My Relationship with Social Media

 My online footprint is not as big as most people in my generation, but it is more significant than it should be regarding my personal privacy. I use the popular social media apps Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, BeReal, VSCO, and Facebook. 

    However, I only use Instagram, BeReal, and Snapchat every day. I downloaded those apps to keep in touch with friends, keep up with the latest trends, and expose myself to different political events/sides rather than only seeing biased, one-sided news. 

    I downloaded TikTok, VSCO, and Facebook, even though I hardly ever use them, because I had to download Facebook to get the updates and announcements that my sorority, Tri Sigma, posts. I downloaded VSCO in High School because my friends told me it was the Instagram without judgment or the pressure to look good for guys, but now I never post on it and only use it to edit pictures I want to post on Instagram. 

    The reason I downloaded TikTok was peer pressure. I put off downloading it until this past summer because I had heard of all the accusations and rumors regarding TikTok. I caved in because I kept coming up with all these ideas for videos I could make if I had the app. 

    So after much thought, I decided to download the app, but with the rule that I make my account private, only follow friends, and don't like any videos on my explore page, so TikTok cannot gather a lot of data on me. 

    Other than videos I occasionally post on TikTok, I only post pictures on Instagram and Snapchat, and even the things I post are pictures of either me or me and my friends. Both accounts are private, and the images are ones that I could show to my grandparents and future employers. 

    More specifically, I post pictures from vacations, concerts, special events (prom, graduation, sorority), and UGA football. If I post something with a location tagged, I make sure I am no longer in that location when posting. I never post anything political or controversial because I do not want it to come back and haunt me in the future. 

   What a stranger could gather about me from my social media is that I am a college student at High Point University, involved with Tri Sigma Sorority and Circle K International, likes to travel and hang out with friends, and is a UGA football fan. 

    I am proud of all those things, so I do not mind if strangers know that stuff, also because I do not think those things are very personal, not to mention those things are posted on my blog site bio. Therefore, I am ok with future employers knowing that stuff about me because it shows that I am involved in organizations at my school and have interests that expose me to different environments and people. 

    Both my parents made sure I knew about the consequences of posting inappropriate things on social media before letting me download the apps. On top of that, they downloaded the same apps I did to keep an eye on who I followed, who followed me, and the things I posted.

    My Middle school also had us watch videos to educate us about social media and what posting the wrong picture or post could impact the chances of us getting a job or applying to colleges. Their main point was to not post yourself with alcohol or in clothing that was too revealing.     

    In conclusion, my relationship with social media has been more positive than negative. I was able to reconnect with my pre-school best friend, improve my graphic design skills, and share events that Circle K International and Tri Sigma are hosting and encourage people to get involved. 

Privacy, Online & Off

    The problems shown with so-called privacy from online services are scary. Knowing that sites like Face.com and facedeals.com have been bought by Facebook is even more frightening because Facebook uses them to collect data on its users in the name of business.

    Even though I only use Facebook for my sorority, any pictures the account posts that I "like," Facebook takes note of that so they can send advertisements to me that I will interact with or click on. This issue affects my family and me because whatever we post on social media stays there forever. We can't do anything about it because those media platforms now own all our pictures and posts.        

    The government should make stricter laws for social media privacy, but I know they won't unless they get caught in a scandal that requires them to make those laws. I say that because it had already happened when the government was caught violating people's privacy. 

    For example, in 2019, the FBI was caught violating thousands of Americans' privacy rights. A "secret court ruling found that the government's warrantless surveillance of emails routinely violated the Fourth Amendment," according to Elizabeth Goitein. 

    Goitein goes into great detail about the case, but the thing she wrote that stuck out to me the most was, "the government will no doubt try to sell this as an overnight success story. After all, the Department of Justice's audits had detected instances of FBI non-compliance with legal requirements, and the Department reported those instances to the FISA Court." 

    Her statement backs up my claim that the government will try and cover up that they do not want to give people their privacy and will only stop violating those rights when they get caught. 

EOTO #2 Reaction: False Flags

     The term that stuck out to me during the group presentations was False Flags. This stuck out because I had not heard of this term before the presentations. It was interesting to learn about the dirtier side of war politics since they mostly get covered up or dismissed as rumors.

    As Annie Bench described, "it's a military or political action carried out with the intention of blaming it on an opponent. This is often done as a pretext for war, with nations staging attacks on themselves to receive the "go ahead" to attack." 

The subsequent actions will only exacerbate the tension, so the operations may have significant consequences. A government uses False Flags to carry out its intended plans for an attack without facing opposition from its citizens, thus, fabricating a support ruse.

    Bench uses the example of "Nazi Germany during WW2. Hitler was looking for a final straw before invading Poland, so staged a raid on the Gleiwitz Radio Tower. A short message claiming the tower was now in "Polish Hands" was broadcasted, and a body of a civilian dressed as a Polish soldier was left behind. The next day, Hitler cited the attack, among others, in a speech and instructed the invasion of Poland." 

    She backs this example connecting with false flags by saying, "this is one example of how false flags can have large implications on society as a whole. When used in a time of intense turmoil and a multi-country war, a false flag can be the cause of millions of deaths."

    Overall, I liked Bench's presentation because she informed me of what False Flags are while also keeping my attention during her presentation by using real-life examples and visual images. 

Vertical Integration

Vertical integration is best known as "a strategy that allows a company to streamline its operations by taking direct ownership of various stages of its production process rather than relying on external contractors or suppliers," as stated by Adam Hayes.

    Instead of outsourcing its suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, or retail locations, a company can achieve vertical integration by acquiring or setting up its own. However, vertical integration may be risky due to the significant initial capital investment required. 

     How vertical integration works is it allows a company to become more self-reliant on other aspects of the process rather than sticking to a single point along the process. A manufacturing company might, for instance, prefer to directly source its raw materials or sell directly to customers.

    Companies use vertical integration because it gives businesses more control over a manufacturing process's supply chain. The manufacturer can control the timing, procedure, and aspects of additional stages of development by performing specific tasks internally. As opposed to purchasing outsourced goods at marked-up costs, owning a larger portion of the process may also result in long-term cost savings.

    Hayes uses Netflix as an example to better explain vertical integration: "The company started as a DVD rental business before moving into online streaming of films and movies licensed from major studios. Then, Netflix executives realized they could improve their margins by producing some of their own original content."

    He also added that they "produced some bombs, like 2016's The Get Down, which reportedly cost the company $120 million. 1 Today, Netflix uses its distribution model to promote its original content alongside programming licensed from studios. 2 Instead of simply relying on the content of others, Netflix performed vertical integration to become more engaged in the entertainment development process earlier."    

        

    There are three types of integration: forward, backward, and balanced. The writers of Wallstreetmojo define forward integration as "when a company has an in-house manufacturing unit, it can merge or acquire distribution centers or retail outlets. Thus, the company moves ahead in the supply chain, i.e., from raw material to retail." 

    Then backward integration as the "strategy is undertaken by companies with in-house units built for the final stages of the supply chain—retail. Such firms can engage in the initial stages—production and procurement of raw material." 

    Lastly, that balanced integration "firms generally use a combination of Forward Integration and Backward Integration strategies. This is applicable to businesses engaged in the mid-supply chain function. They expand their operations upward and downward." 

    Hayes lists the main takeaways of vertical integration are that "vertical integration requires a company's direct ownership of suppliers, distributors, or retail locations to obtain greater control of its supply chain. The advantages can include greater efficiencies, reduced costs, and more control along the manufacturing or distribution process. Vertical integration often requires heavy upfront capital that may reduce a company's long-term flexibility."

    Overall, the business arrangement in which a company controls various stages of the supply chain is known as vertical integration. To have better control over the production process, the company strives to bring processes in-house rather than relying on external suppliers. Even though vertical integration may require more initial capital, the long-term objective is to streamline processes for more controlled and efficient operations.

THE AGE OF AI

 Artificial intelligence had come a long way since it first appeared in 1935 when Alan Turning portrayed a theoretical processing machine comprising a boundless memory and a scanner that moves to and fro through the memory, image by image, perusing what it finds and composing additional photos. 

    Turing's concept of a stored program implies that a machine can operate on and modify or improve its own program. B.J. Copeland points out that "Turing's conception is now known simply as the universal Turing machine. All modern computers are,
in essence, universal Turing machines." 

    Later, Christopher Strachey wrote the first AI program in 1951 and proposed it to Turing. He liked Strachey's idea; however, he "suggested that another exciting problem would be to make the machine simulate itself in the fashion of the interpretive trace routines developed for the Cambridge University EDSAC. 

    Strachey was attracted by this idea and temporarily put the draughts program to one side. The final trace program was some 1,000 instructions long," stated George Robert. Interestingly, Strachey had no idea that it was the most extended program ever written for the machine. 

    Now we have self-driving cars, apps for just about anything, and all the world's information at our fingertips. Artificial intelligence has offered jobs, takes care of daily tasks, and helps people "increase accuracy and precision," as said by Nikita Duggal. She further lists AI's cons: "high costs, no creativity, unemployment for people who had repetitive jobs, and no ethics."

    In the documentary, In the Age of AI, an important topic was online security. It discusses how Facebook collects your personal data and sells it to Chinese companies and hackers. This documentary is one of many sources about privacy scandals with Facebook; hundreds of articles discuss this. CNBC recently published an article about this, claiming that "the world's largest social network service allowed millions of its users' personal information to be fed to Cambridge Analytica" and "spurred calls for people to delete their Facebook accounts" were made. 

This leaves you wondering: is using social media worth having strangers know your personal information? 

Diffusion of Innovations

    
New innovation catches on when it has been proven successful, and big influencers and public figures advertise it. No matter the product, it will not be successful at first because buyers need proof that what they are using or spending their money on is worth it and not a scam. Moreover, the first version of the innovation could need modifications to improve it. 

    This happened to Netflix when it first started in the late 2000s; as Ellen Merryweather states, "Netflix, which was growing pretty nicely in the mid-to-late 2000s, decided to split itself in two. They split their $10 offering into an $8 streaming and $8 mailed DVD plans. This increased the price by 60% for users who wanted to keep both." 

    Merryweather continues to t
alk about "what Netflix had failed to understand was how important their relationships with their customer base were. To fix the problem, Netflix had to become obsessed with its customers and listen to what they wanted. They used their extensive amounts of data to inform creative decisions, leading to a powerhouse of Oscar-winning original content." 

   On the other hand, those may be the cases for some people catching on, but most of the time, new innovations "blow up" because they become a trend that most people want to follow and be a part of. An example is when Ryan Reynolds bought the company Mint Mobile and was in the advertisements. 

    Mindy Weinstein states, "renowned actor and film producer Ryan Reynolds made the news when he and Mint Mobile became involved. He started by partnering with Mint Mobile and later went into November 2019 to buy the entire company. Mint Mobile, a four-year-old company, has seen tremendous growth in the past three years: its revenue has been boosted by 50,000%." Therefore, the fans of Ryan Reynolds started using Mint Moile because Reynolds owns the company, thus using it, and they want to be the early adapters to his projects. 

    Some people are early adapters to new innovations because they want to experience the trend before it becomes widespread, are loyal followers of the company or person advertising, or are interested in trying the newly invented innovation. As Will Kenton puts it, "early adopters are the class right after innovators in using new technology. Like innovators, early adopters have greater access to wealth, are younger in age, and have higher education. They are more selective in adopting new technology and become opinion leaders on new innovations."

    The pros are "prestige, some influence on developing the technology, gaining a competitive advantage, becoming a thought leader on the tech." The cons are "limitations in applicability, risk of utilizing soon to be the obsolete product, high price for new technology, loss of value, higher risk of defects," listed by Kenton. 

    I would rather not be an early adapter because, for me, the pros outweigh the pros. Now, if you are interested in technology and working with new technology, then it is a perfect way to expose yourself to hands-on experience. That said, I do not desire to work in that line of work and would not like to risk my money so I can access the newest thing.