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[darylongch]

Poems (Poem competition)

The Warrior

A person who never fails

Will never be able to enjoy the euphoric feeling success entails

A person who easily gives in to pain

Will never be able to endure and brave through the rough terrain

A person is a true warrior if that individual gets up after failing

This shows resilience and the ability to keep the ball rolling

Failure should not cause you to lose your inner drive

To go on living and trying again in your everyday life

So long as you are not dead

Buried six feet deep down in your coffin bed

The fact that you are still alive

Shows that there is still a chance to thrive

Love in life

Love plays an important role

In nourishing a person’s soul

Love enables a person to be reborn

And recover from a heart that’s torn

Love is a form of emotional wealth

That is essential for an individual’s mental health

No person can live a truly great life without love

As it plays an important role in a person’s self-worth

Before loving others an individual has to first focus on loving themselves

By taking care of their physical, mental, spiritual and financial health

Love makes this world a better place

As it is a language that transcends nationality, religion and race

Irony of life

A person who studies so hard

Ends up being used by someone who is street smart

There is great beauty in the bees

That create their nests up in the trees

The bees work hard to make honey

Which the entrepreneur collects and sells for money

Doing good things will not always reward you well

Sometimes the good ones get taken advantaged of as the eyes can tell

They may even end up in a jail cell

With no one to visit them even when they are unwell

Certain stories in life may seem like a tall tale

But seeing and experiencing these events makes one’s face turn pale

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The mosquito (Essay writing competition)

This event happened one year ago in the year 2019. It all started in Mahalivia, a fictional country located in South America. Large volumes of toxic chemicals from factories were discharged into the rivers. This contaminated the quality of the water and rendered it unsafe. The citizens of that country could no longer come in contact with the water due its extremely acidic and corrosive nature let alone use the water for their daily purposes such as washing, cooking or drinking as the PH value of the water was only 1. As a result, the government of Mahalivia had to import water from neighbouring countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Chile for their daily purposes. Apart from the already polluted water, Mahalivia was also a hotbed for deadly mosquitoes such as the Aedes mosquito to spread diseases such as the Zika virus and the chikungunya fever. The Aedes mosquitoes started flying towards the polluted rivers to lay their eggs. After the eggs got laid, something strange started to happen. These mosquitoes slowly evolved from small pupas into mosquitoes the size of a hatchback sedan car on the final day of their life cycle which is the tenth day. After that, these mosquitoes started flying all over different cities in Mahalivia.

On a sunny afternoon, Santiago just came back from the grocery store with his wife Eva. After Santiago parked his car in the garage, he got out of the car and shut his car door by pushing it. He drove a Chrysler 300c as he was a rather wealthy businessman. He then proceeded to help his wife with the groceries by taking them out of the car boot. Then, he locked his car with the car remote by pressing the lock button after taking all the groceries out from the car’s boot. He proceeded to amble into the house together with his wife. Both of their hands were full of the groceries they had just bought. However, their 16 year old son Lucas happened to be downstairs so he made his way towards the door, stretched his right hand out and twisted the door knob with his five fingers in order to open it. Both Santiago and Eva were delighted and grateful to have such a considerate son. Santiago and Eva then headed towards the kitchen to place the groceries on the table while Lucas locks the door. Eva then set out to whip up a meal that was rather delicious and healthy while Santiago’s mobile phone suddenly started ringing. Santiago thought that it was one of his business clients calling him on a weekend only to find out from his friend Anderson that something strange was happening in the city.

Anderson was mentally distressed at that time. In an exasperated manner, he raised his voice over the phone while talking to Santiago and mentioned, “These giant mosquitoes are the size of little hatchback cars! They’re flying around everywhere in my neighbourhood and they’re about to head to yours as well!”

Santiago replied, “Wow Anderson! You have always been a good comedian who never fails to make me laugh ever since we met each other in college. Just know that I’m spending quality time with my family today but it is always nice to hear from you every now and then. I hope you’ve been doing well.”

Anderson was then frantic with worry as he replied Santiago. “No, I’m not kidding this time! Things are literally getting from bad to worse right now as I’m speaking with you. This is no time for AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!” Anderson let out a blood-curdling scream and that was the last time Santiago heard from him.

Santiago cried out. “ANDERSON! ANDERSONNN!! NOOOO!!!”

Santiago froze. He could not open his mouth to say a word and cold sweat started trickling down his cheeks after realising that one of his good friends, Anderson had just died under mysterious circumstances. From what he had heard on the other end of the phone, he could sense that danger was looming and it was only a matter of time before things got worse. Santiago then started breathing deeply to calm his nerves down and process the current situation as everything was just to sudden for him. Just as Santiago was about to regain his composure, a high pitch buzzing sound could be heard in the distance out of the blue. Santiago then knew that his family was going to suffer the same fate as Anderson soon. The amplitude of the buzzing sound continued to rise and Santiago immediately cried out to both his wife and son.

“Eva and Lucas, go upstairs and hide in the closet! Just do it while I buy us some time to keep us all safe!”

Lucas then replied. “No dad, we’re gonna stand by your side and overcome this situation together with you!”

Santiago shouted back at his son. “Son, you and your mom better listen to me or things are gonna get worse!”

Eva then looked at her son and said to him, “Your dad’s right. Listen to him Lucas and trust that he knows what he’s doing.”

Both Eva and Lucas scrambled upstairs and made their way into one of the bedrooms immediately. As Eva was stretching her both her hands out to pull open the large closet door, Lucas could see something rather massive flying around in the air and approaching the bedroom’s window. The massive figure was flying nearer and nearer towards the window and Lucas realised that it was a giant mosquito the size of a Mini Cooper, a British automobile the size of a hatchback sedan. Lucas then shivered and said to his mother Eva while stretching out his hands and pointing his index finger towards the window, “Mom, are we gonna be okay?” Lucas stuttered.

His mother then said back to him, “Get in the closet now! Don’t do anything else until dad comes up to inform us of the situation.”

Suddenly, a scream that could make the blood curdle could be heard throughout the entire house as the giant mosquitoes penetrated all the doors and windows of the entire house and sucked all the blood and essence of Santiago, Eva and Lucas until they were nothing but just skin and bones of their former selves. These mosquitoes continued terrorising the entire country of Mahalivia by sucking all the blood and essence of the citizens until there was no one left.

After the event in Mahalivia transpired, the giant mosquitoes made their way to Southeast Asia. The arrival of the mosquitoes in Southeast Asia caused a widespread panic in the different countries located in that region. As the people of Southeast Asia were unprepared for what was coming, these giant mosquitoes crippled the entire economy and healthcare system of the different Southeast Asian countries continuously for 23 years before a cure known as the alkaliser was eventually found. The alkaliser was a form of gas chemical that was released into the atmosphere to destroy the giant mosquitoes and alkalise the polluted, acidic and corrosive rivers with low PH levels. Although everything has started going back to normal, the world was no longer the same in the year 2042.

[darylongch]

Social media in China

China is a country with a unique social media ecosystem of its own. Instead of using social media platforms from popular social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter from the West, these sites are not available in China. China uses its own social media platforms instead created by Chinese tech companies. Some of the most popular social media platforms in China are platforms like WeChat, Sina Weibo, Tencent and Youku. WeChat is a popular messaging app which is equivalent to Whatsapp, its Western counterpart while Weibo is the equivalent of Twitter and platforms like Tencent and Youku are the equivalent of YouTube and Vimeo (Dragon Social Limited 2019).

China also has a unique system known as the social credit system in China. This system basically rewards good behaviour and punishes behaviour that society deems as not acceptable. The Chinese government plans to implement this system in the year 2020. The government’s main aim to implement the system is to promote a culture of trust in society as China is a country that is still plaguing the country such as food and drug safety scandals and fraud. Chinese citizens who have poor social credit records are prohibited from applying from loans or credit cards, prevented from travelling abroad or booking luxury plane seats, train seats as well as hotel rooms. These people are also prevented from applying from jobs or having top positions in companies and family members with poor social credit ratings could be denied mortgages, studying abroad or applying for government jobs. However, those who do things that contribute to the well-being of society such as giving to charity and volunteering are given high social credit scores. Most of the Chinese citizens belonging to the high-income, urban and university educated class agree with this form of social credit system as they mentioned that being a law abiding citizen will enable one to be protected. They also mentioned that in this modern era, privacy does not exist as Facebook is one good example of peoples’ data being stolen and leaked out as well to others (Zhou Minxi 2019).

Regarding China’s social credit system, there are some aspects of the system that I agree with and there are some aspects of the system that I disagree with. I feel that the system is good for protecting the safety and security of citizens as I have personally visited several parts of China before in the past. In my opinion, China seems to be going on the right track with what they are doing in the country although there may be certain things that they can still improve upon. However, the aspects that I disagree with are the people in charge of monitoring the welfare of the citizens in China. If there happens to be some corrupted official involved in monitoring the lives of the citizens, the personal safety of the citizens is in risk of being in danger as he/ she has his/ her data in the hands of a person who is not trustworthy.

References

‘Dragon Social Limited’, 2019, TDA, 30th January, viewed 29th November 2019

<https://topdigital.agency/10-most-popular-social-media-sites-in-china-2019-updated/>

Zhou Minxi 2019, ‘The truths and myths about China's social credit system’, CGTN, 22nd February, viewed 29th November 2019

<https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d774e7751444f32457a6333566d54/index.html>

[darylongch]

Social gaming

What are video games? There are simple and complex ways to explain this. The simple way to explain video games is that video games are interactive sporting activities that take part in a computer instead of real life. Video games are also stimulations of what people do in their daily lives. Video games also enable us to express ourselves artistically when we start playing them. Several examples of video games are games like “World of Warcraft”, “NBA 2k”, “Super Mario Brothers” and “Candy Crush Saga”. Videogames usually have multiple modes for you based on your gaming preference such as single player mode, multiplayer mode or even a free playing mode. These different modes all aim to cater to the tastes of different gamers interested in video games (Owen 2016).

Video games are fun and enjoyable but have advantages and disadvantages as well. Let us first start of with the advantages of video gaming. One of the advantages of video gaming is the improvement in coordination. Due to the need to constantly concentrate while playing the video game, visual, audial and physical movements need to be coordinated properly to do well while playing the video game. Secondly, video games also help to improve our problem-solving skills. In order to successfully complete a given task in a game, the player needs to analyse the situation properly before the task completion. Thirdly, video games help to improve our memory as well. Due to the need to complete a task or mission properly, the player needs to read the instructions carefully to avoid failing the mission. Furthermore, the attention and concentration of the player will be improved as the completion of the current level is needed before advancing to the next level. Moreover, video games are a great source of learning as well to make people more creative and be able to think critically. The brain speed of a person will be improved as well due to the need to be able to think fast to complete the mission at hand within a certain time span. Another advantage is the improvement of multitasking skills as the player needs to focus on several things such the remaining time and enemies left in the game. Finally, the social skills of a person will be improved as well due to the different people a person needs to interact with when playing with other players online or engaging in multiplayer modes. This enables the player to make friends and develop meaningful relationships with those friends they have made (Eugenio 2017).

There are also drawbacks and disadvantages when it comes to playing video games. The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that excess video gaming can lead to behavioural and mental changes. This is because children or people who spend too much time video gaming may be obsessed with their video games and lose interest in socialising with others. Another drawback is that a person may lack other hobbies and not do well academically. This is due to the addictive nature of gaming which may cause a person to be obsessed with playing the game the whole day and not want to do other things such as studying and sports. The third drawback of video gaming is lethargy as too much time in front of the screen causes a gamer to forget his/ her meal and sleep times. The fourth drawback is the reduction of eyesight quality and Insomnia. Spending too much time in front of the screen causes the eye lens to weaken as the eyes would be focusing on nearby objects the whole time which prevents it from looking at far away objects to maintain the strength of the eye lens and it would be harder to fall asleep at night due to the radiation exposure from the screen (Gill 2017).

In my opinion, video gaming is neither good nor bad. From my own personal experience, I grew up playing consoles such as the Nintendo Gameboy as well as Sony’s Playstation 2 and Playstation Portable. I used to be an addict when I was younger and eventually stopped playing video games until I realised that it was okay to play video games so long as one can strike a balance in life. Video games have made me more creative and be able to think critically as well due to the different types of situations I get exposed to when playing them. My personal favourites are Grand Theft Auto, Midnight Club and Need For Speed. I need to confess that these games make me become a little speed crazy when driving my car on the road sometimes. Other than that, I always remind myself that I need to learn to differentiate reality from fantasy as car accidents can have serious consequences on lives.

References

Eugenio, S 2017, ‘8 Cognitive Benefits of Playing Video Games for Kids’, engadget, 2nd September, viewed 29th November 2019

<https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/09/8-cognitive-benefits-of-playing-video-games-for-kids/>

Gill, M 2017, ‘Deadly disadvantages of video games recognized by WHO’, QRIYO, 29th December, viewed 29th November 2019

<https://www.qriyo.com/blog/deadliest-disadvantages-of-video-games-who/>

Owen, P 2016, ‘What Is A Video Game? A Short Explainer’, The Wrap, 9th March, viewed 29th November 2019

<https://www.thewrap.com/what-is-a-video-game-a-short-explainer/>

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Fandom & fan activism

According to the Merriam-Webster, fandom is defined as the state or attitude of being a fan. A fan is someone who has a strong liking or interest of something and makes it part of his/ her life. There are several examples that can be used to illustrate this point. One is being a fan of a popular icon such as a celebrity and another one is being a fan of a product. One good example of celebrity fandom is being a fan of a person like Bruce Lee. Chan (2019) states that the Bruce Lee fan club has made a request to the government of Hong Kong to preserve the mansion he once used to live in which is located at Kowloon Tong. The request for doing so was to preserve his legacy as an actor, martial artist and philosopher. The fan club even mentions that they would crowdfund money to purchase the land if the Hong Kong government does not take the demands of the fans into consideration. The purpose for demolishing the site was so that it could be turned into a Chinese studies centre. However, Joey Lee Man-Lung who is a vice chairman of the Yu Panglin Charitable Trust founded by billionaire philanthropist Yu Panglin who passed away in 2015 mentions that he agrees with the fans’ decisions on the preservation of Bruce Lee’s house if the government shows a positive response.

From what we can see above, I can relate to the way Bruce Lee fans feel about preserving his mansion as I am a huge fan of Bruce Lee as well. In my opinion, Bruce Lee is more than just an actor, a martial artist and a philosopher. He is someone who has shaped and changed my life in different ways as he was one of the reasons why I got into martial arts and started to learn more about different aspects of the Chinese culture such as Chinese philosophy and history. He also encouraged me to keep an open mind and absorb as much knowledge as possible and reject what I feel does not work for me. He also taught me the importance of being able to bridge the gap between different cultures from the West and East. I would also agree with the preservation of his mansion so that more people can visit the place in Hong Kong and learn about him as he is a visionary who changed the world. This is one reason why so many people look up to him.

Fan activism is an act where a celebrity carries out a charitable act which causes many fans to follow suit as well. One good example to illustrate this is Lady Gaga asking her fans to call their senators in which two girls created YouTube videos of themselves doing so. Another one  a YouTube comedian named Hannah Hart going on a crowdfunding tour in the United States which gave inspiration to hundreds. This resulted in them helping their neighbourhood food banks (Fan activism, 2014).

This shows that fan activism is a good thing as it can cause people who are not interested in important political issues to be interested in them due to the influence of their favourite celebrities. This can cause people to become more aware of the political issues going on around them or in other parts of the world and take a stand towards fighting for what they believe in alongside their favourite celebrities. These can spark a change which will enable people to solve issues in which they feel are not right which will in turn improve our society for the better.

References

Chan, A 2019, ‘Bruce Lee fan club appeals to Hong Kong government to save kung fu legend’s former mansion at Kowloon Tong, which is soon to be demolished’, The Star Online, 20th July, viewed 29th November 2019

<https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2019/07/20/bruce-lee-fan-club-appeals-to-hong-kong-government-to-save-kung-fu-legends-former-mansion-at-kowloon>

Fandom. (n.d.), viewed 29th November 2019

<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fandom>

‘Fan Activism’, 2014, The Young Foundation, 19th February, viewed 29th November 2019

<https://youngfoundation.org/research/fan-activism/>

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Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding

Crowdsourcing is the act of utilising the different strengths and skills of a certain group of people to work on a certain project (Hargrave 2019). In the modern era we live in today, crowdsourcing has been made easier due to the invention of the World Wide Web. Technologies such as the World Wide Web has enhanced our lives in so many ways. Our lives have become far more convenient due to better connectivity. We are given the opportunity to connect with people from different parts of the world that are out of our reach if not for the Internet. With just the click of a button, we can search for almost any information we want making information easily accessible and readily available at our fingertips. In the past, crowdsourcing was far more difficult due to limited connectivity. People had to visit different places to look for people of certain skills if they wanted to get something done. Today, people can just look for people of various skills through the Internet. A good example to illustrate this point would be the various freelancers that specialise in different fields such as writing, drawing, designing, editing and so on. People can pay for their services to have articles written, pictures drawn or videos edited. This would come in handy if a person wants to have related materials such as brochures, name cards or promotional videos to support his/her business.

A good example of crowdsourcing is ‘Ushahidi’. ‘Ushahidi’ which means ‘testimony’ when translated to Swahili is a platform that enables people to send text messages or news reports to a Google map. This platform was created by David Kobia along with 20 other developers, a Kenyan who resides in the United States of America for Kenyans to spread news of death, rape, stealing as well as other human rights violations in Kenya to more than 45,000 Kenyans. Those wanting to share their stories could send reports through SMS or the website itself making this a powerful tool for those whose voices have been supressed by the media. This platform was successful in terms of reducing the violence in Kenya causing the team of developers to invest more funds into the project as well as giving the software an upgrade by adding Twitter, Facebook and the latest web updates so that crowdsourced images of events revealing themselves overtime could be shown on a single map (Ford, 2012).

Another example of crowdsourcing is the Starbucks cup designing contest. The cups at Starbucks that are used to drink coffee are white in colour apart from the white Starbucks cup logo. This spurred the baristas working at Starbucks to come up with the White Cup Contest which took place in the spring of 2014. Starbucks customers were required to design their cups with their own original ideas, capture a photograph of the designed cup and post it on social media with the hashtag #white cup contest. In the span of a few months, 4,000 different designs were received and the selected design that won was used on the limited edition reusable cup for 2014. These reusable cups are released every year with different designs. Each cup costs $1 and can be reused 30 times before being disposed. Those who used these reusable cups get a 10 cent discount each times they purchase any Starbucks products. This is Starbucks’ efforts to go green and become more environmentally friendly as well as encourage people to become more creative (Speier 2016).

Crowdfunding is the act of aggregating capital from different individuals to fund a new business venture. Through the act of crowdfunding, many different individuals invest small amounts of capital to fund the business venture. The advent of social media has made crowdfunding easier due to the convenience of being able to gain networks to different people such as investors and entrepreneurs through crowdfunding websites. This improves entrepreneurship opportunities and enlarges the investment pool by going beyond the traditional circle of owners, relatives and venture capitalists (Smith, 2019).

One good crowdfunding example would be Indiegogo. Indiegogo started off as a crowdsourcing site that raises capital to fund independent films but started to become more flexible and diverse in the year 2008 by funding different sorts of projects such as charities and start-ups (Smith, 2019).

Another example would be Patreon. Patreon is a platform that is by creators of art, music and other forms of expression. Creators of art, music or even people giving instructions on how to build household items like chairs and tables. These creators can make advanced tutorial lessons in which dedicated and loyal subscribers can pay additional amounts of money to get the services they desire and at the same time funding the creators of these content.

In conclusion, crowdsourcing and crowdfunding have both greatly benefited our lives as people and individuals. Crowdsourcing enables people to contribute vast amounts of technical expertise and knowledge to an issue while crowdfunding enables modern day businesses to thrive. However, there is also a huge risk involved in information that is crowdsourced as the information given may not always be accurate and depict reality. This may mislead people into believing what is false which make end up causing people to make the wrong choices in life.

References

Hargrave, M 2019, ‘Crowdsourcing’, Investopedia, 8th July, viewed 29th November 2019

<https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/crowdsourcing.asp>

Nations, N 2019, ‘What Is Patreon? And How Does It Work?’, Lifewire, 18th November, viewed 29th November 2019

<https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-patreon-4145695>

Smith, T 2019, ‘Crowdfunding’, Investopedia, 26th June, viewed 29th November 2019

<https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/crowdfunding.asp>

Speier, K 2016, ‘4 Examples of Clever Crowdsourcing Campaigns’, Main Street Host Digital Marketing Agency, 7th January, viewed 29th November 2019

<https://www.mainstreethost.com/blog/four-examples-of-clever-crowdsourcing-campaigns/>

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Trolling and social media conflict

Trolling is the act of purposely saying negative or hurtful things about a person to intentionally hurt the person’s feelings or provoke the person be it online or offline. Trolling often happens online as people can hide their identities behind the screen and say things that provoke others without any regard for the consequences. People involved in trolling online often feel that they can do what they want and get away with it. Those involved in trolling and bullying others online also often suffer from self-esteem issues. Therefore, they end up bullying others in order to feel better about themselves also at the same time project their issues onto others which makes others being bullied suffer from a variety of different issues such as social anxiety, low-self esteem and suicidal thoughts to name a few. One good example to illustrate this point is the case of Rebecca Black. In the year 2011, she wanted to create a music video so her mother ended up paying a music label and a production company to produce a song by the name of ‘Friday’. The finished work ended up on YouTube and got the attention of many viewers who roasted the quality of the song for being poorly written as well as her inability to sing. The music video spread like wildfire which caused Black to get bullied online and at school. However, the video made her famous globally and in return, she was able to perform alongside Katy Perry in one of her music videos which got her positive attention as well. Black appreciated the fame and validation she got from others but she wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of cruelty that came with it (Boyd 2014 p.150-151).

Another good example of social media conflict in our modern world is where people who are good at using technology suddenly having false information posted about them on websites. They might also get things such as emails that have pictures that are not pleasing to the eye upon the opening of the email’s content or even emails that contain inappropriate messages. If a person was previously involved in a relationship with another person, the person’s text messages and even photos could be also posted on certain websites (Ostini & Hopkins 2015).

The third example to illustrate social media conflict is of Suzanne Fernandes who has been constantly harassed and threatened online continuously for sixteen months. Two people constantly create accounts and threatened to exploit her sexually as well as murder her. These two people even reminded her that her last days are approaching and sent sexually explicit pictures to her as well. This all happened when she spoke out against racism on social media (Laville 2016).

From these different examples, we can clearly see that trolling and causing conflicts on social media does more harm than good to people in the society. Constant trolling and causing of conflicts on social media can do great damage to a person’s self-esteem and cause the person to feel like committing suicide. In order to prevent or lessen trolling and social media conflicts, the Internet needs to be constantly regulated by those in charge of managing the websites in which trolling and social media conflicts occur. Those who constantly blackmail others or spread hate on these sites should be punished accordingly.

References

Boyd, D 2014, ‘The social lives of networked teens’, Yale University Press, New Haven, pp.150-151, viewed 26th October 2019

Laville, S 2016, ‘The women abandoned to their online abusers’, The Guardian, 11th April, viewed 26th October 2019

<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/11/women-online-abuse-threat-racist>

Ostini, J & Hopkins, S 2015, ‘Online harassment is a form of violence’, The Conversation, 8th April, viewed 26th October 2019

<https://theconversation.com/online-harassment-is-a-form-of-violence-38846>

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Activism and protest

Activism is a process of using campaigns to enable political and social change to occur. Protesting is an act of participating in a campaign to show one’s dissatisfaction with something. Social media has been used during the Arab Springs movement to show people around the world the situation going on in the Middle East. A video shows a boy by the name of Hamza Ali al-Khateeb being beaten and murdered by the authorities in Jiza. The video was taken down after it was posted but it was also restored eventually by the staffs of YouTube. Another video posted by Wael Abbas, an Egyptian antitorture activist also shows a video of a bus driver being sexually violated by two police officers. The governments of Libya and Syria also tried to cut down Internet access but their efforts were in vain as the citizens of those places still gathered on the streets to protest in order to show dissatisfaction with what was happening at that current time. However, a hacker group known as The Syrian Electronic Army uses social media to supress those against the oppressive regime by posting the contact information of the dissidents, threatening critics and spreading messages that support the oppressive regime (Youmans & York 2012, p.315-323).

Another example of protests is the Umbrella Protests in the year 2014 when a student leader by the name of Joshua Wong who was only 18 years old at the time used a Bluetooth chatroom tool named Firechat that could be used even when mobile networks are shut down. Joshua and his team of protestors lead the protests in order to demand for universal voting rights from the Chinese government (Sigal & Biddle, p.287-291).

The protests in Hong Kong in the year 2019 started when a Hong Konger who murdered his Taiwanese girlfriend while he was in Taiwan was under orders from Beijing to be extradited to the mainland where he will be trialled according to the Chinese law. This angered Hong Kongers as they felt that their rights as a special economic zone are slowly eroding over the years after the handover (Kuo & Yu 2019).

Shao (2019) also mentions how the current ongoing protests in Hong Kong in 2019 where protestors have gone to the point of demanding that Hong Kong be freed from Mainland China originally started as a peaceful protest. However, it has eventually evolved into something beyond ordinary peaceful protests as violence between both the protestors and police in Hong Kong continue escalating so much to the point that the lives of the ordinary citizens in Hong Kong are also being disrupted. Different news sources show different sides to the story. Certain news sources show police being violent to the protestors while certain sources show protestors being violent to the police and destroying public property. This clearly shows that different news sources have their own personal agendas and plans for disseminating such information.

The act of taking part in or organising protests is good if the reason for doing so is to change society for the better. However, we must always be careful when taking part in such activities as things are not always what they seem. Sometimes, we may be manipulated into fighting for something that we do not actually need or is not true. This can be detrimental to society as we end up making the wrong choices that could cause a once peaceful and prosperous society to fall apart due to misinformation or even the wrong influence.

References

Kuo, L & Yu, V 2019, ‘What are the Hong Kong protests about’, The Guardian, 25th July, viewed 13th October 2019

<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/10/what-are-the-hong-kong-protests-about-explainer>

Sigal, I & Biddle, E 2015, ‘Our enduring confusion about the power of digital tools in protest’, Open Humanities Press, issn. 1449-1443, pp.287-291, viewed 13th October 2019

Shao, G 2019, ‘Social media has become a battleground in Hong Kong’s protest’, CNBC, 16th August, viewed 13th October 2019

<https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/16/social-media-has-become-a-battleground-in-hong-kongs-protests.html>

Youmans, WL & York, JC 2012, ‘Social media and the activist toolkit: User agreements, corporate interests and the information infrastructure of modern social movements’ Journal of Communication ISSN 0021-9916 pp.315-323, viewed 13th October 2019

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Political engagement

Social media has made our world borderless. In the past, people could say what they felt they wanted to anytime without any regard for the consequences. However, the advent of social media has made our world borderless and we can get news about the things that are happening worldwide with just the click of a button. As a result, this has made more people aware of the political issues that are going on worldwide and in their own respective countries. The things that one chooses to post online may come back to haunt the person many years from now if the person chooses to become a politician. Hateful comments mentioned by the person may be used against him/ her which could potentially sabotage the person’s livelihood and career as a politician. Politicians also use social media to share their thoughts and views on related matters with people online. People ask questions and the politicians reply to the various questions asked by people. People also use social media to organise protests to create awareness about the various issues happening worldwide. This cause people from different parts of the world to be aware of changes that need to take place and people may also end up registering for the protests online and joining the protests if they believe in a certain cause or that the protests may bring about change desired by citizens of a country (Jericho 2012).

Urbain (2018) also mentions how social media can be used as a political weapon when it is used to acquire data from political rivals. The Cambridge Analytica, a data mining tool is used to collect the data of people to be sold to other political rivals. This results is unethical behaviour as the data collected is used to sabotage other political rivals to ensure one succeeds in their political endeavours.

In my opinion, this shows that politics is biased as people always do things for their own personal interests. On the surface, it may seem that the things certain politicians do are meant for the betterment of human lives but they could just be using it as a leverage to fulfil more of their own political agendas and motives in the future. From this, I have learnt not to easily believe everything mentioned in the media but to always rely on my own intuition to slowly analyse certain political situations, why they happen and what their impacts could be for people in the future.

References

Jericho, G, Aug 22, 2012, The Rise of the Fifth Estate: social media and blogging in Australian politics

Scribe Publications, Carlton North, ISBN: 9781921942877, pp.296-300, viewed 21st October 2019

Urbain, T 2018, ‘Facebook as an election weapon, from Obama to Trump’, PHYS.ORG, 23rd March, viewed 21st October 2019

<https://phys.org/news/2018-03-facebook-election-weapon-obama-trump.html>

[darylongch]

‘Is Tumblr a blog or a social network site?’

The question of whether Tumblr is a blog or a social network side is widely debated. In order to know whether Tumblr is a blog or social network site or even both, we need to look at what the difference between a blog and a social network is. According to Rioja (2018), blogs are very prominent today as they have become part of our daily lives. People use blogs to read up on different topics to keep themselves informed. Blogs are constantly evolving along the way as well. The history of the blog started in 1994. It was first invented by a freelance journalist from US by the name of Justin Hall when he was studying at Swarthmore University. It was however, only known as a personal homepage at the time and it eventually became known as ‘weblog’ in the year 1997 when John Barger was also involved in the creation of his own personal blog by the name of Robot Wisdom. The name ‘weblog’ was believed to be derived from what one does during browsing which is by logging into the web thus forming the name web+log. In the year 1999, the word ‘blog’ was formed when a programmer by the name of Peter Merholz changed the name from ‘weblog’ to ‘blog’. In the beginning, blogs had limitations before platforms such as LiveJournal and Blogger which was created by Evan Williams. In the year 2000 to 2004, the prominence of blogs began growing so much that video blogs were created and blogs were also able to generate income. In the year 2005 to 2010, blogs became so popular to the point that they reached the mainstream audience. This saw the creation of Tumblr in the year 2007 by founders David Karp and Marco Arment which enabled users to write blogs and include inside them images, videos and later gifs. Tumblr also enables Tumblr users to interact with each other. Tumblr is also a prominent platform with over 30 million monthly active users (Shedden 2015). In the year 2010 to 2018, blogs continue to flourish to the point that people use it to promote their businesses as well.

Kenton (2019) states that social networking is the use of social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Instagram to name a few to connect with people such as friends, family members customers or clients. Social media also plays an important role in helping to grow a business one has as well.

Moreau (2019) mentions that Tumblr is both a blogging and social platform network as users can use it to blog and also interact with others. Tumblr shares similarities between other social network platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. I agree that Tumblr is both a blogging and social platform network as Tumblr can be used to write blogs, follow other blogs and also interact with other blog users. Tumblr is a platform with a wide range of different functions that the user can explore and create an online persona to represent themselves.

References

Kenton, W 2019, ‘Social networking’, Investopedia, 10th May, viewed 28th September 2019

<https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/social-networking.asp>

Moreau, E 2019, ‘How to use Tumblr for blogging and social networking’, Lifewire, 20th July, viewed 28th September 2019

<https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-use-tumblr-4049305>

Rioja, A 2018, ‘The evolution and history of blogging: Where it began and where it is now’, Alejandro Rioja, 27th July, viewed 28th September 2019

<https://alejandrorioja.com/blog/history-of-blogging/>

Shedden, D 2015, ‘Today in media history: David Karp and Marco Ament launched Tumblr in 2007’, Poynter, 19th February, viewed 28th September 2019

<https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2015/today-in-media-history-david-karp-and-marco-arment-launched-tumblr-in-2007/>