When will it stop? When innovators run out of ideas or when the human mind can no longer push any further past a fixed point of conception. A beautiful creation stemming from a branch of knowledge made to make human lives easier, safer, and more entertaining. These five technologies encompass how far technology has progressed from its earliest from carved as petroglyphs into huge stones evolving all the way to cloud computing existing in a theoretical space.  

Petroglyphs

Carvings into rock and stone dated back twenty-to-forty thousand years back, known as petroglyphs, are the earliest evidence of communication in history. Native Americans could depict a variety of scenes or creatures seen. Each carving was unique to the individual who created it; each incorporating cultural and religious symbols and markers to trace out boundaries or territory. You might have found the flaw in this communication method, but if not, let me explain. For starters, rocks break and inevitably will decay. Imagine if you spent hours carving a scene of a vicious animal that was local to the area or an area of territory that was off-limits by a rival tribe and could be of use in the future, just for it to be destroyed. People can forget where they carved something rendering it useless. Also, since each carving is created by one person, it can only be interpreted by that person. There was no index referring the carver to the symbol for deer, tree, or danger so when others would stumble across these depictions, you could imagine just how confused they were. A more provocative take on petroglyphs, people could've used the opportunity to carve whatever they wanted, wherever they wanted to carve phallic images all across the country. I mean just imagine coming across something so grotesque and actually carved into stone that you had to break the rock. Imagine the energy and effort that would take. If it were up to me, I'd just leave it out of pure laziness; perhaps, if I was a member of the past when people used petroglyphs, I wouldn't even know what I was looking at. Oh, the mystery. Sometimes it's hard to understand what's right in front of you. 

Motion Picture History

In 1888, Edison and Dickson created the motion picture camera. The phonographer's creation led to the kinetoscope which operated as a projector and was sold for $300. The brilliant inventor wasn't that brilliant. In fact, he didn't get a patent on his creation; making it easy for the competition to copy the design and sell it for less. Edison came in and put the patent on the device, making it 'his' work now. This communication device allowed people to experience abstract emotions from horror to romance to sadness. Soon people became captivated by this communication device and lost themselves indoors. Even in 1888 binge-watching existed as people chose to view experiences through the motion picture than go outside and interact with others-experiencing life themselves. Although, having to stand over and peer into the tiny lens of the kinetoscope, enduring the back and neck pain that came with it, could deter me from this device. This makes me wonder where was it in history when mankind became so lazy. Was this the defining moment-the creation of the concept of motion picture or was it the potato chip rendering humans as the defining title, couch potato? I guess we'll never know. 

Instant Messaging 

Instant messaging, originally used in 1970 strictly for government use, became the first online instant communication device. Created by Turnioff, IM was opened for public use in 1990. This changed communication in the workplace by sending out instant messages to the entire office or a single co-worker. It was informal, unlike e-mail, and operated as a free service. IM included features other than just instant messages like custom chat rooms, insertion of web links to share with friends, upload images, add sounds and attach files; it even had a talk feature that negated the use of the telephone to those who sought instant verbal communication. The negative side effects: vulnerable to hacking, cyberbullying, and being a distraction in the workplace.

Facebook

Zuckerberg

Created with the intention to connect Harvard students, four students (if you try to download a picture with all the co-founders together, it's blocked from downloading), most notable Zuckerberg, created the social media platform your mom and grandma love so dearly, Facebook. In 2004, the largest social media network in the world was born, gaining over a thousand users on its first day. Within the year, a million people had joined and today there are over three billion daily users. Once an account is created, members are able to create their profile, upload and share content, follow anyone they like and comment, like, dislike, and react to their posts. The almost too good or dangerously effective communication device on its best days is a medium allowing users to stay connected with those they do not see every day. It negates geographic restrictions by allowing members to share images, make their followers feel like they're with them by getting to experience those shareable moments. On its worst days (every day really), the site is a breeding ground for radical minds, a playing ground for opposing political parties, and an open door to your privacy. It's a friend to stalkers, third-party data mining companies, and cyberbullies. 

Cloud Computing 

Invented by JCR Licklider as an idea for storing data outside of personal devices, cloud computing reinvented the way we perceive data. Now, it's not stored in an actual cloud-don't be foolish. It's stored across the theoretical cloud, the internet. Data is limitlessly stored at huge data centers, which are huge warehouses filled with computers storing upwards of 1000 G's of information. Who uses it? Google, Amazon, Microsoft, universities, Apple, Facebook, and more to promote innovation within the community. It was John McCarthy's idea for computing that allowed it to be sold as a utility in 1960. Since then, your average user has the ability to process and allocate different percentages of data to individual sites, apps, and devices. 

So What? 

These five technologies are just the tip of the technological iceberg left to unpack. However, I believe they do a good job at encompassing a brief history of the key points in the world of communication. I enjoyed learning from my peers about communication devices I had not heard of (petroglyphs) to some that I maybe just didn't understand (cloud computing); nevertheless, this experience has been insightful and I can walk away with the knowledge that will benefit me in the future as a communications major. It really is true what they say, you learn something new every day.