Freedom of Speech on the Internet

As we enter the tweny-first century, Internet has been becoming more and more convenient and essential for people's lives.Especially, with the advanced devices such as smart phone and tablet, the explosion of the number of internet users is significant.
However, the internet has brought both positive and negative effect.
The best thing which internet brought in our life would be that it provides people with opportunity to state their opinion very easily. That is, the internet promoted the freedom of speech.
On the other hand, the worst situation that Internet caused because of its convenience is that people started abusing the right.

With explosion of popularity of blogs, so many people started owning SNS sites and blogs, which enabled people to state something easily and share with others.
For example, Twitter allowed people to quickly write anything about what they think, see
, and what is going on to them within 140 characters. Not only regular people started Twitter, but also various famous people starting tweeting on Twitter. The users can follow other users to check their tweets and comment on them.
Moreover, increasing blog websites enabled people to promote themselves in market.
For example, Tokyo Panda was successfully produces her fashion skills and became one of the most influential fashion leader among young women in China.
According to the article named "Japanese fashion blogger selling wardrobe for quake relief", Toyko Panda is a female Japanese medical student in China, and she posted her picture of her with a clothes from Taobao which is China's largest online shopping service and explain the fashion style (par. 3).
She also communicated with her blog viewers by recommenting on comment she received from them.


On ther other hand, because of the convenience on stating one opinion, free speech has been becoming violent, and that is also causing people suicides.
The article by  Shunichirou Hamazaki depicts violent free speech in 2-channel.
2-channel is the largest online textboard in Japan. It provides various contents ranging daily news to information of weapons and drugs. In 2 channel, anonymity is approved. People are free to state your opinion without identifying themselves. However, the auther points out the negative side of anonymity that "because of this anonymity, there is always a flood of libel and slander on the boards, among which some are brought to court for defamation and privacy infringement" (par. 1).
People who uses anonymity tend to be violent on their statements because they do not have responsibility on their statements.
Moreover, many death threats and suicides are reported because of the violent speech from others.
According to the article "Celebrity deaths spark concern over South Korea's suicide rate", many famous south korean singers and actress has been victims of violent statements from others
For example, a pop singer Yuni was found to be hanged at home from depression from slanderous comments by using anonymity from her blog viewers after confessing that she had a plastic surgery. In the article, Oh Seung-Geun who is a researcher at hte state-financed Korea Institute for Youth Development says that "Many internet users, taking advantage of anonymity, have made a hobby of writing malicious message on websites, accusing celebrities of sex scandals or plastic surgery" (par. 15).


In conclusion, internet allowed people to speek freely and easily and share it with various people. However, free speech has been becoming violent because of its convenience at the same time. People are becoming less responsible for their statement by using anonymity and hurting people.

Weekly Blog #4

Recent study from Milan Uviversity reported that old report of there being sex degrees of separation is no longer correct and it is now four degrees of separation on facebook.

That is, a friend of your frinend probably knows a friend of their freind.

This prove that a number of facebook users is dramatically increasing all over the world, and our connection is getting stronger.

Unfortunately, the number of hackers who target facebook is increasing at the same time.

There are many complaints that people got hacked or saw a malicious homepage by clicking a link their friends posted.

People easily trust and click the links because you know the person who posted it.

I have seen many posts from my friends saying like "I got a spam! Sorry if suspicious messege was sent to you!".

Many solfware company has been working on security on facebook.

For example, Websense established a partnership with facebook on developing security program on facebook.
If a user click a link, that link would be sent to Websense to analyze if the link is safe. If Websense find the link is suspicious, the waring will appear saying "This link may not be safe!".

You can also protect yourself form the malware by using a website called Virus Total.
If you think a URL is suspicious, you put the URL on the page so that the service will analyze its safety for you!

The basic thing we can do to protect ourselves is that we always have to be alert and aware in this digital environment.
Easily assuming that messeges or links from your friends are safe is definitely dangerous.
Also, we always have to update our security program with our computer.
Some people never have any protection on their laptop, which is really really bad.
By updating your security, it can fight with the malware which has been smarter and more visious.


●Question for final●
What company did conclude a partnership with facebook to improve its security?

Answer: Websense

The places I want to go for sure.

Assignment: Good Map Story

I would like to talk some place I want to go in the future.

First of all, I will introduce Salar de Uyuni.

Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat which is located in Blivia.

When it is covered with water, it becomes like a huge mirror.



Sorry, this video is in Japanese, but I selecetd this one because this has a so many amazing scene of Salar de Uyuni.

But, isn't this fantastic??

Ths salt lake perfectly reflect the beautiful sky.

It is like you can hardly tell which side is heaven or earth!

Ths next place I would to tell is Jiuzhaigou Valley which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992.

It is located in China.

The valley combines clear blue lake, waterfalls, beautiful mountains, and forests.

Especially, I want to see this clear blue lake which is called five-flower lake!

You can clearly see the bottom of the water.

The lake changes its colar at times. It sometimes turns to ink-green and yellow, but it stays diamond blue most of the time.

 

 

Lastly, I want to visit Yurigahama beach in Okinawa!

 

 

My hometown is the closest prefecture to Okinawa, but I have never been to this beach.

This small beach only appears when the tide is low.

The sand on this beach is shaped like a star.

According to legend, the more you can collect the sand, the more happy you get.

 

There are more places I want to visit, but it would take forever to introduce all the places.

Through this blog, I realized that I love clear and blue water.

I miss my hometown!

Assignment: Greeting From DS106

I would like to introduce my home town, Ichiki-kushikino city!

The place I grew up is so country side where many nature occupies most of the area. hehe

We have beach, rivers, mountains, many rice fields, etc.

So all foods are so fresh!

Interesting events too! Like Tanabata festival! We parade down the town with giant handcrafted animals and people with drums all day.

I am a member of Ichiki youth group.

Our group hold a beach volleyball competition at the end of summer vacation every year!

So many paticipants from all over Kagoshima come for this competition, so it is a pretty big event.

In this competition, we also have some other events like beach flag competition.

It is really fun event!

On spring, a park called Kannongaike Pond gets full with people to see Cherry blossoms.

The view are amazing with 1000 tree of cherry blossoms.

We have a Sakura festival during the time, and so many people hold their "cherry blossoms viewing party.

The process to edit this image was so simpe.

I used powerpoint to combine all the picture. I feel it is a lot easier than other functions.

I am currently living in Tokyo where it is so crawded with so many tall buildings and houses.

I often wish I could go back to my home town to relax in beautiful nature.

BE CAREFULL!

Assignment: Warning

I describe myself a cookie monster because I really love cookies!

It is just so addictive to me.

I feel extremely happy when my friends buy Chips Ahoy from America.

They usually get me a couple of big box, but I finish eating them in a few days.

I cannot stop eating them!!

So,

DO NOT FEED ME COOKIES TOO MUCH!

Otherwise, I would end up eating cookie all day for a couple days, which is not healthy at all...orz

But please do feed me cookies sometimes :P

Creating this image was fun!

I used paint function for the picture and aviary.com for the text.

Making image of cookie monster with only using back and white was a little difficult and a lot of work, espacially fluffy part was hard.

I am glad the image turned out well!

I have to ask my friends to buy me Chips Ahoy again :D

My own...

Assignment: Your very own spubble

I really liked this Real Brownie when my boyfriend bought for me from Korea!!

I fell in love<3

They are becoming popular and sold in Japan but they are expensive compared to Korea.

He got me 4 boxes so I was very very happy!

I wish I could have eaten all of them at the same time...www

I used Aviary.com to add my spubble.

And I asked my friend to think of a funny comment because I really wanted to make this picture funny.

I appreciate my friend because he really came up with this perfect comment on my picture!

I ended up eating the 4 boxes of brownie in two days lol.

Visual Assignments 24

Assignment: Troll Quotes

I found a picture of Harry Potter and thought that it would be funny if I combined it with instruments of Sailor Moon.

It was my first time to use Photoshop so my friend helped me with it.

So I cut image of the stick first, and replaced it to Harry's right hand.

Then I delited his part of fingers to make it as he is holding the stick.

I did the same process for his tiara.

Finally I used Aviary Tool to add the quote from Sailor Moon.

Blog Assignment #3

I am going to write some thoughts I had about Timmmmyboy's "We Are All Artists".

As you can guess from the title, he believes that everyone is potentially an artist but they don't realize that fact. He says that creativity is not inherited and everyone can learn to be creative.
He brings an example of son whose parents are artists. The son can be creative not because the creativity is not coded in his gene but because he is exposed to the art everyday. Than can nurture his talent.

It might be little off from the topic, but I was watching a NHK program when I was in high school, and the show was discussing about creativity.
Like Timmmmyboy, I thought a person is not born with a awesome creative skill.
Because we are always see things and be inspired by things around us.
We don't just suddenly get an idea from sky, so we copy and conbine them to make thing new and original.


As I was learning calligraphy, my teacher used to tell me that if I want to improve your skill, go to art museum to see others' work and get inspired!
It was clear that when I work on my calligraphy after going to the museum, my work turn out to be great.
So Timmmmyboy's argument reminded me of that.

Another thing I agree with him is that "we can be more creative when we are unconfortable."
I really think it is true.
Again calligraphy, but my teacher was really really strict. I describe her Oni. :)
She always used to ask me to practice my calligraphy on 100 paper! This is too much.
As you can expect, at the end of the practice, I get so exhausted and stressed. Really bad condition.
However when she checks my work, she always choose works I did at the end of the practice as a great work.
Like Timmmmyboy mentioned that we face challenge and that would be a spurt of creativity, my creativity skills went beyond in unconfortable condition.

I really enjoyed Timmmmyboy's speach.
I hope I can be more creative by being inspired by things around me, and I hope to inspire people as well.

Midterm Assignment

I found a very interesting assignment: Wait, where did the guy come from?
The aassignment was to make a photograph with someone who is not supposed to be there..haha


I looked up the participants work on their blog, and I found some of  them are very unique and creative.
On the blog of Timmmmyboy, the author combines one image of a guy with images of scene of popular film to make the image very interesting.

Other work from Admin combine an image of Darth Vader with a image from scene of Star Trek.

Yaisuri Salamanca conbined the image of her with image of film "Twilight".

At first I saw it, I did not feel any strengeness because it well matched.
It is fun to play with photos to make original picture.


Well I cannot make photograph right now so I am just going to introduce a interesting photo with someone who is not supposed to be in the picture.



Image: Orphan? by katiesterling3 through CC licensing

Harry Potter is a orphan as his parents passed away when he was a baby.
But I am not sure if the boy behind Harry represent a orphan..but still funny.

In One Piece, a Japanese famous anime, sometimes Pandaman which is not a official charactor of the anime suddently appears!
I found a youtube video that collected all the scenes which the Pandaman appeared.

Because the Pandaman randomly appears on the anime, it is very fun to find the Pandaman.
Although I watched all the episodes, I missed so many Pandaman.

Title

Pera pera pera pera

Social Media and Artists

Our group are going to talk about how artists promote themselves using social media.

I want to talk about an popular hair designer in Japan.

Her name is Atsue Nshioka.
She is described as an creative director who influence not only on beauty industry, but also on fashion and culture.
She puts her hairstyle on famous Japanese website, Biglobe.

Generally we can find hairstyle from magazines.
But sometime it is very difficult to follow the procedure by reading directions and looking at image.

However internet allows us to see the how to with video.

Oral explanations and moving image are so much clear and easy to understand compared to book.

See the video from the website.

All her hairstyle are cute, easy, and creative!

She also put her blog address the website, so her fans can communicate with her and they love to ask her question about beauty.

On her blog, she introduce some advice to attain beauty, healthy food, cute clothes and so on.

I think she is successful in promoting her beauty skills using the social media.

Pop culture

Pop culture is culture enjoyed by young people. It includes game, music, television, and so on.
I want to talk about fashion.
Current teenage fashion Is defined as "kawaii-worthy" fashion.
The term "kawaii" represents not only cute, but also groovy, styling, and awesome.
The fashion showcase event Tokyo Girls Collection is very popular event among young women. This even is open for buyers, media, and general public.

This even was broadcasted for NikoNiko online live. (ニコニコ動画)

Also, clothes in Tokyo Girls Collection was used for avatars for Gree.
Young women can enjoy choosing clothes with their avatar, and this can promote them to consume the products.

Webcam!

Hello!

I want talk about webcam.

Everyone know what the webcam is but..
Webcam is the video camera that allows you to share your live video of yourself with others using internet.
According to the article "The history of the Internet in a Nutshell", first webcam introduced by Cambridge University in 1991, and the purpose of the webcam was monitor the state of coffee pot to avoid pointless trip to coffee room...lazy

Today webcam allows us to have meeting with people in a long distance and to watch live broadcast online, and even it is used as a security camera.
It is also helpfull for deaf people as webcam allows them to communicate using sign language.

Webcam is such an awesome tool I thought when I was a high school student!
I was in Texas for about a year, and I had a great time there with my American friends.
But time to go back to Japan came..
I was so sad to leave there and really didn't wanna go back to Japan.

I really missed everyone including my host family, friends, and my teachers when I got back to Japan.
At that time, I did not have webcam, so I asked my dad to buy one for me.

I was so happy to see my friends through my webcam!
Not only the image of my friends shows up, I could actually talk!

Thanks to such a advanced tools like email, webcam and skype, I still keep in touch with everyone.
I also have to thank to the silly and lazy purpose of the first webcam too :p

Here is what I found about Douglas Engelbart.

Douglas Engelbart is an American inventor and internet pioneer.

I didn't know that he invented cumputer mouse!
He was looking for efficient pointing devise for interactive display technology.
He had the idea that was to use small wheels traversing the tabletop, one turning horizontally, one turning vertically, each transmitting their rotation coordinates for analysis.
This first mouse had only one button.

I continue writing after I get home!

Tomochin is so beautiful.  I hope that she marries Justin.  They would have such cute babies.