Journal #6: Our final unit focuses on fake news and what (if anything) should be done about it. The texts for today should have given you an idea of how long fake news has been around and what different kinds of fake news stories circulate the internet. Given this information and what you know about fake news, how big of a problem do you think it is? Should something be done to try to combat the spread of fake news, and if so, what? What kinds of problems would we start to run into if we tried regulating news this way? Journal #8: Over the weekend, a series of bombings at hotels and churches in Sri Lanka left over 200 people dead and over 400 injured. After this attack, the government issued a statement saying that officials had “decided to temporarily block social media sites including Facebook and Instagram” to try to combat “false news reports” from spreading and that services would continue after they’d had a chance to investigate the bombings. What are your thoughts on this level of government involvement with sites that distribute fake news? Do you think that this decision was the right thing to do, given the extraordinary circumstances? Or did the government go too far? Journal #5: One of the articles you read for today focuses on Sweden banning a company’s use of the “distracted boyfriend” meme. What are your thoughts on this? Is this something that should have been banned, or has Sweden taken it too far? This is one of the problems that those opposed to an advertising ban often point to—where would we draw the line? If a ban went into place, how do you think they would determine what kinds of things are banned and what things are allowed? Realistically, is there an objective way to do this? Journal #3: Now that we’ve talked a bit about Justine Sacco and you’ve read some perspectives on her situation, what are your thoughts about what happened to her? Do you think that she deserved what happened as a result of her tweet? Was the internet justified in its response to her, or did people take things too far? Do you agree with either of the two perspectives presented in the articles you read? Why or why not?
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