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The Cost of Bitcoin

Hello! Today I will be talking about the negative environmental toll of Bitcoin. In the past half decade we have seen Bitcoin rise from an unheard of electronic currency to making headlines on the wall street journal’s investment articles. Everyone wants in on cryptocurrency and anyone can make their own crypto mining set up at home using parts from your PC which is why it’s been described as the new gold rush. But not everything that shines is always gold and crypto is no exception to this rule. In recent months crypto currency’s value has started to decline and the initial influx in popularity is starting to flicker out. But the risk to your investment portfolio isn’t the only negative impact of crypto, in order to mine crypto currency you have to have a powerful computer that can run complex algorithms. To maintain the upkeep of these computers running constantly in order to mine Bitcoin requires large amounts of electrical input to the machines. Now that everyone is mining crypto it is estimated that “crypto-miners” have the same annual carbon output as the entirety of Argentina. Even if the electricity being used is from a clean source it doesn’t change the fact that crypto-miners are incentivised by cheap electricity (typically coal based sources) to maximize profits. Studies have shown that the equivalent of one U.S Dollar of bitcoin has double the amount of carbon output as one U.S Dollar of platinum, gold or copper making it a rather harmful form of making money. Although there is development from Ethereum which is the second most popular crypto currency on the market whose goal is make crypto mining more environmentally friendly, hopefully in the future we can see more efforts being made to preserve what little healthy environment we have left. 

Bibliography: https://futurism.com/hidden-cost-bitcoin-our-environment , https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/27/bitcoin-mining-electricity-use-environmental-impact

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Blog Assignment 2 "Facebook is a Doomsday Device"

The Atlantic article “Facebook is a Doomsday Machine” by Adrienne LeFrance compares the dangerous autonomy of Facebook to the cold war doomsday detector that would have had the ability to retaliate to a nuclear attack without any human action. Although Facebook (at this point and time) doesn’t have access to weapons capable of nuclear winter the autonomous algorithm is beyond the control of its own moderators who stand at 15,000 employees as of December 2020. These moderators have no way of catching up to their algorithm that aims to spread whatever is thrown at it, whether it be cat videos, gang rapes or terrorist recruitment. Similar to AI image generators, Facebook is a manipulation generator and all you have to do is figure out the right prompts to get it to spread. Facebook showed that it could change its ways and changed its algorithm so that highly accurate and reputable news sources, however, Facebook showed its real intentions as it allows just a little misinformation and genocide as a treat for itself so users continue to log on and dig for media that triggers themselves emotionally. 

Ultimately Facebook was raised in the infancy of the internet and because of its sheer size, it was able to shape the direction of internet culture and set the standard for digitally based internet companies. Because Facebook is a company that revels in capitalist growth, it will do anything to grow and make a profit. This is why Facebook started the trend for data harvesting and why it became so popular, because it is an easy way to exploit people who don’t even know they’re being exploited. As long as we have independent corporate entities shaping internet praxis, the internet will be a place that will not serve public interest but exploit it. This is the nature of our economic system and reform should be made so that the public can have transparency when accessing the modern Library of Alexandria. The age of neoliberalism has reduced workers rights and companies like Facebook have shown us just what can happen when great power is misunderstood and goes unchecked.

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Dark Pattern Design.

Looking at what is in the news this week as we tackle Dark Pattern Design which has seen recent legal backlash after years of flying under the government's radar.

This week in Comp 301 we are researching “Dark Pattern Design” in online media. The Dark Pattern Design refers to when a website uses a deceptive interface in order to influence outcomes of a person's decision while they are using that website (1). Some of these practices include “Forced Continuity” where a user signs up for a free trial but once it has ended their credit card is charged; others are similar to analog scams like misdirection, hidden costs and trick questions but all of which are used to manipulate the user (2). This practice is somewhat similar to an already illegal act called “Contract Fraud” (3) where a person misrepresents the facts in a contract in order to deceive the person signing the contract. It could also be considered a form of coercion but that definition is usually reserved for when a person uses physical force or blackmail to get another person to sign onto a contract (4). Although a company may not be physically forcing you to accept their cookies and trackers policy they can use Dark Pattern Design to make it near impossible to find the page to change your preferences in which you give up and agree to “RealPuppyGifs.Com” to track your digital footprint and have access to any little thing that you didn’t read in the fine print. This to me is not morally acceptable as you are taking advantage of short attention spans and ignorance to the potential use of their private information; however it is currently economically acceptable to engage in this practice as long as you’re not falsely advertising the prices of products. Although there have been some recent legal victories for cyber citizens in the United States as Epic Games pays out a multi-million dollar fine for Dark Pattern Design practices that allowed children to use their parent’s credit card without permission (1) and Credit Karma pays out three million dollars for misleading customers into believing they were eligible for a new credit card (5). These lawsuits followed quickly as the Federal-Trade-Commission (FTC) defined what can be considered Dark Patterns in September 2022 such as “Design Elements that Induce False Belief” and “Design Elements that Hide or Delay Disclosure of Material Information” (6). Hopefully the FTC can protect internet users from predatory design practices but this now poses the question for our future, can we really regulate the internet? Future lawmakers will have to walk the thin line between protection and censorship on the internet as companies outsmart consumers and online trackers become more deceptive. But in the meantime, don’t click without reading the fine print first. 

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Introduction

Hey there! I'll be posting content that is related to my Comp 301 course The Digital Life.