The internet is the single most important invention and pinnacle of information that humanity has ever been able to create. It stores the total sum of thousands of years human knowledge in a place that is easily accessible at all times to all people. One google search pulls of billions of results in a fraction of a second. It’s not only useful for learning information, but also communicating instantly across the world. The Internet is the most successful form of mass media communication because it allows unrestricted communication between large groups of people. Almost every city on our world now has Internet connection and is a fundamental part of daily life of most people across the globe.
While the internet is the best tool ever created in human history, it can be argued that it is simultaneously the most formidable and dangerous weapon to have ever been produced. In most cases, you can no longer get by in this world by avoiding contact with the internet, and because of this, so much of our information is stored on the far reaches of the internet and is used in ways we did not authorize or consent to. While it is a massive breach in privacy for this to happen, we are just as at fault as the big company that used our data against our will. This is because we freely gave it to them, we gave them the weapon they used against us.
As I sit here in study hall writing this, I look around throughout this crowded room at people on their laptops or phone (or a combination of both) and think about the information they are giving out right this second to the internet that they wouldn’t feel comfortable giving out to a person sitting in front of them. Even something as innocent as watching a YouTube video exposes so much information about someone. What they like, what they dislike, their interests, their passions, what they are learning at school, things they do in their free time, how likely they are to click on ads, or how vulnerable they are to ads all together. These questions and so many more can be answered by a quick glance at their YouTube statistics. Just imagine the information you can get from someone’s complete search history.
So this begs the question, is my relationship with technology a toxic or a healthy one? In my opinion, my relationship with technology is not toxic, but as it is for everyone in my position, it is a guillotine hanging above my neck, prepared at any moment to fall down and change my life forever. I depend on the internet for entertainment, communication, and financials, as most people do. However, I make an active attempt to minimize my time on the internet weekly so i can keep a hand on my “screen time” to prevent this relationship to slip into toxicity as it has for many people. As talked about previously, all of humanities information ever produced, is accessible on the internet, including true and false information. Finding the truth is simultaneously the easiest it has ever been but also so incredibly difficult that it at times seems impossible. The same reason why the internet is so useful and why it can be so incredibly problematic and dangerous, anyone can use it.
China’s social credit system is a prime example of how the more advanced our technology gets, the more privacy we lose. China has created a program that utilizes china’s abundant amount of security camera around the country to keep track of its citizens and determine how good of a human they are based on how they behave within society. Depending on how deviant you are within society, you can even receive travel bans and being forbidden into specific locations. This program is the closest thing we have to AI so far and it shows how dangerous future AI can potentially be if used in this way.
AI, once created will be the most useful and intelligent thing ever to have existed, easily eclipsing human intelligence, and because of that, it will be horribly dangerous. If an AI decided it wanted to work with humanity, or for it, it would be catastrophic, if it chose to see humanity as a threat, it would be far worse. Ultimately, despite the computational and functional ability of AI would be massive, it becomes a lose lose situation because of how polarizing its power is.
My digital footprint is somewhat large due to being in sports for a good chunk of my life and competing in a Division 1 sports team. My name, home town, and picture associated to HPU's Track and Field team's roster is pretty easy to find, making some other, more private information available such as social media accounts and my political affiliation. Not only that, but I am an active user of crypto currency, across many platforms, meaning a certain amount of my financial information is spread across the internet.
However upon googling myself in many different ways, I have yet to find any information online that I truly don't want being seen. From a young age I have been careful about what I posted and put out there, and that still is true to me now. Moving forward, I am going to start being more careful where I put my email addresses because the amount of spam and fraudulent emails I receive is starting to get bothersome so once I make a purge of all these emails, I will be more careful who and where I put my email.
Overall, I enjoyed Media Law and literacy and I truly learned a lot about the first amendment, especially how it works, who it protects, and its restrictions. I also learned about how much the government covers things up for the "sake of their citizens" and that you cant fully trust any news source. Using the information I learned in this class, I definitely feel more educated on my rights, and how to be a healthy skeptic and to keep my information private because it can always be used one way or another.
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