#NetNeutrailty

What is Net Neutrality you might ask? Net Neutrality is the principal that internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source without favoring or blocking particular products or websites. Basically Net Neutrality gets rid of the blockage that ISP is controlling. An example to give that can best describe this is very large companies such as Verizon have so much control over their users. They can limit what their users see and not see, and make it compatible for only themselves.

If a user were to google a word such as ping pong ball, Verizon can chose what ping pong balls show up. The huge lack of this Net Neutrality will allow many sites, and ads that are shown and get more spreadability than other more recent ones. This was a very interesting topic and it was interesting to know that this happens around us all the time.  

Picture Credits: http://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality

#FinishIt

For my groups unit 2 project we decided to go about the #finishit campaign. This campaign was found on https://www.thetruth.com and is a movement to spread the harmful facts on smoking in order to end it. Our group came up with this statement, “Our cause was the #FinishIt movement, which fights smoking by spreading awareness of all of it's negative effects on both the smoker and those around him/her. This cause was started by thetruth.com who describes their cause by saying, "THIS ISN'T ABOUT THROWING STONES AT SMOKERS. IT'S ABOUT FINDING AND TURBO-CHARGING NEW FUN WAYS TO DO WHAT NO GENERATION HAS EVER DONE BEFORE - END SMOKING". They say that by "KEEPING IT REAL" they can fight the lies and manipulation of the tobacco industry.” We want to be the generation to end smoking, and in trying to do so we created a video.  

We worked in a group to collaborate our own thoughts and ideas on what we thought would work best to make this video. We came up with four big topics and divided them each up by assigning one to each person in our group. I myself got assigned the topic of how cigarette butts are non degradable. After being assigned our topics, we wanted to discuss the main points, but also add some humor in them so the audience stays interested. I thought of this idea because I know many people get bored while watching videos on informational facts, so we added some small clips to keep them entertained, but still made it serious enough where we got our point across. I believe we each worked hard to come up with the video we made, and with that being said our main statement is “This social object has spread mainly through commercials and twitter and is unlike the ones we have studied in class. It is not a fight to be treated differently by a social public, or a counter-public movement either. It is continuing a fight against an industry giant which has hurt our country and world for generations. The smoking rate in the US has been decreasing for decades, 73% since 1980, but this movement isn't just trying to lower that rate further- they want to end smoking altogether. This is a cause we believe in so we made a video to support it and join the fight to #FinishIt.” Below I attached our group’s video. We hope you enjoy. 

Our Video Link-----https://vimeo.com/192370258

Picture Credits: https://www.thetruth.com

                          http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7604253-truth-initiative-prevent-catmageddon/

2016 Election

This year’s election in 2016 was the first time I have ever voted in my entire life.  I have never voted in years previously because I have felt I was not educated enough on the election.  Now that I am a junior in college and have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge on the presidential election, I thought it was time to cast my vote on my opinion. The first thing I needed to do was go online and register. I was nervous that I was going to get very confused in the process and just give up, but I used http://registertovote.ca.gov, which made it very easy. It explained the process of registration, and even gave a date that the ballad would be in the mail.  

After I registered, the only thing I had to do was wait for my ballad to be delivered to my home in California. Since I am from California, I have to vote from there.  When I got notified that it has been delivered to my house, I took a road trip down to California to fill it out. After filling it out and casting all of my votes, I felt really proud. I feel as if I have done my part in being an American Citizen by voting. I believe every vote counts, and everyone should do their part in voting.

Picture Credits: http://lwv.org/blog/election-day-tomorrow-0

                          http://registertovote.ca.gov

Black Lives Matter

In class this week, we have been discussing the topic of Black Lives Matter. In our recent response paper I decided to talk about it and go more into depth about some victims. Black Lives Matter is a topic that has been very publicized over the past couple of years. It has been shown on many social media sites such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and more. Many people want to see change in all of this because of how the lives of the African Americans matter as much as all of the other races.

I talked about the “The Rodney King Incident” that happened on March 3, 1991. A 25-year-old African American local taxi driver was getting pulled over from cops for going too fast, he refused and made a pursuit out of it. After not complying with the police he was brutally beaten, tazered, and repeatedly kicked. He was admitted into the hospital that night and found he had “11 skull fractures, permanent brain damage, broken (bones and teeth), kidney damage, emotional and physical trauma”. They later found out “The LAPD already had a reputation for racism and heavy handedness in the African American community, and they were sick of it.” All of this was filmed by a neighbor then was published which made many Americans more aware of this problem. After this incident many people’s eyes were open and wanted to see a change, but there were also some people who were on the police side.

After all of this research on Black Lives Matter I’ve found out a lot of information that I have personally never knew before. I have gain so much respect for the BLM community and have a new perspective on things now. I was never informed of this movement and community, so I never knew what people were talking about when this topic came up. I believe this movement is bigger than anyone will ever know. I think all of the stories and victims of this will forever be remembered. I would like to see this problem be solved in the future and would also like to see it be more publicized. 

Picture Credit: from http://hope-albion-historyproject.com/violence-and-policing/criminal-justice-system/