Post (11): My Online Presence

 

Social Media has played a big role in my life since I was a really young kid. I remember begging and begging my mom for a Facebook until she finally just gave in so she didn't have to hear my mouth anymore. Social Media was the way my friends and I stayed in touch because any of us rarely had phones, but we did have the family computers.

Right now, I currently use Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and LinkedIn. On most of these websites, I have just my phone number and my one of my spare email accounts. If you look at my social media account then you can probably just find out what I look like, when my birthday is, what school I go to, and not that much more. But, when I think about it, that is still enough information for somebody that is stalking my page or something of the sort. But, most of the time, the only reason they would find these things out is because of somebody else saying happy birthday to me or something of the sort.

If I give out my real email then it is only because I am buying something on sites like Amazon or eBay. But that is just so that they let me know when my package is coming and where it is at.

I feel that social media will only make you feel isolated, lonely, or depressed if you allow it to overtake you. When you disconnect from the actual world and so absorbed in the digital world that if something goes wrong on your phone then it can influence your whole mood and demeanor.

Post (10): EOTO 2

 

False Flag is an operation in which the act of intentionally disguising the source of responsibly, and blaming it on a secondary party. This term is mostly used by conspiracy theory promoters in accordance to the government and covert operations. Originally, the phrase, "false flag", was used for the practice of pirate ships flying the colors of other nations to deceive other ships, such as those of merchants, into thinking that they were dealing with friendly people. The pirates would usually show their true colors just before the attack, but the wrong flag would sometimes continue to be flown during the attack, because they would forget to change it, and thus the term "attacking under false flag." But, overtime the term "false flag" came to be applied to any covert operation that put the responsibility of their wrongs on another party. For example, the case with the 1953 Iranian Coup.

In November of 1939, the Russian village of Mainila was attacked by an unknown party. The village was fairly close to the border with Finland, and the launch attack was used as an excuse to break the pact that was made with the Soviet Union for non-aggression with the country and launch an invasion into Finland. This was later known as the 'Winter War'. It was eventually concluded by both British and Russian historians that the shelling of the village was a false flag operation carried out by members of the NKVD.  Throughout the war, false flag operations were continuously executed, but mostly can be considered in the old sense of the word. Another false flag operation, one of the most famous of World War II,  was the raid on the French drydock of St, Nazaire. British commandoes managed to float an explosives-laden old Royal Navy destroyer made to look like a German torpedo boat close enough to the harbor to destroy all key structures in the the port according to the detonator's will. After the war, the United States and Great Britain joined forces and organized false flag operations during the 1953 Iranian Coup.

False flag can be used in instances other than war as well. For example, during a mass school shooting investigation in Parkland, there was talk that the person that shot the school up, David Hogg, was accused of being a "crisis actor" and that the shooting was a staged hoax to undermine gun rights.

Post (9): Privacy?

 

What we think we have control over on our computers and phones, most likely we don't. A lot of consumers have agreed to give up fundamental aspects of privacy when using their phones and laptops, and have accepted being watched by third parties as a part of modern life. But, when you do this, do you know what they are really taking?

Every single time you look something up on an unsecured search engine such as Google or Bing, they take record of what you have looked up, and never forget it. No matter how much you "clear your search history", it is never really cleared. There is always a way to bring it back up. According to Business Insider, the only way to officially go incognitio is to use a whole different browser, other than Google. Even though Google has its own "Incognito" browser, it is ran by the same people, and it does not fully hide you from the Internet world.

In October of 2018, Forbes Magazine did their research and found out that the Feds ordered Google to hand over their data because there were countless numbers of robberies happening between the same places, and they felt that if they had people's browsing history they could find out who it was easier and quicker. This seems sensible, but the only problem was they didn't know who was doing the robberies, so that means that they were going to get access to everybody's browsing history, even innocent people. Cops would send specific coordinates and timezones within the boundaries where the crimes happened and then Google is asked to give the information on everybody who was near the location of the crimes. Even if the people were just walking by or eating near the crimes, anybody who was running Google, even if you were not on a Google app then they were still able to get your data, because when we first open apps, a lot of us allow the apps to run in the background data unconscious of the decision that was just made. 

I find it baffling that anybody could just review an innocent person's search history as a job and not have a problem with it, but that is just the world we live in.

Post (8): The Diffusion of Google

Roger's Diffusion of Innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new technologies spread. One of the technologies that has spread throughout the entire world is Google.

Google was founded on September 4th, 1998, in Menlo Park, California, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They planned to fulfill their mission which is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." That is just what they are doing. 

 Google is very convenient and easy to access. It's never very hard to find what you are looking for. Anything that has an online presence you should be able to find on Google. They have also expanded so much to where they have taken on many subsidiaries such as YouTube (which is their fastest growing one), Android Inc., and Appsheet. The ease of use and convenience of Google is why so many people love to use it and why it is still growing and thriving.

The level of differentiation has a big impact on the effectiveness of companies' market strategy. Google's search engine isn't just user friendly; its algorithm is updated constantly, and is said to be a century ahead of their competitors. User convenience is Google's main focus for their products and services. This is why Google thrives more than other search engines. Google also can be used as a platform for other companies to advertise their businesses and products, even their competitors.

Google also caters to the eyes, they are constantly updating their search engine, and they allow people from all over the world to send in their designs and choose which one is the best. Just recently, they allowed kids from different schools to design the Doodle for Google, and allowed the public to choose one finalist from each grade, and an overall winner, and she won a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 technology award for her school.

Google has expanded in so many ways since they first started, and have modernized communication and networking. Families and friends are able to stay connected by more than just in person interaction but by ways of communication on social media apps, some of which Google owns.

Post (7): EOTO: Internet and YouTube

 The Internet was created by the ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) in 1958.

Tim Berners- Lee created the World Wide Web in 1990. At first, the web was not accessible for the general public, but Berners-Lee wanted to change that. In April of 1993, the World Wide Web was accessible to everybody.

The Internet has positives and negatives. A few of the positives are online shopping, instant messaging, and exchanging of ideas from all across the world. A few of the negatives are hackers, anybody could contact you, and underage kids online, even though a lot of the social media apps are for 17+.

YouTube opened a door for new content needs (study videos, tutorials, comedy) and they provide a new form of income. Even though it comes with a lot good, bad comes as well. For example, people hide behind comments that are insensitive to others feelings, and people can post what ever they feel like, and it could be an invasion of privacy.

Post (6): EOTO: United States Postal Service

I believe that the United States Postal Service has made an impact in each and every one of our lives in some way from the mailmen, to the mail we receive, the mail we send out, all of the mystery packages we get, and so much more. A lot of times we don't show recognition to the people who make our lives easier each and every day.

The United States Postal Service was founded in 1971, but they started their delivery process long before. It all began in 1775 when the Continental Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin as their first Postmaster General, and he put in place a lot of the foundations of what the post office in today's time looks like. Before working for the USPS, Franklin was a postmaster general for Philadelphia, but he was soon fired for his revolutionary activities. But, before Franklin was fired, he made tremendous advancements to their systems, cutting delivery routes down from Philadelphia to New York to half of what they were accomplishing before. After being hired in 1775, he brought this same energy to the United Colonies until 1776. In 1789, President Washington appointed Samuel Osgood as the first postmaster general of the American nation. By this time there were 75 post offices in the United States.

By the 1860s, the USPS had begun the usage of stamps and had began the Pony Express. The Pony Express was a mail service that had men riding on horses delivering messages, mail, and newspapers from Missouri to California. But, this service only lasted 18 months after being abolished because communication wasn't fast enough. By 1896, rural free delivery had began. Before families from rural farms had to come pick up their mail themselves or pay private carriers themselves, but this changed that and gave them mailmen. Scheduled airmail service began, residential deliveries reduced to one day, express Mail® began experimentally, and zip codes were inaugurated all by 1970. 

The United States Postal Service began officially operating in 1971. This was a government owned company, expected to bring in revenue on its own. For decades after this the USPS worked just fine, and by the 1990s they started steadily turning a profit. By 1994, the USPS had opened the National Postal Museum, and they launched their first Internet site. Everything was going good for the USPS, until more people started getting a hold of computers and they started using email more than sending physical mail, dropping the USPS's profit margin by 34 percent. But, by 2009 the USPS revealed their first free iPhone app, which helped their ratings a lot allowing receivers to check the progress of their packages, and the people really loved that.

But, still this was not enough, in 2012 the USPS began to default on the retirement benefit payments, they found that this was their only option. Now, their mail services are plummeting due to the coronavirus, and they don't know if they have enough money to make it through with full operation. According to the National Geographic, there has been a lot of talk about the outcome of the USPS, but nobody officially knows what is going to happen, but we just hope for the best, for all the employees and employers.

 

Post (5): Eight Values of Free Expression: Protect Dissent

 

The first amendment holds a big impact on our day to day lives, a lot of the things we say or do are only legal because of the first amendment. For example, back in the day we probably would have been arrested for the peaceful protests that we encountered during the summertime. I know a lot of people were still arrested during the protests even though they broke no law, but if we were not under the first amendment law then there would have been so many more than there was. 

But for my entry, I will be talking about Protect Dissent. Protect Dissent strengthens our participatory democracy because it protects the right of political expression. The right to dissent is very essential to have a fully functioning democracy, because it makes every citizen feel like they can be heard. Also, giving people the right to dissent, can end a lot of violence before it starts, because if you don't give people that right then they will find a way to do it whether it be legally or illegally. 

I chose to do the Protect Dissent because it is the one that I found most interesting and it is the one that I can relate to the most. As a BLACK young WOMAN in America, I feel like that it is important to be heard and understood especially during these unprecedented times when the killing of blacks are high and the sex slave trade is high for young women. I feel that dissent is a way that I can let other people know that I am a human as well, I am not a "threat" neither am I "asking for it". I just cannot wrap my head around not liking a people because of the color of their skin, it baffles me that people are so simple minded. It also baffles me that people keep mistaking basic human rights for politics. Why can't an employee wear a "Black Lives Matter" mask to work without being fired for mixing politics and work. The fact that somebody would use the term "All Lives Matter" in retaliation to the Black Lives Matter Movement or even defend the police with the "Blue Lives Matter" slogan, it literally makes me sick, and I pray for people like that. Even if you are an "All Lives Matter" person, black lives still fall under that category, and you still treat us like we don't matter is just a problem. Black Lives Matter is not saying that white lives don't matter or anything like that, it is just saying that black lives are the lives that are in trouble, and we need to do something to save them. The "Blue Lives Matter" slogan should not even be a thing, because in all seriousness, BLUE LIVES DO NOT EXIST, nobody was born a cop, so there is no such thing as a blue life...YOU HAD A CHOICE OF BEING A COP, I DID NOT CHOOSE MY SKIN COLOR.

Through the trying times, these protests did bring about some change, but there is still so much to be done. But the country will not stop until the injustices of our being righted. 

Post (4): Antiwar Voices

 Antiwar.com and the American Conservative, are websites that bring to light a lot of antiwar voices. These voices are very strong and devoted to getting their message across. But why don't we hear these voices or what they have to say on mainstream media?

News services and people that run social media apps have a strict protocol of what they can and cannot say or put out. For instance, if you watch the news then you know that they have already scripted lines of what they are supposed to say. But sometimes they give their own opinions but they know what subjects they are allowed to touch on and some that they are not. I think that antiwar conversations are one of the things on the NOT list. Because if our country was about to start a war, and there was a mainstream news anchor telling about how they feel that war is not the way, and that there are other options, how would the listeners take that? I am pretty sure that they would listen to what they have to say and a lot of people would process their thoughts and maybe agree. Which would lead to protests and other things of the sort, and cause a lot of commotion in the country. A lot of the people that write on the sites are not big time names so if one happens to come across one of the sites, it may not be of much interest to them because of the fact that they don't know anything about the writers.

FSU students marching as protest against the Vietnam War-- Tallahassee, Florida 

Post (3): The Six Freedoms and the Black Lives Matter Movement

 

Often times we scream "Black Lives Matter", but are we screaming it because we want to see equality and justice for all? Or do we just want to be apart of the trend and we want people to see us as "anti-racist". Often times I hear it, I just feel like it is because of the latter. 

The First Amendment is fundamental to all life in America because it protects the freedoms of speech, assembly, press, and religion, and the violence that the police constantly brings to our country threatens the safety of everybody in this country, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion,etc.

The First Amendment, does in fact agree with the Black Lives Matter Protests. The first amendment clearly protects the right of peaceable protests. If this is in the first amendment, why do people and a lot of police officers still have a problem with it? You might say that they only have a problem when the protests turn into violence and rioting. I am here to prove to you that that is a false claim. For example, we can refer to when the a New York City police officer ripped a mask off of a young black man's face and began to pepper spray the young man, while the man was just standing there with his hands up. Or we can refer to the time when another New York City police officer was in a moving vehicle, and he slammed someone in his car door and drove away. Or maybe, if that is not enough, we can refer to the time when I was at a peaceful protest, everybody was laying down for 9 minutes in honor of George Floyd, and close to the end of time a car was let through the police barrier around the protesters and they came full speed towards everybody on the ground, and right after this the police sped away. They allowed that to happen.

Even though the amendment protects the power of the peaceable protests, it does not protect the looting, rioting, and violence. This is something that I do not agree with, especially considering that most of the people looting, rioting, and destroying businesses were mainly Caucasian people. 

Nelson White, one of my friends, poet and activist

very adamant about the lives of black people, in the middle of a protest.

Post (2): The Supreme Court

The Nine Supreme Court Justices.

 The Supreme Court, established in 1789, is the highest federal court in the country and has the power to oversee the actions of two other branches of government. When the Supreme Court was first formed it was made up of six justices, now nine justices hold power in the Supreme Court (as pictured above). The justices are nominated by the U.S. president and approved or denied by the U.S. Senate. There is also a chief justice, the one in charge of presiding over the Court and setting the agenda for weekly meetings, he or she is also required to sit on the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, they also preside over impeachment hearings.

According to the Supreme Court Procedures, the Supreme Court gets more than 7,000 cases a year, but they only choose to accept about 100-150. The cases that they do choose to accept impact our country, either for better or for worse. For example, the Dred Scott v. Sanford  was a decade-long fight for freedom by an enslaved black man named Dred Scott. The case went through a number of smaller courts and eventually ended up at the Supreme Court. On May 15,1854, Scott lost his case in federal court therefore he and his family members were held in slavery. Scott appealed his case to the Supreme Court, but this time he had many people in his corner, like abolitionists, powerful politicians, and high profile attorneys. Unfortunately, that was not enough and on March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court ruled against Scott, causing him to lose his freedom once again. Meanwhile, in 1896, they ruled in favor of upholding state segregation laws, with the Plessy v. Ferguson case.

 

The Dred Scott Decision.

The Supreme Court also handled and still handle important cases as well. Just to name a couple, Mapp v. Ohio, which said that evidence obtained illegally cannot be used in a court of law, and Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down state anti-sodomy laws.

Post (1): My Top News Sources

1) ABC 11

- I use ABC11 because it is the local news station for the Raleigh-Durham, whenever I want to know what is going on in my community then I can always rely on them for the information. Every time I go to my grandparents' houses then they are always watching ABC11. It is also always the first thing that pops up on the television every time I turn it on.

~Picture from ABC 11, my brothers on the front line from a George Floyd protest this summer.

2) Shaun King

- Shaun King is a very well known activist for the minority community, every time something happens I can always count on him to have the news about it. A lot of his posts are controversial if you are against basic human rights, and for that he is the number 1 target for white supremacists, and he had many police officers plotting to kill him, which means he's obviously doing something right. He is also hated by a few African American and or black people, because they accuse him of not seeking out justice, but promoting himself through the black man's demise and their injustice. But, the truth is he makes no money off of the book that he promotes.

3)The Shade Room

- The Shade Room is a page on Instagram that covers just about everything you want to know. They give you the news on celebrities, politics, and so many things of the sort. Most of the time, The Shade Room has all the correct information, verified a lot of times by the people themselves. With 20.4 million followers, The Shade Room has become a viable news source for a lot of the generations, even the older people, they even constantly have people checking their page that do not even follow them. The Shade Room also has a teens page with 2.2 million followers, both pages being verified.

4)Fox News

- I rarely get my news from here considering ABC11 is big in my hometown, but when I cannot find what I am looking for on ABC then I always come here as my second resource for television news coverage. Even if ABC11 does have the news up there then I still sometimes come to Fox because they could have more on the issue at hand, while ABC is still gathering their information.

5)Durham Herald Sun

- The Durham Herald Sun is a newspaper in my hometown, and unless I'm in a doctor's or dentists office or maybe even my Grandma's house then I might read it but other than that I never read the newspaper. When I was younger, I used to wait for the paper boy to come and when he got to the house, I would run outside, barefoot and all, to bring the newspaper inside. Then, I would read the comics in there and I would also do the crosswords, and read the sports section, etc.

~A picture of an article that was in the papers