# Reading Responses (Set 2)

## TikTok, fakes, and appropriation
### October 27th

In On Techno-Orientalism, Leo Kim introduces the Fox-Eye trend that went viral in 2020. TikTok users were "applying make-up to give their eyes a winged, elongated look common to many East Asian eyes, accompanied by a gesture in which the subject would place their hands at their temples and stretch the surrounding skin and eyelids outwards" (Kim). This is a blatant example of White Americans appropriating Asian culture. Even with positive intentions, these trends of appropriation are actually really harmful. Leo Kim explains the harm behind the Fox-eye trend, as a gesture that had traditionally been used to taunt Asian-Americans was being reframed by White Americans as a "harmless, chic, and exotic" trend - erasing the oppression that Asian-Americans have faced.
Appropriation of Asian cultures has an reached extreme. After Kim interviewed the participants in the Fox-eye trend, he found that "unlike the traditional mode of appropriation, in which Asian bodies and people are only invoked in the most symbolic and abstract way, these users were embodying East Asian features in an attempt to be Asian". The intenisifcation of cultural appropriation on the internet, and the idealization of other cultures, has impacts on people's identities - white people fully changing their identity to another race. Racial catfishing has posed problems in other contexts. In her article “Ain’t Got Enough Money to Pay Me Respect”: Blackfishing, Cultural Appropriation, and the Commodification of Blackness", Maha Ikram Cherid outlines several occasions of Blackfishing, for instance in 2015 when the president of the Spokane NAACP revealed herself to be white, and when another man pretended to be Black in his medical school application to receive affirmative action benefits. This is harmful to the Black community - with blackfishing, white people "extract from its position in the North American cultural imagination the marketable and palatable parts of Black identity, without having to endure the systemic oppression that shapes it".
When white people pretend to be another race, whether blackfishing for personal gain or "identifying" as Asian, it diminishes heritages to trends, rather than acknowledging the people who belong to a certain culture or race and their experiences. Appropriating another culture, or even another race, takes away from people's identities. It can erase the struggles and achievements of groups of people from common thought. As common as it is on Tiktok, it is not okay to minimize traditions, cultures, and groups of people to be just trends.

## Ads & Social Graph Background
### November 4th

Anytime someone navigates to a third party website, a question is asked: "Allow this site to access cookies?" Information on cookies, what they are, and how they are used, is quite hard to find. The only thing that is really implied is the fact that cookies take your information. The biggest thing that cookies are currently used for are ads. It is a common thing to see personalized ads on the internet - if you navigate to almost any website, there is a chance you will see an ad for that website later on. The video "How ads follow you around on the internet" by Vox explains how cookies began in order to store data more long-term on a browser. They compared the analogy of the internet before cookies to Dory's memory from Finding Nemo. Cookies from each site travel to a middle man, which then travel to third-party sites which use them to personalize ads.
Brands need to advertise in order to make money, so they apply different marketing techniques in order to get their names out there. Online Advertising by Robe Stokes goes over the various different kinds of advertisements. Whether it is banners, popups, floating adverts, wallpapers, or maps, ads can be seen on all locations of the internet. Ads can also be found on many different kinds of formats online, including premium booked media, like ads seen on TV, advertising networks, through various mediums like Google, HBO, or other commonly owned platforms, advertising exchanges, or very prevalently, social media. Though it is difficult to personalize ads on premium booked media or advertising exchanges, ads are able to be personalized using cookies on advertising networks and social media. Facebook and Google are examples of internet conglomerates given by the Vox video - as they have grown, they store more cookies per user. At this point in time, Google and Facebook have access large amounts of information on various aspects of internet users lives, and use this in order to sell personalized ads to their users. It is surprising the extent to which users' personal information is stored and sold in order to make money from advertisements, and that all of that can happen from the little pop up of cookies that we see on our favorite websites.

## Manipulated
### November 8th

Reviews, ratings, rankings, comments are not hard to find online. According to Joseph Reagle in Manipulated: Which ice cube is the best?, 58% of adults research products online prior to making a purchase, and 51% turn to the internet for reviews on local restaurants, bars and clubs. These reviews have an effect on how well merchants perform: for example, eBay shops with more reviews can have higher prices on the same goods as shops with less reviews, and restaurants with one-star higher review make 5-9% more revenue. However, these reviews are not always reliable, and are very much at risk for manipulation.
Companies themselves can manipulate reviews by adding additional fraudulent positive reviews to drown out bad ones. In addition, user behavior itself can accidentally manipulate reviews - users with extremely positive impressions and extremely negative impressions are more likely to leave ratings, which creates a J-curve and therefore a less accurate depiction of the review subject.

Instagram has recently turned into a bigger review platform. Many people have created accounts reviewing different things - food, technology, clothing, media, sports, and more. However, Caroline Forsey informs us that Instagram's algorithm may change how these reviews are perceived. The posts used to be in chronological order, but they are currently ordered by level of engagement. This is good for users trying to see photos of their friends, but hard for businesses trying to increase exposure and accumulate reviews.
Companies are taking steps to mitigate harmful false reviews. As of 2008, Amazon sent free products to users in exchange for genuine, reliable reviews. Many companies also provide coupons to their users in exchange for reviewing products. Users can use their critical thinking skills to distinguish between spam bot reviews and geuine consumers. Hopefully, internet users and websites can filter out spam reviews, comments, and ratings so that users and merchants can benefit from this resource.

## Algorithmic Discrimination
### November 17th

The internet has many different programs which means it uses lots of algorithms. Some of these algorithms exhibit biases. This is because people select the data used and how the algorithms will be applied. Some biases on social media are intentional since google and social media apps give the user little to no privacy so algorithms use personal data that was tracked to choose the content on someones feed. The google algorithm has been accused of being racist. According to the Buzzfeed article titled Here's Why Some People Think Google Is Racist: "searching for "three white teenagers" showed results of mainly stock images of white teenagers looking happy,whereas a search for "three black teenagers" showed mugshots". Additionally, the first three searches for "white people are" is a harmless meme, while for black people its blatantly racist with words such as monkeys, dumb, and lazy. There was also an incident where a google photo app labeled two black people as gorillas. Algorithmic bias from automatic image label is a big issue because the image label was racist and extremely offensive.

Algorithms are not solely biased towards race though. They also discriminate unintentionally based on gender or socioeconomic class or other categories of discrimination. For example, the article* Weapons of Math Destruction* states "they tend to punish the poor". In this specific scenario the article referred to a technology implemented in a school district that fired a well liked and highly reputable teacher as a result of the score the technonlgy gave them. However, the bias of the technology is that it did not take into account, the personal lives and hardships of the students when measuring their test scores. Additionally, algorithms can be inherently biased such as when they show CEOs of companies as entirely men. Overall, these biases although mostly unintentional can have severe negative consequences. It can result in people losing jobs, lose money, or other unjust decisions.

## Collapsed Context
### November 29th

Oftentimes people portray a different persona online compared to in reality. Authenticity online can be explained as a person remaining the same online as they are in person. They do not switch their identity on social media. One way to do this would be to maintain one's beliefs regardless of who views their posts. According to one person in the article, *I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately*: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience.: "As an individual it's worth it to lose followers and maintain my integrity". Choosing to stick with your beliefs and not allowing external factors to invalidate them shows authenticity online. One app that tests someone's authenticity is BeReal, a social media app that alerts every user that it is BeReal time which means users take a photo of themselves and what they are doing. This is so users are authentic and capture what they do in everyday life. However, many people post late, after the deadline because they are waiting to show their friends and peers that they have a fun and interesting life. For example, if at the time of the BeReal a user is laying in bed but a few hours later they will be at a concert, many people post at the concert to give the appearance of having awesome experiences. The reason people post late is they want to be viewed positively and not judged. Two teenagers in the article *BeReal and the doomed quest for online authenticity* stated that they "shun the two minute frame to wait for the day to be interesting." In other words, the opinions of others weigh on them and this is not online authenticity.

It is possible to have more than one persona online. People often adapt different personas depending on their audience. For example if someone wants to impress people they may show videos of them hanging with their friends. But when they get sad they may post some vague statement about having no friends. These are two different personas determined by someone's mood.

## Authenticity, work, & influence
### December 2nd

Social media influencers have been prominent and influential figures in many people's lives. According to the article *Social media influencers are balancing 'authentic' messaging during protests and the pandemic*: "The global pandemic and the subsequent protests that have swept the nation to support the black lives matter movement has fundamentally changed the way these influencers do their jobs' '. Authenticity is now more of a priority. Influencers are attempting to balance between being politically correct, speaking on issues, and making a living by creating the content they usually make.Internet personalities have a large platform and the youth looks up to a lot of them as role models. This is why it is important when they speak up on world issues because it can have a positive or negative impact on a lot of people.

Social media influencers are examples and mimicked by their fans. For example if they promote an item it is common that their audience will be more prone to get that item. According to an article by the Atlantic, "a lifestyle influencer in Los Angeles, recently staged a fake ad for a local cafe". The idea of this marketing tactic is to have content constantly that appears to be sponsored. The people who post fake ads are looking to eventually, long term make money by being famous enough to post real ads. This is taking advantage of followers in a way because it is tricking them to believe they are real sponsors. This makes it fake and unauthentic.