Diffusion of Innovations: Facebook

Facebook

Facebook was created on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, Eduardo Saverin. Zuckerberg wanted to create an application and website where people could post pictures and messages that their friends could see and eventually like. Within the first 10 months Facebook had already reached one million active users. With the rollout of new features and more accessibility through the mobile app along with other applications such as Instagram and Whatsapp. User numbers continued to grow with over two billion people people using Facebook every month in June, 2017. Whatsapp reached over one billion users in July, 2017. Instagram had over one billion users per month in June, 2018.

Why did Facebook take off so quick? I believe Facebook has been doing really well is the product that they have created and the accessibility and features that they have make it a valuable product. I think many people became early adapters to the application because of what they can do with it. It was another way to share photos, videos, and post with friends and the public. It was another way of marketing to individuals and talk about events that are taking place near a specific person. With every upside however, there must be a down. Facebook currently has been under much fire for privacy concerns, censoring specific political media and pages for the 2016 and 2020 Presidential elections, along with the most recent concerns about Facebook's planned Cryptocurrency, Libra. As far as negative consequences go just like every big corporation there are always going to be individuals who are always questioning what you are doing and how you are doing it. I think Facebook has put out a great product that has allowed billions of people to now be connected to one another even on opposite sides of the world. Sure it has somethings that it can surely fix especially when it comes to privacy and the potential breaches of such.

The Check on Governmental Power

The Check on Governmental Power and the First Amendment

Vincent Blasi is a theorist and First Amendment scholar who is a professor at Columbia Law School in New York, New York. He is best known for his "Check Value" theory of free speech and free press clauses of the First Amendment.

His theory suggest that the power of the press has the ability to "check the abuse of power by public officials." This states that journalist and news organizations have an obligation to research and criticize public officials if they are in the process of abusing the power that they were elected to do. Most common cases have been with U.S. Presidents, such as Nixon within Watergate and Clinton with Clintongate.

Currently, we are dealing with the same issue with President Trump on if he abused the powers of the Presidency. This is all following a July, 2019 phone conversation with the Ukrainian President, which then lead to an impeachment proceeding by House Democrats into the President. This all got started allegedly when the President threatened to withhold financial aid to Ukraine.

I feel a check on Governmental power is big when it comes to elected officials who hold high level jobs. If any one officials is doing something that is illegal or in clear violation of any law then they should be reprimanded for their actions. In relation to the First Amendment, it should be journalist and news organizations to determine what potential crime such official has committed and investigate the possible wrongdoing without being punished for it.

The most meaningful idea that I have taken away from this would be that the main operation of free press is to develop and investigate information of the electorate that the public can understand.

Drones

Drones

Drones. The newest form of aerial videography and survey. Drones have been in use by governmental purposes since the early 2000s, but have not gotten to be available to consumers since the mid 2010s. Today's drones are being used in a variety of different professions such as, government, agriculture, motion pictures, construction, and recreational use. Drones are playing now key roles in how we live. They are making our lives easier everyday whether it is through drone shipping, surveying a disaster area, spreading pesticides for crops, or getting that really cool shot that no device could have gotten before.

Drones have gotten smarter since the first drone was released in 2010. Now they come with obstacle avoidance systems and intelligent tracking, along with airspace warning notices.

Drones are paving the way for new aerial filming and surveying. Cannot wait to see what comes next!

Mad World Remix Video

Mad World

Mad World Remix to Moby Video

The 21st Century. A century where nearly 5.13 billion people out of roughly 7.7 billion total on Earth have some form of technological device in the palm of their hand. That is about 66.62% or roughly 2/3 of the population has some form of smart device on them. We today are so reliant on our mobile devices than we are communicating with others face to face.

This video is a terrific representation of what we are becoming as a society. I see kids as young as one-years-old using these tablets and phones. Either to keep the quiet or for educational purposes. Is this what we want our society to turn into? A society that would rather text message the person sitting across from them than having a civil conversation with one another? One where we do not even know how to communicate properly because we are so invested within our phones? Those are the questions that we need to begin to ask ourselves.

These upcoming generations are going to be interesting to see how they grow up. Their thought processes, social skills, etc.