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Imaged sourced from (Internet of Business).

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The Great Firewall of China

Imagine living in a world with no Facebook, no Instagram, no Snapchat, no YouTube, not even dam Wikipedia. Well lucky for you, you don’t have to imagine this word, why, because you clearly live in the Western world. These social media platforms have ultimately transformed the way we communicate and connect with each other, but can you imagine living in a country where these sites are not only unavailable but are also BANNED. Yes, I know mind blown! 

As it turns out, the Chinese governments have blocked these social networking sites that we use on an almost daily basis, as they deem the content to not be in the interest of the state. Don’t be alarmed, they aren’t totally confined to colouring books and crossword puzzles, they do have their own set of social media platforms that bare some resemblance to our famous sites. These include WeChat, Weibo, Baidu, QQ and Youku. 

Youku is the YouTube of the westernized society, which serves as China’s main social networking site. Anyone is able to upload their own videos, however, this site is strictly monitored by the Chinese government and anything criticising the Communist Party is taken down. I mean isn’t freedom of speech one of the ten commandments? 

As I am sure many of you are familiar with Game of Thrones, you must therefore understand the importance of a big wall for an old kingdom. It prevents weird things entering from the north. And just like the wall that spans Westeros’ north border, China also has a great wall, which has protected the country from invaders for the last 2,000 years. But another wall that many individuals are not so familiar is the Great Firewall of China. That's the biggest digital boundary in the whole world. It was built not only to protect Chinese traditional regime from universal customs and practices, but also to prevent China’s own citizens to access the global free internet, breaking their united front. 

So here is the time we present to you two internets. One is the internet, and the other is the Chinanet. 

But why does China have their only virtual internet and prohibit the use of apps commonly used by westernized societies. Well the answer is simple:

Censorship

This form of internet censorship is widely known as the ‘The Great Firewall of China’. It was implemented by the Chinese Government to serve two purposes. 

Firstly, it allows the the government to at least partially control the flow of information to the country, and it fosters an economy that promotes homegrown Chinese companies such as the Chinese Uber (Didi), Chinese Facebook (WeChat), and the Chinese Google Search (Baidu). 

Regardless, the Chinese government seems willing to endure the economic and scientific costs, as well as potential damage to its credibility, if it means more control over the internet. Censorship has practically forced Chinese online users to embrace their creativity gene and for the censors to be highly alert in blocking this exceedingly creative content. For example, online searches for this little cute ball of yellow fluff were blocked once in a while.  

Why you may ask? Well because people think Winnie the Pooh looks like President Xi Jinping, so when people mention Winnie in conversations through words or picture, they use it as a proxy for talking about this guy. 

Imaged sourced from (BBC).

I don’t know if its just me, but I can’t really see the resemblance. Should’ve gone to Specsavers I guess. 

There are several ways however that Chinese citizens can reap the benefits of the modernised internet world despite ‘The Great Firewall’, with a VPN being the most common used. 

A VPN, Virtual Private Network, is a connection method used to add security and privacy to private and public networks. It enables users to hide their IP address and actual location, displaying instead one of their IP addresses and virtual location from anywhere in the world where their server exists.  

However, Chinese citizens may not get this privilege anymore, in the latest crackdown by the Chinese Government which will see the abolishment of VPN networks to suppress dissent and maintain the communications party’s grip on power. Welcome back Didi, WeChat and Baidu. 

I don’t know about you, but I’m so thankful I live in country where I’m able to freely post about all the Winnie the Pooh related memes and content I want. I mean I use VPN here so I can watch Netflix from practically any country in the world, I couldn’t imagine if I had to use a VPN just so I could send my snapchat streaks for the day. Oops, don’t report me cause the Australian Government is also cracking down on this at the moment yikes. Living in China would be like featuring in an episode of Big Brother and playing Truman in The Truman Show. Creepy and a total violation of personal privacy. No thankyou!

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Imaged sourced from (Aol.).

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Why you gotta be so rude?

For the vast majority of human history, the world has been perceived as being very large, mysterious and unknown. There was little known about much of the world and where our place in the universe was. Communication between people was few and far between and traveling long distances was difficult and dangerous. 

However, over the last few 100 years we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in the perceived scale of our world through the invention of trains, planes and cars which has seen travel times cut from months to mere hours. But most notably the pervasiveness of the internet has allowed humanity to reach unprecedented levels of instant connection. However, despite these rapid advancements, there is still one personal and social aspect of life that many of us engage with, that has a lot of evolving to do, before it reaches the perceived scale of the rest of the world. And no, it won’t be the usual suspects like Facebook, Twitter or any other social networking sites. It will be an unlikely candidate that I’m sure many of you are quite familiar with���

Unlike any of the other forms of entertainment media like books, television and movies, video games have the power to enact sweeping social change on a global scale. Games are capable of so much more than just their pure entertainment value, they are basic form of human connection. From a very early age, we use play as a means of building relationship that can often last a life time. Even though society often thinks otherwise, this doesn’t change as we grow older. So there’s this common stereotype of gamers that the mainstream likes to push, the nerdy guy living in his parent’s basement killing zombies all day and pretty much avoiding all social interaction with the outside world. Sound familiar. They look somewhat like this.

So there might have been a time where this was closer to the truth but those days are far behind us. According to Taylor Soper, 700 million people worldwide are now playing video gamers online, and this number is rising rapidly as the world continues to come online.

According to O’Neill, there are several factors that differentiate social gaming including: 

Turn-based 

Awareness of other’s actions in games 

Casual gaming 

Multiplayer 

Based on social platforms

Social gaming can also be classified by its type of play, as outlined by Caillois: 

agon (competition) competitive games which presuppose training, skill and discipline 

alea (chance) work, skill and experience are negated and ‘winning is the result of fate rather than triumphing over an adversary’

mimicry (simulation) players’ escaping from themselves and becoming ‘illusory characters’

ilinx (vertigo): based on the creation of physical vertigo or disorientation 

If you were anything like me growing up, social gaming consumed a large part of your life. I wouldn’t call myself a nerd or anything like that, it was more of a popular pastime that I played when commuting to school, travelling in the car, literally anything that required me to sit in one spot for at least 2 minutes.

I remember during every recess and lunchtime in primary school when these group of kids would sit in a line playing Mario Kart against each other on their Nintendo. It was actually quite funny cause everyone felt they were also playing the game, I mean you could hear their sound effects and yelling at each other from the other side of the yard, and that’s when you knew, somebody launched a shell. I was actually low-key jealous of them cause I really wanted to play but my friends were more interested in sitting down and playing gossip. (I mean not gossip gossip, primary school gossip, like which boy in our class had the cutest hair). 

Anyway, what’s not so rainbow road anymore is the vast level of conflict and violence that is often associated with video games nowadays. And no, I’m not talking about the graphics of the game where you bash your opponents over the head with clubs (although this seems to cause it), I’m talking about actual player vs player conflict. After all, Call of Duty or Fortnite is no Snakes and Ladders any more. 

The introduction of headsets and chat rooms has really enabled players to speak freely without enduring any consequences for their vile behaviour or actions. It can be especially dangerous for social games connected to Facebook or Instagram for example, as players often use their social media profiles to create accounts. This allows for other users to quickly search for their opponents via these channels, and subject their fellow competitor to online and repulsive abuse. 

Let’s look at EVE Online for example. Eve Online is a space-themed massively multiplayer online game, with over half a million subscribers. Players may develop their own codes of conduct or social norms which impact on game play directly, and in some instances these may be inconsistent with the game rules. 

EVE Online have a strict terms of use that details users may not abuse, harass or threaten another player or authorised representative of CCP (owner and manager of EVE Online), and they are not allowed to use any abusive, defamatory, harassing, sexually explicit or vulgar language. 

However, abuse and threatening language are among the tactics regularly used in the game, as players harass other players to give up and cede regions to the dominant alliance. Most times, players are able to walk away scot-free without even a ban or warning for their repulsive behaviour. In Club Penguin, you would be blacklisted for 24 hours for saying “Still a better love story than Twilight”. Don’t believe me --> 

Imaged sourced from (Tumblr).

We really need to address the level of violence, not only in the graphics of the game, but also through verbal communication between players as it is likely to cause severe psychological harm for users in the future.

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Countdown is on! (sorry I won’t be taking part, don’t really think a ladies-mo is in fashion right now)

November has started, which means it is now time for Movember.

So for everyone looking to grow out your hair, don’t forget that it’s time to raise awareness of men’s health issues and prostate cancer!

Donate what you can or just help spread awareness!

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Imaged sourced from (National Prevention Information Network).

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Video sourced from (YouTube).

Shawn Madden his friends and fans via YouTube to share footage of themselves having fun. In return, he featured these videos in his music video “Lighten Up”. This is an innovative example of a crowdsourced music video project. 

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Video sourced from (YouTube).

“When a crisis occurs, the people who are affected can use Ushahidi's open-source platform to report what is happening around them via social media, email, and text. Their reports are compiled into real-time maps, which enable others to reach and help them more quickly.”

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Crowdsourcing the world’s goals

For almost the entirety of human history, the crowd was dependent on proximity, meaning we had to be physically together to create a crowd. 

(lets be honest, crowdsourcing was probably found by the misanthropists)

However, through the birth of the internet, we are able to create a virtual crowd. This allows people to get together through intent, through shared interested and through achieving a common goal. 

Crowdsourcing refers to the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.

By now, you should have heard the saying “two heads are better than one” … well crowdsourcing capitalizes on this concept, allowing an organisation, group or individual to utilise the intelligence of hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of people, to produce ideas or solve real problems. 

Its basically the application of a business model, taking a function performed by people in an organisation, and outsourcing it through an open-air broadcast on the internet. And poof, suddenly the whole world becomes qualified journalists.

Hosseini, Phalp, Taylor and Ali outline the four pillars which constitute the entire crowdsourcing operation: 

The crowd: the people who take part in a crowdsourcing activity 

The crowdsourcer: the entity (person, for-profit organisation, non-profit    organisation etc.) who seeks the power and wisdom of the crowd for a      task at hand 

The crowdsourcing tasks: the activity in which the crowd participates in 

The crowdsourcing platform: the system (software or non-software) within which a crowdsourcing task is performed. 

This may come as a shock horror but you don’t actually need to be some science wiz or have 60,000 Instagram or Twitter followers to crowdsource. It can be done by virtually anyone on the planet, including you!

Crowdsourcing can be utilised to find a solution to an array of different and complex problems. However, in todays digital age, crowdsourcing is most often used in tandem with social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and blogs. 

In a business setting, organisations often innovate with crowdsourcing as tool to gain market research, create company culture, increase engagement and reduce costs. PepsiCo for example, invited consumers through their social networking site Facebook, to create a new flavour for their potato chip ‘Lays’ brand. Police departments also increasingly solving crime the crowdsourced way, by asking the public to help track missing persons, solve murders and catch assailants through various social media platforms, primarily Facebook and Twitter. 

Imaged sourced from (Victoria Police).

However, in today’s society, crowdsourcing is mostly used for emergency situations. And no, just in case you were confused, Kim Kardashian losing her $75K diamond earring in the tropics of Bora Bora doesn’t count as a time of crisis.

Emergency situations typically classify as natural disasters including earthquakes and tsunamis and in more recent times, shootings or acts of terrorism for example. 

Crowdsourcing via social media is an exceptional tool in raising funds or awareness for victims or areas impacted by disaster. Facebook for example introduced a crowdsourcing disaster response “safety check” feature in 2014. This allows Facebook users affected by or in the area of a disaster, to notify family and friends that they are ok by marking themselves “safe” on Facebook. Crowdsourcing often involves crowdfunding, which is based on the same concept, however it is the practice of funding a project or venture through donations from a large number of people, typically via the internet. 

The 2010 Haiti Earthquake serves as a quality example of the effectiveness of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding in a country wrought with extreme political ad economic struggles and staggering poverty. 

Imaged sourced from (Learnodo Newtonic).

The economic damage was over $13 billion US dollars and close to 1.5 million people were displaced. Despite the turmoil and tragedy of this disaster, lives were saved and resources such as food, medicine, and security were coordinated because of volunteer crowdsourced operations that rapidly sprang into action via social media. Individuals from each corner of the globe came together in a campaign and quickly provided much needed resources to response organizations on the ground in Haiti. Many of the $9 billion worth of funds for the Haiti Relief, were raised through GoFundMe links on social media. In addition, crowd mapping website Ushahidi coordinated messages just two hours after the earthquake hit, from multiple sites to assist Haitians still trapped and to keep families of survivors informed. 

Imaged sourced from (Ushahidi).

Despite the tragedy and devastation of this event, crowdsourcing via social media has shown itself to be an effective tool in providing situational awareness for both victims and disaster managers. Combining crowdsourcing technology with social media platforms plays an important role in not just sharing content and products across multiple languages, but it also creates a stronger connection to the social change occurring around us.

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Imaged sourced from (Innovation Observer). 

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Keep your goals away from the trolls!

Well since you’re reading this blog and had to scroll through many links and google searches to get here, you must be pretty familiar with the internet. 

But, just like any other cool and almost magical place, it fosters its own dark sides. Even its very own trolls. And no, we aren’t talking about these little fuzzy cute blue and pink guys that looks like they made a terrible mistake in playing with a fork and a toaster. 

Trolling is used to describe a range of situations, but basically, trolling is the art of deliberately, cleverly, and secretly pissing people off, usually via the internet, using dialogue. Don’t let this fool you though, not all trolls are bad! 

However, this is only the minority and most of them are extremely harmful. You might have heard the warning “don’t read the comments” to avoid any potentially aggressive online interactions. But who are these senseless people hiding behind a keyboard and computer screen and why do they do what they do?

Psychologist Jesse Fox believed that there are 8 key factors that explains why online trolls troll including:

the ability to be anonymous

perceived obscurity

perceived majority status

social identity salience

support by ‘friends’

decensitiations

personality traits 

perceived lack of consequences

WHAT! Yes, you read that correct! People actually actively engage in this malicious form of bullying because they feel supported by friends?? I don’t know what kind of people these are, but they ain’t no friend of mine. 

As Fox continues to explain, sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter enables users to perceive their online environment to be full of people like them, granting them support to post and comment nasty and malicious content. This new digital age has almost birthed a new era of online trolling, as the existence of social networking sites enable users to engage in anti-social behaviour more frequently. 

Social media is engineered in such a way that it can amplify the negative consequences received by victims of online trolls due to the immense networking of our digital community. However, social networking sites such as Facebook do offer various tools to protect users falling prey of online trolls by allowing individuals to change their privacy settings, block or unfriend and report any demeaning or offensive content. 

There are other organisations and websites in existence today that helps users cope with the abuse and emotional consequences from online trolling. One such online safety education system is the Office of eSafety Commissioner. This government funded organisation is committed to empowering all Australians to have safer, more positive experiences online. As indicated on their website, the Office of eSafety Commissioner provides three services: 

- A complaints service for young Australians who experience serious cyberbullying 

- Identifying and removing illegal content

- Tackling image-based abuse 

While websites such as these provide excellent support for women, children, parents and carer’s who may be affected by online trolling, it still won’t break the cycle of anti-social and malicious behaviour that has been festering for the last 20 years. 

Hopefully in the future, we will reach an equilibrium where people on the internet can feel free to express themselves without causing others pain and anguish. Until this day comes, just a friendly reminder from me…DON’T FEED THE TROLLS!

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Imaged sourced from (BBQ Boy).

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Greta Thunberg, the leader of ‘School Strike for Climate’ mobilising her supporters through the use of the social networking site Twitter. 

Climate Strike! March 15 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/mar/14/youth-climate-strikes-to-take-place-in-almost-100-countries-greta-thunberg

The most important movement of our time. 

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Begin the new age of activism!

C“FIGHT FOR OUR FUTURE”, “THERE IS NO PLANET B”, “BE PART OF THE SOLUTION NOT THE POLLUTION”. 

Imaged sourced from (Climate Council).

These slogans were one of thousands that featured on our streets all over the world on March 15. In case you weren’t aware, this date marked one of the largest global climate change movements in activism history, with an estimated 1.4 million pupils attending in over 2000 cities worldwide . The face of this campaign you may ask? Well, don’t let this upset you in feeling accomplished of your life achievements thus far. She is a girl that still wears her hair in two plaits, she is a girl that has barely finished going through puberty, and she is a girl that is still completing 9th grade. Her name is Greta Thunberg, and she was only 15 years old when she inspired the ‘School Strike for Climate’. 

Image sourced from (Change.org).

So, how did this little girl from Sweden unite an entire globe you may ask? Well, her lone campaigning outside of Swedish Parliament for several months did win her a substantial amount of media attraction, however, social media can really be seen as the heart of her political protest. 

The new era of Twitter and Facebook enabled Greta’s ‘School Strike for Climate’ political campaign to become viral, with Facebook events and Twitter posts created almost instantaneously rallying the cause. These networking sites unified the world who all shared the same concern for their planet. March 15 serves as a significant date in our history, not only for the remarkable international movement of school students, but also for the powerful role social media plays in organising today’s activism campaigns. 

While the fundamentals of activism and protests remain the same as it did 250 years ago, the way people organise and congregate has evolved. 

Amid the turbulence of protests for civil rights and against the Vietnam war a mere 50 years ago, leaders would pass out flyers, petition and talk to people directly to organise, rather than the quick post or tweet on Facebook and Twitter as is the case today. 

The convenience of social media has replaced the need for telephone trees, letters and a lot more paper, making it easier for leaders to mobilise people more quickly.

It’s pretty safe to say that nowadays you don’t necessarily need to have a one compelling leader like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr possessing some kind of magical quality to stand at a podium, or at the front of a march to convey an inspiring message. All you need is some pretty colourful banners, a bit of cardboard attached to a stick and some graphic display of graffiti art if you’re feeling a bit extra. Well, at least this is the case for Mark Derry, who includes graffiti art as one of the four forms of culture jamming, in conjunction with performance art, hacktivism and adbusting.

Its almost hard to imagine how different the protests for civil rights would have played out in the 1960’s and 1970’s, if the technological age had been so advanced as it is today. 

Would Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. still march arm-in-arm with other civil right activists, would Cesar Chavez still hoist a pick sign in a farm worker’s site and would Gloria Steinem still rally other feminists for equal rights? Well to tell you the truth, who really knows, but I’m sure it would have saved them a lot more time and a lot less tree wastage for paper.

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Imaged sourced from (The Guilfordian).

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“Tweet, Tweet, Tweet” the voice of our political vultures

Imagine this. Imagine the faint chirping of birds, the golden rays of sunshine, the early morning mist drowning the valley below. Imagine sitting on your retro style floral couch sipping on your freeze dried instant coffee reading the weekly newspaper. Imagine reading the front headline on ‘The Times’: “U.S. President Richard Nixon is inaugurated for his second term” (Historic Newspapers 2019). Did you imagine this? No? Well maybe because this story is actually set in the 1970’s and you weren’t even born yet, little do you have any idea who Richard Nixon actually is. Or maybe you’re just like me, a 19-year-old girl whose interest in reading the newspaper goes about as far as London Tipton’s interest in what anyone else has to say.

I mean sure of course, you still read the newspaper nowadays to gain knowledge on current affairs and who’s leading the political campaign as you did 50 years ago, however, during those times, your only source of information was through a black and white box, multiple printed A3 sheets and a radio that weighed 10kg. 

And to be honest, the only people nowadays that would actually gain information through these sources are people that lived during the 1970’s. Do you really think I’m gonna sit there for an hour-long segment watching who’s leading the political race, or waste half my Sunday morning reading words on material that I could rip? No. If I’m that engaged in political events, I’ll open the twitter app to see what Donald Trump has to say on the matter. This scenario demonstrates the strong link between our democratic political-media system and social media practices in an evolving tech savvy population.

Nowadays, it is very rare if not extinct for a politician to campaign without the aid of social media. Donald Trump for example, used social media as a weapon in his political campaign. With over 125 million followers between all social networking sites, Donald Trump established a tremendous platform which gave him great power in influencing the Americans with his unfiltered, unapologetic and controversial opinions. He strategically avoided traditional campaign approaches in speaking to the press and participating in interviews, as he knew his influence and dominance on social media would be far more valuable in directly connecting with those he was trying to appeal to.

Imaged sourced from (Village Voice).

With a transformed media landscape, the world suddenly feels much bigger. You can pretty much follow anyone from anywhere in the world with a single ‘click’. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook allow users from all around the globe to follow politician’s ideas from the tip of their fingers. Digital technologies make it possible for average citizens to become more involved in political decisions. 

Social media citizens no longer have to be passive consumers of political party propaganda, government’s pin or mass media news, but are instead actually enabled to challenges discourses, share alternative perspectives and publish their own opinions. Almost every single American and Canadian politician have a Twitter account. Why you may ask? Its because social media has a become a political tool in shaping the relationships between politicians and their people.

Social media has truly changed the face of politics. Everything is instantaneous and at the tips of our fingers. Politicians should actively seek to embrace the opportunities that social media brings, as it is a valuable source of information that they can use to benefit and manage their own campaigns.

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Imaged sourced from (Social Marketing Fella).