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Nerve

“Nerve” is a 2016 movie exploring an online truth or dare game that users either play in or watch people play. The watchers have to pay to watch, and the players earn money for each dare they complete. The game collects vast amounts of data from players, including their bank account information. As the movie progresses, the dares become extremely dangerous and it is revealed that someone died in the game the previous year. The main character, Vee, first tries to go to the police. The police offer no help, and the watchers label her as a “snitch”. All of the money in her bank account is drained and she becomes a prisoner of the game. It then becomes Vee’s mission to stop the game, which proves to be difficult because the game has no creator; each watcher or player creates a new server as they join the game. So, instead of taking down one central server, her team has to convince every single player to log off before they can shut the game down for good. They do this by faking the main character’s death and sending a notification to all the users that tell them they are an accessory to murder.

Adding “Nerve” to the DCI curriculum would allow for the Digital Consumer theme to be further explored. The movie centers around how the consumers of the game interact with each other and the game itself. Students could explore the type of online currency used and the amount of data that the game collects from users. We have repeatedly discussed that online media often collects more data than is acceptable or comfortable with users; this game is an example of that type of media. Students could also discuss the role of the watchers and players in allowing these dangerous activities to occur, especially with the growing prevalence of online anonymity. All of the players think they are hiding behind a screen name until the end when their real names are shown and they are “accessories to murder”. This aligns with our continuous discussion of “incognito mode”, which isn’t truly incognito; data collection is so much more thorough than we could ever realize. The assignment for the movie could be in a debate format, exploring who the students believe is responsible for any injuries or deaths resulting from the game. Again, since the game doesn’t have a single creator, the blame would have to be placed elsewhere, which would be extremely challenging for students to discern. This is similar to when we discussed the responsibility of the death of Mercer in “The Circle”. With big companies and medias growing and allowing users freedom of speech and action, there is an increasing need for consequences to be defined.

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Columbus Discovering the Americas Remix

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas and changed the course of history forever. In this blog post, I will present this historical event as if it occurred on modern-day social media.

TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJahnnju/

*Note: I also chose to paint Columbus in a negative light, not glorifying him in the way that many historians do.

 

In the Age of Exploration, Spain was the main contender in the fight for riches and spreading Catholicism around Asia and Africa. The land route to Asia was long and strenuous, so sailors began to take ships around the tip of Africa to get there. Columbus, a navigator, sought to sail west around the Atlantic instead of having to sail around Africa to get to Asia. He had to find someone to fund his expedition, and after being denied by Portugal and England, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain agreed to.

Columbus stumbled upon the Bahamian islands by accident, thinking it was the East Indies, and quickly decided that the people living there were weak enough to take over, even after they showed him kindness and traded with them. His personal journal from 1492 states “They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things”.

Columbus established a settlement on Hispaniola, and enslaved many people, sending a present of 500 slaves to Isabella, who was terrified. He returned to the Americas several times until he was arrested for decimating and enslaving the Taino population. His journal describes of this experience “With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want”.

Columbus died in 1506 after returning from his final trip to the Americas. He is often remembered as a hero for Spain and the person that led to America’s great success as a colony, but we need to rewrite this narrative. His “Columbian Exchange” took people and goods, and gave them in return disease and devastation. We must remember the indigenous people that lost their land and homes to him.

This assignment reminded me of the many readings we have done in class about scholarship expanding online, but specifically “In Public: The Shifting Consequences of Twitter Scholarship”. Obviously, my post is more of a humorous version of this, but the way that students and scholars can learn and spread knowledge is changing rapidly. I gave a brief synopsis of the story of Columbus stumbling upon the Bahamas in a few short tweets, so why shouldn’t researchers be able to post their findings on Twitter for the rest of the world to read and comment on?

References:

https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/christopher-columbus

“In Public: The Shifting Consequences of Twitter Scholarship.”

 

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Snapchat’s Privacy Policy

Snapchat collects typical data that you provide them upfront, such as your name, username, password, email address, phone number, and date of birth. They can share information such as your name, username, Snapcode and profile pictures with their business partners and affiliates, as well. If you use “commerce services”, you may provide your credit or debit information and also the account connected. They also see our Snaps and Chats, so be cognizant that they can see everything we send. They collect data regarding how we interact with certain ads or filters, and any custom stickers that we make. They collect information about the device we use Snapchat on, such as what other apps we have installed, our IP address, network connections, and location. Even as I am viewing their privacy policy, they can access what websites I went to before and after theirs. They collect and disperse information about us between third parties and advertisers, as well. They basically use all this information to tailor ads to us specifically, and improve their services. They have a section in the policy that says that you may opt out of certain information services, but then say that you may use “full functionality” when you do this. 

Reading the privacy policy made me think back to the article read called “Policy Matter Now and in the Future”. One of the quoutes from this article particularly struck me: “Even as you read this, data about you is being collected, packaged, shipped and sold all over the world”. Everything we do online can be monitored and collected somehow, because of the fine-print of policies we agree to. Snapchat “collects, packages, and ships” our information to advertisers and business affiliates.

I interviewed my roommate about Snapchat’s privacy policy to get a teenager’s perspective on the use of our information.

"Ok, so I have here with me my roommate Laney, Laney do you use Snapchat?"

"Yes"

"And so, I had you read the privacy policy for Snapchat, right?"

"Yes"

"Did anything shock you when you read it?"

"Just that they could take information like after we're on the app, like from our phones"

"And did anything not surprise you? Like did you know Snapchat did any of this?"

"I kind of figured that they were using our information, I feel like a lot of social media websites do that, so that wasn't shocking, just that after we're on the app that they can track what we're doing"

"So they do lay out an option to opt out of certain information services, do you think you'll do this after reading the privacy policy?"

"Probably, I feel like it's a little bit of an invasion of privacy, though I know most social media websites probably do the same things"

"And do you think you'll change the things that you send over Snapchat after reading the privacy policy?"

"I don't really send anything over Snapchat that I really care if they see, so probably not."

"Ok, thank you!"

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S8755461511000673

https://www.snap.com/en-US/privacy/privacy-policy

 

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Stalking My Professors

From my research about my professors, it seems like Professor Abdoney and Teaff most likely have a specific filter bubble. Their posts align with left-wing views, so they probably get a lot of those types of advertisements. Professor Abdoney also probably gets lots of advertisements geared towards outdoorsy, family-oriented people, and Professor Teaff probably gets lots of ads about theater, books, and art. The fact that they have such specific Internet profiles most likely prevents them from seeing posts from people with views contrary to their own.

After seeing how much I can find out about people that I only know through a professional setting, I may consider trying to clean up everything I have about myself on the Internet, and keep my profiles on private. Obviously we were given permission to go digging through our Professors’ pasts, but normally this would not be something I would want people doing to me.

Professor Abdoney seems to be your typical free-spirited librarian type. She posts lots of flowers, sewing, and artsy pictures. From her twitter posts, she seems to lean towards the liberal side. She is very involved in digital pedagogy conferences and is constantly learning more about digital culture. 

Professor Teaff is more of a mystery. Her Facebook is chock-full of birthday wishes and posts about books, but other than that, she doesn’t have too much personal information. She supports the LGBTQ+ community, and is a liberal and supports the #resist movement.

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One Day of Web Interactions

Especially in the context of the worldwide pandemic, I am essentially dependent on the Internet for both communication and coursework. All my classes are virtual, and therefore all my assignments are as well. Between homework and socializing, I play random games or Snapchat out of boredom. Because of the quick and easy availability of the Internet, I am pretty much on my phone constantly. It is so easy to pick up the phone and be on the Internet within seconds, it has almost turned into a compulsion (as you can see below). This compulsion reminds me of the Black Mirror episode Nosedive that we watched recently. Although we have not progressed quite as far with that type of ranking and social media, I am similar to Lacie in that I am almost addicted to my phone and feel uncomfortable without it. I have included a picture of my desktop to show how I do multiple things on the Internet at one time because I can’t sit still.

11:30 am – 12 pm: TikTok, Snapchat

12:30 pm – 12:40 pm: Instagram, Snapchat

1 pm – 2:20 pm: iMessage, Snapchat, Canvas, Google Scholar (and various articles for Biology research)

2:20 pm – 3:20 pm: Podcast, iMessage, Instagram, 2048 game, Snapchat

3:20 pm – 4:10 pm: Reading for DCI, Padlet, Snapchat

4:10 pm – 5 pm: Netflix, Snapchat, iMessage

5 pm – 5:30 pm: Zoom, Google Drive, Slack, Canvas

5:30 pm – 7:20 pm: Netflix, Snapchat,, 2048 game, iMessage

7:30 pm – 8 pm: Spotify, Snapchat

8 pm – 9 pm: iMessage, Snapchat

9 pm – 10:30 pm: Snapchat, Instagram

10:30 pm – 10:45 pm: TikTok

10:45 pm – 11 pm: Netflix, 2048 game, WordPress

11 pm – 12:30 am: FaceTime

Wright, Joe. Nosedive. 2016. www.imdb.com, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/.

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