Gallil’s blog

Dead Reckoning is an article focusing on the content the internet has, and how not everything users’ see can be trustworthy. The article speaks about four strategies that helps users avoid some of the bad content or help users figure out what they are really looking at. Strategy one focuses on trust and verification, strategy two focuses on, distributing economic incentives, strategy three focuses on de-prioritizing and banning accounts, and finally strategy four focuses on regulatory approaches. For the purpose of this essay I will be focusing on strategy three. In that portion of the essay it talks about how Facebook will censor or even go as far as banning accounts that they viewed were breaking their regulations to keep their site clean. Although we might assume that Facebook’s process of banning accounts and censoring content is important for providing a safe and enjoyable user experience, I want to suggest that their policies not only give the social media company too much power, but fundamentally challenge the first amendment, ultimately undermining the role of public discussion in a democracy.

According to “Dead Reckoning,” Facebook has claimed that they have “long invested in preventing fake-account creation” (23). This quote explains that Facebook was looking for accounts that circulated fake news, or that had information on the site that should not be there. Facebook later admitted that they are trying to reduce the effect social media has on people by taking down some of the information people are posting that are closely related to “low-quality content such as clickbait, sensationalism, and misinformation” (24). These issues sway both robotized content evacuation and human-drove content control arrangements. The principles used to settle on these choices to even consider being censured and too obscure to be in any way connected reliably. 

One company that has first hand experience in this is CrossFit. CrossFit is a branded fitness regimen that helps users improve their fitness and health. According to Techspot a main PC and innovation distribution built up in 1998 and CrossFit’s own press release, CrossFit believes that Facebook should slow down and really reconsider the banned content. In the press release CrossFit speaks about how Facebook banned Banting7DayMealPlan user group without any warning. Banting7DayMealPlan is a site users can post about healthy dietary habits like a low carbohydrate diet or a high fat diet. According to CrossFit, Facebook serves as a “de facto” stressing the fact that Facebook gets the final say in what is and is not shown on their site, which can become problemattic. 

What Facebook is doing can be problematic because CrossFit grows year by year by 166 percent, so when Facebook chooses to delete their information with no warning, it also leaves users to question what gives Facebook the authority to decide what is and is not allowed to be seen on their website. Although we might assume that Facebook’s process of banning accounts and censoring content is important for providing a safe and enjoyable user experience, I want to suggest that their policies not only give the social media company too much power, but fundamentally challenge the first amendment, ultimately undermining the role of public discussion in a democracy.  All on all Facebook should not be permitted to delete whatever content they feel like especially with no warning. Not only does it hinder users From their first amendment rights, it demotes their credibility as a good source of expressing whatever content users might want to express to the public.

Techspot

Facebook censors and removes user accounts based on unknown criteria and at the request of third parties including government and foreign government agencies.

There’s no recorded evidence of this, though in some cases governments have requested that Facebook ban certain accounts promoting hate speech. One such case occurred when the Israeli government threatened Facebook with fines if they didn’t remove a specific list of accounts Israel believed were promoting terrorist activity. Facebook removed 95% of them.

Facebook’s news feeds are censored and crafted to reflect the political leanings of Facebook’s utopian socialists while remaining vulnerable to misinformation campaigns designed to stir up violence and prejudice

There’s no evidence to suggest that Facebook is attempting to guide political opinion themselves

The Verge

•   Facebook censors and removes user accounts based on unknown criteria and at the request of third parties including government and foreign government agencies
• Facebook’s news feeds are censored and crafted to reflect the political leanings of Facebook’s utopian socialists while remaining vulnerable to misinformation campaigns designed to stir up violence and prejudice.

Wall street journal

• It seems that Facebook’s army of editors—and the algorithms that police expression on the social media network—have been particularly busy lately. And it’s not just political speech getting caught in the Facebook filter.

Crossfit press release

• De facto – the fact or in effect of being right or wrong 
• De jure – the right or claim by right just like the ( 1st amendment)
• Facebook deleted without warning or explanation the Banting7DayMealPlan user group. The group has 1.65 million users who post testimonials and other information regarding the efficacy of a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet. While the site has subsequently been reinstated (also without warning or explanation), Facebook’s action should give any serious person reason to pause, especially those of us engaged in activities contrary to prevailing opinion.
• Go to the paragraph below the one above 
• Definition of prism software 
•  

An article from Safety + Health states that, stress can be a major factor of weight gain usually depending on their workload. A study from The University of Georgia states that, “If your heavy workload leaves you exhausted, you may be more likely to engage in some unhealthy behaviors that can lead to weight gain,” they went on further asking people about their work load, they found out that the people that were gaining weight were emotionally eating. They also found out that their and exhaustion led to some behavioral problems causing them to go to behavioral therapy. 

When I tried to go upstream on the website itself there were no articles that fact checked the website. This means that the information can either accurate or inaccurate. Since there are no fact checks on the website the motion of moving laterally isn’t possible, there is no information for me to do so. One reason could be because this study is still recent so no one has done any research prior to the original website. This shows that the legitimacy of the website and the information presented is not that strong because there are no authors that take ownership of the information on the website, the fact that no one is taking ownership i am not really sure if whoever wrote the article has the credentials or expertise in this topic, and there is no background information or any act check about it.

In the article there is a link cited that took me to a website called Sage Journals. This is where the study was put together. According to wikipedia Sage Journal covers research on all topics of management as well as industrial and organizational psychology. Issues that includes review articles only are published biannually in January and July. In the article Sage Journals, author Heather Padilla further explains why people emotionally eat and gain weight. According to help guide the reason people gain weight while emotional reading is because people anything looks good when they eat emotionally, they eat mindlessly, and their hunger is never truly satisfied. Since the information that was just provided backs up the article from Sage Journals I know that the information is accurate and credible. I have concluded that the information that the information in Safety + Health is true because Sage Journals backs up and proves that the information is correct.

According to wikipedia The American Spectator  is a conservative U.S. website and formerly monthly magazine covering news and politics. The american Spectator was edited by Emmett Tyrrell and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. From 1967 until the late 1980s, the magazine featured the writings of authors such as Thomas Sowell, Tom Wolfe, P.J. O’Rourke, George F. Will, Malcolm Gladwell, Patrick J. During the 1990s, the magazine was better known for its reports on Bill Clinton and its “Arkansas Project,” funded by businessman Richard Mellon Scaife and the Bradley Foundation. The American Spectator has carried articles by Thomas Sowell,  a regular column by economist and celebrity Ben Stein, as well as former Reagan aide Jeffrey Lord, conservative health care consultant David Catron, and editorial director Wladyslaw Pleszczynski, as well as occasional articles by P.J. O’Rourke.

According to All Sides The American Spectator’s media bias leans toward the more conservative side. In the beginning years of The American Spectator, it operated as a newspaper with half-size pages. In the 1990s and 2000s, the magazine was published more of a modern format of a standard magazine. When it was more in a tabloid format The American Spectator began to reflect the appearance of the earlier days. Based on a secondary sources called AllSides, The American Spectator has a conservative bias in their stories, and most of the community who voted agree.

In review, “The American Spectator reports news with a conservative bias”(Media Bias/Fact Check). They use language to appeal to emotions such as The Death of the Democratic Party. In another article from their blog called Immigration: Trump’s on the Right Track. Through reviewing a couple articles I found some that were appropriately linked to credible media outlets, but not all. Reading forward I found that The American Spectator favors President Donald Trump the article, The Reelection of Donald Trump is a great example. After reviewing what others had to say about The American Spectator I came to agree with what Allsides said. To me it is clear that The American Spectator is leaning right towards the conservative bias side. 

Scrolling through political media like the CNN website, or even facebook, I found political controversy with the military regarding Donald Trump and John McClain. According to CNN politics, “The Navy secretary is urging military personnel to remain apolitical weeks after a controversy in which the White House asked for the USS John McCain to be kept out of President Donald Trump’s sight during his visit to Japan.”  Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney defended the administration’s advance team for asking the Navy keep him hidden on the USS John McCain during the president’s recent state visit to Japan, arguing the request was not “unreasonable,” (Ben Kamisar). As a terrible week ended for the longtime senator and Vietnam War hero, the president once again found a way to make his feelings known. The feud between the two men appears to have started in 1999, when Trump was asked about various candidates running for the Republican nomination in a “60 Minutes” interview.                                   

According to snopes In May 2019, news organizations in the United States said that the White House had the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force made sure that John McCain’s ship remained “out of sight” in time for President Donald Trump’s visit to the Pacific and speech aboard the USS Wasp at Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan. Through snopes The Associated press describes how the White House wanted to keep John McCain out of Donald Trump’s sight during his trip to Japan. They go further explaining the email sent from the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command official wrote an email to Navy and Air Force officials about Trump’s travel plans (The Wall Street Journal). In Conclusion the previous websites I mentioned before all published similar reports in May 2019. All reports were about The White House asking U.S. military officials to keep The USS John S. McCain during Trump’s speech. One of those articles relied on the email.

Fact check 

In the meme where it shows Former President Barack Obama is helping Yemen,Ukraine, and many other countries is actually true. In the meme it talks about all the many great things former president president Barack Obama for these third world, but only shows that President Donald Trump declared a national emergency (a state of emergency resulting from a danger or threat of danger to a nation from foreign or domestic sources), to aid Africa when in actuality he has no real intention to help africa at all. The meme also shows that Obama has a curtain smug look on his face with no flag behind as if he doesn’t care about America, while it shows President Donald Trump all high and mighty with a picture of the American flag behind representing that he cares about the America race more than Obama does. President Barack Obama helped the impoverished country that is Yemen while they were in a war with al Qaida his goal was to help them while they were on the brink to break up. Obama had intentions to “strengthen the partnership” (McClatchy DC bureau) after a bombing where a man was alleged to be trained a deployed by al Qaida. Like I said previously Yemen wasn’t the only country that Obama helped, Ukraine was just one of the many countries that is apart of that list. Obama was careful to elaborate that there will be peace and prosperity in Yemen. He explains that there will be hard work of diplomacy in places like Syria. He also emphasizes one of his commons phrases cautioning that in the Middle East will have no external power forcing different religious communities or ethnic communities so that they can live comfortably across the region, “we have to insist that all parties recognize a common humanity and that nations end proxy wars that fuel disorder,” (The Atlantic). 

According to the Los Angeles times, Barack Obama has provided roughly seventy five million dollars worth of non lethal equipment, and also supplied them with armed and unarmed humvees.  According to Medium, “President Donald Trump is actually hurting Africa more than it already is,” (McClatchy DC bureau) the article further states a quote he said saying, “…I have so many friends going to your countries trying to get rich. I congratulate you, they’re spending a lot of money. It has tremendous business potential, representing huge amounts of different markets…” this quote shows that Trump is more interested in making money then to help a third world country develop both socially and economically. The article further goes on explaining how he cuts aid to africa by thirst five percent, not only showing us how wrong the meme is, but the importance of fact checking showing us that not everything  you see on the internet is true a lot of is is fake news. 

According to Snopes Donald Trump refers to africa as, “lazy fools only good at eating, lovemaking,and thuggery.” On 26 October 2015, African websites posted articles claiming Presidential candidate Donald Trump made racist remarks at an unspecified event in Indianapolis. It first appeared on the 25th of October 2015. The article that published this story was Politica (not to be confused with the U.S.-based political news site Politico), which reported that Trump made the comments in Indianapolis. Once again, Donald Trump has expressed his deep disgust for Africans calling them as lazy fools only good at eating, lovemaking and thuggery. Speaking in Indianapolis, Trump who is also the republican Presidential candidate made sure his promise was known when he explained that Africans will be deported, especially those Kenyan including their son Barack Obama.

Now there were a few lessons I personally took from this. Fake news can be anything and I mean anything, it’s important to always check to see if what are reading is true or not. If given the time I would have went more in depth with what President Donald Trump is doing to help third world countries to see if he is taking any real action to find out if what he is doing is effective, or he is doing anything at all. I would also take the time to research what else Obama was doing during his presidency  to help third world countries. Like I said before previously the meme describes everything both Presidents have done in their own time, but it is as if the author of the meme is degrading what former President Barack Obama has done compared to President Donald Trump simply because he didn’t bring aid to Africa, which is incorrect. Barack Obama’s goal was to improve the living conditions for his people, he believes the reason why today’s United States of America thrives because everyone does their fair share and everyone receives their fair share. Now we truly see the importance of fact checking.