Internaltional Telecommunications Union

  If you have read a few of my posts you may have realized I am an active supporter of internet freedoms domestically and abroad.  I was excited to see the failure of SOPA and PIPA in the US.  These pieces of regulation would have begun a downhill slide towards the fracturing of the World Wide Web.
  The internet; it has spawned societies entirely encased in digital form, brought down governments (read my last post), forged international relationships, created cultures, all on it's own.
  But all this could be thrown to an abrupt stop if we, the internet users are not careful.  I believe that a free and democratic society depends upon the free exchange of ideas and information. Without that we are limited by whatever ruling power controls the flow and distribution of information.

Thanks to New World Order War

   Right now the next threatening piece of regulation that could overburden the Internet information highway is the ITU and the next international conference.
  The ITUwas founded in 1865 and became a part of the United Nations in 1947.  It's main goal has been to regulate and develop international communications world wide.  It has proved many great communication resources to third world and developing nations and has done some excellent things to further the progress of international communication networks.
  But the problem is that it is not a democratic community.  Only certain countries in the UN have voting power on the ITU and many of those countries have horrible track records with internet freedoms (Russia and China are both voting members).
  I'm not sure what can be done to battle this encroaching regulation of internet freedoms, but I recognize the necessity for a free and open exchange of ideas in today's world.

 

Property of Fight For The Future and AccessNow.org

How Were There Protests Before the Internet?

  Earlier this week thousands took to the streets in Argentina's capitol, Buenos Aires, to protest President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.  The protesters are trying to highlight issues in the Argentinian government such as corruption, rising inflation, and high levels of crime.
  However, this is not an international affairs blog, nor is it a blog dedicated to the furthering of global protests.  Here I discuss the use of social media and new media, and their implications.  This protest is not only the largest anti-government protests in the last decade, but it was organized with the use of social media.
  But now a days what protest isn't?  Everything from the revolution in Egypt to the organization of the Free Libyan Army have been propelled by the use of social media.  Look here, where this child was named Facebook in honor of the role the website played in the Egyptian Revolution.

All Rights to the Anonymous Group

  The Occupy Movement in the US and the rest of the world speaks for itself.  Some activist organizations have even based all of their protests online; Anonymous and LulzSec are both excellent examples of this.  Social, political and military movements are using the world wide web as more than just a source of information, or a way to broadcast their message.  It is a battleground where wars for equal rights, the oppression of others, recruitment for militarized NGOs, and the spread of beliefs.
  So what does the use of the tubes mean for political activists or social movements in the future?  Well it means we are going to see a lot more happenings like the one below...

 

All Rights to Invisible Children

Six Degrees of Seperation (linguistics edtition)

  So the proverbial 'scientists' have done it again.  Researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University are using computer software to track the development of language, and colloquialism, across the US.
  The BBC published this article, written by Phillip Ball, recently exploring the work of Jacob Eisenstein, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech.  Eisenstein is using Statistical Analysis techniques to analyze around 40 million messages from about 400,000 different users to track where different terms, like "bruh" or "af", originated from and have moved to.

Image from Visual Complexity

  In the case of "bruh," the term originated in the southeast US and moved to southern California due to it's usage on Twitter.  The result of tracking terms like these is a representational map of how different slang terms and emoticons have moved across the US, perhaps even across international borders.  Think of movies where detectives use string and different photographs to track suspects in an organized crime case (they may still do this)
  This new system of organizing and analyzing data could help linguistics and other researches in many ways.  The entertainment industry could now localize productions to specific geographical locations.  Law enforcement could use this to track different slang or gang terms across the country to track where gangs are located and spreading to.  Linguists could use the information to project the spread of colloquialisms across geographical lines and gain a better understanding of how culture develops.

CollegeHumor

#NoNews

  I want to discuss news aggregation software.  It is deadly and could possibly be the death of an educated and aware civilization.
  In simple terms news aggregation software is a piece of software that searches news feeds from all over the web looking for tags, and consolidating that information into a singular feed.
  It sounds like a great idea doesn't it?
  NO! No it does not.  It in fact, is a perfect symptomatic representation of how my current generation has abused the technology available to it.  Now the software can be quite useful, in fact Twitter is based on this system.

  The dangers of news aggregate software lies if the habits developed by my generation.  News aggregation allows for a person to tailor the news they read to specific topics.  We can now put blinders on our eyes to make sure we stay extremely narrow-minded.
  If we are not exposed to news under other topics our personal innovation, and inner dialogue.  Imagine the kinds of adults that will exist once we no longer pay attention to the front page of the newspaper!  Already a large section of Americans don't know their military is involved in so many conflicts abroad.
  The other issue caused by news aggregation software is the lack of funding to established news sources.  The NY Times has already seen a significant drop in ad revenue.
  When a person looks at a news article given to them by news aggregation they no longer skip around websites to find that article.  The chance of that person seeing an ad that pertains to them drops drastically just like ad revenue to major news sources has.  When that happens less funding can be used to support investigative journalism that helps keep businesses, political figures, and most importantly the government honest and transparent.
  Use news aggregation software if you like.  I won't blame you, but for all that is good in the world please look elsewhere for your news and information as well!

Because this could happen if we don't find our own news...

(from the movie Idiocracy)

What is The Third Largest Country in The World?

  Earlier this year Facebook boasted about how it had hit the 1 billion user mark, making it the third largest country in the world (if it was a country).  There have been many news articles that discuss the idea about how 'healthy' this is for Facebook or society at large.
  This article discusses the fact that Facebook has over 80% of it's accounts being faked or shells.  These shells include businesses, repeat accounts (where a user has an account to fool employers, parents, and or friends), accounts that have been left alone because users forgot the passwords, accounts used to stalk exes, and over a fourth of these accounts were created by Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg.

  The existence of these shell accounts begs the question "what is a real user?"  Not to mention "how reliable is Facebook as an institution and how can we trust them now?"
  I am not qualified to answer these questions outside of my own opinions, but I can say Facebook seems to be a necessary part of life for most people.  I myself live in another part of the country where it is difficult to stay in touch with old friends and family members.  Facebook helps solve this problem.  I use it to find out information about businesses and public figures.  I use it when investigating news stories or when I am trying to contact sources.  I also know many employers use it to either evaluate future employees or keep tabs on current employees.
  The ethical questions raised by all of these uses will become more and more pressing as time goes on but for now we can say without a doubt that Facebook is like so many companies in the past that have inflated numbers to be looked at in a more positive light.  Bernie Madoff, Enron, and 'Crazy Eddie' were all guilty of the same taboo.  Why is it these people were put on trial, yet it is moral for Mark Zuckerberg to inflate his numbers using bots?  It's not, it is just Facebook is still a necessary part of life so we seem to overlook it's moral failings.



Image found at: gnuband.org
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Updated: Oct. 15, 2012

  Here is a related blogpost by Ken Burbary that has a more in depth analysis of Facebook demographics found on his blog called Web Business by Ken Burbary. 

Wiki Wiki Wiki

  Lets first talk about how wikipedia has saved college students countless times when burning the midnight oil since it was brought online of January of 2001.  Yes, we all know that teachers and professors have a deep distrust of wikipedia, but I say they should trust, nay, honor this great creation for what it is.
  A global encyclopedia of all there is, or all that matters.  Originally the idea was to include everything possible and have the pages be created and edited by readers, by anyone who thought to sit down and write what they could.  This lead to a great schism that was similar to that of the Catholic Church's great schism in 1378.  This schism in wikipedia readers led to two factions, the inclusionists and the deletionists.
  The inclusionsists wanted to of course include everything they could about anything ever.  The believed that since they were not limited by the classic constraints of other encyclopedias, number of pages, costs of volumes, and financial support there should be no reason to judge the validity of entries based on relevance of facts.  They believe that a wikipedia held just has much value as an entry about Marlon Brando.
  Conversely the deletionists believe the exact opposite.  Relevance of facts is the only standard of value by which we should judge entries.  If we do not do this the site could become a jumbled mess of useless information that holds no benefit to anyone anywhere.  Who really cares about me other than those I know who should already know me.

  Granted we must be concerned with the reliability of the information presented to us.  Since any of the readers, anyone with an internet connection, can edit information the reliability of the information presented is in questions.  Two of the greatest benefits of the site are 1) transparency is held at high value and it sheds light on many subjects previously neglected; 2) many pages hold source references at the bottom and serve as an excellent starting point for research that one can actually have faith in.
  So please, don't overlook the value of wikipedia simply because some professor told you they would not allow you to cite the information or because a friend of a friend has a "this one time at bandcamp I was writing a paper on the relation between neutrino physics and saxophone notes" story...

That Sticky Icky?

  So, Youtube has been hailed as the 'stickiest' sight on the internet, but how and why is that sticky icky so irresistible?

  Now that you have finished watching... well whatever it is you watched, think back on how long you spent watching the video.  Now think: did you click on some related links, did you forward this to a friend, did you tweet it, did you post it on Facebook, did you post it on a blog?
  All of these things contribute to why Youtube is so sticky.  I can't tell you why we are so addicted to watching babies be babies, or people failing at life, or videos of cats being absurd, or puppies being cute; but I can tell you we are, and that for 2011 Youtube had over one trillion views (1,000,000,000,000).  That is approximately 140 views for every person on the planet!
  Some have their own opinion of why Youtube is so addicting; see the following article.  I can agree with some of these people, but I believe that Youtube is so addictive because it is not network television.
  Youtube is not only instant access, instant learn anything, instant replay, instant sharing, instant memories, it is instant everything.  I view anything I can find in the blink of an eye (depending on 30 second commercials and my internet speed).  I can learn how to make bombs, or pick locks, or fold an oragami swan, or cook a duck, or write a poem, or anything I am studying in school.  I can watch newsreel bloopers, I can watch old sports games and old MTV videos.  But even more importantly, I can post these.  I am in control of the content.
  Like everything else in new media I have control of the content I post.  Unlike having to watch whatever the TV Network deems appropriate or valuable I can film what I want and then post it to the internet.  I have instantly become my very own producer, director, actor, sound technician, director of photography and whatever other credit I choose to give myself.  And boy, don't we kids just love that instant control!

Cartoon From Randy Glasbergen