Assignment 4: Thoughts on Network Neutrality

Pros:
-Every website and search engine is treated the same
-Allows for people who have blogs or website ideas to have the same opportunity as anyone else for their website to gain notoriety
-keeps internet providers competitive

Cons:
-lack of legislation make it vulnerable
-future of it is in question, in reference to legislation
-paying for different levels of internet could benefit the user, but cost them more money

Recently net neutrality has been in the internet for a number of things, but one of the main ones is the cost is could potentially pose to users. Providers such as Verizon, and at&t could potentially have option to charge users who want faster access more money, so essentially you would be paying to use websites such as youtube, and Amazon. The FCC has to decide if they are going to allow providers to do this, and make them more money.

Net neutrality is tied to free speech in many ways. The biggest one is net neutrality is essentially freedom of speech on the internet. Net neutrality guarantees that governments will treat all information on it equally, regardless of who says it, what website its on, etc. And freedom of speech is the freedom to express you ideas, thoughts, feelings through words without any questions asked. So in a sense, net neutrality is essentially freedom of speech but for the internet.

The recent news about net neutrality would affect me because it would mean, not necessarily myself, but my parents might have to pay more for faster connection and internet. And being the avid internet user that I am, that would mean paying more money to use websites like Youtube and Amazon.

My stand on net neutrality is I believe it is vital. Users being able to say what they want with no bias or mis-treatment from the government is key. However i also feel it is very broad and vulnerable. It is apt to being caught with many loopholes that could potentially cause problems and conflict for users, and thus is why many people dont trust not only the internet, but certain aspects of the internet like net neutrality.

http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=1234951
This site is valid to me because it is in "organization", as clued by the .org at the end of their address. To me, websites ending in .org, .edu, .gov are the more reliable sites to use.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/27/technology/open-internet/
I chose this one because it is off of a CNN website. CNN is a huge name in the news, although it is often seen as bias, it still provides valid information and data in all its articles.

Social Media and Privacy

Social media can be a great tool, it can allow people to stay in touch with friends they haven't seen in a while and serve as a great way for communication. But it can also be abused easily. As we saw in the article, social media can be held accountable for a few deaths of young woman whose sexual assault was caught on tape and unfortunately posted on the internet. Privacy is a big deal with social media because once you post something on it, its on there forever. Regardless of if you delete it or not. And i feel that this is a good thing because with out it they would have never been able to catch who did these horrible crimes to these innocent girls, and bring justice to the perpetrators.

I Have Nothing to Hide

Now a days, everyone is getting their accounts hacked into, or some of their personal information is being published publicly. We always see those spam twitter direct messages we all get, where someones account was hacked, and they are now forced to change their password. Some reasons we should all be concerned about privacy is because no one has nothing to hide. In my eyes, everyone has something on the internet they do now want getting around. Whether its as small as an embarrassing picture, or as big as a police record, everyone has something. Another reason we should all be concerned about privacy is because once we have our information leaked, or someone gets a hold of it, theres no getting it back. Its out there forever. Personally I feel that everyone has something to hide, regardless of what it is, so everyone should be concerned about privacy.

Personally, I am very concerned about it. I understand it is to my own discretion that i post a tweet or a picture on social media, so I understand the implications that can potentially follow. But something such as companies being able to sell stuff you post I think is too much. I dont see a problem with a company seeing your personal info however, because you signed up. But not necessarily do I trust them. Who knows what they are doing with it. So I am concerned about it, I believe I dont have anything to hide but it still concerns me how much access companies can have to your personal info.

Internet Addiction with the Younger Generation

Growing up, our generation has always had the internet and social media around us. We grew up during the internet boom, and many social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter became very popular once our generation reached junior high. We don't know of a life that doesn't involve being connected through the internet. I feel as if many of the kids in our generation however don't rely as heavily on the internet as many of the kids younger than us do, specifically the middle school/junior high kids now. Personally, with my younger cousins and the kids I work with in the summer, I know how addicted they are to things such as Instagram and twitter. Many of them have their phones out at summer camp, on a beautiful 80 degree day, checking how many likes they got on a picture. Although kids our age seem to do the same, its a common trend with the middle schoolers now that all they seem to care about is something related to social media. Although social media can be a huge asset to have, ecspically something like a LinkedIn, it can also cause major distractions and can prove to be detrimental to how kids learn. It may just be a phase many of those kids are going through, but hopefully their obsession does not grow and continue to follow them as they grow older.