This week, the class got to see group 5 present their book presentation on Information Wars:How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation. It was an interesting presentation with a lot of information to offer. I believe the book is very relevant today as the last couple years have been sort of confusing for many. With social media platforms becoming very popular and having most of the world on it it has been easy for a lot of disinformation to reach a bigger audience. This book explores this issue and how a lot of this disinformation tactic has bleed into the realm of politics. If you look at the issues with social media and the internet, I think what you’ll find is that a lot of these issues are overlapping or blended into each other to some extent.
For example, another issue related to social media is social media dependency which is something a lot of people are facing. These two issues I think lend themselves to each other. With people being dependent on social media, it allows for a lot of room for disinformation to get across and be exposed to more viewers at probably a higher frequency.
After the presentation we discussed how we as a society go about being able to understand and comprehend what information is valid and was false. One major point brought up was that perhaps higher education, at least college, would benefit people by opening them up to different experiences that a university or college can provide. It is unfortunate that not many people care or have the opportunity to go on past high school education and that really sets back a lot of people. It’s a difficult task to think of the best way to combat disinformation or to be able to convince people that not everything posted is true. I think disinformation definitely adds to the division in this country for example during times of elections.
As technology continues to give people a larger platform to reach people, it can also add to the amount of information that gets put out with no credibility. For now, I believe it’s just about people trying to be accountable for themselves and in their best interest, do research or even attempt to look a little bit into the people they are listening to or source of information. I think truly the generations coming up are going to be worse off, most of us grew up at the time where social media has too but the upcoming generations are coming in being younger than the take off of social media’s popularity to where it basically is here before them.
There are five positive things that I believe about my generation and they are 1)basic social media literacy, 2)ability to use social media for creating a presence for whatever we may be into, 3)communication with other people around the world who share the same interest.4) Access to quick information. 5) ability to make money online.
5 negative things that are faced by generation is 1) falling for online fraud, 2)hacking, 3)addiction 4)OverSharing and 5)dependence ,it basically becomes a part of you.
News of the week
SOCIAL MEDIA & SOCIETY 
I agree with you Steve. The upcoming generation are going to a lot worst becouse We remember a time when we’re didn’t have social media or the internet. The upcoming generation are born with phones in their hands and that is all they know. We will become our parent who always say “your always on your phone” or saying “when I was your age, I was outside playing with my friends not on the couch scrolling on my phone” and that will be true but hard to believe becouse of how fast technology advanced.
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Hello, yes the presentation of the last group was quite informative and the book was so related to this week’s topic as well. Social media does become the source of spreading the disinformation and the dilemma is there is no check and balance on the social media to control the spreading of the false information. The book they presented covers the disinformation that is being spread by the politicians and how they get their benefits from such a thing.
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Yes, I agree the key word I got was accountability. If people take accountability for the because technology makes everyone have a voice and people given likes makes it seem as though their opinion is a fact when it’s a possibility that it is inaccurate information being spread. But if people were to take their time to research before using the social media platforms to express their feelings as truth there will be benefits from the self accountability. But I think that’s going to be a long time from now when people start that over the internet.
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