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Made myself a Christmas ornament. I’m quite pleased with it. by HellsBellsBetsyRoss

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Ethical Model for an Algorithm

Quiz #3 - NOV 20

Determine what kind of social media site you are creating. 

I will be creating a social media site for writers, where an author can post their story to share with followers or anyone interested in the work being created. A user will be able to create a profile where they can publish work, write posts on their page but they won’t be able to reblog or retweet others posts. They can comment in other people’s posts or share other user’s books by sharing a link or by adding said book to a library list that people can see on their page.

What will you measure? 

In this site what will be measured is the hashtags writers put on their published work so it can be found. Since people will be able to comment on authors published chapters the likes of those comments will also be measured. Search engine being used to find certain books or profiles will also be measured. Posts or comments will also be measured to detect any use of inappropriate words and phrases that are known to be offensive or derogative.

How will you weight these factors? 

These measures will be factored through a hierarchy where monitoring a user’s writing will be at top and their posts would come second. Comments and responses would be next in being monitored.

What factors will you not be measured? 

What will not be measured would be the number of followers one has or the amount of likes comments get. The cite won’t be focusing on a user’s personal life or focus on any sort of incentive popularity by showing the number or likes on gets.

How will the model learn or adapt to new information? 

Updates would be given to the site around once a week if not then at least once a month. These updates would focus on monitoring posts or pages that have been detected or reported to be inappropriate. Also, because this would be a medium where writes post their work any forms of plagiarism will be reported or investigated.

What biases will be built into the model? How will this change the algorithm’s outcome? 

Biases would show in the forms of what I (the creator) deem to be inappropriate or offensive even if users don’t view their language to be so. While authors can create problematic and realistic characters who are abusive or use inappropriate language what would be required of authors is to add a warning for their readers.  

How will the model live out the (un)ethical practices we have discussed? 

Hate speech, harassment and trolls will happen no matter how much we try to prevent it. As books gain popularity or certain people gain vast amounts of followers, they would be required certain verification such as the one Twitter has by adding a blue check to famous people. While the authors can either change their user to their real name, they can keep the alias user name they’d created. As for hate speech and harassment will have certain security measures but they can fail which is why people reporting users or comments will play a big part into helping prevent or taking off the posts.

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11/11 blog post

Who has the power for social change?

In the years 2008 to 2014 Black hair care changed because people decided to stop using unhealthy chemical relaxers and start sporting their natural hair. This made the Black hair care industry see a decrease in sales so they changed tactics to better target the new audience. In changing their advertisements to styling products for natural hair industries roughly made up the money they lost when adverting for chemical hair straighteners. This showed that the public, specifically people of color, had the power the change what industries do and make.

What is Homeplace?

Homeplace is something that bell hooks explores to be a place where one can seek shelter, comfort, and nurture for their soul. hooks speaks of a place as a specific location, a home run by women and can be seen as a place to seek safe shelter. This safe space meant something different for white women because they were given the task of creating a home while black women had to create a space of care a nurturance in the face of racist oppression. The only difference between homeplace and virtual homeplace is that one is a physical place in the real world and the other is one taking place online.  

Why can online communities be considered a business?

McLaine makes it clear that weather online communities are a legitimate form of community is still up for debate with researchers. It isn’t until recent years that online communities have become a business, one that people can invest in. There are even articles on how to sell an online community and many bloggers have sold theirs for millions of dollars. The one market that many online communities didn’t or haven’t marketed towards were for individuals who have low income, live in rural communities, have limited education or are people of color and minorities. Many online pages receive income by page views, registered members, postings, time spent on site, audience participation, and advertisements.  

How did Gamasutra start its movement?

Gamasutra is supposed to be an online movement focused on the ethics in game journalism and with protecting the ‘gamer’ identity. The movement really started as an attack on a female game developer Zoe Quinn and her sex life. This game developer received many death threats and harassment since she began trying to publish a text-based game called Depression Quest. It wasn’t until Quinn’s ex-boyfriend shared allegations that Quinn cheated on him with other men who work in games or games journalism. These attacks soon changed after gamers came to a consensus that publicly harassing a woman over her sex life was a bad look, so they changed their focus to corruption in games journalism. Soon the Gamergate movement was born in response to a widespread denial of the term ‘gamer’ and the level of misogyny it had picked up.

Hathaway, J. (2014). What is Gamergate and Why? An Explainer for Non-Geeks. Gawker.

Lee, L. (2015). Virtual Homeplace: (Re)Constructing the Body Through Social Media. 91-111.

McLaine, S. (2003). Ethnic Online Communities: Between Profit and Purpose. 233-254.

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11/04 blog post

Are subcultures within social media platforms such as black Twitter the same as creating groups in person?

No because there are differences in face-to-face interaction versus online interaction but there is some sense of similarity. Both groups in person and online have a hierarchy mentality, they prioritize certain people over others such as only some unjust cases are talked about and most of them involve men victims. It had to take a whole other hashtag in order for people to talk about and start advocating for black women who face similar oppressions as black men.  

Why is online activism short-lived?

Online activism allows for a new set of tools to challenge oppression, spread awareness, and assist in organized counter actions. Yet there is so many cases of injustice that online activists can’t shine a light on each one for a consecutive amount of time. While online activists are finding creative ways to take back hashtags, another problem that needs a voice pops up. There is also the fact that since it is online activism, people can miss posts or aren't informed of causes because mutual followers don’t give the topics its attention. 

Should the government and corporations see online activism as criminal activity?

No, because activism takes many shapes in forms yet there are laws set for activists work to be paused. Everyone has the right to form a protest and spread the word through online, as well as sharing their views or taking over. Vegh brings up the subject of hacktivism, who are politically minded hackers who use technology to advance human rights through electronic media. While hacking does break laws set to protect people’s privacy, that doesn’t give anyone to target such a vauge group to be labeled as criminals.

Is it true that online communication fuels activists’ momentum when it comes to doing work in the real world?

Fuchs analyzed surveys done by two different activist organizations, and the results over lapped in saying that face-to-face communication was the most important form of activists’ protest commutation and best modes to gain information. Occupy Wall Street activists did have high numbers when admitting that they use older online media such as email and websites to gain information. Online activity definitely makes it so that people can communicate from miles apart but protests and social movements aren’t new so online forms of communication aren’t necessarily needed to keep activists’ momentum going, it just makes things easier.

Fuchs, C. (2014). Social media and communication power. In Social media: A critical introduction (pp. 69-94). London: SAGE Publications Ltd doi: 10.4135/9781446270066.n4

Lee, L. (2017). Black Twitter: A Response to Bias in Mainstream Media. Social Sciences, 6(1), 26. doi:10.3390/socsci6010026

Vegh, S. (2003). Classifying Forms of Online Activism The Case of Cyberprotests against the World Bank.

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10/28 blog post

How do trolls add to people paranoia?

Trolling is a hateful and intentionally destructive lie, and without knowing the persons intent the person being trolled can become paranoid. Especially because the troll is created an unsafe and untrust worthy space for a person where they have to be careful on what to share within the social community they take part of. There is also the way that trolls have the ability to take part of impersonating a living or fictional personal, which is essentially a big destructive lie.

When brought to attention do people advocate for change?

Anna Silman wrote a piece on The Cut where they guide us through Leslie Jones’s lengthy journey of being a victim of online trolls. Since this article focus on Leslie Jones’s Twitter account, the social media she implores to improve its harassment policies is Twitter. After she declared in leaving the site temporarily, other celebrities took part in a fan made hashtag to show their support. Not only did some celebrities show their support by spreading the hashtag but they were advocating on Twitter to it’s CEO for change. The social media CEO did put out a statement to announce that the company was going to keep invest time into improving their tools and enforcement systems to take faster action on abuse and also to prevent repeat offenders. Yet not long after another celebrity, Gabby Douglas, became the target of online trolls making Jones return the support she had been given during that hard time. With celebrities making their support against harassment by online trolls on Twitter publicly known the company did then announce a “quality filter” for all users. So yes, when brought to attention people do advocate for change, even if its for the gain of a small change.

Is trolling a form of harassment?

It can be especially when it comes to how far someone takes what it means to troll. Harassment isn’t only name calling but it can also include threatening behavior which by many has been seen and experienced online. The type of harassment that can happen online to both men and women ranges from, offensive name calling, physically threatened, sexually harassed, stalked, being harassed for a sustained length of time, and being purposefully embarrassed. Since there is such range of online harassment they have been put into sets, where the first includes something that can be often ignored while the second category is more severe.

Could Grandpa Wiggly be seen as a novelty account?

A novelty account are not ‘serious’ accounts nor do they further discussions. Rather the accounts contain a gimmick like puns or references to memes. Since Grandpa Wiggly had fooled people into believing his stories were real and therefore he was real, many were hurt by finding out it was all an online fictional persona. May people couldn’t see the account as trolling because he was encouraged by others to continue his role instead of sneaking into a community and negatively impacting it. Grandpa Wiggly never, according to Kelly Bergstrom’s research, make any money out of his persona of an elderly grandfather guru. Therefore only the eye of the beholder can make the decision into seeing Grandpa Wiggly as a novelty account or a troll. 

Bergstrom, K. (2011). “Don’t feed the troll”: Shutting down debate about community expectations on Reddit.com. First Monday, 16(8). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v16i8.3498

Duggan, M. (2014), “Online Harassment” Pew Research Center, pp. 1-11.

Phillips, W. (2015), "Defining Terms: The Origins and Evolution of Subcultural Trolling”. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture. pp. 55-57.

Silma, A. (2016). A Timeline of Leslie Jones’s Horrific Online Abuse.

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10/14 blog post

What can a cyborg world accomplish? 

Haraway shares their own definition of chimeras and believes that we are all chimeras. Chimeras are hybrids of machine and organism meaning that by definition that makes us cyborgs. Cyborgs to Haraway can be found in modern medicine because it is “conceived as coded devise in an intimacy and with a power that was not generated in the history of sexuality” (354). Haraway cyborg myth includes transgressed boundaries, potent fusions, and dangerous possibilities that she ties into political work. Her perspective is that with embracing our cyborg world we will accomplish the final misuse of women’s bodies. A cyborg world includes people not being afraid of their ties with animals and machines. We won’t be afraid of permanent half identities and clashing standpoints.   

Are cyborgs the idea perfect?

No, because our bodies are maps of power and identity meaning cyborgs are just the same. While cyborgs are both machine and organism, our machine is us and we are not perfect. Meaning we must be responsible for our machines because they don’t control us rather, we control their boundaries. 

How has technology embraced the binary female? 

O’Riordan points out how the technology is represented as female. In doing so it has created a certain trust to the female voice so that it can be accepted as friendly which in doing so has shaped the way females are portrayed by technology. Such as video games, costumes, and other forms of visual technology reinforces a certain type of binary characteristics. Such as female character’s bodies and figure include huge breasts, small waist, no penis, figure hugging clothing, and having a ‘mother’ narrative.  

Why are online forums important? 

Daniels tackles online forums specifically when white supremacist ideology is being challenged and reaffirmed a woman of the ladies-only forum post. Daniels had discovered a Stormfront webpage where ladies-only forums were popular with white women. What they discovered was that women in mixed-sex online discussion groups would post fewer messages and were less likely to keep posting when their messages would receive no responses. This created the notion for women to control discussion threads when the women make up a clear majority of contributors. Women in mixed-sex groups who lack the influence is explained by why women-only online groups are common. Yet these women on ladies-only forum who have embraced elements of liberal feminism still feel powerless compared to the men in their lives. Online forums for women are important because with the right support they learn to become powerful. Only hitch is the way that women who don’t fit a particular mold will not fit into these ladies-only forums and will find little support in their minority forums. 

Daniels, J. (2009). Gender, White Supremacy, and the Internet. Cyber Racism: White Supremacy Online and the New Attack on Civil Rights (pg. 61-86). Rowman & Littlefield.

Haraway, D. (1991). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (pg. 149-181). Routledge.

O’Riordan, K. (2006). Gender, Technology, and Visual Cyberculture. Critical Cyberculture Studies (pg. 243-252). New York University Press

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10/07 blog post

Why is race an important topic to talk about?

When race is ignored by Whites, they deny the advantages their Whiteness brings which then brings a new foundation of racism. One way that people deny race is by using a known racist ideology of “colorblind”. Even if everyone was to deny race it would still exist by the social attributes that people of color are given compared to whites. If a topic that is rooted into being included and accepted by scholars and society then creating more words to describe the privileges whites receive with race, such a topic is important in order to bridge gaps between races when it comes to things such as visibility, and the wealth gap.

Wasn’t race a form of colonization?

Stephen Spencer argues in “The Social Media Handbook” that racial division was invented as a way of resolving a conflict. They don’t go into details of the conflict but in other classes I’ve learned that race was invented by Europeans to colonize Native Americans. Other scholars argue that race should be confined as a useless term but now race doesn’t just refer to physical features but also differences in nationality, religion, ancestry, class and biological sub-categories.

Is race really a tool?

Ruha Benjamin states that even just understanding race can be a tool because it can be used to design to stratify and sanctify social injustice as part of the architecture of everyday life. The company BIC used race as a marketing tool when they released a line of “BICs For Her”, while they did receive backlash, they had used something to sell pens for a higher price. Another way race is used as tool can be seen in ethnicity recognition software that is used for law enforcement and immigration officials or mass sporting and cultural events to monitor streaming video feed.

How do algorithms help the public be given the illusion of visibility in progress?

After 2016 there came to be a lot of white victimization where people started to want advocation for being recognized and celebrated as White. This then came with a shift toward multiculturalism to be marked by a moving away from a one-size-fits -all market to on that capitalizes on calls for diversity. Social advocation such as popular hashtags create the appearance for more visibility for people of color. The reason there isn’t real progress is because algorithms that are more tailored the public is given the illusion of progress.

Benjamin, R. (2019). Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Cambridge: Polity, 41-88.

Senft, T., Noble, U. N. (2014). Race and Social Media. The Social Media Handbook, 107-125.

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9/30 blog post

Why is race something that is taught through culture?

Firstly, because there is no biological or genetic basis for dividing the world’s population into racial groups. In the virtual world race either exists or it doesn’t, being online allows for the person on the other side of the screen to hide that identity marker. In the real world race does matter because it’s a system socially constructed into having real and tangible effects on people. As a social construct race is taught differently throughout culture, the racial category “black” has different meanings in the United States and in South Africa. (Kolko)

Why race can’t stop from existing?

While someone can hide their physical racial identity marker through the virtual world, race doesn’t stop there. A lot of us are shaped by the ways our race matter offline, that knowledge, experiences and values bleed into our time online. While technology provides us with a starting point it means individuals are responsible for how they work with that empty space. If someone did want a world where race didn’t exist, cyberspace is proof that world cannot exist because not only are we taught race but it’s embedded in our characteristics. (Kolko)

What is the importance of cyborg imagery? 

Cyborg is something Donna Haraway defines as constructed by the hands of other and are neither entirely innocent or guilty of their actions. Cyborg imagery helps in explain the binary paradigms of good and evil by embracing the skillful task for reconstructing boundaries in everyday life. Such as partial connections with other, or communication with all of our parts. On the note of connections and communication, cyberfeminism establishes a white feminist theories that excludes impoverished women, women in third-world countries and doesn’t include men because they are said to possess unbelievable amounts of privilege. (Ow, J. A.)

How is the internet a big tactic for white supremacy? 

When in person it is easy to ignore or dismiss white supremacy rants and publicly made options, yet online anyone can find white supremacy online. White supremacist were among the first to create, publish, and maintain web pages on the internet which has allowed them to customize the internet to their advantage. An example would be cloaked websites which are difficult-to-detect authorship and hidden agendas intended to accomplish political goals such as white supremacy. While we can say that we have the ability to ignore and dismiss white supremacy, that notion is harder for Americans because America was built with white supremacy as a central guiding principle.  (Daniels)

Daniels, J. (2009). White Supremacy in the Digital Era. Cyber Racism: White Supremacy Online and the New Attack on Civil Rights (pp. 3-16). Rowman & Littlefield.

Kolko, B. E., Nakamura, L., & Rodman, G. B. (2000). Race in Cyberspace: An Introduction. Race in Cyberspace (pp. 1-13). Routledge.

Ow, J. A. (2000). The Revenge of the Yellowfaced Cyborg Terminator: The Rape of Digital Geishas and the Colonization of Cyber-Coolies in 3D Realms’ Shadow Warrior. Race in Cyberspace (pp. 51-68). Routledge.

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9/16 blog post

Are Algorithms meant to be neutral?

Algorithms are meant to be neutral but as Noble points out, ‘algorithms’ and ‘big data’ are anything but. Algorithms are made by people who hold all types of values which they openly promote racism, sexism and these ideals transfer to their work. We cannot believe that these people with openly negative world views are developing search algorithms that are meant to be neutral or objective decision making tools. While algorithms can be updated repeatedly there would still be digital traces of such issues.

Is a name not only a brand but a business?

Benjamin touches upon how having a ‘bland’ name comes with power because it’s plainness which can be seen as invisibility and regards to Whiteness, offers a person immunity. A bland name comes attached with benefits such as escaping responsibility for their role in an unjust system. Names are a brand because the parents decision follows their child for a lifetime and come attached with certain benefits because of histories conflict and simulation and signal fierce political struggles. Names will either open door that lead to largescale employment or shut doors because of racism.

Is the Internet a social experiment?  

A social experiment tests people’s reaction to certain situations or events. Noble dives into this subject by emphasizing how algorithms that make up search engines, negatively effect people. The only positive impact that the internet has is for those who aren’t people of color because people of color are the ones that are having negative stereotypes being reinforced through search engines.

How does the digital divide benefit from the decline of minority student’s enrollment at prestigious universities?

Everett touches upon this subject, but first we need to look at the digital divide theory. This theory argues that certain populations, built up of minorities, don’t have equal access to the internet and digital technology due to lack of resources or disinterest in technology. In 1995 the Internet shifted from predominately elite, white masculinist domain to a more public domain. In 2002 the decline of African American and other racial minority students’ enrollments at prestigious universities proves to the regressive consequences of the legal deinstitutionalization of these underrepresents groups access of elite higher education. The role the Internet plays is because of growing technocratic order will inevitably exclude the marginalized black masses from the still-evolving information infrastructure.

Benjamin, R. (2019). Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Cambridge: Polity.

Everett, A. (2002). The Revolution Will Be Digitized: Afrocentricity and the Digital Public Sphere. Social Text, 125-146.

Noble, S. (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York University Press.

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9/09 blog post

How are people who don’t fit the social norm being targeted by digital technology systems?

Now in days we have relinquished decision-making power to sophisticated machines, yet they still make mistakes. When someone gets red-flagged, life-saving services are loss until the company finds out the truth whether the person is committing health-care fraud. The algorithm that these companies use look for common indicators of medical malfeasance. If two people aren’t married, but one is insured as the other domestic partner that can bring the algorithm to question the untraditional relationship. Not just when it comes to insurance companies, but marginalized groups face higher levels of data collecting throughout every day actions only for that data to be used as a target and extra scrutiny. (Eubanks, pg. 12-18 )

Is identity tourism something positive in social media?

Identity tourism is the way members of a group try change their descriptors to those of another race or gender, therefore changing their identities online. Just like everything that comes with social media, there is a good and bad. The bad in people having the ability to change their race or gender online can cause harm to those being someone they can’t be out in the real world as well as creating a ‘zero degree’ of racial differences. Yet there are those that go online to change gender or racial identities so they can seek online spaces that encourage their true identities. So yes identity tourism is a good thing that can help many be their true selves when society it creating boarders for them but just like anything good people can corrupt it. (Daniels, pg. 109-11)

What is cyberfeminism(s)?

There is two types, the old and the new cyberfeminism yet both provide common ground of gender and digital technologies and on cyberfeminist practices. ’Old’ cyberfeminism is a utopian version of a postcorporeal woman corrupting patriarchy. ‘New’ cyberfeminism is more about “confronting the top-down from the bottom-up”. Cyberfeminism isn’t a theory or a feminist movement, it’s a range of theories, debates, and practices about the relationship between gender and digital culture. An example would be women of color being included in mainstream conversation on the basis of race and gender within the United States and globally. (Daniels, pg. 102-107)

Is digital tracking a new means of control and manipulation?

Yes, because digital tracking and decision-making systems are becoming a routine in policing, political forecasting, marketing, credit reporting, criminal sentencing, business management, finance and administration of public programs. Life-threatening consequences are placed upon poor and working-class people as a target of digital poverty management which can take away their eligibility of claiming public resources. Algorithms tag problematic parents making them surveillance to find public scrutiny and these systems have little to no political discussions about their impacts. (Eubanks, 23-26)

Daniels, J. (2009). Rethinking Cyberfeminism(s): Race, Gender, and Embodiment. WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly37(1), 101-124.  doi:10.1353/wsq.0.0158.

Eubanks, V. (2018). Introduction: Red Flags. In Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor (pp. 9–28). Picador.

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9/02 blog post

Why are stereotypes important media tactics?

Stereotypes are used by media owners and editors, and their top writers to achieve an increase in newspaper sales and broadcast rating. This tactic exploits racial fears and serves as a tool by which powerful groups in society gain public support. Racial bias is supported by these stereotypes in creating a routine portrayal of non-white minorities as threats to white society, therefore reinforcing racial ignorance, group hatred and discriminatory government policies. One positive way that stereotypes are used in the media is by being used as tool for individuals to make sense of the complex world around us. (Gonzalez & Torres, pg. 3-11)

How do stereotypes establish dominance in the media?

Since the early years of the Republic people of color have been protesting their exclusion for the main stream media and false press portrayals of their communities. There is even a popular notion that American after Civil Rights movement decided the quest for racial diversity in many fields became outdated for no longer being relevant. Yet that’s not true since in 2005 only 3.2% of commercial television stations were one by minority business people, and during that time the population of minorities were 33%. An example would be during Jim Crow era where the federal government targeted the black press for special censorship and restrictions because of its continued calls for an end to Jim Crow. Not only did these harmful stereotypes cause years of damage, it was a form of segregation giving dominance to those in control. (Gonzalez & Torres, pg. 6-9)

What does it mean to be social when using forms of media?

This question all depends on who you ask and in what way they look at it. If one was looking at this through sociological theory some say all media are social because they are part of society. Meaning if you sit alone in front of your computer, type a document, with no internet access, you are participating in a social activity. Others say that not all media is social, communication is a mutual practice between two humans where symbols are exchanged and given meaning. (Fuchs pg.4-5)

Does social media harm revolutions?

Social media plays a big role in revolutions now in days, but it is not bring about revolutions. Participating in slacktivism, which is the feel-good online activation that has zero political or social impact, harms revolutions because no real change is being made. Social media does bring awareness but it publicizes it for both parties, it can protect protesters from the police and the police can have knowledge that is only shared in private groups. (Fuchs, pg. 2-3)

Fuchs, C. (2014). What is a Critical Introduction to Social Media? In Social Media: a critical introduction (pp. 1-24). SAGE.

Gonzalez, J., & Torres, J. Introduction . In News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media (pp. 1-15). 

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𝐀 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞

A lot of time in the form of texting, I send the message to the wrong person which results in a few seconds of embarassement. 

Other than that the ones that annoy me the most is when something on my computer doesnt want to print only for my sisters laptop to have no printing problems. 

Also when you think something is saved but you go back to the documet only to find out it doesnt exist or what you had just written never got saved.