DTC

 Area 1: The amount of intelligence being collected from social media is increasing every year, but users of social media may not realize that. Some may not know who can access their information and may have default views set to public on Facebook, for example, which makes all their posts visible to anyone.  Even when one has restricted posts to friends, one must be aware than any of one's friends can be acting as an agent of the police or actually an undercover officer illegally posing as that person. Most police departments have no policy or training on how social media surveillance can be conducted, and there is no case law to guide these efforts. Since many youth (13-17) are very active on social media, the risk of overcriminalization of youth, especially youth of color, is very real.  DHS has used social media to monitor protests, and this practice brings a harsh light to their respect for the First Amendment. Area 2:  I have seen demos of these types of tools, ...

 Area 1: We all know that the credit score is used to make decisions about people's reliability. But it's not cut and dried; the credit score is just a proxy. It may be unreliable as a proxy, and it may simply contain incorrect or outdated information. Even if they may be unreliable, people with money have the resources to keep from getting a bad credit score. And if a person knows their credit info is wrong, they can move to have it corrected, although that sometimes takes a lot of time and sometimes legal action. The e-score is similarly used to make financial decisions about people, and it is even less 'scientific,' but it is also unregulated. It can use race or ZIP code to decide what interest rate someone gets, and they have no recourse to fix it, because they often won't even know it was used against them. Everyone likely has an e-score that is used to make decisions about them, and they have no idea what the score is or that it even exists at all. Internet tr...

There are several themes that run through the material we have reviewed in this course, and they intertwine and relate to each other. Many factors tie into the digital divide, but two that stand out to me are the geopolitics of the physical internet and digital colonialism. The digital divide can be widely described, but it is typically understood to mean poor (or no) access to the internet and/or no device (computer or smartphone) to access it. Reasons can vary, but there is strong correlation to poverty and location. Rural locations typically have limited connectivity options and speeds. Even when folks have connectivity and a device, they may lack the skill set, the digital literacy to make the most of those resources. The geopolitics of the physical internet , at a 30,000 level, are controlled largely by nation states, but local access to those connections are controlled by companies that provide the backbone service. This typically precludes access fo...

 Area 1 Anita Chan discusses promotion of IP rights in Peru, vis-à-vis denomination of origin (DO), similar to what has existed for years in Europe for wine and cheese. In Peru, it is being applied to artisan pottery instead. The desired effect was a market and increased value for authentic artisan pottery, but the result has been infighting between artists and blame for the government agencies responsible for promoting the program. Exporters influenced a small number of artisans to partner with them, but required lower prices in exchange for steady market access.  Area 2 This is an interesting application of IP that I have not encountered before. Historically, my exposure to IP has been pretty much technology oriented, and usually where big companies and big profits are involved. Since the "IP potential" includes "indigenous expression" and "biological diversity and local plant life," I can see that ayahuasca tourism might be refined and "standardize...

 Area 1 Bonilla and Rosa discuss activist's use of social media to respond to "racial inequality, state violence, and media representations" (5). Hashtags are use to "performatively frame" (5) what a social media post is about and also to "locate texts within a specific conversation" (5). Hashtags can also be used to recontextualize a post's content. For example, #Ferguson was used to link the protests in the Middle East with those in the U.S. The use of a hashtag alone does not necessarily indicate one's alignment with one side or the other of an issue. It does not indicate context.  The percentage of Black Americans who use Twitter is more than that of white Americans, so that alone will lend some context to tweets & hashtags, and the platform is used to "collectively [construct] counternarratives and [reimagine] group identities" (6). Twitter hashtags also enable a sense of 'shared temporality' (7), because users can rea...