Blog #9 EOTO Illusory Truth Effect

 It is false but you believe it is true. It is the Illusory truth effect. The effect was found during a study at the universities of Villanova and Temple in 1977.  More specifically, studying The Illusory Truth Effect has found that, "Repeated information is often perceived as more truthful than new information. This finding is known as the illusory truth effect, and it is typically thought to occur because repetition increases processing fluency. Because fluency and truth are frequently correlated in the real world, people learn to use processing fluency as a marker for truthfulness.”. In simple terms, the more we hear something, the more likely we are to believe that it is true. The more we hear the words "Russia, Russia, Russia", "Russia did this", "Russia, did that", we are much more likely to believe that Russia Russia Russia actually did do something, even if there is little strong evidence that they did. 

The more we hear a claim, the more likely we are to buy into whatever is being sold, even if it seems outrageous. More exactly, people are almost always more likely than not to rate statements that they have viewed before as being true, no matter whether it is or is not. Even more than this though, studying a subject does not even safeguard against The Illusory Truth Effect. Even those who took 3rd-grade science class and learned that spiders have eight legs could be fooled into (or have a higher likelihood of) believing that spiders have nine legs if they are given multiple sources claiming that spiders do in fact have nine legs.

For example, during the 2016 presidential campaign, there was online posting about how Hillary Clinton was running a child abuse sex trafficking ring with her at the time campaign chief John Podesta out of a pizza restaurant named Comet Ping Pong. There was never any real merit and no real reason to believe such outlandish claims. On December 4th, 2016 a man from North Carolina went into the pizza restaurant with a rifle and revolver, and attempted to free the children he believed were being held, and in the process fired a shot inside the building.

The Illusory Truth Effect can be described simply as "Fake News". "Fake News" is sometimes a word that turns others off, but it is very real, and can also be very convincing. Fake news is incredibly prevalent in the United States, with many Americans believing, protesting, and voting based on things that never even happened. Where there is fake news there is the Illusory Truth Effect. No matter how prepared someone believes they are, the illusory truth effect can get to them. Simply seeing something that is false, even if someone knows it is false, will raise the likelihood that they believe it may be true, even if just by five percent! Fake news and the Illusory Truth Effect can become a thing of the past, but only if we step up as a society and stop publishing hyper-reactionary, clickbait, sometimes entirely false claims, only in the intent of profiting both politically and financially. Fake news and subsequently the Illusory Truth Effect can become history if we as a society put our values in truth, and not political or financial gain.

Blog #8 Big Brother

According to the TED Talk by Catherine Crump, the government as a whole is gathering information on us. This is not just at the Federal level but at the local level. At the very local level the police are monitoring and recording where we go and even sometimes who we're with. They use Stingray technology, allowing them to see whose phones are in a house, and even cell tower dumps where cell phone providers give law enforcement all the cell phone action that occurred in a certain area. The Federal level uses this information gathered by the local level to develop databases and track where and what Americans do all over the country.

Not only that, but our governments want to be able to listen to our phone calls, they want to be able to read our texts. Even though the governments may be able to more easily catch criminals, they would at the same time be listening to people who have never before committed a crime. It isn't just the government gathering information on us, however. 

We give the government and many others plenty of information about us; who we are, where we go, who we're with, our thoughts and opinions, how we decide to vote, how active we are in politics, the list goes on. The government and anyone else that wants to profit off of our information does not have to even wiretap us to find all of this out. all they have to do is look at any of our social media pages. It's all right there for them to gather. The digital footprints we leave are us voluntarily giving away many identifiable markers to big companies, governments, or anyone that is simply just curious.

Some may not care about any of this. Sometimes there's this mindset of, "I'm not doing anything wrong, why should I care.". The issues listed above should spook anyone as these issues affect all of us. With just cell tower dumps, Stingray technology, and licence plate photography we're being monitored and tracked by our government without even doing anything wrong. The government should refrain from gathering such information on its own citizens. We live in a society where the law gives us the presumption of innocence. The government should not be bulldozing our privacy, especially without any reason or cause, and they certainly should not be storing it in any database.

What can we do in order to retain and protect ourselves from an overreach into our privacy? An easy start would be to make sure what we post on social media is not something we would want governments and other actors to be interested in. Another way to safeguard against breaches in privacy, specifically wiretapping, is to make calls over facetime audio, as they have default encryption features installed. Finally as suggested by Catherine Crump in her TED Talk, we can lobby our local city councils to have their local police departments erase the databases they've developed on innocent citizens.

Blog #7 Diffusion of innovation- Vinyl Records

Vinyl records are perhaps the greatest, if not one of the greatest innovations to ever come to music. In 1930 the first long-playing vinyl record was launched as plastic discs. Then in 1948 Columbia Records began releasing Polyvinyl chloride records; which could play more music than their predecessors. They then eventually moved from 78 rpm (rotations per minute) to 33 rpm. The record was so innovative because it was the first piece of technology that allowed people to listen to the music they wanted, whenever they wanted, from anywhere they lived. Of course there was the radio, but someone would have to sit on a specific station and wait for the station to decide to play the song. With the record, anyone could listen to an entire album by an artist as many times as they chose to, and from any place in the album. 

   By looking at the Diffusion of Innovation Theory, we can see what the innovation was. The early adopters would have to be the DJs who played the records.  The early majority would probably be everyone else who followed along and bought record to listen to at home while vinyl records exploded in popularity through the 1950s-1980s.  The introduction of the cassette tape and CD player did lead to a decline in the sale of vinyl, very heavily in the 1990s.

So many people likely became early adopters because it was new, it was revolutionary, it was the brand new and only way to listen to what you want where you want. For the most part there are no real downsides to the technology, and no real reason why someone would choose to not own vinyl, unless they did not like music or choice (at least in the 1950s). Today it would be expected that vinyl would be dead, as we now have on-demand music to stream whenever-absolutely-anywhere. However, vinyl has made a comeback, as earlier this year it outsold CDs for the first time since 1987. This may relate less to the diffusion theory in relation to vinyl records, however it could relate to those who have started to reject on-demand streaming and look for a more "pure" sound.

                             

Blog#6 The Chained Down Anti-War Machine

 

Is it really any surprise that sites like ANTIWAR.COM and The American Conservative do not receive any real traction or publicity like that of Fox News or MSNBC? Is it really any surprise that one would have to go out of their way to find such sites? (It could be argued that ANTIWAR.COM's poorly optimized site could play some role) Is it really any surprise that we never hear any strong anti-war voices in the mainstream media?

I don't think that it is. After all, there is always a common denominator when there is conflict; that common denominator being the moolah, the money. There is money to be made when we are at war, and when we go to war. There are so many parties interested in war that the strongest anti-war voices often go unheard. Why though would anyone want to go to war? Well, it's both a simple and complex answer, the simple answer is that they want things. The more complex answer has to do with people in power wanting more of it, and the people with money wanting more of it also.

Those in power in this country have an interest in obtaining more of it, and those who have money have an interest in making more of it. When there is war, there are highly profitable defense contracts handed out. War makes for great television, it makes for great news. Broadcasters have no reason to want war to end. As long as there is a conflict there is money rolling in. Finally, the government has an interest in being at war. For one, the president retains war-time powers. Apart from the president, when we are at war, the government is able to violate our rights; and get away with it.

While at war, the government is allowed to restrict our civil liberties to seemingly the point of excess. There is an incentive for the government to be in a constant state of war. There is an incentive for the press to not feature strong anti-war columnists and commentators. War makes money and gives power. However, war also takes money and spends lives. Strong anti-war voices will never be a part of the mainstream in America because the most powerful industries and government profit from it. The only thing that will get us out is enough of us waking up and taking them to the ballot box. 

Blog #5 EOTO Presentations - Wifi

 The technology I enjoyed learning about most from someone else's presentation has to be Wi-Fi. Released to the public in 1997, I believe that it has been one of, if not the most influential piece of technology since. That's right, since 1997 I do not think that there has been a more influential piece of technology. There is no greater way of staying in contact with another, and for the most part, it can be used for free (at the expense of another individual or business).

Dr. John O'Sullivan was an Australian engineer who led the team that ended up creating Wi-Fi. The need for Wi-Fi arose from computers using only a wired connection to communicate. When Wi-fi was created it started out at only 2 megabits of speed per second. Two megabits per second was the maximum then. Today I'll easily hit speeds of up to two hundred and forty megabits per second. Of course, people all over the world still use wired connections, as they are more stable and generally more reliable, however, the creation of Wi-Fi really opened the door to the Internet everywhere.

Internet everywhere really changed the way the world worked. Suddenly there was this ability to be able to work and use the internet away from the clunky desktop sitting under the desk at home. As more and more and eventually everywhere seemed to have wifi, the opportunities to be able to connect with others began to grow with it. Wi-Fi added the ability to be able to send and check emails, search the web, and even send messages without using data. Apart from communicating with others, it gave us instantaneous access to news.

As the internet became available everywhere due to the spread of Wi-Fi, the ability to produce and consume news also spread. Suddenly anyone with an internet connection, two eyes and ears could be a journalist. Anyone could read about breaking news as soon as it broke, even if they were away from the TV or home desktop. Wi-Fi is a technology that I believe has not been surpassed in usefulness, and will not be surpassed in usefulness, at least for a very long time.

Blog #4 EOTO Tech

In 1899 a man named Guglielmo Marconi telegraphed the results of yacht races from a ship out at sea to a station on land in New York. In 1900 Marconi filed patent No.7777 for  "Improvements in Apparatus for Wireless Telegraphy"; in 1943 the Supreme Court overturned that patent, believing thatSir Oliver Lodge, Nikola Tesla, and John Stone had priority in the development of the radio-tuning apparatus. Shortly after this in 1901, Marconi had started his own company and transmitted the first transatlantic signal. 

It was not until the 1920's though, that radio really began to boom. From 1922-1927 the number of radio stations increased from just thirty stations to six hundred and eighty-one radio stations. From 1922-1927 radio equipment sold went from $60m to $426m. From 1927-1935 the amount of money spent on radio advertisements grew from $4.8m to $112.6m. The growth of radio in the 1920's into the 1930's really was incredible. It grew the profiles of athletes, led to the creation of the first syndicated radio shows, and gave Americans at home access to almost instant news

Americans at home received almost instant access to the news, for instance: In 1925 the inauguration of President Calvin Coolidge was broadcast, in 1933 President Roosevelt began speaking to the nation through broadcasted fireside chats, and in 1938 H.G Wells' The War of the Worlds was broadcast, leaving many Americans in a state of frenzy believing that the State of New Jersey was being invaded by Martians. In 1941 Americans were able to receive live updates on the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Before the radio, Americans would have had to wait at least until the next day to receive any sort of national and sometimes local news. The predecessor of the radio, the printing press, allowed Americans to consume news faster than ever, however, any breaking news would have to wait at least until the next morning when the papers when out. The radio revolutionized the speed at which we consume news. A great majority of Americans most likely would never have been able to hear a presidential inauguration, hear a president speak directly to them, or listen to their political leaders debate without the invention of radio. The radio gave many Americans a way to hear what was going on in their country, but it also gave soldiers an ear on the battlefield.

Radio became a way for the military to communicate and better coordinate with its units. Rather than wait days for orders in a letter, it led to instant communication between commanders and their units. Radio transmissions began to become intercepted during World War II, so the United States Marine Corps selected 29 Navajo men, the Navajo Code Talkers, who created a code based on the complex, unwritten Navajo language. The code was incredibly effective during the war and still has not been cracked today.

The radio eventually was surpassed by the invention of the Television as the most popular form of broadcast. Even though it is no longer the most popular medium, the impact radio has had on the world has been tremendous. While the radio came with some negative effects (misinformation), it revolutionized the way and speed in which we are presented our news. Today the radio is still a thing, and still popular. Car radio remains by far the most popular, with 89% of car buyers believing broadcast radio should be standard in every vehicle. The radio was at one point the most popular medium for entertainment and news, and while not the most popular, it still commands the ears of millions of Americans.

Blog Post #3 The Right to Dissent

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”. The right to dissent and the right to disagree with the government is a fundamental right as a citizen of the United States. Similarly to the Electoral College, the First Amendment is in place to protect the view of every American; no matter how small the minority.

Of all eight values of free expression, I believe that Protecting Dissent is the most important. While the other seven are certainly important, I believe that being able to criticize the government for just about anything it does is the most important of all. Without the ability to criticize there can be no changing the trajectory of how the governed are governed. Without the ability to criticize would our president and elected officials be any different than those of 1776? The challenges we face today in regard to Free Speech and the protection of dissent are different than they were over two hundred years ago, yet they remain the same in that there should never be a point in time when the government is protected from dissent.

“[W]e consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” -Justice William Brennan. This came from New York Times Company v. Sullivan and leads me to believe that the government has forgotten about it. Particularly the line, "vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.", has me wondering whether the government remembers this case.

People can be held liable for questioning the election. People can be charged criminally for questioning the election. People can be charged and held liable for dissenting with the government. It wasn't always like this though. This new phenomenon of having the government come after you for disagreeing with it is both dangerous and anti-democratic.

The right to dissent, whether it be with unpleasantly sharp attacks is a fundamental right we hold as citizens. As our country has aged, the ways in which we communicate have expanded. As our options for communication have expanded, so have the ways in which the First Amendment has become applicable. For instance, more people get their news from social media than the newspaper now.

The right to dissent does not only apply to literal speech or physical writings. It includes any form of speech intended to criticize. With new mediums of communication and uncharted legal waters, the government tries to limit what our rights should protect us from. More recently the case of Missouri v. Biden found that the Biden administration had made inappropriate communications with tech companies, which led to them censoring private citizens. The ruling led to
limiting the government from censoring online speech.

In conclusion, the right to be able to tell the government that what they're doing is wrong is a crucial part of the First Amendment. Without it, we wouldn't be free. The ability to say, "No I do not agree" is why The United States of America exists at all. If we give the government an inch in the fight for our rights they will take a mile every time. The right to dissent, the freedom to dissent is what makes us Americans.