16 Matching Annotations
  1. Last 7 days
  2. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. Zack Whittaker. Facebook won't let you opt out of its phone number 'look up' setting. TechCrunch, March 2019. URL: https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/03/facebook-phone-number-look-up/ (visited on 2023-12-07).

      This article speaks about how Facebook made it necessary for account users to enter their phone number when setting up an account. That's normal when you think about verification. However, the platform misuses this information by continuing its privacy breaches. Furthermore, other people who have access to your phone number can look at your account. It can show targeted ads. There is a whole list of privacy breaches this platform has been accused of.

    1. Elon Musk’s view expressed in that tweet is different than some of the ideas of the previous owners, who at least tried to figure out how to make Twitter’s algorithm support healthier conversation [k6].

      This makes me think about today's social media, which is full of bots, hateful speech, and overall negativity. I believe it's very easy for those running these platforms to avoid this, but they choose not to, as it results in more user engagement.

  3. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. Color blindness. December 2023. Page Version ID: 1188749829. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Color_blindness&oldid=1188749829 (visited on 2023-12-07).

      This source speaks about color blindness. Color blindness has fascinated as I have friends who are partially color blind and I've always been curious to see the world in their eyes. Linking this to technology, it is impressive how in many devices like iphones you can adjust the color of your display, thus, helping people with color blindness as they don't have to view/interact with a color they can't see.

    1. When creating computer programs, programmers can do things that aren’t possible with architecture (where Universal Design came out of), that is: programs can change how they work for each individual user. All people (including disabled people) have different abilities, and making a system that can modify how it runs to match the abilities a user has is called Ability based design [j18]. For example, a phone might detect that the user has gone from a dark to a light environment, and might automatically change the phone brightness or color scheme to be easier to read. Or a computer program might detect that a user’s hands tremble when they are trying to select something on the screen, and the computer might change the text size, or try to guess the intended selection.

      I've honestly never given that much thought. We often criticize technology for multiple different things such as being difficult to understand for a certain demographic, but we don't take into account that it also caters to so many demographics with its accessibility. Honestly, as sayings go, like 'get outside', 'touch grass', and 'see the real world ', but sometimes this digital world may be far easier for some people to interact with.

  4. Oct 2026
    1. Emma Bowman. After Data Breach Exposes 530 Million, Facebook Says It Will Not Notify Users. NPR, April 2021. URL: https://www.npr.org/2021/04/09/986005820/after-data-breach-exposes-530-million-facebook-says-it-will-not-notify-users (visited on 2023-12-06).

      This article shocked me. Not only would a company breach privacy of its users, the very reason why they exist, but wouldn't notify them and wouldn't make any steps to resolve the problem. It's shocking that in the everyday world we see powerful people talk down to the public and, for one reason or another, find an excuse not to fix a certain issue. Yes, it can be simple at times! You just don't care enough to dig deeper and actually find a solution!

  5. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. There are many reasons, both good and bad, that we might want to keep information private.

      I've always found it astonishing how so many privacy breaches are the result of other human beings. I know it can be in our nature to be nosy and even inappropriate. But still, a human being who would never want to have certain important things compromised (like passwords, SSN, etc) is behind this!

  6. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. Everything Everywhere All at Once. December 2023. Page Version ID: 1188074672. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Everything_Everywhere_All_at_Once&oldid=1188074672 (visited on 2023-12-05).

      In Everything Everywhere All at Once, the main characters experience multiple universes while believing they are being surveilled. It speaks to how, in multiple internet spaces, we are being watched. 'Everything' being watched 'everywhere all at once'

    1. One particularly striking example of an attempt to infer information from seemingly unconnected data was someone noticing that the number of people sick with COVID-19 correlated with how many people were leaving bad reviews of Yankee Candles saying “they don’t have any scent” (note: COVID-19 can cause a loss of the ability to smell):

      This paragraph perplexed me in multiple ways. First of all, it shows the different internet spaces across which data is mined. But, the fact that data was mined to create a correlation like this just shows how so much data mining can actually end up creating so many narratives in the modern world and in the media. This still may be a less serious example, as the correlation is slightly silly, but in more serious situations it may actually be very serious and threatening.

  7. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. Is It Funny or Offensive? Comedian Impersonates FBI on Twitter, Makes MLK Assassination Joke. January 2020. URL: https://isitfunnyoroffensive.com/comedian-impersonates-fbi-on-twitter-makes-mlk-assassination-joke/ (visited on 2023-12-05).

      This article discusses how a comedian made his views on the FBI known with a daring joke. This article confused me. In my opinion, the FBI has a lot of merit to their name, but certain operations, such as those during the civil rights movement, can be seen as controversial. Is this an example for how trolling can be used to make a politcal stance known?

    1. Making a bot that is troll proof is very difficult! You either need to severely limit how your bot engages with people, or do a ton of work trying to prevent trolling and fix problems when people find a new way of trolling you.

      First of all, this is both very interesting and concerning. It's very interesting, the entire process and even the lengths people would go to just to say something negative. Secondly, it's shocking how people create such bots that seem to block positivity whenever they see it. Even anger, just like happiness, is a human emotion, and the fact that it is also being displayed through a bot is very concerning.

  8. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. Text analysis of Trump's tweets confirms he writes only theAndroid half was published on. Text analysis of Trump's tweets confirms he writes only the (angrier) Android half. August 2016. URL: http://varianceexplained.org/r/trump-tweets/ (visited on 2023-11-24).

      It simply just makes me think about how the most powerful figures can lack authenticity in their messaging and communication, even possibly when they are communicating the most random messages, such as Sydney Sweeney ads. Or perhaps that's the only authentic version.

  9. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. . Although such communities are often pictured as being prehistoric, primitive, and obsolete, we now know that such societies were and are highly sophisticated, often developing and depending on highly specified legal codes, some of which are still in use today in Bedouin communities in North Africa.

      That's so interesting! Messages have always been carried out in society, only the methods change. It makes me think that one day people will see our methods as obsolete and, at least metaphorically, prehistoric.

  10. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. W3Schools. Introduction to HTML. URL: https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_intro.asp (visited on 2023-11-24).

      HTML, a very basic and simple language used for creating websites. In a way, it serves as the foundation for much of the data that gets stored.

    1. Age

      For example, for age, on say a social media platform like Instagram, you could have the user type in the number, their exact birth date, maybe even age ranges. Constraints may include, not signing up if you're under a certain age like 13?

  11. social-media-ethics-automation.github.io social-media-ethics-automation.github.io
    1. Botwatch: for the interest and study of reddit bots. URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/botwatch/ (visited on 2023-11-17).

      This is a subreddit discussing bots. One post fascinated me. A recent forecast told us that 'bot users' may be more than 1000 times higher than human ones. Reddit was a platform where I sometimes felt a human connection through finding subreddits, users, and conversations that I was able to relate to, whether emotionally, physically, or in terms of interests, and now it's a platform mostly full of machines. Also, on a subreddit about bots, most of these users and their post may ironically just be bots!

    1. This lets the social media platform track these registered bots and provide certain capabilities and limits to the bots (like a rate limit on how often the bot can post). But when some people want to get around these limits, they can make bots that don’t use this official API, but instead, open the website or app and then have a program perform clicks and scrolls the way a human might. These are much harder for social media platforms to track, and they normally ban accounts doing this if they are able to figure out that is what is happening.

      The fact that platforms can 'provide certain capabilities' and 'limit' rather than banning them altogether really surprises me. To a certain degree, do platforms enjoy having bots take over? People care enough to create bots for your platform, also, sometimes what they can post can generate more engagement.