COMM 116 FINAL

Social Influences in Social Media: "Seeding" effects of Initial Opinions

"Seeding" effects of Initial Opinions: -Positive rating first is followed by positive rating -Negative rating first more harmful, matter more

Peer to Peer File Sharing, Copyright Violation, and Legal Challenges:

"Betamax" decision: -(Sony v. Universal City Studios; 1984) -Substantial non infringing copyright; legal purposes -What extent technology being used to violate Napster Copyright case: -MP3 songs; peer to peer file sharing -Download music off other people's computers -Betamax case did not apply because most people are using illegally -Failed to prevent illegal uses; Napster closed down -Enforcement issues and strategies MGM v. Grokster: -Grokster shut down -Many sites shut down

Instrumental v. non-instrumental motives

(Motivations for Social Media Information Sharing & Contribution) Instrumental: -Social motivation; other people are doing it -Expected of you -Increases over time, more pressure Non-instrumental: -For fun, enjoy doing it, not expected to -Decreases over time, less fun

Obscenity vs. Indecency

-Every precedent impacts future cases Indecency and Obscenity: -Obscenity: Unprotected speech in any medium including the internet but it's often difficult to figure out what it means and what meets the legal definition of obscenity -Indecency: Legal and it's protected under most circumstances -Grows more offensive: goes from decent to indecent to obscene -Indecency is protected by law but some indecent material is not protected by law -No obscene material is legally protected

"Chilling effects"

-Ex) Craigslist -Take the entire personal stuff off of Craigslist because we can't risk the liability -Term that describes the circumstances when people don't exercise the legitimate right like their freedom of speech because they're scared -Fear legal or other repercussions

Reading: The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google (Carr, N.)

-Google building vast data-processing plant, largest and most sophisticated -Symbolizes upheaval reshaping computer industry and throwing Microsoft's future into doubt -Google maintains copy of virtually entire Internet, gathered and updated by "spidering" software -"Index shard:" each server only has to compare keyword to small portion of entire index -No corporate computing system can match efficiency, speed, and flexibility of Google's system -Google expansion allows rapid introduction of new services and acquire ones developed by other companies -In Salesforce's wake, hundreds of startups launched software-as-a-service businesses -One of early leaders in hardware-as-a-service field is Amazon -Built on technology known as virtualization which refers to use of software to simulate hardware -Ex) Once had to buy answering machine; now can subscribe to answering service -Virtualization allowed mainframes to handle a lot of different jobs simultaneously -Virtualization system that are shared by companies are often referred to by computer professionals as "multitenant systems." -"Thin client:" By supplying applications and data over network, companies can avoid most of the maintenance and other costs associated with traditional PCs and complicated software -Microsoft transition to utility age to catch up with Google iGod: -"Ultimately want to have entire world's knowledge connected directly to your mind."-Brin and Page -Aspiration to use artificial intelligence to make us smarter -Desire of AI advocates to merge computers and people, its troubling (Threat to our integrity as freethinking individuals) -By storing billions of tiny bits of intelligence, Web forms a database of human intentions -Amazon testing new service called Mechanical Turk that turns people's actions and judgments into functions in a software program -Mechanical Turk and Google search engine, we see human mind merging into artificial mind of World Web computer. -Seeded with human intelligence, computer can begin to interpret images on its own -Eric Schmidt said company's ultimate product would not wait to respond to query but would "tell me what I should be typing" -More we teach mega computer, more it will assume responsibility for our knowing; will become our memory

Social Influences in Social Media: Behavior effects

Behavior effects -Direct behavioral effects -People who saw their friends say that they voted, were likely to vote -Social media manipulation affects users

Social Influences in Social Media: Conditions for Social Influence

Conditions for Social Influence: (warranting theory & warranting value) -Likely to be influenced by message if does not directly come from source -Third-party influence -More disconnected from receiver, effect are better

Creators' Exclusive Rights

Copyright Act of 1976 gave copyright owners the right to: -Reproduce the work -Prepare derivative works -Distribute copies of the work to the public -Performs and display the work publicly -Perform the work publicly by means of digital audio transmission (added in 1995)

Social Influences in Social Media: Emotional Influence

Emotional Influence: -Shown fewer negative posts, express more positive -Affect mood in short term

Social Influences in Social Media: The Influence of "Influencers"

The Influence of "Influencers:" -Source characteristic (attractive, similar) lead to more awareness --> purchase intent -Authentic, relatable, accessible

Stages of Motivation (initial, sustained, & meta)

Initial: -One-time Sustained: -Continue to do it -Want to contribute consistently to help others Meta: -Take on leadership role to coordinate everyone else -Moderator, structure everything for everyone else

Effects of Internet-based Interaction and Information:

Media-multitasking and Internet-related multitasking: -Inhibits memory function, negative effect -Heavy multi-taskers versus others (Heavy multi-taskers have harder time focusing) -Interruptions and task completion (Boost of dopamine that is associated through reward/pleasure) Cognitive resources and learning/ performance: -Adolescent peer influence on social media (More likely to like photos that depicted others have liked) -Face-to-face interaction & nonverbal cue recognition (Flaw of study: being watched; Hawthorne effect)

Critiques of Big Data Analyses:

Nonobvious influences on big data: -Google search engine constantly changing -Predicting what likely to put in, not actually putting in search; search queries may not be what you searched -Other influence going on -Correlation not the same as causation -Data manipulation -Privacy Echo-chamber effects: -Produced in one place is produced in other places as well -Information getting copied from one place to another -Bad information gets perpetuated

Social Influences in Social Media: Objective v. Subjective

Objective v. Subjective: -Ratings better Subjective more than objective -Socially influenced

Social Influences in Social Media: Paralinguistic digital affordances

Paralinguistic digital affordances: -Likes, thumbs up, favorites, upvotes -When post, people have certain expectations about how they want to be received -Rationalize disappointed outcomes (ex: post at wrong time of day)

How might Internet Matter?

Role of the internet/web: -Reinforce/shape cognitive processes -Effects of internet-based interaction and knowledge

SESTA/FOSTA

SESTA/FOSTA and liability: -Specific to Sex trafficking -SESTA: Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act -FOSTA: Fight Online Sex Trafficking (Make it illegal to knowingly assist facilitate or support sex trafficking online) -These are exceptions to the section 230 protection -Those online operators and ISP's would be held liable if there's sex trafficking happening on their site

Defining Credibility:

Social psychological construct: -The "believability" of a source, composed of trustworthiness and expertise -Credibility is subjective, not objective

Wikipedia research Findings and Assessment Strategies & Tools:

Wikipedia information quality: -Studies shown that pretty accurate Perceptions of Wikipedia credibility: -Believed less if on Wikipedia page -Study on kids only: Wikipedia information -When kids are seeing Wikipedia information on Britannica, they found it to be more credible -Even more credible than Britannica information Wiki assessment tools: -Wikipedia trust coloring project -Wikidashboard -History flow visualization

Selective Exposure:

-Attitudinally-consistent information (less info you know, more inconsistent attitudes towards it will be) -Counter-attitudinal information (behavior inconsistent with attitude) -Role of the Internet and Web Political debate & group polarization: -Make critical of outgroup members -Social segregation "Filter bubbles:" -Own personal unique universe that you live in online -Depends on who you are, what you do -Don't decide what gets in, don't see what gets edited out

Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition: Child Pornography Prevention Act or "CPPA:"

-Change the definition of child porn to make illegal also things like virtual child porn or morphed child pornography -Supreme Court looked at this case and ultimately they agreed with the Free Speech Coalition -Found those parts of the CPPA to be unconstitutional they said basically that the law was overbroad and it prohibited otherwise legal non-obscene images -Proposed under CPPA definition of child pornography were not enforced, deemed unconstitutional because it was a violation of people's First Amendment rights

What is Cognition?

-Cognition: mental processes of knowledge acquisition and understanding that prompt adaptive responses -Attention, knowledge, memory, reasoning, judgment, problem solving, decision making, comprehension -Conscious and unconscious -Concrete or abstract

Online Information, Human Memory, and Self Effects:

-Cognitive offloading and the web: Remembers stuff for us that we would otherwise not memorize ourselves -Ignorance and the cognitive predominance of the Internet/Web -Cognitive self-esteem [Ex) Assess how smart you are] Conflation of external information and internal knowledge: -After looking up, say they knew it all along -Feeling of knowing or feel like you should know (Even when shown you didn't know)

First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

-Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press... -Not entirely free; can be restricted by congress (censorship)

Ashcroft v. the ACLU: Child Online Protection Act or "COPA:"

-ACLU and others said it was too vague still had other problems they also said that there were less speech restrictive methods like filtering technologies that should be used to protect miners -Supreme court ruled that the law might be okay but they refused to enforce it so they basically sent it back to lower courts -COPA was never enforced but never declared unconstitutional unlike CDA -ACLU called this a clear victory for free speech

Metadata and Its Potential:

-Data about, or beyond, data -Draws attention to secondary relationships [Ex) Speed of car] Examples from social media applications: -Travel-based data derived from Flickr metadata -Earthquake detection/prediction via Twitter (Based on tweets)

Data: Past & Present:

-Data: collections of individual facts for reference or analysis that represent conditions, ideas, or objects -Data and the Internet/Web -More access available to more people How much data?: -20 million hours of YouTube videos per month -800 million tweets per day -6 billion Google searcher per day -"digital universe"= ~40 zettabytes

Reading: Who Shall Control Cyberspace? (Beniger, J. R.)

-Argues cyberspace environment is attractive and easy target for commercial and political exploitation -First citizens of cyberspace allowed to make and enforce own rules, bottom up, with little centralized control -Net is in no sense a physical entity (No one owns; Simply everyone's computers connected) Two major nonmaterial components: -Relationships among individuals and cybercultural contents (Sense of belonging to cyberspace, and of what that might mean) -Three components: material, relational, and cognitive Control: -Shift in control from individual programming (socialization) and interpersonal communication to more centralized processing and mass communication -Struggles for centralized control of cyberspace, and between those who would centralize or decentralize its control Vulnerabilities: -All of its communication is inherently accessible, retrievable, and machine readable by virtually anyone -Two vulnerabilities to centralized control is essential tradeoff between range and effectiveness of control of human behavior through persuasion, whether rational or irrational, conscious or unconscious -Tradeoff: Might have great range of effectiveness of communication, but rarely both, at least not with same message -Mass communication is usually one-way Know percentage will be affected by message, but not which individuals will be, nor way -It is neither interactive nor purposively iterative -Cyberspace presents possibility to transcend tradeoff because new technology inherently interactive and interpersonal -Net behavior could be monitored and responded to, individually toward particular goal -Cyberspace population would still rank among most attractive to advertisers, marketers, and politicians What Lies Ahead: -Cyberspace about to experience rationalization of its contents if not its organization -Judging past behavior, to see what's in store for cyberspace Who Will Prevail?: -Problem is the need to accommodate both those who value sociality as end itself, and those who see it as but a means to other more personal ends -Recent battles over control of cyberspace centered on protection of free expression Who will control cyberspace?: -Most likely those who will control society at large

Reading: Surviving Technological Alternation of Modern Mind (Small, G., & Vorgan)

-Digital tech altering how we think, feel, how we behave, and the way in which our brain functions -Alterations can become permanent with repetition -Young minds tend to be most exposed and sensitive to impact of digital technology Deeply divided brain gap between younger and older minds: -Brains of younger generation are digitally hardwired -Individuals of older generation brains must adapt to high technology -Brains exposed to new sensory stimulation functions like camera film when exposed to image -Young brain's plasticity, its ability to be malleable and ever-changing in response to stimulation and the environment -Different brain regions control and react to various types of communications Most of technology exposure is passive: -Such as watching television and videos, or listening to music Other exposure is more active and requires mental participation: -Such as playing video games or using computer -Hypothesized that computer searchers and other online activities cause measurable and rapid alterations to brain neural circuitry, particularly in people without previous computer experience High-tech revolution has plunged us into state of continuous partial attention, which is described as continually staying busy: -May place brains in heightened state of stress -No longer have time to reflect, contemplate, or make thoughtful decisions (Instead exist in constant crisis) -Feeds their egos, and sense of self-worth and becomes irresistible Our brains were not built to maintain such monitoring for extended time periods: -Feeling spaced out, fatigued, irritable, and distracted -New form of mental stress, termed techno-brain burnout, is threatening to become epidemic -Chronic and prolonged techno-brain burnout can even reshape the underlying brain structure

Hate Speech Case: Planned Parenthood v. American Coalition of Life Activists (2001) "Nuremberg Files"

-Federal Jury sided with Planned Parenthood and the doctors and they said with all the violence against abortion doctors, this site does constitute a true threat -ACLA appealed it on First Amendment grounds and went to a circuit court who actually overturned the verdict so they said that the activities of the ACLA were protected under the First Amendment because they didn't directly threaten harm to people on the website -Then the district court sided with Planned Parenthood and won again

Contribution feedback & Sex differences

-Feedback on what you've done (likes, comments) -Different kinds of feedback affects females and males differently -Women more motivated by cooperative frames -Men more motivated by competitive frames

Problematic Information Sharing:

-Free is costly -Unwise crowds (Crowd source issue; being recommended/popular but not necessarily good recommendation) -Scarcity of talent -Importance of training and professions

Reading: Big data: A revolution that will Transform how we Live, Work, and Think (Mayer-Schonberger, V.)

-Google could "predict" spread of the winter flu in U.S., and down to specific regions and even states -Look at what people were searching for on the Internet -Unlike CDC that it could tell it near real time, not a week or two after -Built on "big data:" the ability of society to harness information in novel ways to produce useful insights or goods and services of significant value -Entire business sectors being reshaped by big data as well -Ex) Etzioni created predictive model that handed it simulated passengers a tidy savings -Model had no understanding of why, only what -Farecast is epitome of big-data company -Data became raw material of business, vital economic input, used to create a new form of economic value -Big data refers to things one can do at large scale that cannot be done at smaller one -Society will shed obsession for causality in exchange for simple correlations: not knowing why but only what -Amount of data in world is growing fast -Big data is about applying math to huge quantities of data in order to infer probabilities/likelihood -Big data gives us clear view of granular: subcategories and submarkets that samples can't access -Looking at vastly more data permits us to loosen up our desire for exactitude -It's a tradeoff: with less error from sampling we can accept more measurement error -A move away from age-old search for causality -Managing data more efficiently came with advent of digitalization: making analog information readable by computers, which makes it easier and cheaper to store and process -Datafication: taking information about all things under the sun and transforming it into a data format to make it quantified -Data's vast size, decisions may often be made not by humans but by machines -Policymakers recognized how technology could be used to undermine privacy -Danger to us as individuals shifts from privacy to probability Lead to ethical consideration of role of free will vs. dictatorship of data Risks: -Renders ineffective core technical and legal mechanism through which we try to protect privacy -Anonymization or hiding no longer works -The risk that we may judge people not just for their actual behavior but for propensities the data suggest they are -Use data to punish people for predicted behavior--acts they have yet committed -Punishment on this basis negates concept of free will -Protect privacy by shifting responsibility away from individuals and toward data users -Big data as a tool that doesn't offer ultimate answers, but good-enough ones to help us until better methods

Big Data, examples and Issues:

-Google flu trends (Look at search terms) -Where's George (See where Bill has been) Social media visualization tools: -See different kinds of places people are going to Wearable devices: -Ex) Fitbit: knows lots of data about your lifestyle

Hate Speech

-Hate Speech: expression used to demean, oppress, or promote violence against someone on the basis of their membership in a social or ethnic group

Big Data:

-High volume, high velocity, and/or high variety information datasets -Volume (How much stuff is on it) -Velocity (Popular/trending right now, getting immediate feedback) -(Ex: drama --> comedy, Waze) -Variety (Many data types) (Ex) Waze: Report police or not)

Free Speech Online: Legal Liability and Implications

-ISP and online operator liability Section 230 of the CDA: -No provider or user of interactive computer service shall be: (1) treated as publisher or speaker of any information or (2) held liable on account of any action taken to restrict access to material that provider or user considers objectionable -(1) Providers whoever aren't responsible for third-party content (Only party responsible for unlawful speech online is the person who said it) -(2) Not held liable for filtering or blocking content they want to -People seeking to abolish section 230

Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA):

-Illegal to circumvent technical protection mechanisms or distribute circumvention tools ISPs are exempt from liability for copyright infringements by users if they: -Have no knowledge of violation -Don't benefit from it financially -Act quickly to remove violating material -Terminate accounts of repeat infringers

Credibility and the Evolving Media Landscape:

-Information abundance -Nature and number of gatekeepers -Co-existence of expert information sources and those with "experiential" credibility -Problematic information validation

Internet Privacy: Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM)

-Intention was to limit the amount of spam you would get through email -Certain features of unsolicited commercial email 1) Has to be labeled 2) Include a working return email Address 3) Valid postal address for the company 4) Include opt-out instructions 5) Physical address of the entity 6) Finally prohibits deceptive subject line or false headers

Shifts in the Delicate Balance of Copyright Law

-Licensing -Shrinkage of Public Domain -1790: 28 years -1909: 56 years -1976: Life+50 years for individuals; 75 years for corporations -1998: Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act: life+70 years for individuals; 95 years for corps -Technical Protection Mechanisms

Findings on Internet and Web-based Information & Source Credibility:

-Medium credibility Site type: -Ex) News, commercial, individual, advocacy group -News organization most credible, commercial and advocacy group middle credible, individual less so Site design/recognition: -Message credibility (When info on CNN website vs. online news that nobody recognized it differed) (Suggests message and design of site mattered a lot) -Site credibility (As long as it looks good, perceived the same as CNN) -Sponsor credibility (Boost from seeing CNN) Sex differences: -Man and women didn't matter/no difference when look at "Jeff Newmar" -Women looked at Jeff to be more credible than Julie -Men found site on "Julie Newmar" to be more credible than women -Julie more credible than Jeff Information verification: -If people can verify, none of this matters Attitudes versus behavior: -See if people are doing what they say they do -Those who claim the most that they verify, do significantly less than others -Misinformation Optimistic Biases: -Think better than somebody else; less bad things happen to me -Kids have optimistic biases, better than average but never feel quite as good as parent -Parents response is better than kids User-generated content online: -As long as high number, didn't matter whether it came from user-generated ratings or expert ratings -High number trust user-generated more -Medium number didn't matter -However, when low number/less ratings to go on, believed experts much more

Reading: Mickey's Copyright Adventure: Early Disney Creation Will Soon Be Public Property (Barnes)

-Mickey himself — is set to enter the public domain -Any public domain use of the original Mickey cannot be perceived as coming from Disney -Mickey has become the ultimate symbol of intellectual property -The 1998 copyright extension prompted a court fight, with detractors arguing that Congress disregarded the Constitution, which holds that copyright protection be given for a "limited" time. -The Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 to uphold what Congress had done. -If there is anything that Disney takes more seriously than intellectual property, it is public image -Digital technology has allowed creativity and expression to flourish online, with Instagram influencers, TikTokers, etc. incorporating intellectual property into new works. -"We're on the cusp of a time when copyrights in a range of visual works will expire."

Net Neutrality Issues and Timeline:

-Net neutrality: concepts and issues (2006) -Attempt to protect the Internet as a "common carrier" under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934/The Open Internet Order (2014) -ISP regulation Public protests and ultimate success of Title II Protection (2015): -Trump reversed what Obama and him were on agreement on -Net neutrality came under fire during Obama's presidency -FCC's reversal of Title II protections (2018) Net neutrality's status and future: -States tried to sue, gov said no --> uphold net neutrality as they see fit -SEC votes have been partisan, Biden's appointments have both withdrawn nominations -Going to dictate what Internet looks like in the future (who has protection)

User-Generated Content

-Online content, provided by and shared among Internet users themselves -Examples: Instagram, Buzzfeed, Flickr, Pinterest, Reddit, Tiktok, YouTube -Advantages -Participation dynamics (Info coming from few people) -Content self-organization (Decide what something means)

Intellectual Property

-Original works created by individuals or groups -Intellectual property is protected by copyright law

Net Neutrality:

-Principle that internet providers should not be able to discriminate between different kinds of content or customers by providing different levels of speed or access (i.e., network access must remain "neutral" -Net neutrality has been the norm/rule since the Internet was developed -Companies want to charge different rates based on access speed, or slow down transfer rates for particular content -90% of consumers support net neutrality

Consumers' Rights

-Public Domain: allows for copies to be made by anyone after the copyright terms expires -First Sale Rule: allows the owner of a particular copy to sell or otherwise dispose of that copy without the authority of the copyright owner -Fair Use Doctrine: allows for some noncommercial copies to be made without the authority of the copyright owner -Ex) noncommercial: teaching, research, scholarship, commentary, criticism

Predictive Analytics:

-Quantitative efforts to predict human behavior -Relationships between activities and behaviors Examples: -Target and pregnant women (Estimate when these women were going to have a baby) -Diapers and beer -Orbitz and Macs (Mac vs PC would pay more for plane tickets) -Shopping habits and debtor reliability -Social media data and prediction

U.S. v. American Library Association (ALA): Children's Internet Protection Act or "CIPA:"

-Required libraries and schools that received Federal funding on their internet computers to block obscene or pornographic material or material deemed harmful to minors (Challenged by ALA) -Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of CIPA so the decision indicates that CIPA is constitutional for children but not for adults -As an adult you can actually ask to have that blocking software removed

Internet Privacy: Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

-Response to the fact that a lot of websites at the time were aimed at children -Requirements (sites that targets kids under 13): 1) Provide notice of what's being collected on website 2) Obtain parental consent 3) Have the opportunity to refuse the further use of information that was once collected before 4) Protect the confidentiality and security information they collect from kids

Reading: Understanding and Evaluating Source Expertise in An Evolving Media Environment (Pure, R., etc.)

-Shift in information dissemination challenges longstanding models of the provision of credible information -Suggesting circumstances under which sources that are not understood as "experts" in the traditional sense are in fact in the best position to provide the most credible information. -In such an environment of information scarcity, the gatekeepers can produce and filter much of the information available, and also have an incentive to uphold quality standards. -Gatekeepers, in turn, were widely regarded as experts and were relied upon for credible information -The credibility of a source both influences and is influenced by the credibility attributed to its message -First, the Web facilitates low-cost, non-hierarchical information production, and therefore increases information accessibility. -As a consequence, Internet users need not rely on expert intermediaries to filter information -Second, online sources are not merely multiple but are often not well known to information consumers, either personally or even by reputation -In many cases users cannot easily verify who contributed what information -The persuasive intent of messages has been shown to be a key element in people's evaluations of information credibility -Third, the hypertext environment often eludes authorship -Because sites on the Web link together information from multiple authors, they complicate traditional ideas about origin and intent -The problem of finding credible information online thus involves deciding which sources to believe: official, credentialed experts, or other, often unidentified sources on the Web Reconceptualizing Expertise: -Credentialed expertise serves as a backbone for information consumption, by providing people with a relatively reliable indicator of information quality and credibility. -These sources are experts in certain domains while lacking any official demarcations of expertise. -A person's firsthand experience may serve as the basis of their expertise because it imbues them with what may be called experiential authority. -Information on the same event that originates from a diversity of individuals has the potential to be superior -Even unreliable information is likely to be effaced by more prevalent, up-to-date, and eyewitness reports. -Expertise is no longer embodied in a person, but in the process of aggregating many points of view. -In the social media environment, credentialed expertise is complemented by other forms of authority, including experiential authority, which gains credence due to the unique features of social software -The critical issue for credibility assessment online is therefore how people determine which sources from among the many possibilities provide the most relevant expertise for their unique situation Determinants of Expertise: -Users must often rely on message rather than source characteristics to evaluate expertise and information credibility. -Users can instead utilize an approach that emphasizes the reliability of a source over time, and/or the reliability of information across multiple sources to overcome the deficit of context in determining the expertise of a source or information. Replacing Source Cues with Message Cues: -Credibility evaluations are often made based on the characteristics of the message itself rather than on source characteristics -Message characteristics shown to affect evaluations of credibility, as well as people's perceptions of source credibility and expertise -Message factors such as professionalism, accuracy, currency, and comprehensiveness have been shown to positively affect online credibility judgments -Degree to which a website looks professionally designed increases perceptions of the site's credibility, and indications of amateur website design, such as typographical errors and broken links, negatively impact credibility evaluations. -Aspects of message content such as specificity and plausibility of information have been shown to signal source expertise online -The presence of typographical errors and inaccuracies negatively impact perceptions of expertise, while a well-designed website positively impacts perceptions of its credibility. -No further qualification may be required beyond effective language use. Reliability across Time and Source: -A reliable information source is one that consistently yields accurate information. -A source that contributes information through social software may be judged credible based on how long the information appears, or has appeared, on the site -A source may also be considered reliable if the information it provides is consistent with information provided by other sources on the Internet. -A community, rather than an individual, helps to determine the expertise of an information source on the Web. Shift from Intermediaries to Apomediaries: -Term apomediaries to describe the agents that replace the traditional expert intermediaries -Apomediaries stand by the consumer, directing them to relevant and high-quality information online. -Apomediaries contribute valuable information by producing opinion- and user-generated content such as user ratings and reviews -Encourages autonomy and empowers information consumers Evaluating New Approaches to Determining Expertise: -Groups that contain both experts and non-experts have been shown to outperform groups that contain only experts -Reliance on message cues is at times problematic, since can lead to assessments based on surface indicators that are not necessarily indicative of deeper information quality -Although seeking reliability between and within sources over time can boost the chances of accurately discerning the quality of information, reliability does not necessarily imply validity -Risk of equating popularity with expertise or credibility -Evaluating the credibility of information online by attending to cues generated by apomediaries may lead to suboptimal credibility decisions. -The user-generated origins of the apomediated information are overlooked or misunderstood, and therefore there is the risk of a collection of opinions being inappropriately elevated to the level of fact

Reinforcing and Reshaping Cognitive Processes:

-Socrates about invention of writing (Produce forgetfulness bc don't practice memory) Neuroplasticity: -Brain can be reshaped over time from various technologies -Ex) Taxi drivers in London have larger hippocampus than bus drivers (Bc bus drivers have set routine, taxi drivers don't) -Environmental/cognitive systems matching -Lifelong process Shallow information processing: -Increased scanning behaviors and selective reading; decreased sustained attention -Alteration of deep reading skills Changes to brain circuity: -Internet search experience and information processing

Reading: On the Internet, We're Always Famous (Hayes, C.)

-TV replacing our written culture with a culture of images -They do not exchange ideas; they exchange images. -They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials. -Bring new voices into a national discourse -But did not return our democratic culture and modes of thinking to pre-TV -Internet birthed a new form of discourse that was a combination of word and image: meme culture. -Third category: people we don't know and who somehow know us. (not noteworthy) -Fame, or at least being known by strangers, gone from a novelty to a core human experience. -Previous limiting conditions on what's private and what's public, on who can know you, have been lifted With expansion of celebrity, there have been people driven mad by fame -Kojève sees as the fundamental human drive: the desire for recognition—to be seen, in other words, as human by other humans. -The Star and the Fan are prototypes, and the Internet allows us to be both in different contexts. -Everyone is losing their minds online because the combination of mass fame and mass surveillance increasingly channels our most basic impulses: into the project of impressing strangers -A power we should not have and that cannot make us whole.

Online Pornography: U.S. v. Thomas: "Amateur Action:"

-The Thomas's were actually convicted of violating federal obscenity laws by disseminating obscene materials across state lines -On appeal the Thomas has argued that the federal obscenity law did not apply to the transmission of intangible materials like electronic files -Court disagreed their convictions were upheld and they actually went to jail -Set a precedent that the laws outside of the internet apply also to the internet at least sometimes -Determined that electronic files the laws of non-electrical files apply online as well

Reading: Copyright Infringement in Digital Environment (Atanasova)

-The digitalization of copyrighted works including text, music and video has dramatically increased the efficiency of unauthorized copying. -The Internet allows the infringers to produce thousands of copyrighted work at little cost -Each jurisdiction has separate and distinct laws and regulations about copyright. -If copyright protection is too strong, competition, innovation and creativity is restricted. -A balance between the interests of copyright owners in receiving fair reward for their efforts and the interests of copyright users in receiving reasonable access to copyright materials should be maintained. -Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of works covered by copyright law, in a way that violates the copyright owner's exclusive rights Some examples of copyright infringement in digital environment are: -Duplication of a CD or other recorded media without permission of the copyright holder -Unauthorized downloading of copyrighted material and sharing of recorded music over the Internet -Unauthorized use of text content on the world wide web by copying from one site to another without consent of the author, etc. -First, there is contributory infringement, when someone has "materially contributed" to another person's direct infringement (they've helped the infringer in some way). -Another is vicarious liability, when someone benefits financially from another person's infringement, and could have stopped that infringement from occurring in the first place. -The relevant statutes, conventions and case law take different approaches on how to regulate and balance the interests of the authors and the privileges of the users -They provide relatively similar catalogues of non-infringing uses and the pertinent factors to be considered in the process of evaluation. Effective solutions. The future of copyright: -Most of these suits rely on theories of secondary liability, focusing on those who provide services or write software that can be used in an act of infringement. -The paper suggests introducing new criminal liability with different extent of criminalization. -Another solution, suggested by the consultation paper is the assistance from the online service providers - OSPs in the fight against Internet piracy -The paper examines the issue with the statutory damages. -Copyright ensures the quality of information while preventing from piracy, as well to bring order to the electronic publishing market

Intellectual Property as a Public Good:

-The importance of shared intellectual property -Public access to intellectual property is important for the public good; overly aggressive content control threatens both individual freedom and creativity Creative commons: -Creative Commons licenses give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law

Four Conditions for "Fair Use:"

-The purpose and character of the use -The nature of the copyrighted work -The amount of the work used -The effect of the use on the market value of the work

Reno v. the ACLU: Communications Decency Act or "CDA:"

-U.S concerned that kids could easily be exposed to porn on the web Congress passed the Communication Decency Act as part of the Telecom Act of 1996. -Others argued there are simply less drastic ways to protect kids from cyberporn and yet allow adults still the ability to use this material and access it -Declared that most of the CDA was unconstitutional because it says not just obscene material which we know to be illegal but indecent material which we know to actually be legal by past court cases -Supreme Court says can't restrain it in these kind of ways that are too restrictive, we need to protect this medium of Technology

Copyright Origins

-U.S. Constitution empowers Congress: -to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing to authors and inventors for limited times exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries"

Reading: Communication and Cyberspace (Postman, N.)

-We suffer from too much information and from empty simulations that take place of genuine experience Created new problem: -Information glut, information incoherence, information meaninglessness -Information is directed at no one in particular, in enormous volume, at high speeds, disconnected from theory, meaning, and purpose -People enthusiastic about virtual reality machines find themselves insufficiently stimulated by real reality, seek solution by escaping from it, exciting themselves through a technologically simulated experience -They refuse to acknowledge what their real problem is -Engineers, computer gurus, and corporate visionaries who claim to speak for future are addressing problems that have already been solved -Time for us to give up notion that we may find solutions to our emptiness through technology

Reading: How People and Platforms are inventing Collaborative Economy and Reinventing Capitalism (Chase, R. & Thompson)

-Whenever I think about excess capacity it's really a form of sharing -You're saying I don't have complete control of this asset, I'm going to have to share it with someone who does have the control of it. -Peers deliver this diversity, and with that diversity comes innovation, resilience and redundancy. Zipcar: -Cars are parked 95 percent of the time --> able to leverage excess capacity with Zipcar -Huge economic advantage (rent by hour) --> cheaper than renting it for set period of time -Built a platform for participants --> take out middleman, personalized/ quick process Internet Influence: -Airbnb (2.5 million places in 9 years) vs. Intercontinental Hotel (650000 rooms in 65 years) Excess Capacity: -Resource and cost-efficient -Something that already exists; already been paid for but there's some more value in there 3 things to do: 1) Slice it: take big solid thing you could only see with biner block, and let you pay just for what you wanted to use (i.e. Zipcar) 2) aggregate it: took lots of little tiny things and pulled it together onto a platform so it has very different shape (i.e. Airbnb) 3) Take asset and open it: when government or someone collected data for their own purpose and now opens it up through APIs (i.e. open-data movement) Incorporate (inc.): -Incorporated builds the platform for participation (platform is organizing and unleashing all that excess capacity and the peers are doing this co-investment) 1) leveraging excess capacity, can defy the laws of physics 2) building our platforms for participation, can tap exponential learning (living through cycle, an iteration, and then figuring out something from it and then doing it again, and learning some more 3) Work with a diversity of peers, the right person will appear (i.e. Waze, Yelp) Moving to Collaborative economy: 1) Shared networked assets always deliver more value than closed propriety ones -(1) The asset is used more efficiently or (2) brand new values and brand new ideas are extracted or are extracted out of that asset 2) more networked minds are always smarter than fewer ones 3) the benefits and opportunities of shared networked assets are always larger than the problems associated with shared networked assets 4) from my own personal self-interest, I'm only doing things for me

Incitement test

-Whether hate speech is or is not illegal -Looks at certain characteristics of speech to determine whether they should or should not be banned or illegal -Determine whether speech is intended to incite violence immediately and likely to do so: 1) Intended to incite violence 2) Immediately 3) Likely to do so 4) All three need to be true, then the incitement test indicates that that speech should maybe not be protected that it should be illegal

Reward Mechanisms

-Yes and no -Give people small monetary rewards, it backfires (Negative, discourage people) -Works right before obtain new status (Incentive to get new status, then flatten) Peer rewards: -Rewards from people like you/peers -Increase quantity without quality (Motivate people to produce more but less quality)

Purpose of Copyright Law

A delicate balance of creators' rights and consumers' rights: -Exclusive Rights -Public Domain -Fair use -First sale

Social network use and subjective Well-being:

Active v. passive use: -Active use: posting about yourself makes you more happy and content (Boosts self-esteem) -Passive use has negative correlation in subjective well-being (Just observing other people) Loneliness and causality: -Loneliness causes Facebook use Mood and affective forecasting errors: -Longer people stay on Facebook, more negative mood -Deteriorate mood over time Account deactivation: -Used other technology, and non-online stuff (socialize) -Reduce people's factual knowledge -Reduced people's political polarization (negative) -Increased subjective well-being -After break, valued less, some didn't reactivate

Current Internet/Social media Access & Demographics:

Education (% of U.S. adults who use internet, by education level): -Less education means less use of Internet -Differences between people are smaller and smaller overtime (Education matters, less overtime) Income: -No difference Race/Ethnicity: -Today, no difference -Back then there was a difference Age: -No difference now -Older people getting more access Sex: -Difference for a while then little difference Location: -Urban, Suburban, Rural -Trending upwards -Access Teens/Social Media: -Online much more -Behave differently Global Access: -53% in Asia (majority) -94% of users in US

Reading: Code: Version 2.0 (Lessig)

Free speech: -They can function both as constraints on behavior and as protections against other constraints -In the center is the object regulated -Surrounding the individual now is a shield of protection, the net of law/norms/market/architecture that limits the constraints these modalities would otherwise place on the individual. -Legal protection does not mean that I would suffer no consequences for promoting legalization of drugs. -The law protects my right of advocacy—at least in the United States. The market also provides a major protection to speech in cyberspace: -Relative anonymity, decentralized distribution, multiple points of access, no necessary tie to geography, no simple system to identify content, tools of encryption -All these features and consequences of the Internet protocol make it difficult to control speech in cyberspace. -The architecture of cyberspace is the real protector of speech there -Already the Net is changing from free to controlled space. Regulators of Speech: Publication: -"Prior restraint" is when the government gets a court to stop publication of some material, rather than punish the publisher later for what was illegally published. -For the government to succeed in a claim that a printing should be stopped, it must show "irreparable harm"—harm so significant and irreversible that the Court must intervene to prevent it. -Once the piece is published, there is no further legal justification for suppressing it. Regulations of Speech: Spam and Porn: -By "spam" I mean unsolicited commercial e-mailsent in bulk. -By "porn," I mean not obscenity and not child porn, but what the United States Supreme Court calls sexually explicit speech that is "harmful to minors." -Spam and porn have always been regulated in real space. -The only question for cyberspace is whether the same effect of those real space regulations can be achieved in cyberspace. Real-Space Regulations: Spam and Porn: We can understand that regulation through the four modalities: -First law: Regulations against fraud and misrepresentation constrain the games bulk mailers can play in real space -Second, norms regulate bulk mail in real space. -Third, markets regulate bulk mail in real space. -And finally, architecture regulates bulk mail in real space Pornography, in real space, is regulated extensively: -Obscenity and child porn are banned for all people in real space (United States); porn is banned only for children. -All four modalities of regulation for porn are directed to a common end: to keep porn away from kids while (sometimes) ensuring adults' access to it.

Social media Information Spread:

Negative v. Positive messages: -Negative messages spread faster, positive end up reaching more people Ideologically diverse information: -Does cross-cutting information spread? -Varies by political orientation -Conservatives saw more liberal information compared to liberals seeing more conservative information -Facebook algorithm show less stuff that you disagree with

Reading: Big Data: A Revolution that will Transform How we Live, Work, and Think (Mayer-Schonberger, V.)

Risks: -Internet has made tracking easier, cheaper, and more useful -Internet threatens privacy and so does big data -Possibility of using big-data predictions about people to judge and punish the even before they've acted (Negates ideas of fairness, justice, and free will) -We risk fetishizing the information, the output of our analyses, and end up misusing it -Wielded unwisely, can become instrument for powerful who may turn it into a source of repression Paralyzing Privacy: -Data may not even explicitly seem personal, but can easily be traced back to the individual it refers to -Concept of notice and consent is too restrictive or to empty to protect individual's privacy -Anonymization doesn't work effectively (Given enough data, perfect anonymization is impossible) -In era of big data, three core strategies used to ensure privacy: -Individual notice and consent, opt out, and anonymization (But lost much of their effectiveness) Probability and Punishment: -People imprisoned not for what they did, but for what they are foreseen to do, even though they never actually commit the crime -US states use predications as factor in deciding whether to release somebody from prison -Big data also used to prevent crime from happening -Trouble is we essentially punish people before they do something bad -Big data does not tell us anything about causality The Dictatorship of Data: -Big data erodes privacy and threatens freedom -Use, abuse, and misuse of data shows limitations of information (Can be biased, misanalysed or misleading) -Governments, in fetish for quantification and data, end up making people's lives miserable rather than better (Often serves to empower the powerful) -Fueling obsession over data is curse of McNamara