Discussion Assignment
Johanna provided some important insights about the connection between the social media and gender. One of the interesting ideas that she presented that the social media’s ability to dismantle the gender stereotyping that was normally being done on old media. In fact, social media does not only do such thing. The old media companies’ notion showing that if one falls on a certain demographic category, then the person is already predictable. However, it is important to understand that people who uses social media are now representing a wider demographic in terms of categories. Therefore, it is presumable that social media is not a gender-based media due to its characteristics.
We would like to add that social media can create a demographic, which is not based on gender, but on interests. These interests are the ones that a social media user normally clicks. Just like what Johanna said that the social media monitoring our clickstream, which shows a person’s online activities (Blakley, 2010). This is beneficial for the user because the social media can offer things that might interest us depending on our online interests and not about our gender. In general, the presentation provided a good idea that social media prevents absurd assumptions about a person’s gender.
“How to avoid surveillance with the phone in your pocket” by Christopher Soghoian
Surveillance could be one of the useful strategies in order to prevent terrorism in many parts of the world. In fact according to Soghoian (2015), governments, foreign intelligence agencies, hackers, and anyone who has the capability to get an access to our communication systems may also have the access with our text messages and phone calls. This is one of the things that most of the people would not want to happen – being monitored by someone privately. Many people are anxious about the wiretapping issues being done by the government, but only few of them are aware that they can prevent such actions by using the applications that are pre-installed in their devices, such as the security encryptions of mobile phones. Also, it was a good idea that it was discussed that some of the applications can protect the people from surveillance or hacking incidents, such as Facetime, Whatsapp, and messaging features of Apple’s iPhone.
The emergence of new technological features of the mobile phones and its applications are not just there to provide easier and faster communication. They are also good technological advancements that can provide a safer environment to secure our text messages and phone calls, which many people must use.
“Tracking our online trackers” by Gary Kovacs
Internet was described as a “digital woods”, where people leave important traces or personal information, such as birthdays and other important details (Kovacs, 2012). The presentation was a good eye-opener, which shows that every person’s activity over the Internet is being watched. Every click of the mouse adds another entity that watches our online behavior. An hour or two being spent online means that there could be hundreds of watchers who monitors our personal information, which we do not want.
Therefore, it is essential that every internet user must be careful as there many online watchers that invade our privacy. Thus it is now time for us internet users to track those who track us virtually. The presentation emphasizes that people must use a monitoring system in order to know who watches us online and it is now time to know who these entities are for our own safety and security.
References
Blakley, J. (2010). Johanna Blakley: Social media and the end of gender | TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript | TED.com [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_social_media_and_the_end_of_gender/transcript?language=en#t-17180
Kovacs, G. (2012). Gary Kovacs: Tracking our online trackers | TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript | TED.com [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/gary_kovacs_tracking_the_trackers/transcript?language=en#t-3654
Soghoian, C. (2015). Christopher Soghoian: How to avoid surveillance with the phone in your pocket | TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript | TED.com [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_soghoian_a_brief_history_of_phone_wiretapping_and_how_to_avoid_it/transcript?language=en#t-361644
