“I became a journalist to come as close as possible to the heart of the world.”
Henry Luce
Week 1: Social media and me
Twitter was the first social media that I used. I was intrigued by the limited characters one could use on the platform. Furthermore, the ability to share with people what you were doing or view what others were doing was a fascinating experience to me. Many of my peers thought it was stupid at the time and it would probably be obsolete in a few years. Now, I use Twitter to communicate with like-minded individuals as well as to reach authors, screenwriters, and directors to do blog interviews.
With regards to the influence of social media (Twitter)in my life, it is mostly positive. I have been encouraged by the tweets written by celebrities such as Steve Harvey, Jordan Peele, Tyler Perry, Christopher McQuarrie, and M. Night Shyamalan. At times, it is fun to read other people’s tweets on current affairs and to see whether an individual likes my tweets or not. The negative aspect that I have experienced is when some people get so passionate about their opinion that they use foul language at you just because we do not see eye-to-eye on a subject matter. Usually, I tell such individuals to be classy when responding my tweets.
The Pew Research stated that Instagram was popular between age 18 to 24. This was surprising because celebrities such as Dwayne Johnson, Kim Kardashian West, and Cristiano Ronaldo made the platform popular and they catered to an older demographic (e.g. 24-35). As for the Internet Trends report, what I found exciting is that interactive game players keep increasing each year globally. These individuals are experiencing real time (play + talk/ text + watch). Fortnite is just the beginning. Soon, game players will experience a virtual world similar to the Oasis from the novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
In summary, the aspect of social media that I am interested in exploring further is how social media has shaped a business from its infancy. I would like to see examples on how social media has created strong brand for an individual or a corporation. Lastly, how to better utilize social media in the field of journalism.
Blog to follow: Writing in the Dark
The blog that I follow on a regular basis is called “Writing in the Dark.” The blog( http://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/ ) is owned by Tim Waggoner who is a bram stoker award-winning author. He has written over thirty novels along with novellas and three short stories collections. His writing has received honorable mentions as well as finalist mention at the Scribe Award and Shirley Jackson Award. He has also written articles and media tie-ins novels such as XXX: Return of Xander Cage , Resident Evil: the final chapter, supernatural series, etc. When he isn’t writing, he is a full-time tenured creative writing professor at Sinclair College.
The reason I like this blog is because the author gives his personal experience and tips on his writing career. Although his design/layout is very bland, the content, however, is what is important. The content is why I come back to read his posts. A particular entry I really enjoyed was his experience writing the novelization of Kingsman: The Golden Circle: http://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/2017/09/kingsman-golden-circle.html
Can’t Keep My Eyes off of You: An insight into Black Mirror (S5, Ep2)
The social media company, Smithereen, is all too familiar in our industry. This fictional social media company is supposed to represent Twitter. When a smithereen employee (Jaden) was inside his workplace, trying to reach his boss, you can see that an area with a screen filled with hashtags, which is very much like Twitter. There is a website called Persona which represents Facebook. Even the story line that dealt with Persona is actually based on a true story: two German parents took Facebook to court in order to gain access to their daughter’s account to see if she died by suicide or not. The court agreed with the parents but then it was overturned in 2017 when the appeal ruled that any contract made between the daughter and the company cannot be pass on to the parents.
The main character of this episode is Chris, a rideshare driver. He kidnapped Jaden. Soon Chris discovered that Jacen was not an important Smithereen employee but used him anyways to reach the CEO of the company, Billy Bauer. Chris then contacted Smithereen company to get a hold of Billy Bauer. Meanwhile, a police officer noticed something unusual (a man with a bag over his head at the backseat) and followed Chris’s car. This was the start of the three person standoff.
If a similar situation occurred in the real world, the circumstance might have ended happily if the police department and the social media company worked together in solving the problem. Since the social media company had ton of data about the kidnapper and the police are physically present to hinder the situation, both should have come up with a better solution. Second, the police should have been aware of their surroundings, they should have prevented the teenage (or anybody) from filming the incident. At the very least the police could contact the social media company in order to prevent the event from going viral.
In summary, we, as a society, are glued on our screen and like the Frankie Valli and the 4 seasons says, “You’re just too good to be true. Can’t take my eyes off you.” The “You” being technology, whether it is the latest iPhone or the next gadget or social media that would transform the way we communicate.
Zappos’s case study overview
Zappos, an online shoe and clothing retailer, is an e-commerce business that wants to deliver happiness to their customers. With that in mind, the company has used their social media platforms to interact with their customers in order to provide excellent customer service. Using the information from social media, the company gathered customer feedback and broadcast the company’s commitment to customer service. While other businesses use their social media platform to simply promote their products, Zappos uses theirs to get comments from customers and employees in order to provide “word-of-mouth” marketing. The company has a unique customer service focused on culture. In Mr. Tony Hsieh’s own words, he said, our whole belief is that if we get the culture right, then most of the other stuff, like delivering great customer service or building a long-term enduring brand, will happen naturally on its own.“
Our philosophy is to hire the right employees (employees whose personal values match our corporate core values), make sure everyone understands the long-terms vision, provide ongoing training and development opportunities, and then trust our employees to do the right thing.”
Here is an example of how Zappos use social media (twitter) in treating their customer right:
Zappos defined its corporate culture with its ten core values. The HR and management systems developed, employee job descriptions, the hiring process, on-the-job training, and the day-to-day work environment remind and reinforce these values with employees, visitors, customers, and partners:
- Deliver WOW Through Service
- Embrace and Drive Change
- Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
- Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
- Pursue Growth and Learning
- Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication
- Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
- Do More with Less
- Be Passionate and Determined
- Be Humble
These Zappos’s core values are implemented in their social media platforms and is the very reason that the company is superb in customer satisfaction.
Crisis Communication: Domino’s and social media’s effect on its brand
Two employees from a North Carolina’s Domino store filmed themselves doing disgusting things to a sandwich they made and then sent it out for delivery. These employees uploaded the video on YouTube where it became viral. This occurrence happened in April 2019. Loyal fans notified the company about the video by using social media . If these fans had not let the company know about this incident, it could have taken significantly longer for the company to find out and the damage would have been too late to maintain.
The company quickly used their communications strategy, through social media, to save the brand. Although Domino’s didn’t respond as quickly as they should, they noticed how the video was gaining more viewing. So, they decided to release a response to the public and they did this through twitter. They reassured the public that this was only an isolated case and that they are taking steps to fix the problem. Fortunately for the company, many of its loyal fans saw the incident as a singular event. Domino used these loyal fans by asking them to retweet the link from their website. This link went straight to a video from Domino’s website where the company apologized for the situation. By doing this, their apology video was spread to the masses. This resulted in the company regaining control of the situation. Customers were not so concern anymore and potential customers were not afraid either. Domino’s actions saved their brand from severe damage.
Here are steps that other companies could learn from Domino’s when they face a crisis communication:
- Domino’s responded with the same channel where the crisis began. In this case it was YouTube.
- The president of Domino’s, Mr. Patrick Doyle, did the video response personally. He effectively used social media (twitter) to spread his message to the masses.
- The company’s apology was sincere and with humility.
- The company’s official statement was done almost to perfection. This is the very reason that the brand is still doing well today.
“Seeing is believing” is dead, thanks to deepfake
Deepfake was coined in 2017 and really is a new word for digital images that are photoshoped. It is one of the many tools that people are using to create fake news. Since most people are not media literate, these malicious acts will most likely mislead or misinform others and that is a big issue. Deepfake equals deep trouble for everyone.
The effect of deepfake should be a great concern. It could be used to cause severe damage, for instance, make a president of a country say or do something that might prompt violence or chaos between two countries. A tampered video might mislead someone into reacting in a negative manner. The sad truth is that the technology that make deepfake possible will only get better in time. The latest technology has even proven that texts can generate new words to be put into someone’s mouth in order to create a deceptive video. Deepfake has been used for personal and political reasons. Regarding politics, politicians should be worried about deepfake since it usually spread quickly and broadly, especially the ones that influence the public to view someone in a negative light. A single deepfake video could ruin a politician’s reputation and cause him or her to lose their campaign or maybe more. Even when the video has been proven false the damage will probably be irreversible.
The way to address this issue is by warning users about the harm in using deepfake. Users should know the consequences of publishing fake videos for fun. He or she could hurt their online reputation in the process. Beyond that, the Apps these users download to create these deepfakes might hijack their computers to mine cryptocurrency. That is something that anyone thinking of creating deepfake should think about.
The next concern should be, what social media sites can do about deepfakes. What should social media sites’ role be in this situation? These social media sites have a moral responsibility to uphold for their users to gain their trust. If these sites clearly express their legal standards, specific regulations and technological ethics to their users then it would do a lot to solve the harms of deepfake. A suggestion would be to remove deceptive videos immediately. This should be a must especially when there are clues that these videos are trying to appear as actual news. If the owner of the video shows proof that it was for personal use and not meant to be shared as real news, then that video should display some type of warning. That way anyone viewing the video will be well-aware that it is not authentic.
Furthermore, social media sites should give users who want to post deepfake video the option to display a warning sign that states the video is not actually real. If a user who refuses to display this warning sign and the video does indeed damage someone’s reputation or character then the user should be suspended from social media for a couple of months, if not years or forever, depending on the severity of the damage. Google has the right idea in mind in dealing with deepfake:
“We are always looking into new potential threats related to personal or societal harm arising from new technologies, including this one, and may further update our policies in the future if we identify gaps that are not currently covered by our existing rules or systems,” Karan Bhatia, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, said in the company(Google)’s letter.
Caught in the Act: Facebook eavesdrops on users
Facebook has recently made an admission that they have hired human contractors to listen to their users’ recording on Facebook Messenger without their acknowledgment. These users supposedly thought artificial intelligence was the only thing hearing their conversation.
Facebook is not the only company guilty of this. It turned out that Amazon used human contractors for Alexa in order to provide a quality assurance. The Amazon contractors stated that they heard some upsetting and perhaps criminal recordings.
Google was another company that did the same without informing their users. Belgian public news channel reported that a contractor leaked a thousand audio clips. Some of these audio clips contained sensitive personal information. Apple was another company that stated they used human contractors to listen to users’ recordings. However, this time the company confessed to their practice rather than being exposed. Apple’s explanation was that they were trying Siri and Dictation. Siri responses were done in secured facilities and they were to adhere to Apple’s strict confidentiality requirements.
Finally, it was reported by Vice News that Microsoft uses human contractors to listen to users’ recordings. They said it was being used for quality assurance for their Cortana voice assistant. It was also for voice conversations carried out over Skype.
All these researches and studies that the human contractors did for Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft were done by gathering big data. The definition of big data is a massive volume of both structured and unstructured data that is so large it is difficult to process using traditional database and software techniques. It has the potential to help companies improve operations and make faster, more intelligent decisions.
Big data could be collected from sources such as mobile devices, applications, emails, servers and other means. In the Facebook case, their big data came from audio files. Going deeper into big data, there are four V’s to investigate.
The Four V’s to Big Data
The first V is Volume, which is the amount of scale or size of data. An example of this is Facebook which has ten billion messages per day or sent via Facebook. The “Like” button on Facebook has been clicked on 4.5 billion times per day.
The second V is Velocity, which is the speed of processing data. An example of this would be real-time analysis of social media. Companies will mind Facebook postings or tweets for today or week and watch them in order to know which products people talk about and these companies would use that to make real-time business decisions. This might be the main reason why Facebook (and Apple, Microsoft, and Google) hired human contractors. They used data visualization and listened for keywords that users expressed. This informs them that a certain person or demographics mentioned a specific product or brand frequently, suggesting it would be wise to place ads in their page. The data information gathered from the practice would ultimately be sold to advertisers.
The third V is Variety, which is different types of data. The fundamental concept of big data is unstructured data. From unstructured data we can form structured data that would provide meaningful information. A picture, a voice recording, a tweet — they all can be different but express ideas and thoughts based on human understanding. The aim is to use technology to take this unstructured data and make sense of it. This is why users of these companies (Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple) are certain that their data information is being used for much more than just operations and quality assurance.
The fourth V is Veracity, which is uncertainty of data. It is important to know the relevant data relative to what you want to find in order to avoid veracity. For instance, if you are thinking about new product development and you want to analyze social media usage for certain frame of time to determine which product are buzzing well. You would not look at data that was gathered in the past year. You would instead look at data gathered in the past month to get a hint of which product is popular. This might be the case in Facebook taking a pause in their practice of using human contractors to listen to users’ recordings. There might be veracity issues that these companies are not sharing with the public.
In summary, Facebook (as well as the other companies) has expressed that they stopped this practice after these reports has already been out. Their statements, however, has not ease users’ concerns for their privacy. To hear that Facebook Messenger is capable of listening on people’s personal information (phone interviews, address, vulgar languages,etc.) and then play them back to unknown human beings is quite an unsettling realization. As a result, some countries like the United Kingdom, are taking active steps to mitigate the problem. Their Information Commissioner is investigating the undisclosed use of human oversight that breached their regulation (General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR). As for the United States, the Automatic Listening Exploitation Act was introduced in the wake of these events. It lets the Federal Trade Commission to issue fines each time digital personal assistants and smart bells violated the terms of agreement.
Bibliography:
The Guardian (Aug. 13, 2019) Facebook admits contractors listened to users’ recordings without their knowledge. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/13/facebook-messenger-user-recordings-contractors-listening
Splinternet: The Future of the internet?
Mr. Kaifu Lee, the CEO of China-based venture capital firm Sinovation Ventures, has made quite a prediction regarding the future of the internet. His prediction was that in the next five years there may be two internets; one dominated by China and the other dominated by the United States.
Wikipedia defines splinternet as characterization of the internet as splintering and dividing due to various factors, such as technology, commerce, politics, nationalism, religion, and interests.
Mr. Lee stated to CNBC at Davos that the rest of the world would either must adopt China’s services and apps or the United States’. The countries that would most likely lean toward Chinese services and apps are Southeast Asia, India, Middle East, a part of Africa, and South America. Europe would likely shift towards United States services and apps. In Mr. Lee’s own words, he said, “… in five years, if you look at all the people in the world that took their phone and counted how many Chinese apps and American apps, I’d say it would be fifty-fifty.”
Mr. Lee is not alone with his prediction of the splinternet. Mr. Eric Schmidt (Former Google CEO), among others, has forecasted China and the United States as the forefronts of internet dominance. There have been international conferences in the past on how the countries should coordinate internet policies. There are fears from these meetings that open internet could be a thing of the past within a decade or two.
With regards to artificial intelligence (AI), Mr. Lee believes China is leading in that department. Various analysts would agree with his observation. Although the United States are known to have better AI research, in five years things could change in China’s favor.
“China has more data, more users, more usage per data. And there’s very pro-AI government policies. So, these things cause China to be ahead in AI implementation, despite not being ahead in AI research,” Mr. Lee said.
In summary, the real question is: do we want to live in a splinternet world? According to Mr. Lee, whether you like it or not, we are heading there. All we can hope as consumers of the internet is that there would be some type of global rules that benefits openness with assurance that online platforms would favor the public interest. Hopefully, the governments, regulators, and the online platforms themselves would seek a solution for splinternet that would favor competition instead of monopoly. More importantly, any solutions should always be in the favor of the public.
Houston, we have a digital divide problem
Tony and Isabella Ruiz (12 and 11 years old respectively) are at the sidewalk across the street from an elementary school in Houston, which is close to their house. Both are trying to connect to the elementary school’s wireless hot spot. Isabella, especially, wanted to watch her teacher’s math guide on the family smartphone.
Why is that? Why are two children trying to gain internet access outside at a nearby elementary school instead of at home? This is true life situation of digital divide that is occurring in our community.
The definition of digital divide, for those who are not familiar with the term, is the gap between those who have ready access to computers and the internet and those who do not.
Digital divide has become an issue now, even though decades ago it was not so. Back then, internet access was a luxury household item. Now, internet access has infiltrated into education system, workforce opportunities, business development, financial services, and health care. All these fields have now made internet access a necessity in order to normally operate in our society. The reason for this problem is due to the cost of equipment, cost of the service, and digital literacy. Research has shown that there is a link between household income and internet access. The lowest income households are the ones that do not have internet access.
So, how is this issue being solved in the Houston community? What steps are being taken to close the divide? Fortunately, Mayor Sylvester Turner is doing something about this. He said at an event that the internet is the most powerful potential source of information ever created. It can be regarded as basic infrastructure, just like roads, water and waste. Without it, you’ll be left behind. Furthermore, he said, “we are now part of the knowledge society and everyone must have access to broadband services to participate.” So, a nonprofit organization—called Bridging the Digital Divide—is on the mission to accomplish this. The IT director for nonprofit organization, Mr. Johnny Molock, stated that 90% of low-income apartment complexes he visited didn’t have computer access. He also stated that kids that didn’t have computers and access in their early education will be behind and can’t compete with those that do.
The nonprofit organization is working with Comcast Corporation— a telecommunications company—to succeed in their digital inclusion goals. Comcast Corp. promised to give away local grants to provide low-come communities with digital literacy training and internet access. Furthermore, it’s giving $20,000 to Neighborhood Centers, $20,000 to YMCA to support their digital literacy efforts and provide internet access for their computer labs, and lastly $35,000 to the city of Houston for a mobile computer lab. Their program also provided those that need internet access to pay only $9.95 a month plus tax for internet, including Wi-Fi. Desktop computers or laptops are being sold by Comcast for only $149.99 plus tax. So far, the program has provided internet access for nearly 120,000 low-income individuals (29,400 households).
The city of Houston is taking the right steps. Moreover, Mr. David Cohen’s (the senior executive vice president for Comcast) own words summed up the importance of closing the gap of digital divide:
“There may be have been a time, for a nanosecond, where the internet was viewed as a luxury, as sort of a cool thing to have. But it’s not a luxury anymore. In our economy today, in our world today, the internet is essential.”
Bibliography:
Cecilia Kang. (Feb. 22, 2016). Bridging a digital divide that keeps schoolchildren behind Retrieved from https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/Bridging-a-digital-divide-that-keeps-6847872.php
Andrea Kleinfelder. (Aug. 25, 2016). Comcast helps bridge digital divide. Retrieved from https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Comcast-helps-bridge-digital-divide-9185389.php#photo-10829639
Know your “Nextdoor” neighbors
Serena Romero’s report about Nextdoor was really intriguing. I have never heard of it until she presented it to the class. So, I did further research and discovered Mr. Nirav Tolia’s session at Stanford University about his company on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8166JC1wUbA
Mr. Nirav Tolia—when he started Nextdoor—was shocked to find the statistic that 28% of American could not name a single neighbor by name. He wanted neighbors to have roots in their community. So far, the major cities that are contributing to Nextdoor’s growth are San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Austin, San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston, Manhattan, Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Washington Dc. These cities are constantly engaging on the website.
The benefits of having such an app is the recommendation from your local area. There is an alert system for missing animals and crimes like break-ins. Nextdoor also report any suspicious activity in your neighborhood. It basically exists to keep the neighborhood informed and build a sense of community.
It’s sad that issues such as racial profiling and sense of paranoia is marring such an appealing social networking service. The issues are similar to what Airbnb is going through with fair housing implications and discrimination. Another thing that I discovered about this app was that there are petty posts on Nextdoor. An example of such posts are “the lawn is too long,” or “the neighbor’s dog is barking throughout the night,” or “a neighbor’s car is parked in my space,” or “that holiday decoration has been there for far too long.” One way to resolve these issues is by having a video clip to educate new and current members about the seriousness of these issues especially racial profiling. The company needs to fix these problems for Nextdoor to have longevity and a superb quality experience.
Overall, I do believe that Nextdoor will be around for a while. It won’t join the list of deceased dot com sites. However, I think the current issues will continue to cast a dark shadow over Nextdoor. I don’t see the issue of racial profiling going away any time soon. Privacy concerns will always be an issue when it comes to social media in general. On a positive note, I do believe that this app would flourish more so internationally than here in the states. The app is already available in United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, and France. Only time will tell how Nextdoor will truly perform.
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