PROTECTING ONLINE PRIVACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Introduction

Online privacy is the state of one being free from another party watching one’s actions on the Internet. This watching takes the form of trackers on websites or cyber-attacks, such as malware and phishing. On average, Americans spend ___ hours each day online [looking for credible data]. Yet, according to study by Pew Research Center, 72% of U.S. adults think that all or most of what they do online is being tracked by companies.1 Many people (especially older generations) do not know how this technology works, and therefore do not know how to protect themselves from attacks and tracking. It is up to the federal government to consider enacting a law like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation in order to secure online freedom for all Americans.

In October 2019, California set a precedent for online privacy in the U.S. Amendments were added to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to regulate the collection, management, and selling of data by entities interacting with California residents. Since many companies doing business in California also do business nationally, this law increased protection for residents of all states, not just California. However, this law is not as strong as it could be. In comparison to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which came before the CCPA, the CCPA falls short in terms of scope and active enforcement. The GDPR requires the appointment of a data protection officer and imposes fines to violating companies, while the CCPA simply gives citizens the power to sue companies if they want to.2 The CCPA approach is not as effective since many people are not well-versed enough in data privacy to spot privacy breaches. America needs a federal law that follows the direct action modeled by the GDPR.

Works Cited

[Will cite properly later. 1’s and 2’s are superscript]
1 Americans’ views about privacy, surveillance and data-sharing | Pew Research Center
2 CCPA vs GDPR | Key differences in the legislation (gdpreu.org)

I believe in being basic.

Growing up as a triplet, I grew frustrated being referred to as “one of the Carpenetti triplets” instead of by my name. I felt like I needed to develop a unique personality–one that would distinguish me from my siblings. I wanted to be my own person, separate from the trio that seemed to define me my whole childhood. I wanted to define myself, and the only way I thought I could do that was by developing a distinctly different identity from my siblings.

It started with the little things, like how all our toys were distinguishable by our signature colors. Then it spread to interests. When my brother was praised for his singing voice, I decided I would never pursue singing as a hobby. When my other brother was described as talkative, I became quieter.

In attempting to differentiate myself from my family, I developed this mindset of isolating myself from my peers as well. I think I subconsciously believed that this was the key to being special… that I only had value if I was completely unlike anyone else. This pursuit manifested into a bias against anything popular.

Walking through the middle school halls, I prided myself on not caring about superficial things like social media or makeup. I rejected trends, often criticizing my peers for quote “giving in” to them.

But then something remarkable happened the summer before high school: I got a haircut. Not just any haircut, oh no. This haircut changed the trajectory of my life. The days of frizzy triangle hair became a thing of the past, and I could finally see my natural curls. At long last, I liked how my hair looked. And my wavy curls just so happened to be on-trend. For once, I felt positive about something superficial. And so began my ascent through popular culture. I spent hours watching YouTube outfit inspiration videos and hair tutorials to learn from girls who had already figured these things out. I watched shows everyone was always talking about like The Office and Parks and Recreation. I got Instagram. I even turned off auto-capitalization on my phone–something I scoffed at previously but now still live by to this day. Recently, the trend of flare leggings and wide leg jeans has revolutionized my wardrobe, and if I hadn’t seen other girls wear them first or saw them on display at the mall, I would never have discovered the comfort that is wide leg pants.

It wasn’t giving in, it was freeing. Opening up to things I had previously considered to be below me gave me more options, more looks that made me feel confident, more knowledge about topics I could talk about.

I learned that perfect, complete originality doesn’t exist. There is a sense of comfort in sharing interests and style with my peers, and that it shouldn’t be discredited as vapid. Now, whenever I hear someone bash a popular trend before trying it, I have to remind them that (not all but) most things are popular for a reason.

I’ve heard girls be described as “basic” countless times, as if dressing in a trendy style makes one boring. But now I believe that individuality does not come from appearances, but from experiences.

For my Passion Blog, I will continue discussing a different musical each week, whether it be a movie, TV show, or a traditional stage show. For my Civic Issues Blog, I have decided on ethical dilemmas involving recent technologies/artificial intelligence.

For my passion blog, I am planning to continue with musical theater reviews. I will likely expand into musical movies and television shows as well.

As far as my “This I Believe” project goes, I have thought of two ideas based on my past experiences that I think would work. The first is “I believe in spontaneity,” and the second is “I believe in listening.”

Last, I would like to focus on the ethics of technology for my civic issues blog. It would cover controversial topics such as new AI advances like ChatGPT and OSINT applications, hot topics like cryptocurrency, and the consequences of digitizing more and more processes. I would also be interested in writing about human rights movements, specifically internationally.

The first idea I could see us doing is abortion rights since it is such a hot topic right now (even though Roe v. Wade set the precedent for legal abortion 40 years ago and yet here we are). We could go into the history of when abortion became a political topic, how media affected the controversy, and all the related legislation.

I also like the idea of discussing the 2nd amendment and how it’s been interpreted throughout the years. There’s a lot to discuss there, like the NRA and mass shootings and legislation.

Another idea I thought of is the death penalty/capital punishment and the ethics of it. We could watch some anecdotes on prison conditions, look into research on how people change in prison, and talk about the arguments against it. There’s the pro position of “an eye for an eye,” but then there’s a lot of research on different ways to prevent further violence without the threat of death.

My last topic idea is immigration policy. I’ll need to do a lot of research for this one because all that’s coming to my brain right now are citizenship tests that my friends were talking about and that one scene from Clueless.

I’d be fine doing any of these, but I think my favorite is immigration because there’s a lot I want to learn about different policies and such, and it hits close to home for a lot of us.

(If the link doesn’t work, you can find it on the class Voicethread page!)

Paula Stone Williams’ Ted Talk entitled “What I realized about men–after I transitioned genders” is eye-opening. Often times, it is difficult for people in any position to realize the manifestations of their privilege, even if they are aware that they have privilege. Concepts of gender theory have always fascinated me, and there are so many questions that would be easier to answer with the perspective of someone who has experienced both sides of the gender binary. Williams talks directly to men and says, “I know you run the race with integrity, but here’s the thing:  you started closer to the finish line than anyone else. That’s the reality. I know, I did too.” She talks about the business field and how before transitioning–how she was rich and had millionaire friends who would invite her on their yachts, but after she came out, she lost everything. She also talks about how she “brought some of the privilege with her” without even realizing it until a coworker pointed out how her ideas always win. All in all, it’s a fascinating Ted Talk and she is a super interesting person to listen to.

My ideas for the paradigm shift project:

• The evolution of the word “guys” and how it became gender-neutral while also enforcing the particularism of women
• Attitudes toward women in STEM fields and the outcomes of “women in STEM” initiatives
• Arguments for and against birth control pills from the 60s until now in light of recent political events

In my own speech, I think I did a great job with gestures that matched what I was saying, as well as simple slides in the background that highlight main ideas. I wish I had done better with vocalized pauses/saying “umm”, but I did my best to speak and a slow pace. I don’t think my intonation is particularly moving, but in this type of speech it is hard to develop pathos while simply analyzing an artifact. It was also difficult to maintain eye contact with the camera since I kept trying to make eye contact with myself instead.

I watched Michael’s speech and noticed that he was successful in terms of avoiding vocalized pauses and maintaining a steady tone and eye contact. The arrangement of the speech made sense and it flowed nicely, too. This is weird writing about your speech in third person since I know you’re going to read this but anyways great job Michael!

Speech Outline

Intro 

• “According to the FDA, hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of food, labor, and water are wasted each year as 30-40% of the food supply in the United States ends up in landfills” 
• SDG 12: responsible consumption and production 
• Here at Penn State, … (slides on the screen) 

Design 

• Starting on a superficial level, … 
• Bars covering important text 
• Font blending with the graphics in the background 
• Thumbs-down –> negative reinforcement 

Rhetorical situation 

• Considered the audience (Rose Bowl slide), did not consider constraints 

• Limited time 
• Spending a lot of money to be here 
• Negative reinforcement might not be well received 

• Ethos negatively impacted by… 

• Design flaws 
• Lack of sources cited / no mention of calculations 
• No positive reinforcement or suggestions to reduce waste 

• Just “What can YOU do to reduce food waste?” 

Kairos 

• Effective in terms of impacting students on a personal level 
• “This café. Your plates.” 
• However, easily ignorable 

Social Movement Studies 

• Exigence of sustainability initiatives and reducing waste 
• Perpetually negative tone 
• “Together we can make a difference” commonplace 

• Cultivating a sense of membership and alliance, but not mobilizing it 

Conclusion 

Essay So Far

Note: ideas in brackets will be expanded later, plus more details about specific slides will be added

Hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of food, labor, and water are wasted each year as 30-40% of the food supply in the United States ends up in landfills [1]. Here at Penn State, the university has taken a step to promote the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal #12—responsible consumption and production—by installing screens to display food waste statistics in the dining commons. These screens alternate between displaying the pounds of food wasted for the current and previous day, and displaying previous monthly totals next to the projected waste for the current month. After thorough examination of these displays, both flaws and strengths of the visual design elements, utilization of the rhetorical situation, and deployment of social movement tactics become evident. Since the goal of ensuring responsible consumption and production continues to become more and more important as the global population increases, many other institutions and organizations are also taking steps to promote this goal, such as Global Footprint Network with their Earth Overshoot Day campaign. This campaign, which determines the date each year when humans have exhausted more resources than can be produced in a year, is effective in some ways in which Penn State’s dining commons displays fall short. Though each initiative operates in a vastly different manner, and neither is entirely productive or faulty, the Earth Overshoot Day campaign proves effective in terms of using kairos and establishing trust through ethos, logos, and pathos, as well as the use of a more hopeful tone.  

[P2: dining display visual elements] To begin on a superficial level, the visual elements of each display are the first aspects recognized by the audience. Specifically, the opaque bars along the bottom of each screen cover labels such as “pounds” and “month”, which prevents the audience from reading important contextual details—especially when students are only glancing at these displays for a few seconds. On one screen, the bar displays the commonplace “Together we can make a difference,” which is too platitudinous of a phrase to have much of an impact on the reader. In addition, the colors of the graphics depicting overflowing trash bins do not contrast enough with the chosen font, making the words difficult to decipher. There is also a small thumbs-down emoji on one of the slides which is an interesting addition to the display since it represents the chosen social movement tactic of negative reinforcement, which will be discussed in more depth later. Overall, from a graphic design perspective, the slides on the dining commons screens leave much to be desired. 

[P3: campaign visual elements + use of logos/ethos] On the other hand, the Earth Overshoot Day campaign (from here on referred to as “the campaign”) takes on the form of a website. The website showcases a sleek and professional design—a stark contrast to the appearance of the dining commons displays. Above all, the campaign explains how Earth Overshoot Day is calculated and provides sources for all statistics, thereby building a sense of ethos and credibility. The dining commons slides do not credit any sources; but it is necessary to consider how the abundance of space on the website is more conducive to citing sources and adding detail than the limited space on the screens. The campaign website has a lot more space to build ethos. Still, the slides could be more competently designed to incorporate the sources on the display in an aesthetically pleasing manner. 

[P4: rhetorical situation of dining display & campaign] On the topic of space and setting, the visual elements of the dining commons slides are impacted by their place within the specific rhetorical situation of the display. The Penn State dining commons screens and the Earth Overshoot Day share a similar exigence–overconsumption and production—just on different levels. Whoever created the slides that are displayed on the screen had the student body in mind as one of the slides claims, “Every day in the U.S., we waste enough food to fill the Rose Bowl”, which appeals to the typical Penn State student’s affinity for college football. However, the designer fails to consider the constraints of the audience. Seeing as the screens are viewed by college students, the constraints are ___.  The slides display negative reinforcement. There is something off-putting about placing blame for food waste on us college students who can barely afford to eat substantial meals outside of the commons buffets. [expand] [campaign is better example-more hopeful, mobilizing] 

[P5: kairos] Furthermore, both the displays and the campaign take advantage of kairos by seizing opportune moments to raise awareness about food waste. [dining display (above trash/compost, personalized) vs. campaign (specific day, generates pathos)] 

[P6: social movement studies] [Perpetually negative tone] [“Together we can make a difference” commonplace] Cultivating a sense of membership and alliance, but not mobilizing it. The campaign, however, provides many resources and easily implementable suggestions. They even describe themselves as “realists” on the home page. 

In the end, [final comparison, important to recognize what works and what doesn’t]