# Reading Responses set 02
Checklist (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
### Mar 25 Fri - Finding someone & living alone (1)

Derek stated that online dating offers a new and wider way for young people to talk and date each other. He offered specific data that “straight couples who met online rose from about zero percent in the mid-1990s to about 20 percent in 2009”. The phenomenon is more dramatic to gay couples. In this way, I think dating apps or websites are beneficial for people to find the right person. Because as Derek said in the past people were limited by territory and inconvenient communication. So, they did not have many options. The only way they could date others was through their parents’ introduction. Through dating apps, people will have more choices. They can even date people from other countries, which is amazing for cultural combination.

However, when connecting Dereck’s opinions with Christian’s study, a question should be asked, is online dating safe? People always cheat online because it is low cost. Broader choices also mean more potential uncertainty. Examples about heights, incomes and date of photos proved that people always built a fake character about themselves online. Sometimes, the one you meet in the real world will be different from the one you see through an online profile. People find it hard to distinguish what is fake and what is true because they are blinded by the ambition to find true love. They think they have freedom, but they also need to face more dangers.

### Mar 29 Tue - Ads & social graph background (2)
Robe Stokes’ s study reveals that posting an advert on the internet is a complex work. Before choosing content and type of adverts. The company has to collect information about these “potential customers” through big data. According to the “Tracking” part, it is obvious that third- party ad serve can know what Connection type, Browser, Operating system, Time of day and Internet service provider, which means when you click the bottom of “accept cookies”, all your tack online are transparent for third-party serve. Then, the company can predict your action and choose to post appropriate ads to enhance your impression and arouse your interest about the product. Companies want people see their adverts or products more times, so that people can have deeper impression about the brand. When they want to buy something, they will choose the brand subconsciously.
It seems become a unstoppable trend. Advertising companies find the commercial benefit of tracking people’s action online. Like Robe said, consumers are suffering from advertising fatigue. While as the increasing of online adverts, Robe also mentioned Consumers are increasingly ignoring adverts. Is it means the online advertising will be useless and less effective? If people are used to ignore the adverts on the website, will the company stick to post adverts online? I still confused about the future of online advertising. Now too much online advertising seems to be counterproductive.

### Apr 01 Fri - Manipulated (3)
Caroline Forsey reveals that the according to the new algorithm of Instagram, only posts with more engagement can appear on the top of users’ feed. The change of algorithm motivate a sharper issue---For someone who just start posting, how can they gain more attention. They did not have fans foundation which means they did not have stable and enough engagements. With the algorithm, such people’s post cannot be on the top. In this way, they have less possibility to gain more engagement and fans. It seems like a infinite loop. To break the loop, a reliable way appear--- Instagram pod. People in a group engage with each other’s post to help group member occupy the top of user’s feed. Though instagram did not ban this action, but “Facebook recently removed 10 groups on their platform that were employing tactics like trading likes for likes, or encouraging users to join pods on Telegram”.
Is it a good way? In some way, it offers help for people who just start work, but in the long term, it is meaningless. Initially, this pod group can help people obtain more opportunity to allow people see their posts because of the algorithm. In my view, it is an inevitable way. Only a fewer people have chance to become famous overnight. They can only accumulate fans step by step. Paying money to Increase exposure is always used in some Chinese social media. It might be another way to solved the difficulty in the early period. And it has the official permission.

### Apr 12 Tue - Algorithmic discrimination (4)
Fiona Rutherford and Alan White(2016) stated that Google’s result is racist because when they search certain words like women, photos of white people will be shown first. So World White Web was created to balance the phenomenon by encouraging people to share nonwhite pictures. They also revealed that the result is a reflection of racism in society. The Internet can track and record people’s searching history, and offer recommendations according to the database. So people’s views will be present in the search result.

A similar situation happened in online stores. The models of some online outfit stores were white people in good shape. It will lead to body shame and racism. But it is also a reflection of reality because people prefer a good fit and tend to buy cloth on people with good- body And now shops are being forced to use models of different sizes and skin tones.

After reading the article, I searched the words mentioned in the article. The nonwhite pictures increased a lot. In some way, I think the change online can reversely influence the view on reality. Because people rely on the internet so much and their opinions will be affected. In this way, we should be more careful when sharing opinions online. Though we can be anonymous, the internet will record all data.

### Apr 26 Tue - Pushback (5)
Reagle analysis that comment on the internet offer a free public space for users to share ideas and help people gain feedback from othe!
rs. But there were many contumelious comment which make the comment harmful for hosts. Then people want to improve the environment--- control or filter comments. For example, in 2013 YouTube integrated Google into their system which canceled some limits. The purpose was using social network to control the passive and negative comment. But it led to a more serious situation that the inflammatory comments always attracted more attacks. Now law begin to pay more attention to online comment since such virtual comment can actually lead to real damage, including suicide.


I really agree that it is necessary to apply related law to online comments. Cyberbullying has recently attracted more and more public attention. I searched the data about cyberbullying. The data shows many teenagers are suffering from cyberbullying which will lead to mental health problems like depression. Most of time cyberbullying just come from some passive comments like “Am I ugly” in YouTube. People in the virtual world are more likely to judge others and said aggressive words. And these comments will easily hurt the young people. Therefore, setting a law to manage online comment to reduce cyberbullying is significant.