# Ad blocking **"Follow the [money](https://youtu.be/y6h5BUSo9Vw)."** The catchphrase popularized by [All the President's Men](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_President%27s_Men_(film)) and the [Watergate scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal) is just as applicable in today’s market of information asymmetry, particularly referring to how honest buyers and sellers can find each other in a sea of deception. Despite licenses, guarantees, and trademarks intended to establish trust between buyers and sellers, it is surprising that any business gets done at all; manipulative sellers learn new tricks faster and better. Instead, the key signaling tool is **advertiser spending.** Take [Vitaminwater](https://www.vitaminwater.com/), for example. Vitaminwater claims that its drinks are “nutritious” and “healthy” because they contain the recommended daily allowance of vitamins, despite being chock-full of sugar and colorful additives. Before the lawsuit settlement, many individuals believed that Vitaminwater was a “healthy drink,” not only because of its [misleading and unsubstantiated claims](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-12218673), but also its widespread advertising. I hate to admit that I was one of these individuals. If Vitaminwater was willing to plaster its claims all over the Internet, on the side of buses, and in magazines, I thought the product must have been *that* good. ![vitaminwater](https://courtroomstrategy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Vitaminwater2.jpg) > It is not so much the claims made by advertisers that are helpful, but the fact that they are willing to spend extravagant amounts of money on a product that is informative High levels of advertising spending indicate seller confidence to consumers, weeding out the low quality sellers who cannot afford such a screening mechanism. Perceived expense is not directly correlated with purchase patterns, but it is tied with brand quality which is. However, this does *not* mean that billions of dollars spent on advertising guarantees a product’s success, as signaling breaks down when sellers attempt to target specific users and when there is too much noise. When retargeting is obvious, users are easily turned off. They do not want marketers to have so much information about them. Sellers must find that perfect point between having an advantage over other sellers without violating buyer privacy. > Damned if you do, damned if you don’t This is my first time using an ad blocker, and I can’t say that I ever want to go back. I did not realize the extent to which I was subconsciously filtering out the noise, and I can feel the cognitive load being lifted after installing UBlock Origin. I did not have to sit dumbly, waiting for an advertisement to end before watching a YouTube video, and it allowed me to conduct my business online with more focus and clarity, as the concept of banner blindness suggests. According to [The Guardian,](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/16/major-sites-new-york-times-bbc-ransomware-malvertising) such blockers also shield devices from malware attacks, just another benefit that makes my online experience more pleasant. Without ad blockers, the environment created reminds me of a filter bubble. Do I want to be in a filter bubble created by my clicks and interests, or would I rather be entirely in the dark in a separate universe? [Adblock Plus’s](https://adblockplus.org/) notion that it helps [“pivot toward what we think is better”](https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/13/12890050/adblock-plus-now-sells-ads) is even more worrisome. What do publishers believe is “better” advertising, and do I agree with them? This invisible auto propaganda starts with personalization. The fifteen seconds that I’ve saved before a YouTube video are great, but I’m also not sure I want to contribute to the demise of independent media as a result. All these factors make me unsure if this extension will stay in my Chrome. ### Without [ad blocker (UBlock Origin)](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en) ![with ads](https://i.imgur.com/scAvZjM.png) ### With [ad blocker (UBlock Origin)](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en) ![with adblocker](https://i.imgur.com/9DUNxgm.png) I am a frequent shopper of [Uniqlo](uniqlo.com) so I was not surprised to see a banner of theirs pop up. I was, however, surprised by the top banner by [BlackRock](blackrock.com). I will occasionally read the financial headlines, but I did not think that it was so often that I would be targeted by a financial planning and investment management firm. Regardless, it is much easier to read my intended article.
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Reading Responses (Set 2)

Reading responses 5 out of 5 Tuesday, March 23 - Finding someone & living alone A man claiming to be six feet tall in his profile when he is actually two inches shorter is not the only misconception of online dating. The skepticism and paranoia surrounding online data are often unfounded, as online dating sites not only reproduce the offline dating world but also surpass it in many ways. Internet dating expands the pool of potential partners to include individuals you otherwise would not have come across, and it encourages quicker marriage timelines through more calculated selection. Those skeptical about online dating may argue that dating sites make people more superficial and overwhelmed by choice, but this takes place in the offline dating world too. In a similar vein, fallacies also surround solo dwellers, with many portraying such individuals as fragmented from society and isolated. This viewpoint does consider the various factors that have led to a spike in people living alone, such as increase in wealth, cultural pressure to prioritize one’s well-being, superconnectedness, and longer life expectancy. Because quality supersedes quantity of social interaction, there is little evidence that living alone equates to feeling lonely. Furthermore, young adults increasingly view living alone as a symbol of success and freedom, using the experience to invest in themselves personally and professionally. The incorrect beliefs associated with online dating and living alone remind us again that correlation is not causation. For example, Rosenfeld states that while there are online sites that foster hook-up culture, there are also platforms that cater to people looking for long-term relationships, and people who meet their partners online can actually be more committed to their relationship. I am curious as to how the algorithms of dating sites determine what is a good match. Although the dating pool is expanded with online dating, the one you encounter is not necessarily more diverse. The online world should not have the same constraints of racial segregation that the offline world has, but personal demographics are used by sites to get the fit just right. Just as how privacy is sacrificed for advertising revenue, it is again sacrificed to find the perfect match. Does this type of filtering prevent you from finding your true soulmate? Could this be considered racist?

4/12/2021
Privacy footprint

If engaging in self-stalking was not a mandatory assignment, I would never have thought to discover what was being revealed about my identity, activity, and preferences on various platforms. I am relatively cautious with what I post on the Internet, and I assumed this would be reflected in my self-stalking. Kernighan (2017) describes the sources of personal data as being two-fold: people directly give away personal information for entertainment and convenience, but they also may not realize the other ways their information is being gathered. Forget the third-party cookies that people rarely consider, I did not even realize what information I had “voluntarily” given Facebook and Google. Haridy (2019) recognizes this common oversight by individuals, arguing that Facebook does not need to scheme and perform sneaky acts in order to collect your information because you have already freely provided them with it. The idiom, “like taking candy from a baby” certainly describes my naivety well. For example, I had also unknowingly enabled Google to recognize my age range, gender, primary language, and interests in financial software, athletic apparel, and HelloFresh. The age range and gender assumption stick out to me the most, as Google likely concluded this based on trends in big data (Kernighan, 2017). Perhaps Google tracked my search history, finding that I was searching for traditionally feminine products, to conclude this. Luckily, there is an abundance of much more talented Justine Chens out there, including a world-famous composer and violinist. The information of said musician has flooded my results for sites, images, and videos associated with my name. But, my identity remains easily accessible. I had allowed Facebook to distribute my birthday and friends list to the public. My LinkedIn profile picture is among one of the first results that pop up on Google, as is an article that I wrote for my high school newspaper. Spokeo revealed that I am from San Jose and my phone carrier. The combination of the information just listed would enable a stranger to easily connect the dots and learn who I am as a person.

4/1/2021
Justine's Home Page

Required assignments Wiki tutorial Web search and evaluation Filter and label your email Adblocking Privacy footprint Reading responses

4/1/2021
Reading Responses (Set 1)

Reading responses 5 out of 5 Friday, February 5 - Fake News Why wear face coverings when your friend went to a social gathering without a mask and was perfectly fine? Your neighbor did the same and was perfectly fine. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government, and other health experts cannot be trusted over personal experience. This is the mindset that millions across the U.S. hold regarding coronavirus - a direct result of the ideals of self-reliance and personal responsibility being indoctrinated into a majority of Americans at a young age according to danah boyd. Experts are shocked when the common public feeds into hoax sites, conspiracy theories, and hyperpartisan blogs and ignores the years of factual research and hard logic presented in front of them. Yet boyd suggest that the root of fake news and misinformation is not that the public is “easily fooled” or “stupid,” but rather the cutural distrust toward the government, medical experts, and journalists that has been in the making since Watergate, for good reason. Marginalized groups distrust mainstream media for its historical lack of accurate representation and recognition of their struggles. For example, since coronavirus first spread across the world in March, so have the racist attacks on Asian Americans. But few media sources rarely report on such instances or downplay them in the process. How can minority households, including African Americans and Hispanic and Latino Americans, be expected to trust news outlets that frequently distort and pervert their experiences? I would assume that the answer is too often they simply don’t. Lower and middle class whites exhibit the same distrust toward institutions, and these groups may look toward friends, family, and Internet strangers as sources of information instead. This is where stage two of the media manipulation life cycle comes into play. The people and organizations who execute manipulation campaigns prey on the fact that people want to do the research themselves, embodying the American idea of “freedom,” or distrust established media sources, trading in expertise for experience. On the other hand, though it can be argued that the government and media giants such as Facebook must play a more active role in the mitigation stage of the media manipulation life cycle, it would be wiser to prevent the seeding of manipulation campaigns in the first place. How can we encourage media literacy when the media does not embrace many marginalized groups? I suspect that the true root of fake news is much deeper than any of us thought and connects to the even larger issues of America that must be addressed first. Tuesday, February 16 - Cooperation Perhaps “survival of the fittest” is an attitude that humans must retire, as a more accurate and valuable concept may be “survival of those who can cooperate the best.” Martin Nowack proposes that cooperation is crucial to the evolution of all living organisms and not something to be avoided for the sake of competition. Deemed “supercooperators,” humans are assumed to be the most selfless out of all animals, given our rare ability to develop language. So what is it that causes war, conflict, and destruction across the world? While our languages set us apart from other animals, it would be foolish to suggest that they make us inherently better. The answer to this question is the indoctrination of values of independence, self-reliance, personality responsibility, and the need to be the best. Humans can be “supercooperators,” but only when we are taught to. Social dilemma theorists are divided on how to go about identifying the motivating factors of cooperation and collective action; however, one thing is clear: we cannot continue acting purely in self-interest without destroying ourselves in the process.

3/8/2021
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