11/30 Journal by Justin

So how many of you actually got a legitimate amount of work done over break? I for one did not nearly get as much done as I previously had hoped. One thing that I can be proud of though is that I finished my SPCM project.
The tale of Andrew Carnegy has come to a close and this paper will most likely bring an end to me using the fake persona for anything other that trolling Facebook groups I disagree with wholeheartedly.
In other news, I am sure glad that The Onion never disappoints. If you don't know what The Onion is, please look it up.

Journal 11/29 Leehee

My views on Facebook are constantly changing. It is my belief that such technologies don't HAVE to consume our lives. We just need to place restrictions on our usage. By blocking my wall and photos (I believe they're blocked), people have to personally message me if they are interested in communicating. I think that the idea of the wall combined with the news feed is rather ridiculous. Why does everyone on my friends list and yours need to know that I said "happy thanksgiving" to you? The messages that people have been sending are much more personal and longer than wall comments have ever been. I believe that it's only natural for people to personalize e-mails versus public comments. The illusion of privacy helps.

This week, my brother had my cell phone for various reasons. I was, to an extent, completely cut off from people. First of all, it did me some good. Second, facebook chat really helped me communicate (sporadically) with individuals that I felt like speaking to. My facebook status helped me find a ride home (kinda). I was able to get the message out.

Basically, I'm finding many benefits to facebook...amidst the obvious flaws.

This week?

Is there a prompt? If so can you e-mail us what it is?

Terms of Use

I'm just going to post the absurd portions of the Terms of Use. They speak for themselves:

"whether or not you are a registered member of Facebook. We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change, modify, add, or delete portions of these Terms of Use at any time without further notice. If we do this, we will post the changes to these Terms of Use on this page and will indicate at the top of this page the date these terms were last revised. Your continued use of the Service or the Site after any such changes constitutes your acceptance of the new Terms of Use. If you do not agree to abide by these or any future Terms of Use, do not use or access (or continue to use or access) the Service or the Site. It is your responsibility to regularly check the Site to determine if there have been changes to these Terms of Use and to review such changes."


This one we violated:

"register for more than one User account, register for a User account on behalf of an individual other than yourself, or register for a User account on behalf of any group or entity;"


oops we did it again!


"impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent yourself, your age or your affiliation with any person or entity;"

How do they regulate this?

"You may not post, transmit, or share User Content on the Site or Service that you did not create or that you do not have permission to post. You understand and agree that the Company may, but is not obligated to, review the Site and may delete or remove (without notice) any Site Content or User Content in its sole discretion, for any reason or no reason, including User Content that in the sole judgment of the Company violates this Agreement or the Facebook Code of Conduct, or which might be offensive, illegal, or that might violate the rights, harm, or threaten the safety of users or others. You are solely responsible at your sole cost and expense for creating backup copies and replacing any User Content you post or store on the Site or provide to the Company. "


"By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing."

Journal fri/sat/sun 11/14-17

I have had a slight (emphasis on slight) change of view in regards to facebook. Recently I have been getting more involved in my sorority. My sorority has three active members and four girls are trying to get it. The three actives (myself included) are all new. Last semester, the eight girls who were active members graduated. We were left the onus of sustaining the chapter. The beauty of this sorority is that the alumni and active chapters nationwide are very supportive and close-knit. Once I finally broke down and admitted that we needed help to one of the alumni that I was closer with, the entire sorority nationwide was activated to help us out. Something that is very important is the bonds that were made with other RSO's and chapters in the Greek system on this campus. These are ties that took a long time to develop and it would be a shame to lose. Facebook proved to be very helpful and dynamic this weekend. I received a flood of e-mails and invites from girls to events going on with these organizations that the alumni knew on this campus. With a few clicks, I was able to forward the invites to the four associates (the girls trying to get in). Furthermore, I was able to introduce myself to the presidents of these organizations with a few quick e-mails. The good qualities of facebook proved true for me this weekend.

Outline for Project

For my final project I will use the information I have gathered up until this point based on the fake Facebook persona also known as Andrew Carnegy. I will detail what exactly is was that I did to make such a "friendly" fraudulent account by using examples of messages sent to me and wall posts. I will then describe what I have learned throughout this ordeal: what this project taught me, the positives and/or negatives, and how I was enlightened.

Journal 10/13

No, really. 10/13. I'm concerned about the "legitimacy" of facebook relationships. This has to be one of the most confusing aspects of facebook-dom. When American society begins to adopt terms like "facebook official" ("The ultimate definition of a college relationship - when on one's facebook profile it says "In A Relationship" and your significant other's name." - urbandictionary.com), I know we're in trouble. I guess this opinion reflects upon my view that inferring someone's relationship status without having them explicitly state it is one of the biggest frustrations in the dating world. The fact that you can so publicly state that you're in a relationship, married, "in an open relationship", engaged, or otherwise with another facebook denizen just makes it more complicated. Usually when someone says that they're married to someone, you can assume that they a) are lying or b) just really like that person a lot. But which one? One of my friends is actually married and both she and her spouse have facebook accounts. A lot of people are in facebook relationships with people of the same gender; I asked my friends what they thought about this and they also said it was probably just a joke. But then that plays into heteronormativity. What if they really are in a relationship with someone of the same gender, but don't feel like putting their sexual preference on their profile? It's like real life - some people lie, and some people don't, but the fact that some people do means everyone could be. Unless you see evidence to otherwise.

Final Project

For my final project I am using the subjects of "friends" on FaceBook. Who really are your friends? Who have you never met? Who is on your friends list for networking purposes only? I will be comparing my own profile with my roommate's profile. I will compare factors such as people you know from high school, people you've never met, people you've only met once..etc. I will go through my profile and individually change the "how do you know this person" setting in order to get my answers. I will interview a couple other people and ask them questions about their "friends" on FaceBook. I will use all of the information I have gained and create a slideshow presentation for the class.

Journal 11/10

I went through my facebook account and deleted the people that i don't know. This class has really made me open my eyes about privacy because when you add others that you don't know, they have access to all your info. Its creepy that these strangers would be able to see all your info. I think its crazy that when you set your privacy level so that only friends can see your profile, i thought that it would be pretty safe and most people still think like this. But its not beause people are willing to add anyone and my fake profile showed me that. More than half of the people that i sent request to were willing to add a perfect stranger. This has made it really easy for people to stalk others and find out information about others. Its up to the users of this site to be careful and make sure that only their "real" friends get to see their information.

My project

For my project, I'd like to put together a presentation on sections of Facebook's "terms of use" and/or "privacy policy." After reading the article that you gave us, I'm interested to know/examine what I agreed to with the click of a button. I think that it would also be interesting to create a program about it or at least fliers to put up on the quad. These fliers would just have bullet notes that highlight the most absurd portions of what I find. They would be directly from the website. I think this would be an interesting way to really get the word out. I didn't realize how much is in those statements. How does that sound?

final project

So while I'm still trying to figure out the ramifications of my final project, there were two particular ideas that I had in mind. One was monitoring the number of people online at any given time (granted, users can edit settings for facebook Chat so that they never show up on it) and basically coming up with statistics about when people are most likely to be wasting time on facebook - the issue with this idea is that I'm not really sure how to connect it to any sort of bigger idea. I'm a sociology major, I just like collecting data! The other idea that I thought about was the effect of something like "Friends Club", a club in Allen that I created for people to get to know each other better. In terms of social networking, mySpace is more conducive than facebook to connecting to a wider audience in terms of people you don't actually know, and I think I can compare that in some way to "Friends Club". The first week of the club, nearly everyone that attended was someone I knew. I asked people to bring one new friend every week, and I'll keep track of how this expands my social network not only in real life, but on facebook too.

Reading that article: The Information We Collect

I don't remember what you said about this article, but I'm scared as hell. Is this article posted/published by facebook? Everything that they say that they're doing is backed up by how it affects us (the users). It's written in such a seemingly pleasant manner that covers up the scary truth. Everything that is ridiculous and obscene is followed by reasoning that is based on convenience, ease, or comfort of the users. The fact that facebook "reserves the right" to send notices to us about our account even though we have opted not to receive e-mails is daunting. They claim that a friend's e-mail can be removed from the database if requested...but where's the proof of that? The first part in the section about "sharing your information with third parties" seems to contradict what was written in the previous sections. "We share your information with third parties only in limited circumstances where we believe such sharing is 1) reasonably necessary to offer the service, 2) legally required or, 3) permitted by you"

All three of those "limited circumstances" are rather vague and ambiguous. I'd like to know who calls the shots on those decisions. I'd also like to be notified when such information of mine is being shared. Though, as we've discussed in class, I should expect all the information that I have provided online as potentially shared...right? What kind of "service" are they referring to?

The third bullet point is sheer bullshit. "We may use third parties to facilitate our business" what the hell? That is clearly stating that third parties will be used for the website's benefit.

The last line is the most haunting. Even "private" (emphasis on the quotations) messages "may become publicly available"

This is just scary...where did you get this article?

Journal...

My facebook profile is rather empty. I no longer receive the satisfaction of checking it. So I rarely do. Thus...and I hope this is fair...I have no reason to journal. When I go online, I only check my gmail...as of late. I have 278 friends as of now. I get very frustrated when I meet new people and they tell me..."find me on facebook okay?" I just want to yell at them. The superficiality of facebook is really getting to me. I mean...as Marx said (see previous post) our social existence really does give us consciousness. I just think that it's stupid. It's as stupid and ridiculous as the Greek system that so many people pride themselves on being part of and likewise berating. A friendship of substance will never contain facebook. I changed my name to Mia Matilda. Only a handful of people noticed...which merely proves my previous point (in some other post) about how there is this fantastical illusion that people care. Clearly, they don't. Skeptics will argue that "they" don't care about me individually, and claim that their friends would care and notice. So to all you skeptics...I say try it. See how many people e-mail you. Oh I also got rid of my wall. All my groups. It really is uplifting....almost empowering. I no longer think of how I'm doing based on what I would write in my facebook status. I've deleted most of my pictures. It's interesting.

Marx and Facebook...a post I made for my philosophy class

After rereading Marx’s article “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,” I started making some technological comparisons to today’s world; rather, I saw some connections to a largely used obsession. I may have read this article entirely wrong, but either way, it seems to fit within the descriptions given. “In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production” (73). In today’s society, a major element of our “social production” is facebook or other social networking sites. On these sites, we enter into various “definite relations,” and if we are to break these relations, it will greatly affect our social standing. By that I mean, if we were to delete a bunch of our “friends” on facebook, they will probably get a bit pissed (if they even realize). In addition, if I were to ignore my e-mail all of next week, I would create some problems for myself. This is partly because our society today relies so heavily on technology, but also because technological interfaces (facebook, email, etc) have replaced face-to-face and even voice (telephone) conversation. If I ignore e-mails, or just refuse to check them, people will be insulted. It is expected that I be very attentive to my e-mail. Part of this passage particularly caught my attention, “which are independent of their will.” It’s interesting that Marx made this statement because sometimes I feel chained to technology of sorts but especially facebook and e-mail. Networking online is essential in becoming who we are today. Whether it is facebook, email, aim, or texting, such networking and socializing is crucial to “the experience” of today’s youth/teens. Arguably, these relationships and the method in which they are carried out form who we are. “The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundations, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness” (73). These social relationships (that all have some purpose or end which we strive for) compose/construct society as it stands today.

“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness” (74). If you ever take the time to peruse facebook you will see how true this statement is. Rather than our profiles being a reflection of who we are, we use them to construct our identity. What information we place online, it is believed, becomes us. In an age where youth are going through some testy teenage angst, internet personalities is the best form of expression. Within thirty minutes, a person’s identity can be changed. Have you ever found yourself thinking about yourself in regard to what your “status” might be on facebook? Perhaps you feel that every change you make on your profile, be it your status, profile pictures, or information, will be noticed by ALL of your friends. Facebook gives us consciousness in the sense that it makes us feel like the entire world revolves around us. Furthermore, there is this illusion that we are in control, and more importantly that we matter. Facebook also validates your every whim. Want to feel like a social butterfly? Check your wall…no comments? Write on someone else’s wall (write something that warrants a response, such as a compliment). Surely, within minutes, you’ll have a response. Want to play a board game? No one around? Hit up one of the applications like scrabble. Feeling shitty? Check your horoscope. Want to feel beautiful? Browse through your pictures and the comments people have left you…or even better, browse through everyone else’s arguably ugly ones…that’ll do the trick. You can also leave someone a comment on one of their pictures, and then they will surely respond to you. Hungry? Play food frenzy and save some cash. Horny? Message that hook up from last weekend…flirt with a hottie who you met yesterday (she just accepted your friend request…obviously she likes you…I mean you’re the best of friends now right?)You’re the best of friends…because you went one second from seeing just her picture (hoping you remembered the right name when you friend requested her) to now knowing various pieces of information ranging from what high school she attended to what her favorite musician is. Such information…once upon a time…was what you figured out when you really invested time in people…invested time to get to know them. Our generation is quite a lazy one. Prime example: not only do we have cell phones (rather than rotary or land lines) we have voice dial. Rather than spending time to get to know the intricate details of someone’s life…you have your work cut out for you. Memorize their profile…and hope it was real…better yet…hope that they’re really who they claim to be in that profile.

“At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production” (74). I wonder if this will actually be the case in the near future as we finish college. Will such social networking sites have less of an impact? Will we “grow out” of the facebook stage and resort to more meaningful social interactions? Personally, when I got sick of myspace, I moved onto facebook. “No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society” (74). So facebook replaced Friendster and myspace, and arguably facebook is constantly revamping the interface and its capabilities. (Or rather its creators and moderators are constantly changing things around). Nothing is obsolete until it has sufficed to the utmost its capabilities/influence. Nothing is “razed to the ground” until something newer and better can take its place. What will be the facebook equivalent in years to come? It seems, at least where fashion is concerned, that we are resorting to a modernized version of vintage clothing from years past. Will we, as a society, revert to old forms of socialization and communication?

Journal 11/3 -Lindsay

Nothing has really changed in the world of Facebook for me. I did finally get my first to videos of myself posted. They were from Zombie Mob of course and someone had tagged me in them. Lately I've been using Facebook to spread the word of To Write Love on Her Arms. I am creating a TWLOHA RSO and in order to get the ball rolling I created a Facebook group for it too. I'm super stoked and I spent quite a while preparing the group before I made it public. I don't want the FB group to be just one of those where you join just to join and you never go back to that page ever. With my RSO we're going to be active spreading the word and fundraising for TWLOHA. I can't really begin to explain how excited I am to get this going. I've covered my page in stuff about To Write Love on Her Arms and I've gotten a few responses. Even touching one life is better than touching none at all. I've decided to get people's interest in the RSO by creating the group then I will further my action and elect officers and begin to plan events. All events and fundraisers will be posted on Facebook of course to help get the word out, but I will use the university email to address the group members about important topics, most likely.

Other than being overly excited about creating this group/RSO my FB experiences for the week have been normal. No mean messages on MySpace either! :)

i have no idea when the last time i posted was

I really wanted to address the idea of purging your friends list, or deleting people when you don't want to talk to them anymore. I know it means something else, but that's what the digital divide is to me. Modern society's reliance on technology has become inherent to the way we operate our every day lives, so much so that this era in history is "The Information Age". Computers have been around since the 40s. E-mail, the Internet, and PCs have been around since the 70s. The World Wide Web wasn't invented by AOL, people were already using it the year I was born. Now we have webcams, digital television, GPS cell-phones, satellite radio, all these various ways of connecting with each other that it's almost as if we're incapable of connecting on an interpersonal level anymore.

The point of all this is, there are a lot of people that actually get offended when you delete them on facebook. To my generation, this is the way we stay in touch with each other. This is the way we share information, because it's the easiest, most convenient, requires the least work. All I have to do to create a cultural revolution is make a facebook group. All I have to do to have a party is make a facebook event. I could create an entire fake identity without even changing my name, and people would completely believe it. I just don't know if this is the best way. I've had friends that I deleted on facebook that stopped calling me, stopped talking to me because they think that I'm mad at them. We joke that "you're not real friends until you're friends on facebook" or you're not really dating someone unless you're "facebook official", but these things reflect something about the way our society, our generation views social networking. They didn't come out of nowhere...

Journal 11/03 Gedion

Just like the previous week, this week I spent a good amount of time on facebook. I spent a lot of time on facebook this week not because I was board but because I found old pictures from last year on my computer that I wanted my friends to see and have and the easiest way to such things these days is through networking websites like facebook because it is faster, easier, and people can comment on the photos. So I started tagging all my friend who were in the pictures. I got a couple of funny comments right away from some of my friends who were online as I was uploading and tagging the pictures. After I read the comments, I chatted with them for a couple of minutes before I signed out. Something that was very interesting that happened this week on facebook was that I got this message forwarded to me from my friend Sam, telling me if I don’t send it to 15 people my facebook account will be shut down.
This is the message I got. But I took the risk and not responded because I figured it could be a prank.
Attention all Facebook members. Facebook is recently becoming very overpopulated,There have been many members complaining that Facebook is becoming very slow.Record shows that the reason is that there are too many non-active Facebook members And on the other side too many new Facebook members.We will be sending this messages around to see if the Members are active or not,If you're active please send to 15 other users using Copy+Paste to show that you are active Those who do not send this message within 2 weeks,The user will be deleted without hesitation to create more space,If Facebook is still overpopulated we kindly ask for donations but until then send this message to all your friends and make sure you send this message to show me that your active and not deleted.

Founder of Facebook
Mark Zuckerber

Journal 11/03

The trend continues, i have been showing less and less interest on facebook. Last year i would spend so much time and even earlier in this semester. Most of the time i simply check my email to see if there is any notifications and if they interest me then i sign in. Today i was tagged in a photo so i took a quick look and that was pretty much all i did. This makes me wonder whether facebook is a trend that became popular and will start dying down or if it will become more important as time continues to pass. Certainly with the internet reaching more and more people it has linked more and more poeple but its hard to tell whether it will continue to grow. Well at least for me, it dying down. I don't really spend time its simply just there in case i need it.

Journal...oh whatever date by Justin

So now that the apocalypse is finally over, the zombies have seemed to disappear...for now, and we all took an extra hour of sleep for granted, it is time to kick back into the habit of "caring" about school, sleep, and the country once again.
Numerous and possibly unprecedented amounts of photographs were taken this Halloween and while many have not yet surfaced to the world wide interwebz, I assure you, they will. So, with that in mind, I hope that none of you acted indecently and oblivious to the fact that companies, the university, and BIG BROTHER are indeed watching YOU. Yes, even FaceBook can be looked at by anyone and it seems just about everyone these days.
With the election only days away, even though I'm sure that most of us were willing and ready to vote about two whole months ago, be prepared to see the HYPEsters telling you that there candidate is so amazing and wonderful. Yup, even as the Outreach Director for the College Democrats, I feel like punching those crazy Obama supporters right in the head sometimes. Sorry, but if I hear the word "change" one more time, and it is not directly correlated with the monetary value I am receiving back in the transaction of filling up my car with gasoline, I might just put my foot up somebody's.....well you get the picture.
I'm not going to tell you who to vote for; I'm no dictator, nor am I some easily-convinced internet cruising, politico blogging, suburban kid who has a new-found hero for the first time in his/her whole life. Just vote. You get one chance every two years to vote; once every four for the general election. If you're eighteen, a citizen and resident, and not a convicted criminal just get out to the polls on Tuesday and take the hour or so to listen to your MP3 player while waiting in line and eventually...VOTE!
Oh yeah, and here's a message for FaceBook: now that you have whored yourself to any company willing to give you some dough for product placements and advertisements, you have officially turned into a confused fourteen year-old urban kid with low-self esteem and walked into the A&F/AE/UrbanOutfitters/HotTopic/etc. and have officially sold out. Congrats.