# Reading responses #2
###### tags: `CDA`
# Reading Responses (Set 2)

- Checklist for a [good reading response](https://reagle.org/joseph/zwiki/Teaching/Best_Practices/Learning/Writing_Responses.html) of 250-350 words
- [ ] Begin with a punchy start.
- [ ] Mention specific ideas, details, and examples from the text and earlier classes.
- [ ] Offer something novel that you can offer towards class participation.
- [ ] Check for writing for clarity, concision, cohesion, and coherence.
- [ ] Send to professor with “hackmd” in the subject, with URL of this page and markdown of today’s response.

## Reading responses 5 out of 5

### Nov 4 - Fri Ads & social graph background

Cookies prevent our online experience to be as difficult as having a conversation with Dory from Finding Nemo. A Vox video makes the analogy that the short-term memory loss that Dory experiences would be similar to websites without cookies. Every time we enter a second page within a website, having to log in again was one example Vox provided. Cookies allow websites to remember us to make a much more friendly user experience. This describes the function of a first-party cookie, something necessary for most sites to work properly.

It is the third-party cookie that users often find frustrating or annoying. A third-party cookie works through the ads that appear on websites that we are on. However, those are not native to that website, they are from a third-party company. Third-party cookies contain lots of information and play a crucial role in online advertising. Vox provides an example of how to optimize third-party cookies ads by using a site like Facebook to show some companies' ads on Facebook to people who accessed their site in the last 30 days. This marketing strategy is extremely effective and one that a major of companies follow today.

In eMarketing, Stokes goes further in-depth on how a company can optimize Facebook ads. Companies can specify their target audience based on location, age, gender, pet of choice, relationship status, and sexual orientation. In the past, companies could not dream of reaching their target audience as effectively as companies can today through Facebook.

### Nov 7 Tue - Manipulated

One of the most influential marketing strategies, social proof, is losing its trust. Social proof became a very significant marketing strategy when more retail stores moved online. Social proof consists of previous customers' reviews on a product. Social proof allows a potential customer to see that the product is good due to previous customers being happy with their purchase.

Unfortunately, with the rise of bots and being unable to prove if people online are who they claim to be, online reviews are not entirely trustworthy. Reviews can make or break a company's success, a three-star store is much less appealing than a four-star store. Store owners are incentivized to gain positive feedback by any means necessary, often unnatural.

Forsey explains Instagram Pods, a feature on Instagram that allows businesses to create groups where anytime someone posts, everyone is forced to like and comment. The forceful nature of which the likes and comments come from damages the integrity of the business. However, smaller online stores are still very keen to take advantage of the feature, gaining more social proof.

With the overwhelming amount of fakery and manipulation, users are forced to improve their crap-detection skills in order to successfully search online.

If many reviews online are fake and many users are aware of it, what are the review sites doing about it?

Reagle mentions Angie's list, a website that allows people to write reviews and read reviews for stores but with an entrance fee. Through this method, fake reviews are harder to be written. CAPTCHA has also become more and more common, the annoying feature that forces you to prove that you aren't a robot. As annoying as the feature may seem, it allows the internet to remain —somewhat— more authentic.

### Nov 18 Fri- Algorithms

Structural and systemic racism is becoming more and more present in daily lives, with the latest presence being Google itself. It is a scary sight that when making innocent Google searches, you find stereotypes that can have a lasting effect on the viewer. Rutherford & White (2016) presented a tweet where a user searched for "beauty" and the result was only photos of white women.

Beauty standards have been present for a long time, famously, many people looked at Barbie as a main driver of racist beauty standards. The tweet that Rutherford & White presented was frightening, and I was happy to see when I made the same search for "beauty" I found more diverse results:

In the search results, there are multiple demographics displayed, proving Google must have listened to the criticism. It is nice to see Google has updated its algorithm to solve some of the problems, however, it is not a solution at all.

The very fact that Google has an algorithm invites conflict: "models, despite their reputation for impartiality, reflect goals and ideology" (O'Neil 2016). O'Neil mentions that models represent impartiality, which Google is far from synonymous with. Further, Google's model for their algorithm is doomed in a sense because it "reflects goals and ideology". O'Neil uses the analogy of removing one food item from a meal, you are pushing a narrative not to eat that food. Google's search algorithm works similarly, searching for beauty and only seeing one group of people will make you believe only one group is beautiful.

### Dec 2 Fri - Authenticity, work, and influence

If an influencer's main revenue source is brand deals, why would they fake their deals? Faking a brand deal means you received no payment, therefore you should have no incentive to make a post right?

According to Lorenz (2018), "most of the people posting fake ads hope to eventually get paid to post real ones". With the number of influencers growing on a daily basis, influencers need to do some "free work" in order to get themselves noticed. Making posts that are identical to a product's professional ad campaign. This method does ,unfortunately, come with a price, many audience members of these influencers are tired of these fake narratives: "Influencers’ requisite career visibility has opened them up to intensified public scrutiny and, in some cases, networked hate and harassment" (Duffy et al. 2022). Not only is the hate online due to pushing fake narratives, but simply because they are an influencer. Being an influencer fundamentally invites challenges due to the large social media presence, it is inevitable that hate will find its way to you.

Since 2018 however, the role of the influencer has changed dramatically, and authenticity is now highly valued. The global pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement have "fundamentally changed the way these influencers do their jobs. Authenticity is now a make or break quality for millions of followers, as well as brands" (Lerman 2020). Making a post promoting material goods is no longer desired, rather honest posts that push a legitimate narrative.

### Dec 6 Tue - Pushback

Technology's downfall has finally come--through online blog posts about how done people are with technology. Gomez (2014) describes pushback as people trying to regain their control over technology, by limiting exposure or completely walking away from technology. Blogs were the largest medium in which pushback was found, which is ironic because a blog is still a part of the internet. However, pushback should be taken seriously, the growth of technology has fundamentally changed the way people interact in person.

People have had to learn how to interact with online and in-person friends. One person who participated in pushback describes the difficulty in friendship as, "what I was wrestling with was a somewhat more fundamental struggle: a struggle over the meaning of friendship and acquaintaince itself" (Gomez 4). Friendships are now harder to understand, if someone is your Facebook friend, does that make them your real friend?

Comments are the reason many people are forced into pushback. Hateful comments have caused countless amounts of people to deactivate social media. Comments do not reflect the content of what is being commented on, instead, they provide "a sample of what some people are thinking, right or wrong, offensive or trite" (Reagle 2019).

Since comments are not always accurate or relevant to the content should they still exist?

Comments provide an important sense of community, they are what let people have their voices heard, for better or for worse. According to Reagle (2019), "Comment is a characteristic of contemporary life: it can inform, improve, and shape people for the better, and it can alienate, manipulate, and shape people for the worse." (Reagle para. 30). Sure, comments may force people into pushback, but they are an important part to many other online aspects. The worst comments do lots of harm and the best comments can do lots of good.