Social Media Changes Law

Instead of taking this the way that most people probably are writing this blog on the legal issues within social media (like how messenger can legally access your microphone at anytime and all times), I am going to talk about how social media changes aspects of the legal system. To get this point across I am mainly going to talk about #freeKesha. I think that this case is a perfect example of it, but realize that all the things that I talk about are not unique to just this case. So here is a list of things that are notable in how social media affected the case for Kesha beyond just popularizing the hashtag. Here is a good link to get a basic background of the case before moving on if you want.

1. Dr. Luke's Deleted Tweets
It has recently came out that Dr. Luke went back and deleted photos of Kesha from his twitter. The only way that this came forward was because someone, somewhere,had taken a screenshot of it for whatever reason and was able to show the date and time that he had posted it that he has since gone back and deleted. This is just more proof that simply deleting something off of your account does not mean that it doesn't exist anymore. Dr. Luke's sketchy slip-up of this is a perfect example.

2: There is a Gofundme for Kesha
One of the main parts of the case is that Kesha wants Dr. Luke taken off of her work and wants to be able to produce not only another producer, but outside of Sony, because Sony has done nothing to defend or protect Kesha. So some person just randomly created a gofundme for Kesha to buy out of her contract. There are a few notable things about this. We don't even know as a public if Kesha is even able to buy out of her contract. The goal is set at $2 million dollars which may be the amount, but this hasn't really been confirmed. Next, the person who made the gofundme even admitted that right now the money is set up to go to HIS account. There is no way to make sure or regulate that this money is actually going to get to Kesha and used for the purpose that it is intended for. This is also sketch, but a way that is really important for the movement as a whole that has been made possible and means a lot through social media.

3: Taylor Swift's Donation
This is in the same vein as above, but Taylor Swift has donated $250,000 to Kesha to help with the case. (This is a lot of money for someone who is already rich and affluent enough but that is besides the point) T-Swift did this very quietly and did not make a statement about it. Demi Levato and Selena Gomez have both opened up about their awful experiences that they have had which mostly btw has been done over social media. Taylor Swift has taken a lot of slack from Kesha fans and other celebrities for not making a bigger statement about the donation that she gave. The donation was substantial but the fact that it was under the table makes it look like T-Swift didn't want this to be a fully public donation which is harmful because she needs to loudly support in order to change the culture around this case.

In all of these situations, social media has significantly influenced this case, and the social movements surrounding the case issues. Again, this is not unique to the Kesha case, but also applies to many other legal cases.

Online Reputation

Well now that I feel like a super big creeper, let me tell you about the online reputation of Mikala Linhardt. So here is the story of the initial search of Mikala, so I spelled her name wrong at fist (I missed the "d" in her last name) and I thought that there was nothing, so then I hop on my facebook and find her and notice that we have five mutual friends (whoop whoop!) and that I spelled her name wrong. So once I got the right spelling the search was great! But! I still found two results where her name was spelled wrong. I know that they are her because later in my search I found out that Mikala is a JComm student, who went to Snow (I went to Snow too!), and the link with her name spelled wrong was an article that she wrote for the Snowdrift (where I was an editor a year later, because I would not have let her name be spelled wrong).The first picture to pop up was indeed Mikala! If is a cute picture with someone who looks like she is very close with her in front of a temple somewhere? Super cute pic! The next one was of her as well, this one was somewhere in South America so I assume that she like to travel?
 
The first link that I came across was her twitter page, which linked right to her page. Some common themes that I noticed was the posts for this class, #socmeddiscuss! As well as a lot of posts for #jcom2010 which I would also assume is a class that she has to post for. Beyond that it seems like Mikala has great friends and roommates that she expresses gratitude for and gives shout outs to, which is super nice.
The next link was Mikala's Pinterest, which looked wonderful! But what is notable about this is that once I saw her Pinterest and went back to do some more stalking the rest of the images that immediately pop up when I searched her were from her Pinterest boards. After that was an instagram account link, but sadly it is private so I had to follow Mikala in order to see what she posted. #notcreepyatall
Here are the two things that I found that were the weirdest for me to see, I saw that Mikala has recently (Jan. 8th 2016 to be specific) was pulled over/charged with something having to do with a faulty vehicle. Now, I genuinely hope that this is some other Mikala Lindhardt from Manti, UT but I find that hard to believe. This was the 5th link down when searching her name and Utah. But this public record gives access to her address and everything, which is why I am not providing a link, on top of the fact that I am not completely sure if it is her or not. Lastly, I now know that Mikala played volleyball in high school. This isn't too creepy, but it is still weird that this comes up in some of the top searches considering that she is clearly out of high school and the records are from 2011 or earlier.
Overall, Mikala's online reputation is pretty stellar. I think that there is no bad things that are found in top searches, and overall people would think that Mikala is a religious (temple pics, pics with the B.o.M.), crafty/in-style (Pinterest), funny (Twitter), educated (FB and Twitter), cute girl!

Collaborative and Distance Communications

So I have very limited experience with both of these things, but this will still be good I promise. For this weeks post I think I will focus/rant about the first things that I thought about with these topics, Wikipedia, Skype, and Spotify collaborative playlists.
1: Wikipedia. Wikipedia is pure gold to start an idea for an essay, or to just quickly look something up. I think that most students simply misuse this wonderful resource. While we all know that you don't cite Wikipedia in an academic essay, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't use it at all. I personally use it to get a base knowledge of a topic that I am searching, then there are sources that are linked in the wikipage! I then go to these sources that are usually something that I can actually use and cite in my paper, if not then it still gives me direction on where I need to be taking my research. I think that this is a tool that is misused because people take it for too much value (they think it is an actual academic source) or they don't use it at all.
Another cool thing about Wikipedia, is the Wikipedia game. This game is played when a group of people that have access to Wikipedia (whether through laptops or phones) and as a collective you decide on a wikipedia page that you all want to get to. The more random and obscure the better. Then for the first round you pick a page to start on. At the same time everyone starts pushing on hotlinks that are in the each wikipage to get to what was decided in the beginning. The first person to get to the page first wins. Once you have finished the first round then everybody just starts pushing links from the current page they are on. So for example, the group decides to find the wikipedia page for Utah State University, but they have to start on the wiki apple then click on links from there. The first person to get a link to Utah State University wins.
2: Skype. This is probably the one that I have had the least experience with, but I think that Skype is a really clunky app. Often times I find myself jealous of apple users because of factime, and I am sure that google has something that is similar that might work better. I think that skype (or any other platform that has the same capacity) has revolutionized what is possible. From keeping up with friends/family that are miles apart, to the business world, and even revolutionizing ways that collaborations happen in so many ways! I really appreciate it cause then I can visually see my nephew and niece growing up when I am not there to see it myself.
3: Lastly, Spotify collaboration playlists. I know that this platform isn't fully a collaboration platform, but it is the first thing that I thought about and I would argue that it is. At my work we can play our own music so I have made a work approps playlist that we can all add our music to. This way we can all add our music and have a good mix. There are so many music collaborations that are happening and while it is on a much smaller scale than on wikipedia or anything else, I still think that it is pretty amazing.

Location Based Social Media

My friends call me the 21st century try-hard, because no matter how hard I try to use social media and technology off the times, I end up acting like a 90 year-old women that didn't know the internet existed. This is only made more evident when I try to use location based social media sites. It absolutely blows my mind that things can become easier to look up, or that my social media is tailored for my local or surrounding area. The ones that I have the most experience with are Facebook and Yelp, but I will focus on Yelp mostly cause I feel like Facebook is always the example. I actually don't really like Yelp because I think that it is a pretty clunky app. It sometimes is hard to narrow the search for good food that is just becomes overwhelming and useless (admittedly this may be because of my lack of knowledge with technology). I like that you can get real life pictures of other people's food that they have uploaded because it is more realistic than any menu picture that I have ever seen. But back to convenience of the app. I mostly use this when I am out of town or in SLC just looking for a good new place to eat. I think most people already know that if you are in New York, or San Diego, or Portland, there are several wonderful places to try. This app has no function of helping narrow down what the options are really and I think that it is also really clunky in finding which restaurants are the best and closest. I think that while finding a new place to eat a deep cost-benefit analysis needs to happen in a sense that the cost is being more than just literal cost of the food, but also time and distance traveled for the benefit of how good the food is. However, in bigger cities there is "good food" everywhere. Based on my review of this I was not surprised to see that the stocks of Yelp are going down, I was surprised to find that business are using bad Yelp reviews to gain more business. When businesses can use an app like Yelp for the exact opposite reasons that it was used for and gain more customers because of it, I think that it shows that the app is not the most effective. While I think that a lot of people start to use Yelp to find new places, there has to be a large amount of people that are just simply looking for a place to eat regardless of what the reviews are. Maybe there are a few sick and twisted people that get a joy out of going to the worst rated restaurants, but majority I would guess not. I think that as the article explains above some businesses can pay for ads and such, which creates a bias in the availability to the app that restaurants have and the reviews that the restaurant is getting most likely.

There is a similar app to Yelp called Untappd and it is specifically for beer. By location you can look up craft beers that are sold around you and what bars they are available at. All the reviews have to do with the taste of the beer and you can even post a "status" about what you thought about a specific beer. There are also ways to level up once you drink more beers. This gives incentive to drink more and therefore spend more money on local beers, but also give more than just a review feel to the app as well. You can add friends and see what and where they are drinking. I think that this app would be a little better if there was more info about the bars and maybe adding liqueur to the drinks that you can try. 

Insta: My Most Used

For this weeks blog I mostly wanted to talk about my main love of social media Instagram. Instagram is by far my most used social media outlet as most of my Facebook posts are just shared from my Instagram anyway. Here is a list of 10 reasons why I think Instagram is better than most social media accounts:

1: I love pictures and I think that pictures express more.

Unlike a whiny Facebook on status a good cat-frown picture can actually be pretty funny on Instagram. When I scroll through my Insta feed I can do more than just hear what people are doing I can actually see this. While I think that this can be obnoxious (because some people are really non-unique in their variety of pictures they choose to post) most of the time it is a good thing. It is always nice to keep diversity in posts. I love seeing what people are doing, what they are eating, what they find beautiful in nature, what they think is cute, maybe even some good quotes (this is pretty rare, it is hard not to be cliche on the interwebs). Seeing a picture expresses more than a status can and certainly more than a 140 character post (even if it includes a picture with the 140 character post)

2: Following/friending on Insta is a lot less judgmental, so it is easier for me to be a creeper.

We all love to creep and stalk on social media. But let's keep it at a an appropriate level. When I follow someone on Insta I feel like it is a lot easier than friending them on Facebook. There isn't a level of commitment that I feel like I have to have in order to friend someone otherwise. This is nice. Following and un-following is much easier on this social media. Less pressure is always good. 

3: That NatGeo account, duh.

For real. The NatGeo account is the best. There are clearly different photographers that are featured and you learn a lot about everything. I think that the captions are always a good length and they tie in well with the picture and just life all together. Sometimes there is some fierce pictures of animals that oddly gives you motivation or there is pictures of baby animals or something. I can go on for days. If NatGeo isn't your thing then here are some more popular accounts (NASA's account is pretty rad as well). 

4: News that is shared on Insta

I love CNN, BBC, and NPR's accounts! Especially NPR's. The videos are helpful and I feel like they go with the flow of a quick scroll as I am going through. With Facebook and Twitter I think that is is more difficult to stop and look at more than the headline, but with Insta I get a little more than just a headline but I also don't get sucked into reading a whole article. It is a good balance. If I want to know more then I just look it up on the independent apps usually. 

5: There is a page for everything

There is dogs of instagram, and so many more look up an account about something you like or a hashtag (which I will talk about in just a bit) and bam it is there. If you look under the discover tabs you can always find something that you think is cool and  again there is no shame in following it. 

6: Scrolling and skimming feels easier

I think that I have already mentioned this but scrolling it really simple and liking is simple and the whole app is user friendly. 

7: Captions are everything

Witty captions always make everything better and I always find the best captions on Insta. Whether is is just an emoji that is clever or a quote, or anything clever captions are always appreciated.  

8: Hashtags are judged less as well/hashtag hunting is actually fun

Hashtags can shamelessly be used and my favorite way to use them is as a side comment. It creates a nuance to the post that I feel just isn't possible in other areas. 

9: Filter use/Filter names

Filters make you feel like a real photgrapher and the right use of them can always make the picture look better. Getting the right use is the difficult part though. But! There is more to it. A Time article talks about how parents are starting to name their kids after filters that they have seen on instagram! Pretty buts and kind of cool. 

10: It's basically everything.

Yeah need I say more?