EOTO Presentations

 A major technology I learned more about from the presentations from EOTO was Facebook and Google. Google was created as one of the first major search engines. It gives an abundance of information right at your keyboard. This also made it very convenient to find news stories and entertainment news. With this there became information overload with the product. There are many fake news sites on google and sometimes they can be there on the first page as well. There are many positives with google but there are negatives that come with it. They also do not take user privacy as seriously as they should. There have been instances where Google will share your search history with the FBI, CIA and other agencies in the United States. This is a major problem that many people have with the company and the search engine. They also sell your personal information such as your email and other information to third parties and other companies. This is why many people have junk emails with companies that they aren’t interested in. Facebook is another major technology that I learned about in the presentations. It started with Mark Zuckerburg but it was only available to college students. It eventually grew past that stage and it was a major breakthrough for social media. It allows you to share pictures and write public messages. A major issue with the company was that the CEO revealed they had breached privacy. This led to lawsuits and Mark Zuckerburg having to testify in court.

Diffusion of Innovations

 The diffusion of innovations theory tries to explain why some people are early adopters of some innovations. There are many reasons for this and one is simply that others adapt with change while others do not. Many people in society do not like major changes at first until someone accepts the change. This applies to technology and with all the social media sites that have come along with this. When the Mac computer was first invented by Steve Jobs, his colleague Steve Wozniak, believed that no one would want to buy a computer. Steve Jobs responded and asked how someone could know what they want if they have never seen it. This was true with Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg initially did not succeed with Facebook and had many chat systems and music players that ultimately did not do well. I think the reason some people don’t buy into technology is that they are stuck in their old way of doing things. They think technology is too complicated and they do not have the desire to learn how to use it. This is especially true with my parents and they both grew up in the 1960s. Many people are not trusting of social media companies as Facebook owns all of social media basically. Facebook has had many problems with leaking personal information to other third party companies, which then determine how they advertise to you on their platform. I think being on social media is beneficial because that is how my generation communicates now. While I do not think it’s the best way to communicate, that's how all my friends and I communicate. I think the positive outweighs the negative in my opinion with social media because there are privacy issues. Social media gives you a way to connect with people you may have never known otherwise. I think the way you do a cost benefit analysis, is you think about what is important to you. If you really care about connecting with other people online and you want to use it, then by all means. However if you are concerned about not using because of privacy reasons, then I would not advise using it. 

Privacy Online and Off

There were many issues in these videos about privacy that alarmed me. Majority of what we do online is private or at least it should be. Many of the big tech companies such as Google and Microsoft do not take your privacy seriously. It bothers me that the majority of my devices that I use daily have the ability to be wiretapped as well. I am a college student and there are many things that could pop up on my social media feed. There are ads for credit card companies that tell me to build my credit. I have never even googled anything on credit cards either. This majorly affects not only me but my friends and family. There is private medical information from both me and my family that is out there that can be leaked. There is a point in having some information in order to stop criminal threats and terrorists but this seems excessive to me. The government in this position has way too much power and information about us as citizens. The solution for this is for the government to hold some of these big tech companies and phone companies accountable for the information they collect. The government is also another issue in the sense of privacy. The government collects way more information about where we shop, where we drive typically and much more. I think a major thing we can do to protect ourselves from privacy invasion is not giving information away so easily. If you have to order something from Amazon, you can make a fake Gmail account with a fake name, so Amazon can’t sell your information to a third party company. Another major way is not using real information when signing up for accounts as well. 

The Founding of Twitter

Twitter is currently one of the most popular social media platforms in the world right now. Many celebrities use Twitter to connect with their fans, and many people get their news from Twitter also. Most breaking news and major news stories are on Twitter before most social media platforms and news networks are able to report them. I personally have seen how Twitter has made my life easier when all my news is found in one app.

   July 15, 2006, the San Francisco based podcasting company officially released Twttr which is now Twitter. Not only is Twitter one of the top social media apps but it's also worth more than most social media platforms. Twitter is worth more than $5 billion and $10 billion on secondary markets. Twitter was started by Noah Glass and one of his earliest investors and co-founders was ex google employee named Evan Williams. Noah Glass, Jack Dorsey and German contract developer Florian Weber presented the idea of Twitter in February 2006. It was originally known as Twttr. It started out as a text message system that you could send out to one number and have it broadcasted to all your friends. Evan Williams eventually put Glass in charge of Twitter. Noah Glass was primarily responsible for Twitter being founded. When Twitter was in early development, it ran on Glass’ laptop which was an IBM Thinkpad while using a Verizon Wireless card. 

In March 2006, Odeo had a Twitter prototype and in July TechCrunch covered Twttr for the first time. In August, there was an earthquake in San Francisco and it spread through Twitter and in the fall Twitter gained thousands of users. At a board meeting with the podcasting company Odeo, Glass presented Twitter to the directors and they were uninterested. In September 2006, Odeo’s CEO Evan Williams wrote a letter to investors. “By the way, Twitter (http://twitter.com), which you may have read about, is one of the pieces of value that I see in Odeo, but it's much too early to tell what's there. Almost two months after launch, Twitter has less than 5,000 registered users. I will continue to invest in Twitter, but it's hard to say it justifies the venture investment Odeo certainly holds -- especially since that investment was for a different market altogether.” Williams suggested buying back Odeo investor’s stock and investors' stock and investors agreed to buyback. Williams ended up buying the company and Twitter. Five years later, the assets of the company the original Odeo investors sold for almost 5 million are now worth over 5 billion.

Twitter has changed the way we use social media and has changed the way we communicate. You are able to not only post pictures but you are also able to retweet other content as well. Your Twitter feed can also be tailored to your interests as well. It has changed the way we view news stories as well. This changed communication because you can now make your tweets public and conversations can be public. Most breaking news hits Twitter before any other platform. The problem is that there is fake news on Twitter and misinformation spread and this was especially true during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Twitter has completely changed social media, but it has also completely changed the way we view news and entertainment. 

The Founding Era

 The Supreme Court is the highest and most authoritative court in the United States. While I had learned about the Supreme Court high school, I was still surprised by some of the information in the video. The most surprising thing is that the people that serve on the Supreme Court for life. A great example was when Ruth Bader Ginsburg continued to serve on the Supreme Court even though she was diagnosed with cancer and still continued to serve. The biggest takeaway from the Supreme Court is that the judiciary has no secrets and there is no inside knowledge within the court. The court openly looks at evidence and does not have any bias. The evidence is fairly examined to help the judiciary and the court make the best decision. There are many famous Supreme Court cases and one that really stood out in my mind was the OJ Simpson case. This is one of the most controversial cases of all time and the country was extremely divided but the court ruled he was not guilty. The most surprising thing I learned was that the Supreme Court gets 100 new cases per week and roughly 7,000 per year. While there are many cases that are disputed, I thought there were still a lot of cases that would be decided on the state and local level. The video definitely made me think about the authority that the Supreme Court has in our country and how it can impact our daily life.