Data Privacy

    In class, we watched a TED Talk about online privacy. This talked about internet privacy and how whatever you post on social media can be seen by anybody. This can also be known as your digital footprint, this is something that is permanent. Location information is also another way your information can be put out there with cameras put up around cities where police departments gather info on where you've traveled and who you've been with. These issues don't really affect me because I make sure what I post and do isn't bad or going to hurt me in any way in the future. As for my family, they are not really on social media besides my dad. For my friends I pray for half of them cause some stuff they put on there can really hurt if a job finds out about it or college. Ways we can protect ourselves are clearing our browser history, clearing cache, and saying no to allowing tracking on apps that ask or websites. The best thing you can do if you don't want to clear everything else is to power down your device once a day and power it back on.

Speech Theories And Eight Values of Free Expression

    In Media Law and Literacy we talked about speech theories and the eight values of free expression. What are speech theories? Speech theories are the eight values of free expressions these eight values help hold our freedom of speech. These eight values are marketplace of ideas, participation in self-government, stable change, individual self-fulfillment, check on governmental power, promote tolerance, promote innovation, and protect dissent. Out of looking at all eight of these values the one that connects to me is check on governmental power and the promote tolerance values.

   Checks on governmental is the ability for citizens to check the government for wrong doings. This value is the checking function of the First Amendment. This also allows citizens to know the abuses of power and then continue to do something about it at a protest or at election day. This value connects with me because the government does a lot of shady things and with this in power we can vote them out of office or protest them out. 

    The promote tolerance value is the power for citizens to exercise their power to make what is tolerable as a society and what is not due to the First Amendment protecting hate speech because as a society, we learn the valuable lessons including why it is hateful and worthy of condemnation. It’s how we spread norms about acceptable behavior. To better combat this action we came up with the Subsequent Punishment which is when the government or people censor you after the fact. For example, posting or saying racial things on social media like X is soon to bring you backlash due to people not tolerating it and could cost you your job or other important benefits if others see or know. 

    In conclusion, all of these eight values of free expression are important for all eight values tie into the First Amendment.  These eight values also help exercise the peoples' rights in order to protect them.  themselves from unjust and abuses of power that the government may pull. 

History and Workings Of The U.S. Supreme Court

    

    Things that I learned about the United States Supreme Court are, that year after year they get petitions asking the Supreme Court to act on Presidents defending their power as commander in chief, or prisoners who say they are wrongfully accused. An important takeaway from the videos is that it has become a model for high courts throughout the world but, the Supreme Court Of The United States Of America remains the most powerful judicial body on Earth. Another important takeaway from the second video is that in a legislative mind, everything is private and doesn't put all the reasons out in public but, a judiciary/court is all public and has no secrets. I also learned that the Bill Of Rights was put into place to protect citizens from federal powers while the fourteenth amendment was put into place to protect citizens from state power. The most surprising fact that I learned is that in all of American History there has only been just over a hundred supreme court justices serving an average of sixteen years and some remain twice the years decades after the president that appointed them has left office. Also another surprising fact is that they don't have record of the 1787 or the 1791 when the Bill Of Rights was added, they only have the Post Civil War Amendments and the Nineteenth Amendment. After watching both videos Supreme Court Pt. 1 and Supreme Court Pt. 2 it definitely changed the way I think about the Supreme Court because it's like there stuck there till death. I feel like they should rotate out every few years due to age. What's really good about the Supreme Court is how it took to power in gaining public respect for they deal with decisions on Civil Rights, Criminal Procedures, Taxes, Labor Law, and Business.  

My Top 5 News Sources

    With technology being how it is and having unlimited knowledge at our fingertips with our phones getting news is really easy. Especially through social media outlets like Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), and TikTok. This is due to the huge meta change to staying relevant and trying to appeal to all audiences. Without being said I don't really watch the news that much but when I do here are my top five news sources. 

    The first news source I use is TikTok. Due to TikTok's popularity majority of news outlets are on this app(CNN, BBC News, Fox, etc.). These news outlets aren't the only ones that provide news, there are various news that can be found through influencers or other users on the app. Although news outlets are on TikTok once you really are on TikTok and your content changes it's more common to see news from other users and fact-checking with news outlets vs. seeing the news post about it, then seeing other users/influencers post about it.

    The second news source I use is Instagram. Instagram has lots of news that goes around on everything local and non-local. More of this news is a balanced mix of news outlets and users/influencers. majority of the news on Instagram consists of slide show posts showing you more info and reels which allow you to post longer videos that give more info. All around is better for getting a lot of information at once whereas on TikTok it's the majority of minute to 30 second videos.

    Youtube is the third source of news that I get. YouTube is a good place to get news with various news stations on the website/app but there are also reliable content creators that talk about certain things going on in the news like penguinz0 talking about Hurricane Milton or other unique news that doesn't really make popularity until a content creator with a large following talks about it.

     

    For my fourth news station, I use CNN this is just one of the news sources I use to fact check if needed to from other sources. 

    For my fifth news station, I use Fox this is also just another source I use if I need to fact check information from another outside source if I need to.