I have made some notable adjustments to my website ahead of both the peer review and second round of feedback from our TA Lauren. I added a recent posts section to my homepage, updated the featured posts section and have done some initial alt text adjustments to the photos across the website.
It took me a while to figure out how to put a recent posts section onto my homepage. Since my homepage runs on Elementor, it was only possible to add in a recent posts section if I had Elementor Pro—which I was definitely not paying for. I could have used some html coding but I have never took a comp-sci course in my life so I was also not going to go down that route. Instead, I was able to add a recent posts section from the WordPress side and that fit the glove perfectly! I was able to display both my public posts and my Pub 101 posts that have dates to clearly show when they were posted. I feel like Lauren would definitely appreciate this when she’s grading my work…
For my featured posts page, I looked to Lauren’s feedback from round one and she told me it would be nice to have the titles of the posts under the featured posts photos. Initially, I did it that way because I was struggling to add text under the images, but through some careful trial and error, I was able to figure it out! And I have to say, it looks much clearer now as to which image belongs to which Tess Drives post. I also updated the three posts to reflect more current posts that my viewers may be interested in. The difference between recent posts and featured posts is that the recent posts are chronologically ordered from oldest to newest and featured posts are random posts to catch the attention of readers.
Last but not least, I had some free time to add some alt text to most of my images on my website. It was a pretty simple process, I just had to go into WordPress and go to my media library and individually choose the photos to add alt text. I found it odd that on the public facing side of things, you can’t actually view the alt text without using the “inspect” function. I guess I was expecting something similar to Twitter’s alt text where you can click into the “ALT” badge and view the alt text from there. I like this touch, I am going to see if there’s a plugin I can install to my website to have alt text show like that.
Upon landing on the homepage of the website, it was interesting to see that Stephanie chose Weebly to design her website instead of WordPress. I like this ambitious move as it shows that she is courageous enough to step away from the status quo and make her website stand out more.
Stephanie does a really great job setting the scene for her website viewers, she has “Fashion & Lifestyle” in large white text and a Louis Vuitton monogram background as contrast. It is extremely clear what the website will be about just based off a few seconds on the homepage.
I love how minimal her menu bar is and it has only the important tabs needed such as “Home,” “About,” “Public Content,” and “Pub 101” with a drop-down menu for Public Content and Pub 101. It makes it super easy to identify and navigate through the website.
Lastly, on her “About” page, I love how it has a “collage-style” aesthetic showcasing her personal photos, a biography, and her social handles.
What needs some improvement
I noticed on her website she had two buttons that were not linked to pages correctly. The first one being the “read more” button on her homepage and the second one being the “Pub 101” tab on the menu bar. I would suggest her to go back and properly link these pages as it is common for users to expect these to be functional buttons
Although I did like the use of the Louis Vuitton background, I would suggest Stephanie to use a higher quality photo. It is evident that the image has not been optimized for the website and it is quite distracting visually since it is the background for all her pages and content on the website.
Lastly, I would change the logo/website name on the top left corner from Stephanie Gorwill to the actual name of her website (supposedly SwagFashionBlog?) as it is confusing whether the website is a personal blog or a fashion blog.
Content
What works well
Going into her public content, it is great to see that my initial impressions of a fashion blog is carried over to her content, it is exactly what users like me expected.
Stephanie has gone with the approach of choosing fashion items that she has personally purchased and giving her overall review of the item. She does a great job with this by even comparing the items to similar products like she did with her blog post called “The Aritzia Super Puff” where she compared this product to a similar product offered by Canada Goose.
It was also great to see that Stephanie reviewed some products that were unisex such as the Artizia Superpuff and the Nike Mercurial Superfly 6 Elite AG-PRO Fast AF – ‘Total Orange/Black/Volt’ (wow that’s a mouth full! haha).
What needs some improvement
One of the main aspects Stephanie can focus on is perhaps making her blog posts a little longer. I noticed that each blog post was only around 200 words. As a reader who is interested in the content, it was a little disappointing when I reached the end as I had so many questions that Stephanie probably could have addressed if she wrote more!
While this sound knit picky or outright annoying, I did find one typo in Stephanie’s website in her blog post called “Coach Mini Charlie Backpack in Pebble Leather Black” specifically the line “If you’re on the market looking to purchase a mini backpack…” This probably should be changed to “in” rather than “on.”
Marketability to Intended Audience
What works well
As mentioned earlier, I love how the theme of fashion is clearly portrayed to the audience and is consistent across both her design elements and content. As a person who is into both streetwear and luxury goods, it is great that Stephanie does not limit her audience by only producing content to one specific gender or one specific fashion category. This will allow her to gain more traffic on her website.
What needs some improvement
While Stephanie does a great job of listing her social media handles in her “About” page, it would have been nice if she was able to link her profiles to each handle. In addition, it seems like she has given her personal Instagram and Facebook profiles as her Instagram is on private and the Facebook profile requires you to add her as a friend. I believe these should be listed under a “contact us” page rather than the social media handles as these two platforms do not relate to her fashion content.
Knitting After Hours is a fantastic blog by Lily that is centered around the creator’s interests such as cooking and knitting. The About Me page eloquently captures the tone and subject matter of the titular blog. However, one aspect I would like to pay great attention to is the personal anecdotes Lily articulates. These personal details are a great touch that effectively conveys the personality behind the Knitting After Hours blog to the audience. Additionally, this personal approach lends credence to the assertions of Tom Critchlow in regard to digital gardening. For example, as cited in our Tanya Basu course reading: “with blogging, you’re talking to a large audience,” he says. “With digital gardening, you’re talking to yourself. You focus on what you want to cultivate over time” (Basu, 2020). Knitting After Hours captures the sense of a digital garden that Lily is fostering for both them and their larger audience. This is exemplified on the About Me page when Lily outlines how cooking and knitting helps them stay focused when conducting their academic responsibilities. It can be inferred that Lily wants to strive to achieve a better schoolwork ethic since it is mentioned on their About Me page that they “put off” assignments and readings. Thus cooking and knitting are great outlets to promote a better work ethic. This instance showcases how these interests help instill balance in their life. Therefore, Knitting After Hours serves as a digital garden that Lily can use to help cultivate better improvements in their life.
Brendan’s website, Moda Web, is a blog about fashion and the fashion industry. The chosen audience is very specific and the website seems to be doing a great job catering to people who care about what is happening in the fashion and design world. Brendan’s blog contains posts about runway fashion shows, the creative minds behind haute couture, as well as new products in the fashion industry. They seem to have an eye for fashion and creativity because their blog has a very minimalistic look, but still somehow looks super neat and modern. The black and white look gives the website a contrasting but welcoming feel that I as the viewer very much like.
Brendan’s posts revolve around the world of fashion is very lucky for those certain people looking to keep up to date with all that is happening in the fashion industry. Since the blog is all about the fashion world, it would only make sense that Brendan’s targeted audience is people wanting to keep up with everything in fashion or people that are generally interested in fashion.
The website definitely caters to its chosen and very specific demographic especially since in one of the posts it mentions the use of Google Analytics (which by the way is a great way to figure out who your audience is and how to engage more with them). If I were someone who wants to keep up with the world of the fashion industry and see what is happening around the world, Brendan’s website is definitely the place where I would look and depend upon to keep me up to date.
While going through the website and getting lost in all the posts about the fashion world, I found some ways that the website could be improved. Well, to begin with, it would be nice to have an accessibility feature so that everyone and anyone interested in fashion can access Brendan’s blog without difficulty or inconvenience. Another thing that would be nice to see would be a little bit more about the author in the “About” section of the blog because as of right now it only tells the audience about the website (which is absolutely fabulous), but it would be great to get to know a bit more about the genius behind the blog.
Besides my minor suggestions, Moda Web is an absolutely amazing and fabulous place to visit and keep in mind if you want to stay up to date with the world of the fashion industry and everything fashionable.
Rabbit holes, after rabbit holes, after rabbit holes, so many rabbit holes that I have no idea where I should begin. Everyone falls down a rabbit hole once or twice… or thrice (for some of us that is a daily occurrence). Rabbit holes sometimes seem like never-ending spirals that we sometimes fall down because we were looking for something specific and like five hours later, we realize we have no idea what we are doing and how we ended up in that position.
Rabbit holes are a blessing and a curse. Rabbit holes are a great way to keep up with modern trends, and get your name and online persona out into the world of the internet, also you can get inspiration for crafts and your own posts from the deepest parts of the internet. However, it is essential to not forget the best part of getting lost in rabbit holes which is that IT IS SO MUCH FUN!
Getting lost in rabbit holes is an absolute blast because, in the beginning, you are looking for a recipe on how to perfectly cook scrambled eggs and the next thing you know, you are trying to figure out why elephants are grey. I honestly love escaping into the depths of rabbit holes because it is so easy to get lost and learn new things, and my personal favourite reason would be that you get to kill some free time that you did not know what to spend doing.
However, every coin has two sides and the other side of rabbit holes is an absolute curse. I know I mentioned that I love wasting my time surfing the web for random nonsense as well as random knowledge, but that is also the disadvantage of rabbit holes. Rabbit holes are never ending spirals of articles after articles after articles. Most of the time I will have stuff to do and tasks to make off my checklist, but instead, I end up sitting on the couch and surfing the web for no reason and getting sucked into a rabbit hole that I would rather not escape.
No matter what you think of rabbit holes, they are a part of many peoples’ everyday lives and there is not much we can do. Sure we can limit our internet usage, but I would rather figure out the answers to random questions than get boring chores done. I guess that’s just my opinion!
In this week’s lecture, we’ve learned about search engine optimization and how it can help bring audiences to your website. Although talking about this concept this week, utilizing SEO to attract an audience had been always around to configure on Word Press. Moreover, utilizing the tags option to allow my website to show up at the top of Google searches is now one of my key goals in order to expand my website to a larger audience.
Before this week’s lecture, I didn’t realize the importance of using tags. I only added a few tags just for completion as I thought it was a requirement for the class. However, this is not true and can help my website to further grow.
As Genshin Impact is a popular game, I do not see that any of my posts show up in the search results. For example, if I try to search for a build for the character “Raiden Shogun” you will see multiple websites that are not mine but all with similar content. In fact, it does not show up even if I type “raiden shogun abysmal guide”. When searching for my website it only shows up at the bottom on the second search page. Discouraging, but this means that my website has a lot of room for improvement to reach out to a bigger audience.
An interesting result I got from one of my searches was when I searched for “absymal guides raiden” on Google. Instead of seeing my website show up in the search result, I found that the Posiel site was in the result.
This search result makes me wonder why my website does not show up first before Posiel. However, I will work towards changing this result so that I can have my website show up before Posiel.
With all things considered, having my website show up as one of the top search results on Google is something I’d want to achieve. However, considering the popularity of the game, I do understand that there will be a challenge. Nonetheless, it will not prevent me from working towards this goal.
For the last peer review, I had the opportunity to review Kobe Sam’s website. At first glance, I really like the website. Simple, yet informative to a degree where you understand what the website is trying to achieve. Even before reading the “About Me” page, the theme of the website is easy to understand that it’s about Kobe’s lifestyle and personal blog.
I assume that rather than having an audience to speak to for the website’s content, I see it more as a personal blog where the content is for Kobe to reflect on his journey through school and the skills he has obtained. In other words, rather than writing content for a set audience, he is writing the content for himself. Where people can learn from Kobe’s own life experiences. One thing that I have noticed is that the amount of content uploaded for lifestyle and entrepreneurship is rather low. For a website on a personal blog, I expect that I’d find more content related to those topics rather than it all on academics. To improve user interactions and have more users looking at your website, I’d recommend trying to post more content related to those categories. Since your life experiences are unique it can potentially pull the attention of a niche user group to expand your audience.
Something I have noticed on your website is that it was hard to navigate. Since your content is grouped by: “Entrepreneurship”, “Lifestyle”, “Academia”, and “About Me”. When I try to go look for a set of content like the mini-assignments, it is rather hard to find all the mini-assignments. Therefore, I do recommend creating sub-categories under your current ones so that it allows your users to easily navigate through your website. Furthermore, I have noticed that some of the titles on your blog are bolded while some are not. To keep it consistent, I recommend sticking to one style. Whether you decide to keep the title of your posts bolded or not making sure what you post is consistent is important for your website. Also, I do see that some posts still have the “Uncategorized” category set on the post. I believe this is by mistake, but make sure to confirm everything is correct before you make the post public.
Everything considered I find that Kobe’s website is really good. There are a few minor flaws but they are all easy to fix. As I believe the content for Kobe’s website is a personal blog based on self-improvement I do not find the means to push Kobe to write content based on what the audience likes. However, if attracting an audience is the goal, using tools such as Google Analytics will help to understand your audience better and to know what content they enjoy seeing. As writing a blog about your own experiences is unique and something someone else cannot write, I believe that Kobe’s website has a lot of potential for growth and to further expand his content to a wider audience.
Within the prompt of this week’s process post, I will evaluate it from the standpoint of a creator and a user.
Analytics have proved to be very useful for many to strategically develop engaging content to share. Back when I was active on my fan Instagram account I would use the analytics to discern that 12pm was the best time to post. Additionally, I was able to garner from engagement data that 6 images in a collage worked best for my theme. However, when I was working my co-op jobs as a digital marketing assistant — analytics rarely factored into any actionable strategies. What usually happened was that analytics were just to be reported to the bosses. Personally, I find analytics to be an insightful tool, however it should not inform everything a content creator does.
On the other hand, when it comes to my experience as an end user — analytics about me cause anxiety. It is a modern dilemma amid the digital age — that everything we do is trackable and is providing data to various companies. I find myself outraged when I come across toxic social media posts in my feeds. I ask myself: why is the algorithm showing me this? I subsequently block these accounts, however I fear that going threw that extra step to block toxic social media accounts is actually feeding the algorithms to show me more of these types of content. Additionally, I am a very private person, so it is always stressful visiting sites and handing out my personal information. I recognize that this is the digital world we live in, but it is definitely tiresome and even worrisome.
Within the prompt of this mini assignment, I have created this infographic to illustrate my online self.
It was very easy to discern that YouTube takes up most of my online usage. Even when I am doing something I always have a YouTube video on in the background.
Social media was also very easy to identify as a major time consumer when online. Platforms like Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram are always being checked. Whenever I bored the first thing I do is check social media. Worse then that, the first thing I do when I wake up is go on social media.
Next was gaming. I am an avid gamer so this was a no-brainer. In my free time I will usually be playing a multiplayer game like Destiny 2, League of Legends, Valorant, etc.
Penultimately, movie and television streaming services come up next. Admittedly, this use to be much higher; but in recent years my usage of streaming services like Netflix have dwindled. I mostly just use them to watch new episodes of shows. I rarely binge watch anymore.
Finally, web browsing is an all encompassing umbrella for general internet usage. Whether this be online shopping, researching something, etc.
This week’s process post prompt looks at data trails and tracking. In the early ages of the internet, data tracking was an entirely new concept. Google was one of the most notorious for this when they collected search prompts from users to improve their search engine. Nowadays, almost every single individual on the internet gives up their data in one shape or form—it is nearly impossible for you to not give up your data. Only those who properly do their due diligence may be able to minimize it, but not avoid it entirely. I will be looking at data trails and data tracking from both the perspective of my own audience on Tess Drives and my personal take on how I feel about data trails and the choices I currently make when I am on the internet.
Tess Drives’ Audience
I successfully installed Google Analytics on my website on November 2, 2022. It was a little confusing to get it up and running mostly because the instructions on how to download it wasn’t quite clear in lecture and tutorial. I finally had the “ah ha” moment when I realized the Google Site kit plug in had both Google Analytics and Adsense and you need to go to Google Analytics on the web to access the metrics. I’ve had to help a few colleagues in the class with this as well because we all thought that Google Analytics itself, was a WordPress plug in.
Here is a summary of some of the data from Google Analytics:
In the last 7 days…
Traffic
-100% of page viewers have directly searched my website to land on the webpage
-0% of page viewers have stumbled upon my website through socials (YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, or Instagram)
-61.1% of page viewers are from USA
-27.8% of page viewers are from Canada
-5.6% of page viewers are from American Samoa
-5.6% of page viewers are from India
-83.3% of page viewers view my website on desktop
-16.7% of page viewers view my website on mobile
Content
-Average duration on my homepage is 4 minutes 48 seconds
-13 page views on my website home page
-4 Views on my contact us page
-2 Views on my about page
What does this data tell me? Well, it gives me a glimpse on how well my website is being perceived by the public. For example, I can see that my website has reached viewers outside of my Pub 101 class judging that 61.1% of my page visits have come from users in the USA. Or, I know that I need to advertise more on my social media platforms to get viewers from my YouTube to head over to my website judging that all of my page viewers have come from directly searching my website rather than being redirected from my social platforms.
On the flip side, some people may find that I am breaching their privacy by tracking these kind of metrics without their permission. I find it odd that there is no automatic disclaimer from Google Analytics to tell my audience that their actions are being tracked on my website. Maybe this is because Google Analytics tracks engagement anonymously? I am unable to view personal information of specific visitors to my page, I am only able to see generated numbers from the tool.
So, is data trails and tracking wrong? In this specific example, I feel like my audience has nothing to worry about. Since I am not gathering personal information such as legal name, age, sex, or location. I am simply trying to learn the skills to create a website and to engage with my audience effectively.
On the other hand, large corporations — especially in social media — gather not only your personal information but track your behaviour online that is associated with your account info to target you with ads and suggested content. This has only come to light in the last decade where Facebook was put on the spotlight for unethically selling Facebook users’ information to third party advertisers in the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal (Confessore, 2018).
The problem with data trails and tracking when it comes to social media and other corporations, the agreement to give up some of your data is buried in thousand-word pages of terms and conditions—which the majority of people just scroll through and click “agree” and get on with their lives.
So I ask again, is data trails and tracking wrong? Morally, it is wrong. But I am no expert on privacy laws in Canada and the United States. To me, I feel like it is impossible to not give up your data nowadays because it has been so convenient for big corporations to use our data and make our lives easier through things like tailoring content online, Smart Home tools like Amazon Alexa, and productivity enhancements such as the Apple ecosystem.
It is evident that if you want to make your lives easier with technology, it will have to come with an expense of giving up some form of data.
Shay’s Opinion and Choices
Nowadays, data is key and companies are willing to pay millions for it. I have come to a point in time where we have become so complacent with giving up my own data to companies to make my daily life easier. For example, under privacy settings in my iPhone, I have nearly every app tracking my location because apps like Starbucks require to have my location tracking on to make it more convenient to locate the nearest Starbucks or to mobile order a coffee. It’s just so much more simpler to give these large corporations the ability to track me to fully benefit from their applications.
A more severe example of giving out my personal information is of course to the company of Tesla. I have set the Tesla app to track my location as “always” since my iPhone is the key for the car. Tesla has advised users to keep the settings like this to allow the car to unlock quicker when I walk up to it.
Something that may seem even more frightening is that I have basically given up my entire rights to Tesla when I am driving the car. I am currently enrolled in the limited early access full self-driving beta program where I have been admitted to use Tesla’s beta software based on my driving habits. You will see in the screenshot that I have included (Autopilot Review, 2022) that in order to use the beta software on the car, I need to “consent to the collection and review of on-going VIN-associated vehicle driving data while enrolled” – essentially, I am granting Tesla to not only spy on me while I am using the software, but they can spy on me and collect data from me while associating the footage with the exact vehicle identification number that was assigned to my vehicle. With all this in mind, I’ve thrown in the towel because who else can say that they are driving a car that is “full self-driving,” to me, it’s entirely worth it. Tesla is clearly using this information further enhance their self-driving software so that it can become fully autonomous and they definitely have better things to do than to spy on me.
All in all, I definitely could care less with how much data I have given to companies such as Tesla. I am able to fully utilize the $15,000 software upgrade to make my car drive itself and I am confident Tesla has better things to do than to spy on me online.
When thinking about analytics for a website, I always tried not to share my activity on the website or any data regarding my use cases. Sharing data always felt like a burden to me as knowing that the online space is not always safe, giving data to a website did not feel right. However, as I am building my own website now I can see that it can be very useful as a content creator.
Before taking this class, It never crossed my mind how useful it can be for content creators to receive data on the user’s use cases when browsing a website. Knowing how the user behaves and what works best for them is enormously helpful when deciding how to design my website. Furthermore, now that I am experiencing the content creators side I find that it can improve user usability just by knowing what parts of the website work and don’t work for my audience.
For example, little things such as how my audience accesses my guides can be useful information for me as I can design my website so that more popular content is easier to access. In addition, I will be able to tell what sorts of content works for my website and be able to get data on what content my audiences like. As someone who writes guides for a game, it is very useful to know what parts of my guides are useful for my audience and what isn’t. Being able to know what my audience wants to know about a character and how to build a character can definitely help my content in the future.
If I know that my audience spends the most time reading the different artifacts to build for a character, I can improve this section by providing a longer in-depth analysis of the artifacts. In exchange, I can shorten parts of my guide that people spend less time reading. Using tactics like this to improve my content can help further grow my website to a wider audience.
Although, I want to set up analytics for my website the process is not going smoothly. I find that trying to connect google analytics with WordPress causes a lot of issues not letting me set it up. It is an unfortunate process, but I do hope I can get it to work or have it work in the future If I do decide to continue to build my website as it can bring all sorts of benefits.
Please enjoy this video of League of Legends gameplay that I remixed into an epic gameplay montage. I found some cool free music and decided to add that in too.
I really like the last clip where I rekt my girlfriend in a 1v1:)
This was the week our essays were due so I thought I would lend this process post to that whole process. The assignment prompt was: “social media platforms are democratic“.
I approached this essay from the perspective of someone who is involved in the dissemination of social media content. Very rarely do I create or curate social media content so this was the best lens to analyze the assignment through.
I subsequently took a look at current events so that I could have tangible examples to share. The ones I outlined in my essay are Donald Trump’s social media communications, Kanye West antisemitic social media statements, Elon Musk buying Twitter and all the harassment he fosters towards other individuals, and the murder of Mahsa Amini in Iran. Please read the essay to see how I stitched these current events into my argument.
The research process was very smooth. I used the catalogue search in the SFU Library website to find my sources. I also used articles from news outlets to supplement the scholarly articles.
All in all the writing of the essay went very well. The writing prompt was great to work with so I had many thoughts that spilled onto the Word document.
The biggest hiccup I had was when I tried to post my essay to my website. Around 11:51pm, I went to add the essay to the website, but for some reason when trying to publish the post the website would stop working. I tried again three times but nothing happened! It was around 12:02am now so I missed the November 8th due date. As someone who struggles with severe anxiety, I instantly panicked and contacted the TA and professor to alert them to my issue. However, I then tried switching to a different computer at my house and was able to post the essay to my website. I suspect something happened within the cached data on my laptop. I do all the work for this course on that laptop so I had no reason to suspect it would not work when I tried to post.
So, my essay was posted 8 minutes late; hopefully I don’t get penalized for this unforeseen circumstance.
This essay will focus on the notion that Twitter creates democratic spaces for dialogue. I will be presenting a neutral stance by providing examples of why Musk’s acquisition may help Twitter to become a more democratic platform and why his recent acquisition may actually contribute to autocracy. Then I will ultimately conclude by supporting or disagreeing with these statements after presenting the facts I have researched.
Context
Elon Musk acquired Twitter Inc. on October 27, 2022 for $44 Billion USD (Conger & Hirsch, 2022) officially becoming owner and CEO of the social media company. The motive behind this move was to simply to create a platform that promotes free speech and to create an inclusive space for everybody.
Those familiar with Twitter and Elon Musk prior to the acquisition should be familiar with how active Musk was on the platform compared to other celebrities and influencers, specifically interacting with the public in both positive and negative ways (Figure 1, 2, 3).
The Good
Since Musk acquired Twitter, he has made it clear that he has a mission for Twitter to become “the most accurate source of information about the world” (Figure 4). In doing so, one of his main tools will be to revitalize Twitter’s “blue checkmark” verification to “democratize journalism & empower the voice of the people” (Figure 5). According to Edgerly & Vraga (2019), “innovations to [Twitter] verification appearance is needed. One option is to attempt to restore the value of a verification badge” (Edgerly & Vraga, 2019). This suggests that there is little evidence that current verified accounts are more trustworthy than non-verified ones but mentions that reiteration of the verification system is needed to provide better evidence, which is something Musk is attempting to work on.
Often, we find that news channels and journalists want to capitalize on mainstream media for personal gain without even fact checking their stories. On October 28, 2022 media outlets across the USA were fooled and quickly took to Twitter to post their stories where two random men stood outside the Twitter HQ posing as ex-employees immediately after Musk’s acquisition of the company (TMZ, 2022). One of the media outlets that got duped came from CNBC, who later posted to Twitter apologizing for the incident (Figure 6). “An important goal of factchecking journalism, correcting misinformation, is only attainable if audiences are exposed to, pay attention to, and ultimately engage with the fact-checking content – accepting its conclusion and participating in further communication (Kim et al, 2022). Media outlets only started to realize they got this story wrong after seeing the response and engagement from the public on Twitter. The public did not accept the conclusion gathered by CNBC and communicated that through replies on Twitter. Ironic as it is, Musk is targeting these exact incidences of misinformation that are churned by media outlets. Again, it is still unclear how he plans to do this but if he achieves his goal, then it will be beneficial to all Twitter users.
The Ugly
Musk now owns Twitter, creates content on Twitter and also consumes content on Twitter. It can’t get more autocratic than that, he owns the whole company and has the ability to display what content he believes should be highlighted. The biggest question now is, what is the fine line between free speech and hate speech? How will Musk act in an impartial way that truly creates a democratic platform for all users? “Freedom of speech is really not black and white. This is very messy territory. We’re dealing with humanity” (Davies, 2022). Even a Supreme Court in Norway found it difficult to decipher what constitutes as hate speech, “But what constitutes ‘hateful or discriminatory speech’ is rather broadly defined in this provision. The difficulty in defining such subjective concepts as ‘hate’, ‘persecution’, and ‘contempt’ is yet another issue” (Nguyên Duy, 2020). This will need more of an action-based response by Musk rather than a verbal one. If the Supreme Court had a tough time on deliberating on this, how in the world will Musk be able to tackle this? We will see how this gets addressed by looking at our Twitter feeds over the next few months.
Recently Musk announced a change to Twitter’s “blue checkmark” system to a subscription-based model called “Twitter Blue” at a price point of $8 USD per month (Ohnsman, 2022). He hopes that users will pay for the blue verified checkmark and be recognized as a trustworthy user. In true billionaire fashion, it seems like the CEO only cares about profiting off their users rather than trying to create a democratic platform organically. Jennifer Grygiel an associate professor and expert on social media stated that, “He knows the blue check has value, and he’s trying to exploit it quickly” (CBC News, 2022). It seems like Musk wants to see how this verification pay system will play out and make a quick buck off existing users, rather than tackling the real issue at hand, democratization of Twitter.
Finally, it is easy to say that Musk has a brutal track record when it comes to political views, lifestyle choices and his care-free attitude. All of this can easily be found on his Twitter account @elonmusk. Musk does not hold back and has many controversial tweets that I have outlined in the context section of this essay. In addition, according to a survey of 2014 people conducted by Preply.com, “2 in 3 of those we polled said they do not want Elon Musk to take over Twitter, though Republicans are more supportive than Democrats” (Zajechowski, 2022). Evidently, it is difficult to trust this kind of leader when it has been proven time and time, that he seems to take life as one big joke.
Conclusion
Now that we have looked at both sides of the argument, which one is correct? Well, I bet you knew this one was coming, but it depends. And it depends on how you look at it. For me, I think of it as, will Elon reach his goal of providing a platform that promotes free speech and power to the people? Well yes, eventually he’s going to get there. And he’s going to pay whatever cost just to make himself look good. But at what cost? How many people will leave the platform in doing so? How much hate speech will go under the radar? How bias will the platform be towards Musk’s liking? And what will Twitter become in the near future?
Another question to ask is, will the platform be authentically democratic? I doubt it. It’ll be skewed in a way that Elon wants the platform to look like and he’ll gather a bunch of lawyers in preparation if anyone tries to go against him.
In summary, I believe Elon needs to focus on what he’s good at, making cars and sending rocket ships up to space. There’s no doubt that he’s a brilliant person, but he needs to control his ego and step out of the spotlight by letting better leaders deal with democratizing Twitter.
Featured photo: Singh, M. (2022). TechCrunch From: https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/06/elon-musk-twitter-blue-verification-india-launch/
References
CBC News. (2022, November 6). Twitter users can soon buy a Blue Checkmark ‘just like the celebrities’ for $8 a month | CBC News. CBCnews. Retrieved November 6, 2022, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/twitter-subscription-verified-accounts-1.6642108
Conger, K., & Hirsch, L. (2022, October 28). Elon Musk completes $44 billion deal to own Twitter. The New York Times. Retrieved November 6, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/27/technology/elon-musk-twitter-deal-complete.html
Davies, P. (2022, October 28). Musk’s twitter: A platform for Free Speech or extremist hate? euronews. Retrieved November 6, 2022, from https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/10/28/will-elon-musk-s-twitter-become-a-beacon-of-free-speech-or-a-soap-box-for-hate-speech
Edgerly, S., & Vraga, E. K. (2019). The Blue Check of Credibility: Does Account Verification Matter When Evaluating News on Twitter? Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 22(4), 283–287. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2018.0475
Kim, H. S., Suh, Y. J., Kim, E., Chong, E., Hong, H., Song, B., Ko, Y., & Choi, J. S. (2022). Fact-Checking and Audience Engagement: A Study of Content Analysis and Audience Behavioral Data of Fact-Checking Coverage from News Media. Digital Journalism, 10(5), 781–800. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2021.2006073
Nguyên Duy, I. (2020). The Limits to Free Speech on Social Media: On Two Recent Decisions of the Supreme Court of Norway. Nordic Journal of Human Rights, 38(3), 237–245. https://doi.org/10.1080/18918131.2021.1872762
Ohnsman, A. (2022, November 4). Rupert Murdoch 2.0: How twitter gives Elon Musk the power to shape public opinion. Forbes. Retrieved November 8, 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2022/11/03/elon-musk-twitter-social-media-baron/?sh=a317f8b28739
TMZ (2022, October 29). Twitter layoffs hoax, duo posing as laid off employees trick reporters. TMZ. Retrieved November 6, 2022, from https://www.tmz.com/2022/10/28/twitter-layoffs-hoax-pranksters-trick-media-outlets-pose-fired-employees-elon-musk/
Zajechowski, M. (2022, September 12). Survey: Is free speech under attack? Preply. Retrieved November 8, 2022, from https://preply.com/en/blog/twitter-free-speech-survey/
Appendix A
Tweets that were referenced above.
Figure 1. Elon responds to a Twitter user with feature requests to be incorporated into his Tesla.
Figure 2. Elon responding to Bernie Sanders in a controversial tweet.
Figure 3. Elon tweeting out his political views to his followers in an attempt to influence voters.
Figure 4. Elon tweeting that Twitter needs to be an accurate source of information about the world.
Figure 5. Elon tweeting that the blue check mark will democratize journalism and empower voices of the people.
Figure 6. CNBC’s Deirfre Bosa apologizes for spreading misinformation on the Twitter employees who were fired on the job.
For this week, I decided to compile a tier list for the characters in version 3.1 of Genshin Impact. The rankings are based on my experience with the character and how I think they are valued depending on their kit. Furthermore, I do not own all the characters so some of the characters are based on what I’ve seen on how people have used the characters. Depending on how you use the characters some character’s rankings can change and can differ depending on the person. There may be characters with that you may not agree with the rankings. So please note that this is all based on my experiences with each of the characters.
Hey guys, this is your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman coming to you from Dressing Sustainably! I’m writing this guest post to inform you all about the advantages of creating your own clothing. During my days fighting crime in New York City, way before I was recruited for the Avengers, I would design and sew my own […]
One of the common misbeliefs that people have had surrounding the topic of blogging is that it is very easy to do. However, what some people do not realize is how much hard work and hustle it takes to produce quality and meaningful content on a regular basis; to design and produce visual content; and grow/find our own audiences. Since the beginning of this course, my experience as an online publisher has been both rewarding and exhausting. Earlier on in the course, our instructor Suzanne mentioned that when choosing a topic, it was important to protect our passions so that they do not become a chore since we would be producing content on a weekly basis on whichever topic, we would choose our websites’ to be about.
Originally, I considered creating a website about books. I am a huge bookworm and a fairly fast reader, but I was concerned that reading would become a chore as she had mentioned. Although I am equally as passionate about film as I am about books, I have written papers on film in a critical and academic format, but never simply for the enjoyment of watching and responding to it. In addition, I have always been torn between creating a blog on film, and this course ended up being the perfect space for me to finally take that leap. Thus, the concept of The Household Box Office began to take shape.
My inspiration for my website initially came about through my passion for film. Ever since I was kid, I have loved everything about movies and TV, including learning about the inter-workings of the film industry itself over the years through my own research and studies. The Household Box Office is my own virtual movie theatre that provides me the same wonderstruck emotions that I would experience from watching in a movie theatre but from home instead, especially during the pandemic. My website’s content focuses on mainly movie reviews, but I also provide suggestions/recommendations for movie and TV series in all genres, as well as generate post on upcoming film news, such as new shows, and other film related topics. I created my own graphics using stock images and online design applications, such as Canva and Photoshop. My website’s design is focused on simplicity for clean and easy navigation, while its’ appearance is meant to reflect the colours of a box office/theatre aesthetic.
The online environment that I have been envisioning since the early stages of my website’s development was to create an online community that was fun, open, and respectful for both myself and my readers/audience. As we saw towards the end of this course, we as online publishers are responsible for the type of content we publish and how our readers interact with our posts, such as on our comment sections. As publishers we are presented with the challenge of moderating our own comment sections and navigating social waters (Norman, Week 12, 2022). Although my readership is small, I have established a set of community guidelines in order navigate these challenges. Originally, I was going to not include a comments section, but ended up keeping them because of the importance of online publics. Publics are important because they provide a mechanism for how we construct our social world (Boyd, 2014), especially in terms of protecting reader identity. The use of online anonymity has both its positives and negatives. Online anonymity protects user/reader identity and often encourages them to participate more, however, it also allows for something called the “online disinhibition effect” where their online social behaviours differ from their in-person behaviours (Suler, 2004; Konnikova, 2013). By implementing community guidelines is one way to inform your readers about what type of behaviour is and is not acceptable or tolerated on your website(s).
This experience has taught me a lot about the process of being in control of my own content in terms of how I choose what my posts are about and how I want them to be presented online. As Audrey Watters stated in her article on “The Web We Need to Give Students,” when students create and have control over their own domains, it allows them much more say over what they present to the world, especially in terms of positioning and presenting their public profiles, professional portfolios, and digital identities (Watters, 2015). In addition, by giving students the control over their own digital domains enables them with the opportunity “… to work with on the Web and with the Web,” (Watters, 2015). All together, these aspects have slowly come together through the development and further refinement for what it truly means to be an online publisher for my own publication of my everyday self. Despite all the trials and errors, I believe I will continue to blog and further refine my online social presence. While I do plan to continue to review movies and shows, my future blog goals would be to expand producing blog posts beyond reviews and watch suggestions/recommendations. Overall, I have enjoyed creating my own little virtual space within this vast network of cyberspace.
References
Boyd, D. (2014). Searching for a public of their own. It’s Complicated. Wattpad. Retrieved from posiel.com
Konnikova, M. (2013). The psychology of online comments. The New Yorker. Retrieved from posiel.com
Norman, S. (2022). Week 12: moderating your commentariat and navigating the social waters. Lecture. Retrieved from posiel.com
Watters, A. (2015). The web we need to give students. Bright Magazine. Retrieved from posiel.com
Over the last few days, I have taken some time to consider and develop community guidelines for my website in order to try to further facilitate an open and respectful online space for myself and my audience/readers. At the end of this post, you will be able to find more information on what my community guidelines are and where they will live on this website.
Monitoring the Comments Section
In her article on “The Psychology of Online Comments” by Maria Konnnikova, she cited that “anonymity has been shown to encourage participation; by promoting a greater sense of community identity, users don’t have to worry about standing out individually,” (Konnikova, 2013). However, user anonymity can often create a disconnect between the commenter’s identity and what they are saying. By doing so, this may also change their social behaviour either for better or worse. This effect is known as “online disinhibition effect,” a concept originally coined by psychologist John Suler. In this course, we read an article by John Suler (2004) where he outlined six types of online behaviours that people engage in. It was most often seen that online users prefer partaking in the online behaviour known as dissociative anonymity (Suler, 2004; Konnikova, 2013). Both Suler and Konnikova draw from how the “protection” and or “freedom” of not being seen or known online for which enables them the opportunity to behave in specific ways that they would not normally engage in if they were face-to-face. There are two types of disinhibition effect:
benign (positive or neutral – e.g., feeling safe or open enough to reveal secret emotions, fears, wishes, wants, and or other personal information about themselves)
When it comes to commenting online, there appears to be an increase in negativing and or toxic commenting on social media and website post sections. However, turning off or removing comments also affects the reading experience itself because it takes away the motivation for readers to engage with a topic more deeply, and thereby, share it with wider groups of readers (Konnikovca, 2013). This is because of a phenomenon known as “shared reality,” in which our experiences of a particular event/topic are affected by whether or not we choose to share it socially (Konnikova, 2013).
One of the ways that content creators (or anyone) can try to overcome this is by creating boundaries, or by establishing community guidelines. Community guidelines are a set of rules and regulation policies created to ensure a certain standard of behaviour is implemented online for the purpose of creating safe online environments for users to interact within. People do have the right to free speech, but it is important to be civil even when others disagree so long as there is no harm to others in any form is involved, such as threats, hate speech, inciting violence, misinformation, and disinformation. I have chosen to keep comment sections on my posts so that readers can interact either with each other and respond to the posts, if they so wish. Community is about finding your own place within a collective world or group of people where mutual interests can be shared. There are already enough terrible things in this world without having people trying to virtually tear each other down in the comments section or on any online space. We have very little control over many aspects of our lives and the events that place within in, but what you can control is how you behave and react.
Here are my website’s community guidelines:
Be respectful of others and their opinions
Respectfully disagree when opinions do not align
Comments are welcomed and encouraged
Inappropriate behaviour will be removed and blocked
No self promotion of any kind
As of this moment, these guidelines can be found on my website under the “About” section titled “Community Guidelines.”
References
Internet Matters. (2022). Understanding community guidelines. Internetmatters.org. Retrieved from www.internetmatters.org
Konnikova, M. (2013). The psychology of online comments. The New Yorker. Retrieved from posiel.com
Suler, J. (2004). The online disinhibition effect. Cyberpsychology & Behaviour. Retrieved from posiel.com
