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## REFLECTION ON "WIKI TUTORIAL"
1. Response to Danah Boyd (2019)


This isn't the first time we have heard that "a virus has spread". Danah Boyd's Article [Agnotology and Epistemological Fragmentation](https://points.datasociety.net/agnotology-and-epistemological-fragmentation-56aa3c509c6b) (2019) focuses on the concepts of how we know what we know and oppression by those with power. 

Every time I learn something new online I always say to myself "Wow, there has never been anything that I have just figured out.", and then I think to myself "how do I know any of this is true?". It feels as if almost every time I learn something from sources on the internet, I have to question whether I have to use the given statement as a hypothesis and test it for myself; although, I never do. I just assume that it is right. Am I an informed citizen? 

![](https://i.imgur.com/BViNNQi.jpeg)

That is something that Boyd speaks on with various examples. However, there is one in particular which I could relate to and that is just a simple google search of "social justice" on YouTube. She explains how the first result could be a beautifully produced video by one party, and since you clicked on that video, the other suggested videos would be from that same party. By a simple Google/ YouTube search, your understanding for a concept as big as social justice could be close-minded as you have fallen through a "rabbit hole" as Boyd's analogy states, and haven't given the time-of-day to learn about the other party. Therefore, your beliefs and understandings are so easily fabricated. Examples like this one can easily impact our political understandings and decisions and has the potential to negatively impact our conclusions in society.

Take COVID-19 as another example. Living in Hong Kong, it got frustrating when many Americans would say hurtful comments to those around me, and this was partially due to what former president, Donald Trump, would say in the media about China and Chinese people; but his supporters would also create edits and twist his words to make them seem worse than they already were. This demonstrates the power important people and the media have on our perceptions and how they formulate certain individual's thoughts and beliefs. 

![](https://i.imgur.com/dkJHSoI.png)

"And this is where you (we) come in". (Boyd, 2019) We have the ability to understand how we know what we know, as we remember where we have learnt something, we also have the ability to understand that there is control over what we see in the media. So, why not apply both understandings and actively make a change, a change that allows us to be an informed citizen - with credible information? To what extent is present knowledge wholly dependent on past knowledge?



