Unit 3 Final 12/11

Throughout the many years the internet has been around there have been several debates about the privacy of the consumer. Mainly on the subject of the consumer sharing information through their device to the producer companies. This debates has more recently spilled over to social media and the privacy of users on social media. An incident showcasing the negative implication was recently involving user data and Cambridge Analytica. The company then used the data to discourage African-American voters in the 2016 presidential election. This situation shows the great power that can be used with the collected data. Within recent years there have been several people using their position to voice their opinion on the subject like that of Zeynep Tufekci an associate professor at the University of North Carolina, an academic writer, and occasional writer for The New York Times. Majority of Tufekci’s work focuses around the subject of technology and social media. This paper will analyze Tufekci’s claim that the surveillance of social media on their users has harmed society rather than helping to further it, and other articles that have extended, illustrated, and complicated her claim.

Tufekci’s claim stems from her article “Facebook’s Surveillance Machine” The piece’s topic is about the previously mentioned situation of Cambridge Analytica; however, the article was written prior to the reveal of voter suppression. This does not lessen the impact of Tufekci’s argument about social media’s negative impact on society, as she states “This wasn’t informed consent. This was the exploitation of user data and user trust.” (Machine 10) These two sentences were alone in their own paragraph in the article, causing emphasis in the message. The emphasis is used as a transition into Tufekci’s rebuttal to Facebook’s response that the incident was within a form of consent. Within her rebuttal she states her opinion about the continuous surveillance of users that it cannot be fully seen as a mutual agreement, as she herself states “… continuous to ongoing and extensive data collection can neither be fully informed nor truly consensual – especially since it is practically irrevocable.” (Machine 12) Tufekci believes that these social media platforms shouldn’t be collecting user data to begin with, as she states later in the article “If Facebook failed to understand that this data could be used in dangerous ways… it had no business collecting anyone’s data in the first place.” (Machine 15) These quotes from Tufekci’s article solidifies her position on the subject and supports her claim of the negative impact of social media through surveillance.

Tufekci has a Ted Talk in 2017 that further extends her claim from the original text. The talk centered around the current state of advertising and the tactics used by companies to attract customers. One of the tactics she mentioned being actively used is targeting individuals who are entering a manic phase or episode. She argues that this tactic is mainly used by casinos, as Tufekci states in her own words “So let’s push that Vegas example a bit. What if the system that we do not understand was picking up that it’s easier to sell Vegas tickets to people who are bipolar and about to enter the manic phase.” (Dystopia 7:08) This extends Tufekci’s original claim because the people being targeted are identified through a computer algorithm which uses siphoned data from users, as she also states prior “And these things only work if there’s an enormous amount of data, so they also encourage deep surveillance on all of us so that the machine learning algorithms can work.” (Dystopia 6:52) Without the use of the surveillance and data harvesting the algorithm would be unaware of the habits of people on social media who are entering a manic episode. This extends her claim because allowing the collection of data from users puts those same users at risk of destroying their lives. In the casino example targeted individuals could potentially spend their life savings gambling if they were in a state of manic. The companies who own the ads are not the culprits behind the data siphoning, but rather it is the social media platforms that people around the globe use on a daily basis. Some of the platforms mentioned by Tufekci were Google, Amazon, Facebook, Alibaba, Tencent; as Tufekci states “Much of the technology that threatens our freedom and our dignity in the near-term future is being developed by companies in the business of capturing and selling our data and our attention to advertisers and others.” (Dystopia 0:12) Each of these websites are visited by millions of people on a daily basis and their users are unaware of how their search history, likes, and comments will be sold to advertisers to be used against them. These further extend the original claim because it shows the potential held within user data and its ability to ruin an individual’s future through just an advertising algorithm.

Tufekci makes her opinion on the subject of social media surveillance and data harvesting well known as she has another article written about it titled “Mark Zuckerberg, Let Me Pay for Facebook”. This article provides more solutions as to how to solve the problem of data harvesting and brings new ideas to the subject further extending her original claim. One of her major pieces of evidence brought up to further her claim is the use of Ethan Zuckerman, a media scholar and associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These achievements are lesser to his creation of the pop-up ads and the ad-financed business model in the early 1990s. Both of Zuckerman’s creations are still heavily implemented in today’s society, through pop-up ads on social media platforms and those same social media platforms using ads as funds. However, Zuckerman has developed a concern for his creations as stated by Tufekci “He came to regret both: the pop-up and the ad-financed business model. The former is annoying but it’s the latter that is helping destroy the fabric of a rich, pluralistic Internet.” (Pay 3) This helps to extend the original claim because it shows that the creator of the style of ads seen all throughout the internet today has feelings of guilt for creating them in the first place, pushing this further as Zuckerman appeared on NBC News in 2014 apologizing for his creations. The business model that he created is currently being used by several social media platforms today, as Tufekci also states “Internet ads are basically worthless unless they are hyper-targeted based on tracking and extensive profiling of users.” (Pay 4) This further extends the original claim as it shows that many of the companies profits stem from targeting its users with ads tailored to them. With social media platforms main source of income being ads on the website, Tufekci offers an alternate way to fund the site, as she states “I would, as I bet many others would, happily pay more than 20 cents per month for a Facebook or a Google that did not track me.” (Pay 8) Providing an alternate solution to the problem of revenue would allow users to freely use websites and platforms without the worry of having their every move analyzed; however, there is little hope that this model will be adapted into the current business model as it works so well with Facebook making an annual revenue and net income totalling a little over 55 million dollars in 2017.

While most social media platforms collect user data to enhance the user’s experience it also brings in an aspect of personalization to the user. The personalization and data allows the system to filter out what the users are uninterested in; however, this can lead to consequences as illustrated by Eli Prasier’s, current Chief Executive of the viral media sharing platform Upworthy, Ted Talk explaining these filter bubbles personalized to each user. Prasier claims that different users have different experiences when searching for information online. He ran an experiment between his friends where he had each of them search for the word “Egypt” on Google. One friend received results about the protests in Egypt while on the other hand another friend saw nothing of the matter, but rather saw travel information to the country. Praiser goes on to explain how this filtering is spreading stating “This moves us very quickly toward a world in which the internet is showing us what it thinks we want to see, but not necessarily what we need to see.” (Beware online 3:41-3:50) This further illustrates Tufekci’s original claim because Praisers experiment fully shows the effect of personalization throughout the internet, and how dangerous the potential there is. In this case the internet is allowed to withhold information from a general public that may be actively searching for it. Other implications of this filtering becoming a hazard, are uses in a political sense. Prasier noticed on his own news feed that conservative posts were showing up less and less, stating “I was surprised when I noticed one day that the conservatives had disappeared from my Facebook feed.”(Beware online 1:24-1:30) Silencing the other side of politics doesn’t allow a person to make a fair and just examination when deciding who to vote for. Through the filtering it doesn’t allow people who are undecided about their vote the option to view other perspectives of politics if they happen to follow more friends who are democratic rather than republican. Viewing the filtering from this perspective further enhances Tufekci’s original claim.

A fellow author whose articles extend Tufekci’s is David Golumbia a writer for Motherboard a branch of Vice that focuses on the future of society. Golumbia recently wrote an article revolving around the invasion of privacy that is too common among the giants of the tech world. Golumbia claims that there are no boundaries as to what is too far in the aspect of a user’s personal privacy. He explains that all companies take part in extracting data from their users ranging from Uber to roombas, each company uses their collected data for a different purpose. Some companies may use the data to further enhance the user’s experience on their platform while others use the data to sell the preferences of the user for more profit; however, there are sadly more cases of the latter as Golumbia gives several examples stating “A for-profit service sells prescription data… An app to help women track their periods sell that data to aggregators.” (Privacy Dystopia 4) Examples of these companies further extend Tufekci’s claim, that social media has done more to negatively impact society rather than enhance it, because it shows that there are companies in the technology industry that has no interest in their users but just sole profit. Companies that have this mindset could be detrimental to the advancement of society as there could be situations in which the information that was sold is used to harm the users if they are put into the wrong hands, and if these companies with this money making mindset there is no prediction that they won’t sell it to the wrong people if all they are looking for is the right price. The for-profit companies are just the beginning as there are tech giants who siphon data from their users and the public know nothing about what their intentions are with said data. Examples of this are found in, as previously stated, Roomba, Uber, Facebook, Samsung; companies with large supporters and even larger amounts of users. When Samsung released their sales during the second quarter of 2018 they alone had 71.5 million shipments of Samsung phones sent out. These companies that keep users in the dark as to what their intentions are with the data could greatly impact society if fallen into the wrong hands. Billions of people would be affected if this were to happen. Golumbia continues to state that there are no boundaries drawn for these companies invasion of privacy that determining what is a rumor and what is a fact has become difficult, he states “We are already at a point now where it seems everything is permissible in tech.” (Privacy Dystopia 9) The uneasiness determining what is fake and not when coming to one’s personal privacy when using their devices further extends Tufekci’s original claim, as both believe a user should feel that their privacy is kept to them and those they choose to share it with.

There is a bountiful amount of cases agreeing with the negative impact of surveillance of social media; however, a senior reporter at the Huffington Post, Anna Almendrala’s article “Web Surveillance Through Social Media Sites A Powerful Tool For Local Law Enforcement” complicates the argument. Tufekci presents the argument of the negative impacts that have been brought with the surveillance of social media; however she fails to neglect the benefits of background surveillance. Almendrala’s article presents ways law enforcements use the surveillance of social media sites to prevent crimes throughout the nation. The surveillance allows investigators to find connections between suspects, as Almendrala states “With just one suspect’s name, they can do more: Draw in his or her followers from Twitter or read Facebook wall posts and status updates of their ‘friends.’” (Almendrala 13) While locating suspects allows for a rapid capture, law enforcement also use the harvested data to scan for any suspicious activity. There are multiple products that assist officials to sift through the data at a swift rate, one being OpenMIND. This product enables the police to locate any suspicious behaviours throughout the entire internet, Almendrala states “It digs not just within social media, but also through blogs, online forums and the ‘deep Web,’ where many chat rooms exist.” (Almendrala 19) While it is not much these two examples goes against Tufekci’s original position, that surveillance and data harvesting from social media websites are all negative; Almendrala’s articles shows the benefits and the other uses for data harvesting to help society.

Overall there is still an ongoing debate on the effects of companies harvesting data from their users; however the debate has clearly become a one sided battle as many of consumers are unhappy with these terms. From companies harvesting data for profit based purposes to others collecting data to enhance the user’s experience. Tufekci’s main claim is a broad one; however there are several other articles and writers whose own claims support and further Tufekci’s. There are still some articles however, delving deeper into the other side of the argument yet have not been quite as successful. In conclusion though Tufekci’s claim is a broad one there is sufficient evidence to support it without much evidence against it.

Unit 3 Rough Draft

Throughout the many years the internet has been around there have been several debates about the privacy of the consumer. Mainly on the subject of the consumer sharing information through their device to the producer companies. This debates has more recently spilled over to social media and the privacy of users on social media. There are sides of the argument claiming that there are beneficial factors of surveillance on consumers through these social media platforms, while there are others who claim that the surveillance is a complete invasion of the user’s privacy; however there are more arguments for the latter. Recently there have been several people using their position to voice their opinion on the subject like that of Zeynep Tufekci who is a writer for The New York Times specifically focused on the realm of technology and social media. This paper will analyze Tufekci’s claim that the surveillance of social media on their users has harmed society rather than helping to further it, and other articles that have extended, illustrated, and complicated her claim.

Tufekci’s article “Facebook’s Surveillance Machine” extends her original position, that the surveillance of social media has negatively impacted society rather than helping it in any way. The article focuses on the negative impact of Facebook’s data harvesting from millions of their uninformed users, as stated by Tufekci “…the number of people whose data was harvested reached about 50 million.” (Machine 3) This was done through another upcoming app, thisisyourdigitallife, created by Cambridge Analytica that was in need of testing and was presented as an exchange if people used the app they were given one to two dollars in return. This further extends Tufekci’s original argument because it exposes Facebook, one of the largest social media platforms, for their deceitful ways of data harvesting without their users knowing what was happening. This further emphasizes the surveillance being done on Facebook without the knowledge of their users as many of those who were affected by the data harvesting were unaware their information was being harvested to begin with. The data collected was then used to determine and personalize advertisements toward Facebook’s users, as Tufekci states “The results of that surveillance are used to fuel a sophisticated and opaque system for narrowly targeting advertisements and other wares to Facebook’s users.” (Machine 5) This also extends the Tufekci’s argument because it shows that Facebook is using the data collected from their users to turn profit through the ads that are now personalized to specific users as well as filtering users news feeds based on their previous behaviour using the app also. This is negatively damaging to society as since the data was harvested through a third party company as the data was used during the 2016 presidential election as stated by Tufekci, “And Cambridge Analytica employees are claiming that the data formed the backbone of the company’s operations in the 2016 presidential election. The use of the data and personalization of news feeds on Facebook could have been used to sway people’s opinions on the, then, upcoming election and secure votes for certain candidates. This would greatly affect the population as without interference the election could have gone differently.

The filtering aspect of Tufekci’s argument is further illustrated through Eli Prasier’s, current Chief Executive of the viral media sharing platform Upworthy, Ted Talk explaining and giving examples of these “filter bubbles”. Prasier claims that different users have different experiences when searching for information online. He ran an experiment between his friends where he had each of them search for the word “Egypt” on Google. One friend received results about the protests in Egypt while on the other hand another friend saw nothing of the matter, but rather saw travel information to the country. Praiser goes on to explain how this filtering is spreading stating “This moves us very quickly toward a world in which the internet is showing us what it thinks we want to see, but not necessarily what we need to see.” (Beware online 3:41-3:50) This further illustrates Tufekci’s original claim because Praisers experiment fully shows the effect of personalization throughout the internet, and how dangerous the potential there is. In this case the internet is allowed to withhold information from a general public that may be actively searching for it. Other implications of this filtering becoming a hazard, are uses in a political sense. Prasier noticed on his own news feed that conservative posts were showing up less and less, stating “I was surprised when I noticed one day that the conservatives had disappeared from my Facebook feed.”(Beware online 1:24-1:30) Silencing the other side of politics doesn’t allow a person to make a fair and just examination when deciding who to vote for. Through the filtering it doesn’t allow people who are undecided about their vote the option to view other perspectives of politics if they happen to follow more friends who are democratic rather than republican. Viewing the filtering from this perspective further enhances Tufekci’s original claim.

Body Paragraphs for Unit 3 11/29

There is a bountiful amount of cases agreeing with the negative impact of surveillance of social media; however, Anna Almendrala’s article “Web Surveillance Through Social Media Sites A Powerful Tool For Local Law Enforcement” complicates the argument. Tufekci presents the argument of the negative impacts that have been brought with the surveillance of social media; however she fails to neglect the benefits of background surveillance. Almendrala’s article presents ways law enforcements use the surveillance of social media sites to prevent crimes throughout the nation. The surveillance allows investigators to find connections between suspects, as Almendrala states “With just one suspect’s name, they can do more: Draw in his or her followers from Twitter or read Facebook wall posts and status updates of their ‘friends.’” (Almendrala 13) While locating suspects allows for a rapid capture, law enforcement also use the harvested data to scan for any suspicious activity. There are multiple products that assist officials to sift through the data at a swift rate, one being OpenMIND. This product enables the police to locate any suspicious behaviours throughout the entire internet, Almendrala states “It digs not just within social media, but also through blogs, online forums and the ‘deep Web,’ where many chat rooms exist.” (Almendrala 19) While it is not much these two examples goes against Tufekci’s original position, that surveillance and data harvesting from social media websites are all negative; Almendrala’s articles shows the benefits and the other uses for data harvesting to help society.

Revised Prompt for 11/13

I plan to focus on the articles written by Zeynep Tufekci, focusing on her position about social media and its negative impact on society. Focusing on her other articles titled and how they further extend her original position, “Facebook’s Surveillance Machine”, “We already Know How to Protect Ourselves From Facebook”, “The World is Getting Hacked. Why Don’t We Stop It?”

In Tufekci’s article “Facebook’s Surveillance Machine” the overall argument further extends Tufekci’s original position. The article focuses on the negative impact and sneaky way in which Facebook was able to gain information from millions of their users through an app they were testing as stated by Tufekci, “…the number of people whose data was harvested reached about 50 million.” (Tufekci 3) This further extends her argument because it exposes Facebook, a social media platform, for their ways of gaining data from their users through deceitful ways as testing for the app thisisyourdigitallife was being marketed for people to try in exchange for one to two dollars. This emphasizes on how much surveillance is actually being done on Facebook without users knowledge as many of the 50 million people whose information was taken were completely unaware of it.

Boyd and Bowles 11/13

In the article written by Nellie Bowles, “The Digital Gap Between Rich and Poor Kids Is Not What We Expected”, this text extends Boyd’s claims about the digital divide. Boyd claims that the quality time spent on the internet dictates the difference in skill of digital literacy between the rich and the poor. This is seen as Boyd states, “Quality of access is, also unsurprisingly, correlated with socioeconomic status.” (Boyd 195) Also claiming that the difference in skill is also linked to the difference in access to computers. Boyd states, “Variation in experience also result in another form of digital inequality: differential levels of skills.” (Boyd 194) Bowles text rather argues the opposite claiming that too much exposure to the internet and screen time hinders a child’s development. Bowles states, “It could happen that the children of poorer and middle-class parents will be raised by screens, while the children of Silicon Valley’s elite will be going back to wooden toys and the luxury of human interaction.” (Bowles 4) This extends Boyd’s argument because it is later stated by Bowles that screen time for poorer children are found through public school and used as an educational tool. This further supports the claim that poorer children’s time spent online does not serve as quality screen time, as much of their screen time is through both filtered and unfiltered content. This is through their access to a computer at school and access to a smartphone. While on the other hand, children of a higher social class income have less screen time and more human interaction building connections and relationships. This implies a shift in society as Bowles quotes Chris Anderson a former employee for Wired stating, “The digital divide was about access to technology, and now that everyone has access, the new digital divide is limiting access to technology.” (Bowles 11)

Boyd 11/6

Throughout the chapter from Boyd’s book, It’s Complicated, she addresses the topic of the divide between “digital natives” and “digital immigrants”. She discusses that though “digital natives” grew up with technology surrounding them, they don’t know much about what they use. While on the other hand “digital immigrants”, needed to adapt to the evolving world to now be left behind. This caused the “immigrants” to learn every intricate nuance of this new platform. Boyd goes against the assumption that “digital natives” know everything there is to know about the language of internet. This can be seen when Boyd states, “Worse by not doing the work necessary to help youth develop broad digital competency, educators and the public end up reproducing digital inequality because more privileged youth often have more opportunities to develop these skills outside the classroom.” (Boyd 180) Stating that the digital language is like any other subject that must be taught.

Another one of Boyd’s major claims is that the use of the terms “digital native” and “digital immigrant” doesn’t help to fix this problem of digital illiteracy. Rather these terms strengthen the divide between the two sides. This is seen when Boyd states, “By focusing on the ‘digital divide’ between levels of access and types of competencies, Jenkins highlights how a well-intentioned public uses the rhetoric surrounding digital natives to obfuscate and reinforce existing inequalities.” (Boyd 193) By focusing on the divide between the two sides it just further divides the two.

A topic in the chapter I found interesting was the use of the “filter bubbles” and the predictions that companies like Google uses, based on previous behavior. Looking into how these companies do these personalized biases based on the previous data it’s collected would be interesting. As I use these personalized platforms on a regular basis. I’ve had instances where I have seen the adds catered to a subject that my friends had previously been talking about.

Boyd 11/1

Boyd’s chapter on digital literacy from her book, It’s Complicated, was quite interesting. It gave me a perspective of the digital world that I had never thought of. The part that intrigued me the most, I would say, was the mention of how early governments were able to identify the importance of literacy in the media. Where she states that countries like the United Kingdom started as early as the 1930s teaching people about the media. It wasn’t the fact that they identified they must be literate in the media, but that they viewed it as a fundamental step to teach children about it with war propaganda.

I also found several of Boyd’s claims interesting as well. One of her major claims being that when children are limited from seeing certain parts of the internet, it stunts their growth on the platform. This is seen when Boyd states, “Too often, we focus on limiting youth from accessing inaccurate or problematic information. This is a laudable goal, but alone it does teens a fundamental disservice.” (Boyd 181) I never thought about the internet from this perspective as a developing individual in the digital world. I reflected on my time on the internet and found that many of the things that my parent would have protected me from on the internet, I learned about completely on my own just browsing. Another claim found within Boyd’s chapter was her support in using Wikipedia stating, “Ignoring the educational potential of Wikipedia, teachers consistently tell students to stay clear of Wikipedia at all costs.” (Boyd 187) Much of the time in educational institutions, when handing out a research assignment, one of the first rules is to never go to Wikipedia for any type of reliable information. I found this quite interesting as I was assigned an assignment recently and at the top of the requirements for research was “NO WIKIPEDIA”. Her support in the platform took me entirely by surprise.

Paper 2 Final Draft

With this new age of technology there have been several positive changes that have come with it; the ability to learn something one had no knowledge of with a simple search, refraining from using textbooks in the classroom, worldwide connections from the comfort of one’s home. Technology and the internet have been working hand in hand over the past several decades, to bring knowledge and advance society to what it is today. However, there are downsides to this new age of the internet, several writers have ironically taken to the internet to voice their opinion on the matter. People such as Zeynep Tufekci who is an associate professor at UNC School of Information and Library Sciences and a writer for the New York Times; Roger Mcnamee another writer for the New York Times as well as an early investor in Google and Facebook; David Golumbia an associate professor at VCU and contributor to Vice News’ technology section Motherboard. These handful of people believe that while the age of the internet has been very beneficial to society it does have its drawbacks, such as manipulation. This paper will analyze the article written by Roger McNamee, and the strategies used to persuade his audience.

In Roger McNamee’s article he argues that society is being manipulated and becoming addicted to social media. One strategy used by McNamee to persuade his audience is the use of, analogies. The analogy is used when comparing the gambling industry to social media platforms, and the techniques used; as stated, “Borrowing techniques from the gambling industry, Facebook, Google and others exploit human nature, creating addictive behaviors…” (McNamee 3) The analogy groups the negative connotation of the gambling industry with the social platforms of the internet. This is done to persuade the audience to further believing in McNamee’s claim that Google and Facebook are no better than gambling, this helps to build the pathos in the piece as addiction to anything holds a negative connotation with people. The author doesn’t directly state in his article what these techniques are; however, he does link an article that does state the comparison of the techniques used by both. The article is written by Tristan Harris a former Google Design Ethicist and titled “How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist”. The use of this source allows for the author a shortcut in a sense, where instead of going over the different techniques and how they’re applied to internet addiction another writer has already listed them; as well as the other writer’s article helps to support McNamee’s article overall as it highlights other ways technology’s manipulation on society.

Another strategy used by McNamee is logos. Throughout the article he uses several pieces of statistical data, research from studies, and appealing to logical reasoning to his readers. The use of statistics can be seen when McNamee states, “How does this work? A 2013 study found that average consumers check their smartphones 150 times a day.” (McNamee 5) The mention of the study is to present to readers the amount of time that an average person looks at their phone. McNamee uses this study to also show the manipulation of the current situation, with technology, in society. Another place in the text where the use of logos is found is when the author addresses the amount of active people on social media platforms, McNamee states “The Facebook application has 2 billion active users around the world. Google’s YouTube has 1.5 billion. These numbers are comparable to Christianity and Islam, respectively, giving Facebook and Google influence greater than most First World countries. They are too big and too global to be held accountable. Other attention-based apps — including Instagram, WhatsApp, WeChat, SnapChat and Twitter — also have user bases between 100 million and 1.3 billion.” (McNamee 9) Within the paragraph the author uses several pieces of statistical data to show the large amount of people who use these social media platforms. While showing the amount of active users on these platforms, this also shows the amount of people that are affected by manipulation of these same platforms. Within this paragraph McNamee also uses an analogy, comparing the amount of active users of social media to that of members of the Christianity and Islamic religions. Comparing the amount of users to two of the world’s largest religions, further emphasizes the amount of people affected through the manipulation of these social media platforms. The use of logos in McNamee’s article further persuades the audience, as well as further supporting his claim that social media has dangers within it.

In the article McNamee cites several different sources to support his claims. One of these sources comes from USA Today. McNamee states, “Consider a recent story from Australia, where someone at Facebook told advertisers that they had the ability to target teens who were sad or depressed, which made them more susceptible to advertising.” (McNamee 7) In the phrase “target teens who were sad” there is a hyperlink to the article written by Jessica Guynn titled “Facebook can tell when teens feel insecure”. The article overall covers the data collection of Facebook’s users, and the use of the data to predict a user’s behaviour or feelings. This article helps to support McNamee’s claim that Facebook has too much influence, they are able to influence users based on their past behaviours through the data collected.

A major assumption made by McNamee is that Facebook, Google, and YouTube’s sole goal is to make profit. Though there is some truth that lies in that statement, the intent behind creating these organizations were to connect people and express opinions in a convenient manner. For example, when Facebook was created it was to be used to rate people’s classmates based on their looks. While, YouTube was created with the intention for people to share their home videos with others. By stating that these company’s only motivation is to make money isn’t a good representation of what these companies are about. This statement paints Facebook, Google, and YouTube as all bad almost making it seem that there is no good side to them. By not addressing the good that these companies have brought to society the reader is mislead in a way because they are only introduced to the money making side of these companies.

Though McNamee presents a well written argument against social media platforms, he does not address the counterargument for the good that social media has brought society. McNamee in his article does not have a rebuttal, which greatly weakens his argument as he completely ignores the topic entirely. Almost all of the article is about the bad things that social media and technology has brought. If McNamee did include a rebuttal it would strengthen his argument tremendously because is shows that he is not afraid to address the side of the argument that goes against him. Having a rebuttal also would help strengthen his argument and help persuade the audience, explaining why his reasoning is the correct one.

Overall McNamee’s article has shined a light on the dark side of the internet and the manipulation of it. The article is definitely relevant today more than ever as it is observed today that majority of people worldwide use the internet on a daily basis. This article has helped open a door of knowledge previously unknown to many and the techniques used to manipulate users of the internet, myself included. Overall McNamee’s article has strength in his use of evidence and the strategies used to help further persuade the readers; however fall short in giving the reader both sides of the argument.

Works Cited

McNamee, Roger. “I Invested Early in Google and Facebook. Now They Terrify Me.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 10 Aug. 2017, http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/08/08/my-google-and-facebook-investments-made-fortune-but-now-they-menace/543755001/.

Guynn, Jessica. “Facebook Can Tell When Teens Feel Insecure.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 2 May 2017, http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/05/01/facebook-can-tell-when-teens-feel-insecure-advertiser-target/101158752/.

Unit 2 Rough Draft

With this new age of technology there have been several positive changes that have come with it; the ability to learn something one had no knowledge of with a simple search, refraining from using textbooks in the classroom, worldwide connections from the comfort of one’s home. Technology and the internet have been working hand in hand over the past several decades, to bring knowledge and advance society to what it is today. However, there are downsides to this new age of the internet, several writers have ironically taken to the internet to voice their opinion on the matter. People such as Zeynep Tufekci who is an associate professor at UNC School of Information and Library Sciences and a writer for the New York Times; Roger Mcnamee another writer for the New York Times as well as an early investor in Google and Facebook; David Golumbia an associate professor at VCU and contributor to Vice News’ technology section Motherboard. These handful of people believe that while the age of the internet has been very beneficial to society it does have its drawbacks, such as manipulation. This piece of text will analyze the articles, written by these three authors, and the use of strategies to persuade the audience.

Throughout the Tufekci piece she uses several strategies to aid her in helping to persuade the audience to side with her overall argument, that the forthcoming of YouTube and other social media platforms are harming society rather than helping to improve. One of the strategies used by Tufekci is the use of “authorities” or “big names” this is seen when she mentions the former employee of Google to support her assumption of YouTube’s algorithm, stating “But we now have the first inklings of confirmation, thanks in part to a former Google engineer named Guillaume Chaslot. Mr. Chaslot worked on the recommender algorithm while at YouTube. He grew alarmed at the tactics used to increase the time people spent on the site.” (Tufekci 9) The use of an former Google employee allows to help build the ethos within the text as the audience is now more likely to believe the claims of the author due to the fact that she has has statements from a former employee of the institution to confirm some of them. Using the employee helped to strengthen Tufekci’s argument. However, adding his job description to her exposition of who Mr. Chaslot is, it further enhances the use of the strategy as someone who worked on the algorithm of what to have viewers watch next was frightened by the sheer amount of viewership on YouTube. This helps to give a better perspective of the situation as Tufekci’s audience seems to be an older generation of people as she states, “This situation is especially dangerous given how many people — especially young people — turn to YouTube for information.” (Tufekci 18) The use of the phrase “young people” imply that her target audience are the older generation of people and she would like to inform them, who may not have much knowledge about the internet, of the manipulation being done on these websites that are commonly used.

In Roger McNamee’s article he shares the same argument with author Tufekci, that society is being manipulated and becoming addicted to social media. One strategy used by McNamee to persuade his audience is the use of, analogies. The analogy is used when comparing the gambling industry to social media platforms, and the techniques used; “Borrowing techniques from the gambling industry, Facebook, Google and others exploit human nature, creating addictive behaviors…” (McNamee 3) The analogy groups the negative connotation of the gambling industry with the social platforms of the internet. This is done to persuade the audience to further believing in McNamee’s claim that Google and Facebook are no better than gambling, this helps to build the pathos in the piece as addiction to anything holds a negative connotation with people. The author doesn’t directly state in his article what these techniques are; however, he does link an article that does state the comparison of the techniques used by both. The article is written by Tristan Harris a former Google Design Ethicist and titled “How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist”. The use of this source allows for the author a shortcut in a sense, where instead of going over the different techniques and how they’re applied to internet addiction another writer has already listed them; as well as the other writer’s article helps to support McNamee’s article overall as it highlights other ways technology’s manipulation on society.

In Golumbia’s article “Social Media Has Hijacked Our Brains and Threatens Global Democracy”, his target audience leans more toward the democratic party and left-wing politics; this can be seen in the text directly below the title “The ‘social media revolution’ gave us Donald Trump and Brexit—and is making politics impossible.” Implying that the social media is what gave the election to President Donald Trump as well as the Brexit debate, whether Britain shall remain with the European Union or not. While democrats being the target audience, Golumbia also targets his audience with use of strategies as well, as he uses the strategy of exemplification as seen when addressing how “system 1” and “system 2” thinking are used to manipulate social media users, “It’s been that way from the beginning. Zuckerberg’s precursor to Facebook, the Harvard version of “hot or not” called Facemash, certainly exploited System 1, and Facebook’s News Feed does the same today.” (Golumbia 16) Golumbia addresses the use of information found from Kahneman’s class to support his claim, that most social media platforms appeal to “system 1” thinking and builds the ethos in the piece as the evidence he uses is being supported by a person who teaches these techniques and spreads knowledge to top company executives. This helps to persuade the audience of the piece as they are more likely to believe the evidence when well known reputable companies are mentioned in the class.

Overall these three pieces of text have shined a light on the dark side of the internet and the manipulation of it. These articles are definitely relevant today more than ever as it is observed today that majority of people worldwide use the internet on a daily basis. The articles have helped open a door of knowledge previously unknown to many and the techniques used to manipulate users of the internet, myself included. Each of the three pieces find strength in their uses of evidence and have the strategies to help further persuade the readers of each piece; however fall short explaining the evidence used and expanding on them.

2 Strategies on Tufecki 10/18

Throughout Tufecki’s piece she uses several strategies to aid her in helping to persuade the audience to side with her overall argument, that the forthcoming of YouTube and other social media platforms are harming society rather than helping to improve. One of the strategies used by Tufecki is the use of “authorities” or “big names” this is seen when she mentions the former employee of Google to support her assumption of YouTube’s algorithm, stating “But we now have the first inklings of confirmation, thanks in part to a former Google engineer named Guillaume Chaslot. Mr. Chaslot worked on the recommender algorithm while at YouTube. He grew alarmed at the tactics used to increase the time people spent on the site.” (Tufecki 9) The use of an former Google employee allows to help build the ethos within the text as the audience is now more likely to believe the claims of the author due to the fact that she has has statements from a former employee of the institution to confirm some of them. Using the employee helped to strengthen Tufecki’s argument. However, adding his job description to her exposition of who Mr. Chaslot is, it further enhances the use of the strategy as someone who worked on the algorithm of what to have viewers watch next was frightened by the sheer amount of viewership on YouTube.

Another strategy Tufecki utilizes is, the use of transitional questions. The use of this strategy is seen when she addresses the YouTube algorithm, “What keeps people glued to YouTube?” (Tufecki 8) as well as “Is this suspicion correct?” (Tufecki 9) The author uses transitional questions to present a common questions a reader may have while continuing through the text, as well as a way for her to further the piece and continue to the next subject. The first question is used to answer the common question readers may have after her previous paragraph where her final statement was, “The longer people stay on YouTube, the more money Google makes.” (Tufecki 7) This would help to strengthen the logos in the piece as she answers a question a reader may have had after the previous paragraph, while still giving a smooth transition into her next topic. The second question is used to transition into a rebuttal to that argument in a way; the argument questioning the truth of her statement that it’s YouTube’s algorithm that has viewers stuck. The rebuttal helps to strengthen her argument because it addresses a counter argument to which she states that much of the data, of her suspicion of YouTube’s algorithm, is scarce yet she finds bits and pieces of information from a former employee to confirm her suspicions.