The Need of Collaboration to Save #NetNeutrality

To go deeper into what was briefly mentioned in my previous post, certain algorithms created by social platforms have really affected and diminished the Net Neutrality that the Internet once had or could potentially have. To begin with, I would like to go into detail about why net neutrality is essential to our current society's knowledge as well as economic success of the general public. This is a topic that I have become extremely interested in throughout this class but even more after having created a project on it. With an exponential growth in technology and amount of Internet sites, people have become much more aware of how much the information passage is being controlled.

On a surface level, it may seem convenient that Google provides to you, as an individual user, a set of personalized search results that most match you based on your previous searches and demographics. When one looks up Starbucks, they're most likely looking for directions to the Starbucks nearest them, and not the history behind it or it's stock market value. The real issue with these algorithms goes much deeper and is much more long-term. 

As mentioned in our #NetNeutrality project, powerful ISPs are the Internet service providers that provide means through which data can be transmitted from and to various users and technologies. Companies such as AT&T, Time Warner, Comcast are all strategically designed ISPs that have the power to decide what information gets through and what does not. With this being said, this lack of net neutrality allows for some websites as well as other type of sponsored and well-established information sources get more spreadability than other smaller or relatively newer ones. 

Source: arstechnica

Since I'm also taking Economics this semester, it was easy for me to comprehend why it's so important for there to be more of an open internet and to not have only a few, mega ISPs control information. In a market, the more competitors there are for a certain product, the more accessible the prices will be for the customers, it's the farthest thing from a monopoly. Eggs are cheap because of the vast amount of suppliers there are, but goods such as Smartphone creators are more limited, which is why Apple is able to charge so much and a company like Blackberry can so easily go down from a slight disadvantage. Same applies to ISPs. The less ISPs there are, the more control each one has over the information their consumers access - that right there is one big component of the Net Neutrality issue. For that to be fixed, new regulations or a reclassification of broadband must be made. 

Source: Access Smart Solutions

Up until this project and our group's exploration of #NetNeutrality, I navigated the web thoughtlessly and accessed sites based on the first three search results. Now, I understand that many congressmen, citizens around the world, our very own President Obama, among others, are imploring awareness to prevent the Internet from becoming too much of a limited resource. Our world is significantly more advanced than it has ever been before and it's only getting more and more technology-based from here. With this said, it is vital that the government and the democracies around the world start realizing what these ISPs are doing and the way in which they are limiting knowledge. As mentioned in our video, Internet access is basically a utility now and no longer a luxury. It is a necessity for business and consumers, making it incredibly irrational for big companies to decide what the rest of the public accesses.

Counterpublic vs. Public

Source: Newhouse

We are all very familiar with the word "public." A public is a group of people, anywhere in any form, that share a common interest. An example used in class were the people watching Britney Spears' outbreaks and actions. I can be someone learning about this celebrity, while a stock broker in Wall Street is also part of this public. This said man and I are very different and far apart in most aspects of our lives, but we share this common interest to learn more about this public figure's life.

We were recently introduced to the concept of counterpublic, which essentially the opposite of a public, in the sense that it's people that do have something in common, that being a misconception of their identities. Counterpublics are those who are misunderstood by society. They tend to express feelings of misrepresentation by the mainstream public, they promote alternative identity images to others, and criticize the public's discourses.

In a way, a counterpublic plays the victim in a public, but come together to fight the feeling of exclusion. The fact that this is a discussed concept, a vocabulary word studied in class, should entail that it is an issue to be addressed promptly. With the amount of resources we have nowadays and the access to the vast amount of information we can easily attain, counterpublics should not be in presence. Obviously, the world is imperfect and it would be irrational to expect no misrepresentations at all... but that does not mean there is no courses of actions we can take as a society and online community to reduce the effects of a public's formed misconceptions.

Source: @TheMovieQuotez

This interlaces with various topics heavily discussed in eSociety classes, including net neutrality and algorithms. Media and social networks have developed algorithms and filtrations in order to limit the information available to users based on their personal background and interests. Their intentions may be for the better or for worse, to provide the results that are best for them, to prevent disputes between online users, etc. For instance, Karen from Mean Girls has the common misconception that most people in Africa are dark skinned. In reality, there are many White Africans and inclusively, immigrants from all over the world are increasingly moving to this particular continent, contributing to an even more diverse population. But can we blame Karen? Africans are a counterpublic of the mainstream public who perceives them as dark skinned people living in a third-world country in poverty, wearing minimal clothing, living from their hunting and very scarce amount of water, etc. Movies and media show the general public a very specific idea of what is realistically representative of a very specific region of this continent, and they also choose to hide the section of it that's pretty similar to our society. With the control that mass medias have over what's viewed by the general public, it is inevitable that counterpublics will be formed.

Counterpublics are present in small settings such as certain sororities on our UA campus that hold a certain stereotype to a much broader, worldwide degree. Net Neutrality, as discussed in our Unit 2 Project, is one of the many things that could contract this misrepresentations and stereotypes. By providing the public with all the information evenly and fairly, all sources will be able to publicize their different kinds of information, leaving no one or nothing behind.

Lastly, with Halloween having just passed, I think it's relevant to bring up the recent controversy regarding some culture-based costumes shown below. Mexican, Asian, Indian costumes, among others have brought up a lot of talk. These groups are other examples of counterpublics who are misrepresented by Halloween costumes by the general public. In the image below, one can see how these counterpublics express disappointment and criticism, and also provide an alternative identity to who they really are.

Source: Rage Against The Minivan

2016 Elections as seen through Online Collaboration

This 2016 Presidential Election was the first presidential election in which many of my classmates and I were able to vote. As we emerge ourselves in our careers, extracurricular activities, personal interests, passions, and even professional jobs and internships, the election's results will have a discernible impact on our future. For those reasons, I found that online collaborations and social media played an extremely predominant role not just in my own, personal experience during the campaigning, but also rooted many of the parties' obstacles and successes. 

Source: Gagadaily

I'm not sure if it was that I had never been as interested and/or involved in presidential elections or if its manifestations and political atmosphere has actually drastically changed, but to me, it sure felt different. From the beginning stages until just a couple of days ago, social media platforms have been packed with political content, ads, news, and opinionated statements. For the past few months, I have also gotten to see the diverse opinions many friends and acquaintances have on sites such as Facebook (some more surprising than others). Although I'm not one to get deeply invested in debates, specially political ones and specially ones on public networks, I found myself very intrigued by them these past few months. With online collaboration, people from all over the world, from all types of backgrounds and experiences, are able to comment and argue their own insights on others' posts or even create their own. Through this, people are able to get a more constructive idea of what others are thinking and maybe even see issues through external lenses. This can be beneficial, since it forces those who tend to interact with others of concordant viewpoints to hear what others have to say. 

Source: The Harbinger Online

It is apparent that concepts such as personal political affiliation and opinions in regards of controversial issues are no longer withheld like they used to. A vote used to be someone's private right and views used to be more reserved. With such open social networks and the uncountable amount of sites available online, people are now more compelled to share their voice. They see one's opinion and their strong disagreement induces them to post against them. Although this sort of interaction may be good, I think it can and has already sparked many issues - among families and friends with opposing views all the way to cyberbullying strangers due to clashing views. I personally began to find this talk very irritating and have concluded that political conversations very rarely go well, specially if those that you're interacting with know you on a personal level, since your opinion is not as easily disregarded by them. For instance, I inevitably see a lot of Facebook friends with much more bias and prejudice based on how they view certain topics. This is not to say I have grown to dislike them, but now it's not just them and their personality I see, it's them, their personality, and that one really rude post they posted regarding x controversy.

Source: Newsweek

The potency of online collaboration and social platforms played an even stronger role among the presidential candidates themselves. Throughout the whole campaign, I was more informed by their personal scandals which the opposing party would truculently publicize than by their actual political propositions. Social media bashings and scandal-type news were preeminent in the outcome of the election. It is devastating that with open, social networking being such a key player in the campaigns, people have lost the sense of seriousness regarding the presidential elections. Whatever happens in the next four years as a country will be the result of what news such as Trump saying ___ vulgar statement or Hillary looking suspicious by doing ___. I believe this is vastly due to the way the general public and campaigning have begun using online collaboration by simply building on scandals (some more irrelevant to politics than others) and biased opinions. I must say, I do believe online collaborations during political elections can be beneficial, but it is hard to deny the fact they also contributed in the deviation of what the true focus should be at this time in U.S. history. 

Black Lives Matter Controversy

Black Lives Matter is a movement that exponentially increased after the Michael Brown incident. This event rapidly spread across social media platforms and with that, hashtags such as #BLM became popularized into a continuous movement (see article about other common hashtags here). Using online collaboration, these hashtags contributed in the spread awareness of police brutality and unity among this particular group. This is an open group that gets support from other races as well by using social networking to organize events and protests, to share live footage of cases to strengthen case, and to simply support each other as a community where many feel victimized by external sources.

Source: sfgate

With such a potent growth and effectiveness of this group, other out-group members have begun to utilize these “___Lives Matter” phrase. These include Gay Lives Matter, Unborn Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, and more. Some groups are using it for the same general goal as BLM, but others are seeing it through a different lens. With the rise of this movement, people have begun using “All Lives Matter” as a way of saying, it’s not just black lives that matter, but all others as well. For instance, a white male killed two cops this beginning of November and people on Twitter seemed to have noticed the lack of activity that would’ve otherwise skyrocketed had that been black life involved.

Source: thedrumnewspaper

With this said, it is apparent that the focus on #BLM has given a rise to this sense of skepticism. By focusing so much on particular out-group members, people have forgotten that it’s all lives that matter. In a way, using this phrase to create an argument against discrimination has created discrimination itself. Based on the vast amount of cases that have occurred where racism is evident towards black lives, I believe that Black Lives Matter is a great movement and has definitely been effective in raising awareness by publicizing all the physical and verbal abuse, as well as implicit bias, that exists towards them. In a sense, I feel that the movement has extended to such a far extent that other groups are starting to feel discrimination towards them. Instead of equalizing attitudes, it just shifted them from one group to another.

Source: breitbart

I don’t believe this hashtag is racist, but I do believe that the strong focus on #BLM has turned into a an implicit deterring from other groups. It is important that these Internet driven movements maintain rational and impede any disregarding of other races. The Internet and social networking are very strong tools that can be positively effective if done wisely.