I have heard of China’s banning on the social networking service like Google, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and other foreign websites, and I am sure most of us know that.  The alleged “Great Firewall” of China is blocking the citizens’ access to the separate world and even each other. While the Chinese were long protected by the Great Wall, now they are also fenced by the “Great Firewall”, which is a digital wall that is controlling the users’ Internet access to the World Wide Web from inside the People’s Republic of China. All the social apps and news agencies are banned to the Chinese Internet user. The government supports the Chinese providers like Baidu (a Chinese comparable to Google) or WeChat (a social media platform). Moreover, the foreign companies, the national providers cooperate fully with the Chinese authorities (Maags 2019).

CHINA’S SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM

China has developed a massive surveillance system comprising of millions of cameras fortified with facial recognition technology. The surveillance system sits on the lamp posts and outside of buildings and streets, where they can identify individuals. Besides, some of China’s largest companies selling their tech abroad and signing the deals globally. This raise concerns of data being tapped back to China, in which the dictatorial governments use the tech in expanding their power and eventually the Chinese Communist Party have more power abroad (Kharpal 2019).

SOCIAL CREDIT SYSTEM

By 2020, China is planning to rank its people based on their “social credit”. According to their scores, they can either be rewarded or punished. A person’s social scores can shift up and shift down giving their behaviour, like private financial credit scores. The people can be punished through banning them from flying or getting thee train, curbing their Internet speeds, banning them or their kids to enter the best schools, stopping them to get the best jobs, keeping them out of the best hotels, getting their dog taken away, being publicly named as a bad citizen and so much more (Ma 2018). The Social Credit System maybe can help to implant good behaviour and provide safety to the citizens. However, the citizens would not have any privacy at all. They are being watched and judged every seconds of their life. Even the tiniest mistake that they do would be recorded and they could be punished when it accumulated. I know I would feel suffocated, insecure and anxious the whole time.

 In my opinion, being too strict with the citizens are not going to do good for them. They most probably are not aware of anything that is happening outside of their country.  

REFERENCES:

Maags, C 2019, The Great Firewall of China, Fair Observer, viewed 22 November 2019 <https://www.fairobserver.com/region/asia_pacific/great-firewall-china-censorship-chinese-news-today-vpn-china-38018/>.

Kharpal, A 2019, China’s surveillance tech is spreading globally, raising concerns about Beijing’s influence, CNBC, viewed 22 November 2019 <https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/08/china-is-exporting-surveillance-tech-like-facial-recognition-globally.html>.

Social gaming can be defined as “the activity of playing online games with other members of the same online group” (Collins Dictionary 2019).

DOES MONETISATION AFFECT THE GROWTH OF ORGANIC & GAMING COMMUNITIES?

It does affect the growth of organic & gaming communities positively. By monetizing the games, the game developers can generate revenues to develop better quality of games in more innovative ways. Last time, they set a fixed price for a static content game, but with monetizing it, they can release additional content. While monetizing the games generate the income for the developers, the gaming communities can play better quality of games and experience innovative ways of playing games. The gamers not only can play the games, but also generate income for themselves while playing. eSports is a way to generate their income by joining the competitions, but of course, they must have good skills in gaming (DeLeo 2019).

ARE GAMING COMMUNITIES BECOMING LESS ABOUT PLAY & MORE ABOUT MONETISATION?

In my opinion, the gaming communities is not becoming less about play & more about monetisation. Why can’t it be both? Enjoying playing the games while making money at the same time. If the passion of gaming can make money, might as well gain money out of it. For example, a gamer that I know, gaming while making money, PewDiePie, his YouTube channel name. PewDiePie is known for making videos while playing games, which has the most subscribers in YouTube. Just in 2018, he earned $15.5 million by recording himself playing all kinds of games, among other stuff (Leskin 2019).

Esports is a form of competition sports using video games. It is a fast-growing international event which has millions of fans. Gamers who join it sometimes earn seven-figure earning and huge brand endorsements, but they must be good in it, while streaming it online for others to watch them play (Willingham 2018).

ARE GAMING BECOMING MORE TOXIC ENVIRONMENTS FOR SOME?

Yes, gaming has becoming more toxic environments for some.  I have read some cases where they are threatened, harassed or being straight up racist to others. The developers need to do something about this issue. This issue concerns the relegated like women, people of colour & LGBT people. It is not an easy issue to resolve since it involves so many people, but if the developer make it a priority of this issue, it will have a high impact (Castello 2018).

Sam Haberern (20-year old) was playing Call of Duty on Xbox and was on a roll, when he received invites from other players asking him to join them. he joined a group and chatted with them through his headset. They were talking when their conversation escalated quickly where at one point the groups told him that they will come for him and kill him. He reported to Microsoft, but the process dissatisfied him, so he turned to Reddit to post asking for solutions and go viral, but still there are no good solution (Smith 2019).

Whether they monetize the games or not, people are still going to pay it because I know I am willing to pay it if I really like it. As for the toxic environment of gaming, I hope the developers are going to take it as their priority because I have experienced it myself, getting harassed because I led the team to failure in which I blocked them after. But I am sure there are more serious cases than mine.

REFERENCES:

Collins Dictionary 2019, social gaming, viewed 14 November 2019 <https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/social-gaming>.

Leskin, P 2019, Here’s how much Logan Paul, PewDiePie, and 8 other top YouTubers make per minute of video, Business Insider, viewed 14 November 2019 < https://www.businessinsider.my/youtube-pewdiepie-logan-paul-how-much-money-per-minute-video-2019-9/?r=US&IR=T>.

Willingham, A 2018, What is eSports? A look at an explosive billion-dollar industry, CNN, viewed 14 November 2019 < https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/27/us/esports-what-is-video-game-professional-league-madden-trnd/index.html>.

Castello, J 2018, Foul play: tackling toxicity and abuse in online video games, The Guardian, viewed 14 November 2019 < https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/aug/17/tackling-toxicity-abuse-in-online-video-games-overwatch-rainbow-seige>.

Smith, N 2019, Racism, misogyny, death threats: Why can’t the booming video-game industry curb toxicity?, The Washington Post, viewed 14 November 2019 < https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/02/26/racism-misogyny-death-threats-why-cant-booming-video-game-industry-curb-toxicity/>.

Fandom is defined as “the state of being a fan of someone or something, especially a very enthusiastic one” (Cambridge Dictionary 2019). Fan activism is defined as “a form of civil engagement and political participation that emerges from the passions of fandoms and fan culture” (Weebly 2019).

FANS BOUNDARIES OF THEIR COMMUNITY IN TUMBLR

Tumblr just launched group messaging that helps connect fans and let them chat together of their desired topic. The feature is designed as a sort of ‘public space’ where anyone can read through the threads. Users need to be approved though if they want to send messages in the threads and the messages will only last up to 24 hours, like Snapchat & Instagram story. The groups’ creator has full control over the users, which means they can remove any ‘bad’ users or evaluate the users before they are approved. Users are only allowed to use share media from Tumblr & not outside the platform. While that, since Tumblr has reinforced their policy of adult content, meaning the users in the group are not allowed to send anything that contradicts the policy in the group (Pero 2019). By doing this, the fans of all kind of fandoms are being set boundaries amongs other ways.

IS IT FAIR THE MEDIA REPRESENTS FANS AS ‘WEIRD’ & ‘OVERLY EMOTIONAL’?

In my opinion, it is not fair for the media to represent fans as ‘weird’ & ‘overly emotional’ because anyone can like something or someone. I am sure the people behind the media is also a fan of something/someone. If the fans keep the fandoms healthy and appropriate, while respecting the things or people they are fans of, it is totally normal. With that said, there are also cases where the fans go totally crazy on their fandom. These kinds of fans are obsessed, and it is unhealthy for them especially when they are a fan of someone. They can be extreme in so many ways. For example, Christina Grimmie was a 22-year old who was a contestant of The Voice talent series was shot by one of her fans. She was at a concert signing autographs when the guy shot her and then shoot himself after. She opened her arms to hug him when he shot her. Christina’s brother tackled him after that then he shot himself (Oppenheim 2016). This is one of the cases among other cases where the fans have unhealthy obsession towards their idols, which end up taking their idols’ life.

Personally, I do not think I have any fandom experience. Although I have never experienced any fandom, I am absolutely a fan of a lot of stuffs. I am a fan of quite a few singers and actors. The most I did for someone I am a fan of is buying their merchandise, like t-shirts. Since I am also a fan of DC superheroes and Marvel superheroes, I collect some of their figurines and I think that is about it.

REFERENCES:

Cambridge Dictionary 2019, fandom, viewed 13 November 2019 <https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fandom>.

Weebly 2019, Fan Activism, viewed 13 November 2019 <https://fanactivism.weebly.com/fan-activism.html>.

Pero, J 2019, Tumblr is launching group messaging threads that will connect people of different fandoms and disappear after 24 hours, Daily Mail Online, viewed 13 November 2019 <https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7657523/Tumblr-launches-group-messaging-threads-connect-fans-disappear-24-hours.html>.

Crowdsourcing can be defined as “involves obtaining work, information, or opinions from a large group of people who submit their data via the Internet, social media, and smartphone apps”, whereas, crowdfunding can be defined as “a financing method that involves funding a project with relatively modest contributions from a large group of individuals, rather than seeking substantial sums from a small number of investors”.

#PULANGMENGUNDI

In times of need, social media movement like #pulangmengundi can benefit the communities. In 2018, Malaysia held its 14th general election, which arises a lot of issues. Its unusual voting day, which is on a weekday and the costs of flight suddenly began to climb and even sold out when there are many demands from the voters living outside of their hometown to come back to vote. Then users of Twitter started the #UndiRabu (Wednesday Vote) which is founded by the volunteers and they started to collect from the public and distributing it the people in need to come back home to vote. Their primary target was MYR50,000, but then managed to raise it to MYR65,000 in just a day upon launching. In two weeks, the funds reached MYR195,000 and stopped collecting after that. This has such a big impact on the voting day, which the opposition won for the first time in history Malaysia (Chia & Augustin 2019). Social media movements like #pulangmengundi does benefit the communities through crowdsourcing and crowdfunding, which also made a big impact on the political side because the people want a change in the government and they made it happened.

EFFECTS OF CROWDSOURCED INFORMATION

In an era filled with fake news, the effect on crowdsourced information is that it could be working well if crowdsourced judgements are implemented correctly. A new study shows that the quality of new sources can effectively disregard false new stories and other kinds of information by crowdsourced judgements. In recent years, false new stories have grown online, and Facebook has given them more chances to do it, which in return faces criticism and backlash for it (Dizikes 2019). Although crowdsourced judgements are still being studied to prevent more fake news, the studies have shown good effect on preventing fake news. When there are so many fake news going around, something should be done!

CROWDSOURCING IN FUTURE!

In my opinion, crowdsourcing can overtake traditional funding mechanisms for the creative industries. The reason why I said this is because most people has already been crowdsourced and people are going online most of time. Giving their information online with or without their knowledge. This will then be taken advantage of the organizations that will collect their data and use it for their purpose. People are relying on technology more than ever today and in the future.

References:

Hargrave, M 2019, Crowdsourcing, Investopedia, viewed 2 November 2019 <https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/crowdsourcing.asp>.

Rouse, M 2012, crowdfunding, Tech Target, viewed 2 November 2019 <https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/crowdfunding>.

Chia, J & Augustin, D 2019, Malaysians Prepare to #PulangMengundi, New Naratif, viewed 2 November 2019 < https://newnaratif.com/journalism/malaysians-prepare-pulangmengundi/>.

Trolling can be defined as “creating discord on the Internet by starting quarrels or upsetting people by posting inflammatory or off-topic messages in an online community”. The social media trolls habitually say something provocative to other users to get attention (Hanson 2019). The social media conflicts emerge when the use of social medias is used wrongly, for example, by the ISIS to gain more followers and spread their propaganda. But in the other hand, it is also used to spread awareness and protest like the Women’s March in 2017 (Hiller 2019).

DOES INTERNET/SOCIAL MEDIA GOVERNANCE WORK?

In my own opinion, I do not think that the Internet governance work because I have seen effort from the government to reduce or prevent more trolling which involves life and death of users and illegal movement like ISIS. Plus, there are millions or billions of social media users and there are so much that they will not be able to handle. Not only that, even the social media platforms are changed from free speech at all costs to filtering and blocking the terrorists because of the policymakers’ pressure. Still, they are using it for violence and there are people who got caught but most of them are still freely doing it (Leetaru 2018). There is also effort by the government to launch anti-trolling website which offers sensible tips for people who are victims to online abuse, which called ‘The Stop Online Abuse site’. Looking at these efforts, clearly it only reduces the trolling and conflicts a little, because the issues are still going on and getting more aggressive by the day.

 PLATFORMS THAT ARE MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO TROLLING & HATE

From my observation by using social media for like a decade, there are some platforms which are susceptible to trolling and hate. Platforms of social media like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are more inclined to trolling and hate. I have seen people post and share body shaming photos of someone that they do not even know in Facebook for the sake of getting more crowd to laugh at the same thing who has the same opinion as them. There are also users who use it to instigate hate towards someone or some place which they do not like and users who only see their side of the story would back them up without even knowing the other side of the story. Twitter recent years has also become more of a toxic platform just because “they can say whatever they want, and it is their own account”. Just recently, Azfar Firdaus a ‘tweetfamous’ and who is also an Albino was body shamed for being Albino. He was invited to a local talk show as one of the three panellists to discuss about the topic of body shaming, which the guy who body shamed him was also a panellist. During the talk he confronted his body-shamer live on national TV for threatening him in the retweeted of an article of albinos being slaughtered in a country (Ridzaimi 2019). This issue has escalated where it causes people to feel depressed from these hates and eventually commit suicide. Although, social media is not the only factor that causes someone to feel depressed.

  PRODUCTIVE PRACTICE OF SOCIAL MEDIA TROLLING

I think there are social media trolling that productive even to this day. It is not meant to harm or abuse another person or user, but only to take it as a humour. For example, James Fridman who is a digital artist would often photoshop people’s photos upon requests to funny photos in which he would posts it in Twitter for his followers to see. He has been doing this for quite long and his intention is for humour purpose. No body shaming, no abusing, nothing as such. People find it funny too (Lina 2016). I for one find his contents to be funny too. Contents like these are kind of positive if you ask me.

Trolling in social media can be very harmful if it is intended to be offensive, abusive and humiliate other people. It affected people’s life in a way that may cause death if it is very serious. People should also take note not to respond to those who trolls them and totally ignore them.

  References:

Hanson, J 2019, Trolls and Their Impact on Social Media, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, viewed 28 October 2018 <https://unlcms.unl.edu/engineering/james-hanson/trolls-and-their-impact-social-media>.

Hiller, P 2019, How Social Media is Changing Conflict, Peace Science Digest, viewed 28 October 2019 <https://peacesciencedigest.org/social-media-changing-conflict/>.

Leetaru, K 2018, Can We Finally Stop Terrorists From Exploiting Social Media?, Forbes, viewed 28 October 2019 <https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/10/09/can-we-finally-stop-terrorists-from-exploiting-social-media/#35bbf8416d80>.

Ridzaimi, S 2019, Epic Moment M’sian Albino Confronts His Bully on LIVE TV Who’s Ironically A Panelist for Body-Shaming, World of Buzz, viewed 28 October 2019 <https://www.worldofbuzz.com/epic-moment-msian-albino-confronts-his-bully-on-live-tv-whos-ironically-a-panelist-for-body-shaming/>.

Activism can be defined as “the use of direct and noticeable action to achieve result, usually political or social one”, whereas protest can be defined as “a strong complaint expressing disagreement, disapproval, or opposition” (Cambridge Dictionary 2019).

 THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN ACTIVISM & PROTEST IN FUTURE BY ACTIVISTS

Platforms of social media like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc have increasingly being used for social movements by activist groups as they consider it to be collectively crowdsource for various participants. Big corporations normally support social media as the technology helps in the development of the sense of “digital village’ (Murthy 2018, p. 1). The use of social media acted an important role in communication of information, raising awareness, and creating call for action throughout countries. ‘Hashtag activism’ is usually to introduce discussions of latest topics to people who are not informed. In the experience of President Trump’s administration, the side-lined groups are often being directed and ignored of their rights. As social media as the activists’ tool, a single Facebook group started the Women’s March social movement all over the countries. Then, in Twitter, students and survivors of the mass shooting of the Parkland Shooting prepared and form the #NeverAgain movement after the tragic incident and still there is no change of gun laws in the country. Although the increase in social movement has the knack in making big impacts, it also increases the government agencies authority to spy on them, where there is no privacy, which has been an issue (Gonzales 2018).

THE FAKE NEWS & PROPAGANDA FACTOR INTO THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR ACTIVISTS AND PROTESTER

Social media has been used as a platform to share ideas and information, especially among journalists and academics. In these recent years however, malevolent users have the same benefit as they have the same opportunity to share fake news and propaganda for their own agenda. Now, “Twitter has emerged as the internet application most preferred by terrorists, even more popular than self-designed websites or Facebook” (Prier 2017, p. 54). The filter bubble of the social media landscape is the outcome of algorithmic selection, age-old, and subconscious cognitive biases. That then, when added with particularly deliberate misinformation, inadvertently big brands funds through ads and supposedly spread, which is a part of intensive propaganda efforts, in the end people get fake news. Google apparently has banned publishers who has misleading contents and many more actions in battling fake news from being spread (Mitchell 2017).

GRAFFITI/STREET ART OR ART BECOME SYMBOLS OF A PROTEST

Graffiti and street art can be a medium to voice out social change, protest, or expressing the community’s desires, but it could also be provocative. Although many cities linked graffiti as degenerate, where the society is out of control, there are some cities, where it is legal, within boundaries and appreciated as a form of social expression. These forms of arts are as social expression is extensive and is in many shapes, where it has tag of identity, indecipherable expressions of protest and politics, complicated and beautiful scenes despite the wild locations sometimes (Maddox 2016).

  I have never personally participated in activism and protest in the streets, but I do engage myself with digital activism. Yes, I have clicked ‘Like’ on Facebook to participate in the digital activism and support their cause. I also have signed petitions to protest, which mostly is regarding animals and environment issues. By engaging myself with digital activism, I hope I could contribute at least a little to the cause.

  REFERENCES:

Cambridge Dictionary 2019, Activism, viewed 13 October 2019 <https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/protest>.

Murthy, D 2018, ‘Introduction to Social Media, Activism, and Organizations’, Sage Journals, pp. 1-4.

Gonzales, C 2018, The Future of Social Media Activism, Medium, viewed 13 October 2019 <https://medium.com/@wordsbyacloud/the-future-of-social-media-activism-35e57ae8232b>.

Prier, J 2017, ‘Commanding the Trend: Social Media as Information Warfare’, Strategic Studies Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 50-85.

Mitchell, S 2017, Tools for protest & activism, networks of lies: Social media and the ‘fake news’ epidemic, Carlton University <https://carleton.ca/align/2017/tools-for-protest-activism-networks-of-lies-social-media-the-fake-news-epidemic/>.

The growth of social media has an impact on the political parties especially in participating the citizens to their campaign or sorts. Social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Wikipedia, Instagram and YouTube are the top activity on the web commonly use by the citizens today. They spend more time on these social medias to connect with other people in the community. Although this shifting environment are known by the politicians, they are still grasping on the idea of how social media works. But, back during Obama’s election campaign, he utilised the social media to engage with the citizens because he recognized the influence of countering offline work alongside an online campaign. His whole campaign strategy is with the use of social media such as fundraising (Effing, Hillegersberg & Huibers 2011, p. 25-26).

Since then, the involvement of the politics has intensified in the practice of social media, which is to cater new paths for political organization so that the citizens can partake in it. The use of social media in political organization has influence more youths to be involved in this campaign be it online or offline. Through social media, the youths have access of the information about the politicians regarding their views, opinions, political interests and so on to have better knowledge and have more choices on their involvement in politics (Abdulrauf, Hamid & Ishak 2017, p. 1-2). Additionally, governance is the approach of organizations or countries in managing the system at maximum level (Cambridge Dictionary 2019). I think that the politics are about governance because the politicians need the citizens to behave accordingly to the laws and policies that they create, but they also need to cater to the needs of the citizens. It should work both ways.  

SARAWAK FOR SARAWAKIAN MOVEMENT The Sarawak For Sarawakian movement is also using social media to reinstate the position of Sarawak as equivalent associate alongside Malaya, as they are the original founders of the Malaysian federation in 1963. The new generations often carry on the fight through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to clarify the anger and discontent (Chin 2019).  There are many other movement or activism that the young generations start up through digital media to support their cause. This is because digital media has become a norm to connect with others especially when they want others’ supports.

These movements have been politicised because it does involve the politics as they need to hear the voices of the citizens or people to serve the people’s needs especially for the country.

   REFERENCES:

Effing, R, Hillegersberg, J & Huibers, T 2011, ‘Social Media and Political Participation: Are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube Democratizing Our Political Systems?’, International Federation for Information Processing, Vol. 6847, pp.25-35.

Abdulrauf, A, Hamid, N, A & Ishak, M.S. 2017, "Cognitive Engagement and Online Political Participation on Social Media among Youths in Malaysia: The Moderating role of Political KnowledgePreview the document", SHS Web of Conferences, Vol. 33, pp. 1-7.

IS IT A BLOG OR A SOCIAL NETWORK SITE? 🤔

Firstly, what is a blog? A blog or in another term is a “web log” is a form of website where users use it for commentaries, reports on events, or others like posting of photographs and videos. Well, bloggers depict a blog as “an automated weblog publishing tool”. It has the power of an instant communication to allow the bloggers to express and post their thoughts like in diaries or journals when they feel like it. The blog can be personal, creative, educational, or professional depending on what the blogger wants their blog to be (Boyd 2006).

And, what is a social network site? A social network site is an instrument that enable communication, interchange subject and cooperate in numerous methods. People across the world uses it in their everyday social activity to connect with other people be it near or far. The social network site is a trend amongst the young adults according to the research. The use of social media to maintain the conventional offline networks and has become a norm in the community and the usage of it only increases over the years (Sharma & Godiyal 2016, p. 157).

So, what about Tumblr? Tumblr is both a blogging platform and a social network site, which it is also refers as a platform of short-form microblogging. This network has millions of users, using the platform to write entries, post photographs, video clips and such that and share it with their friends and/or followers (Boone 2019). As a platform in an advancing community, Tumblr offers a place or space to discuss issues associated to personality, body image and sexuality freely. The laidback content balance of Tumblr has its good side and bad side for the users. The good side is that it discussed content like explicit sexuality for healthy sex practices, sexual discovery prospects and ingenuousness of taboo dialogs, for instance, sex work. However, the bad side of its relaxed content is that the disturbing content specifically child pornography and Nazi activism. Thus, the reason for the new policy of Tumblr which bans not safe for work (NSFW) content in order to create a “better, more positive Tumblr” 👍 for the community (Sands 2018). 

Tumblr is both a blog and social network site depending on the user on how they want to use it. It is a platform to share the users’ stories, moments or such with their friends and/or followers.  

References:

Boone, B 2019, How Tumblr Works, How Stuff Works, viewed at 27 September 2019 <https://computer.howstuffworks.com/tumblr.htm>.

Boyd, D 2006., “A Blogger’s Blog: Exploring the Definition of a Medium”, Reconstruction, Vol. 6, No. 4.

Sharma, S & Godiyal, S 2016, ‘A Study on the Social Networking Sites Usage by Undergraduate Students’, Online International Interdisciplinary Research Journal, Vol. 6, Issue 3, pp. 157-163.