###### 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

### Apr 8 Fri - Bemused

“Oh yeah, I’m really messed up in the head, I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts,” this quote was taken from Reagle (2019), showing a sentence that a teenage boy wrote on a League of Legends Facebook page. This was supposedly a joke by the boy to his friends. These quotes and others like it show how people behave online. One reason why people may behave like this and behave strangely online can be due to trying to engage an audience and to get other people to follow them, or merely to get people to like them.
Another reason why there is such odd and embarrassing behavior online is because of the lack of face to face interaction and first hand embarrassment that people experience in person. For instance, when we are in person, if you say something weird or offensive, people will judge you and will know it is you, and you will receive a reputation. However, online when you say something outlandish, you can cover up your identity, by having an anonymous account, and so not feel the consequences. In other words, being online lowers people's inhibitions.

Furthermore, another reason for why there may seem to be strange and unbelievable behavior seen online may be due to misinterpretation or misunderstanding of messages sent online. For instance, one morning after a shooting in Colorado the NRA (National Rifle Association) posted a tweet stating, “Good morning shooters. Happy Friday! Weekend plans?” Reagle (2019) which was later deleted. However, this tweet was tweeted by someone who was unaware of events taking place in Colorado. Therefore, due to the internet being such a large space and having so much information, there tends to be misunderstandings, and it can depend on the context, for what someone may deem a comment as wrong.

Overall, there are many ways as to why people behave the way they do online. It is very interesting to understand how different people are online vs in person, and how being in a social setting around people tends to keep people more civil.

### Apr 12 Tue - Algorithmic Discrimination

“Recently a woman’s tweet went viral after she discovered that a Google image search for “unprofessional hairstyles for work” yielded photographs of black women with natural hair, whereas searching “professional hairstyles for work” showed mainly white women.” (Rutherford & White, 2016). This quote highlights the issues with google searches and makes a valid case for why people think that Google’s search results are racist.

However, it’s not exactly that google the company itself is racist. It is due to the algorithm of google and other online web browsers. The algorithm consists of prioritizing the content that is the most widely clicked, thus “the people in society are creating Google, in a way”. Therefore, it is the fault of society for causing search suggestions like seen above to come up when searching. In addition to the fault of the algorithms as even though not intentional, biases that exist on the internet and in the media ultimately become reflected with the algorithms. In addition, the photos can have tags, which are keywords that come from either captions or things related from around the internet. These tags may also play a role in creating that bias and causing societal bias to affect the algorithm.

There are many other stories about these issues, for instance, how twitter discovered when looking up “three white teenagers” it showed images of white teenagers looking happy, but when you searched for “three black teenagers” mugshots appeared. However, these companies supposedly put measures in place to prevent those mistakes from happening again. Even so, these same issues remain prevalent today, 6 years after the article came out.

### Apr 19 - Collapsed Context

“Authenticity is a social construct” (Grazian, 2003)

Although this can be true, consciously speaking to an audience can reduce authenticity, because you are essentially aiming your words or your prose to a certain people, thus causing bias. As stated by Marwick and Boyd (2019), this takes place in twitter specifically, as when people post or tweet, they generally strategize to maintain followers or to create a ‘personal-brand’.

On the other hand, people tend to tweet for themselves which can suggest a true authenticity. Bringing the concept of authenticity being a social construct into play, this statement could be false, as it is not like people can post context or situationally independent. When writing tweets, emails, texts, etc. there is always bias as you must consider the relation to the audience, the type of audience, etc.

However, I believe there is a point when people state what they believe deep down and their passion comes out, where they are not holding back, and that must be authenticity because it shows their view, which is, in that moment, not affected by any audience. However, often people tend to not reveal their completely true views or experiences, for example Instagram is a site where people show glamorized versions of themselves.

Moving on to another note, yes, it is possible to have more than one persona online. Depending on the audience, people will behave differently. For instance, on LinkedIn people tend to be quite formal and when posting about themselves giving professional information about themselves, due to trying to represent themselves in the work environment . Whereas, on Instagram for example, people show a more casual side of themselves in terms of posting vacations, memes, pictures with friends. Then, Snapchat is even more personable as you tend to have one on one conversations and so can be more intimate and authentic with how you represent yourself, by conversing.

Overall, the internet is a representation of people’s lives in typically a glamorized way and should not be treated as people’s complete authentic selves.

### Apr 22 - Authenticity, Work, & Influence

Have you ever heard of "Fake it until you make it"? Well, influencers today take that phrase to another level. Micro influencers especially (people with smaller followings) represent this approach.

In order to become relevant on social media micro influencers, without achieving brand deals from actual companies due to them not being known, micro influencers have started to "fake brand deals" according to Taylor Lorenz (2018).

It was interesting to me when reading the assigned readings to understand that there are potentially fake brand deals out there and the process of influencers getting brand deals. I also came to learn the side of the companies who reach out to the influencers. It can be quite harmful to companies when micro influencers fake brand deals. This is especially true if the influencer is a person the company does not want to be affiliated with, and that can negatively affect the reputation of the company.

In order to understand whether brand deals are fake or not, you can check for multiple things. Firstly, you can check whether the brand deals with the amount of followers they have and how invested they are, as well as if the account is verified or not. You can also look for if the influencers are interacting with other influencers and can check the relevancy of comments. Thus, in order to make sure the brand deal is real you must consider all of these things.

Fake advertising and promoting oneself are, as we have seen, quite common in society. My question is how bad are fake brand deals and fake ads for online users?

### Apr 26 - Pushback

“Commenting is as ‘commenterrible’ as we let it be” Joseph Reagle, (2019). This statement defines the relationship of communication between people online.

There are many positives and negatives to communication on the internet, especially in terms of commenting. Some positive aspects of commenting are well intended and constructively criticized comments. In addition, reputable and trustworthy reviews as well as feedback if it is constructive are positives of online communication. These things would not be nearly as possible if we did not have such advanced technology, where you can communicate from virtually anywhere in the world.

Although, as with everything there are negatives to communication on the internet. If the comments are rude and degrading, they can be harmful to people’s wellbeing and mental stability. Comments as well as reviews can also be manipulative and get people to buy something they don’t want or get people to do things they don’t actually want to do, for example black mailing. This can shape people to be worse and affect how they approach relationships for the future.

I am not sure it is possible to opt-out of digital communication. In our world today, it is very hard for kids to not be on their phones, and it seems as though they are on their phones more often than they are not. Therefore, it is hard to opt-out of digital communication, and thus important to understand what goes on online and how to deal with online communication in order to not have communication be so “commenterrible”.

For me, even though I try to opt-out of digital communication, by deleting a lot of my social media, it is harder than one thinks, and you realize you miss out on a lot of things that are going on. The challenge is understanding if it is worth missing out on those things in order to be free of digital communication.