Eight Values of Free Speech

Discovery of Truth, Participation in Self Government, Stable Change, Individual Self Fulfillment, Check on Governmental Power, Promote Tolerance, Promote Innovation, and Protect Dissent. These are all of the eight values of free expression. In my opinion I feel that the most valuable is the Protect Dissent. It is a complicated and tricky one to navigate, but it is a crucial one. 

Protect Dissent is the concept that you have to protect the items you don't like in order to protect the ones you do. This concept is almost always applied to speech. In todays America, we see this play out poorly very often. People find that their protected speech is important, but when disagreements arise and the opposing side is revealed, they do not feel it is crucial to protect their speech. Making sure to protect ALL forms of protected speech is crucial to the protection of freedoms in general. By discriminating against certain beliefs within protected speech creates divides and an easy way to further the break down of these rights. 

The Evolution of Technology - Citizen Journalism

Communication technology has evolved rapidly in the last decade. Coming from early cave drawings to cell phones and the World Wide Web is an impressive turnaround for humans, but the last decade has seen unprecedented growth. This has allowed everyday people to become more connected and more involved in how the media is produced and perceived. Tools like cell phones and video cameras have become essential to citizen journalism.

Citizen Journalism is journalism conducted by non-professionals using the internet, social media, websites, and blogs, etc. This blog post you are reading right now is actually citizen journalism! The fluctuation of citizens particpiating in the media has been beneficial to many aspects of the ever changing landscape of the news and media. For one, citizen journalism has become an essential tool for first hand accounts. There are very few events that are not captured on a video camera or cell phone now. This is intact journalism and plays a vital role in professional news outlets today. Another large benefit to citizen journalism is a manner to get information out to the public in countries that have restricted press. Organized press can sometimes be cut off or limited by governments, citizen journalism can be a great tool to get the truth out to the public about a situation.

While this method of journalism has many great benefits it also has its drawbacks. Participants can be harmed during the process of conducting their journalism. Often times people get into war zones or quarantines in order to get footage or details. This is a danger to them and those around them in these scenarios. The validity of news is another concern when regarding citizen journalism. Since the outburst of citizen journalism, the line between real and 'Fake News' has become muddy. It is becoming more and more difficult to tell what is real, what is somewhat real, and what is fake because of the rise of technology and the presence of citizen journalism.

Ted Talks

These Ted Talks were all on the topic of internet security and privacy issues. After watching these I have already made some decisions to change certain aspects of my life regarding privacy. Some of these are simply scary. To think that that my privacy can be so easily exploited and exposed is frightening and causes me to reevaluate how I use the internet.

Privacy is the main issue that is addressed in these Ted Talks. In the context of this class, first amendment topics, there is not much to talk about. However, the personal implications of this topic are tremendous and that is what I will be discussing. The responsibility of our own privacy falls back on ourselves when we are searching for maintaining our privacy. Whenever we sign ourselves up for social media, or virtually anything that involves our personal information we willingly give away our data. Facebook collects and sells tons of people's information for gain, and unfortunately they are not the only company that does this. Cookies that are used on websites are tracking tools. They take data based on the duration and location of where you are on the internet.

It is the sole responsibility of our person to withhold and keep safe the information that should be kept secure. In order to do this an online presence must be kept very limited and responsible practices must be put in place. Always make sure to read terms and services before you agree and never allow cookies to track you on computers.

Disinformation

During class, all of our groups gave presentations on the specified terms that we were assigned. One stuck out to me. It was Ryan Stewart's presentation on disinformation. Disinformation is information that is false, and deliberately created to harm a person, social group, demographic, organization, etc. In an age filled with fear of 'Fake News' and misleading stories, disinformation must be a concerning topic. There are two other topics that Ryan touched on, misinformation and mal-information. Misinformation is information that is false but not created with the intention of creating harm. Mal-information is based in reality but used for the purpose of harming a person, social group, demographic, organization, etc.

In my opinion the scariest of these three is absolutely disinformation. Spreading false information for the sole purpose of harming someone else is terrifying. Government's like the totalitarian regime of Adolf Hitler used forms of propaganda during the Holocaust to kill millions of people. This was indeed a form of disinformation. They spread false information for the purpose of harming a demographic of people. This spread of disinformation is what allowed the Germans to kill so many of the millions that they harmed. 

It is crucial that journalists, the press, and all media outlets make sure to do their best to prevent disinformation from spreading. It can be the cause of severe hurt and tragedy. I feel it is our duty as citizens and supporters of the press and media to hold them to high standards and keep them in check. 

https://en.unesco.org/fightfakenews

My Online Presence

Social media has become more and more prevalent with every passing day. Virtually every person has some sort of social media, may it be Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat. There are even professional forms of social media such as LinkedIn that aid as a business form of communication and connection keeping. Regardless of type, social media is almost unavoidable in today's world. This can be both beneficial and a hindrance. Employers now check social media even prior to the interview process in order to slim down the candidate pool. This just one of the examples of how social media is drastically changing the world and people's lives in possibly negative ways.

With the concern of the harmful possibilities of social media that I learned about in this class, I looked at my social media. After browsing through my social media, I have not found any glaring issues with my social media pages. I have Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. None of them have any sensitive or controversial information on them. Even though I do feel that my content would be admissible by an employer, I have done parent check, I have been contemplating deleting Instagram and Twitter for personal security and privacy reasons. This class has opened my eyes to the dangers of Internet use especially with personal information.