Final Blog Post

 As this class comes to a close, I can't help but look upon my past decade of an online presence with a new sense of both understanding and contempt. I have been active online since the 5th grade, so give or take 11 years. Prior to really looking into my online presence, I had simply viewed the most negative aspect of my life on the internet as the Facebook albums of middle school dances. However, a recent thought of mine has been how my choices of social medias both influenced my experience growing up and if there are lingering results in my current thinking as well. 

At the peak of my social media usage throughout middle school, in addition to the casual personal usage of Facebook and Instagram, I was prevalent in the fandom (the fans of a particular person, team, fictional series, etc. regarded collectively as a community or subculture) sphere on both Twitter and Tumblr. This meant that on a daily basis I was interacting with thousands of individuals in which I had not only never met in real life, but had no idea of what they looked like. Fandoms relied on anonymity, the most personal and identifiable you would get being your favorite band member and possibly your name (of whatever name you wanted to be called). The strive for clout and recognition amongst other fan accounts was indeed a large part of my middle school experience- to a point where it became unhealthy. I think back now on how many accounts I had post notifications on for, and how there was a deep pressure to (regardless if I was in class, in church, or anywhere else) to stay constantly informed on the minute details of what was going on with your favorite accounts and the bands you follow.

Middle school was also the time when I began to realize the extent my body was different from the Instagram models in which began to gain prominence online. Photos on both Instagram and Tumblr showed glorified images of women whose bodies were emaciated, skinny or "anna" (an online term used to reference anorexia without raising flags) being the best compliment in which one could get. For an above average sized girl whose body was very much still in the process of changing, this content really shook me. Girls at my school more or less looked like me, but that reality was irrelevant when I unlocked my phone and the women I saw glorified very much did not. 

As middle school came to a close, that was the time when I realized the benefit of establishing a niche for your content, even on personal accounts. I strived to have an Instagram presence that made my life look both interesting and aesthetically pleasing, following certain color pallets and falling into natural photographs so friends and family and strangers alike saw me as an ethereal, artsy girl who is happy and joyous all the time: which is obviously not the case. It was not until recently when I realized that everyone experiences the same feelings of not being "good enough" or as "happy" or as "social and fun" as everyone else: this based purely on what people post online.

Nowadays, I stick to simply Twitter and Instagram for my social media content. I got a VPN to use on my laptop and phone to help to disseminate my ability to be location tracked, hopefully reversing my years of ignorance to the ease of ability of others to find your information online. Another step I took to separate myself from the onslaught of advertisements is creating a burner email for any product-based website as well as for gaming websites. This unclogged my personal email as well as kept my anonymity by using a pseudonym in my email. 

I really try to be smarter with my online presence. I hope that with maturity has come not just more care for safety but a better understanding of the difference between online presence and reality. And I think it has. As we move forward, and when I think of the fate of my little 10 years old sister, I hope that the recent trend of making social media more casual continues. I have let her onto my VPN, as well as advised her on what to and not to post. Now I know it's optimistic for me to hope she does the right thing all the time, but I wish I had someone knowledgable about technology to help me when I was her age, so all I can do is hope. 

Five Eyes EOTO

Five Eyes, or FVEY for short is an intelligence alliance between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US. Created after World War II, the Five Eyes alliance was originally developed to monitor the communications of the former Soviet Union sand the effects of Communist regimes in the world in general. At its inception this group acted as an extension of the Allied powers, securing the allyship between the large, capitalistic countries of the western world. As the 20th century came to a close and the subsiding of the prevalence of Cold War, FVEY tilted their mission to primarily being used as a weapon for the War on Terror.

Now in the new millenia, recently unclassified Five Eyes documents show that countries involved in the organization are intentionally spying on each other’s citizens. Using the War on Terror as their alias, these countries have gone behind the backs of each other collecting information and sharing it amongst themselves. Edward Snowdan, the American whistleblower who copied and leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency in 2013 when he was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee and subcontractor, called FVEY a “supra-national intelligence organization that doesn't answer to the laws of its own countries." Yes, that is as horrifying as it sounds. 

Many influential figures were under the scrutinous eyes of the Five Eyes alliance. Famous actor Charlie Chaplin was placed under surveillance due to his alleged ties to communism, philanthropist Nelson Mandela was denounced as a terrorist by critics, his (mostly peaceful, mind you) work was placed under intense surveillance by British SIS and US CIA agents, and finally Beatles frontman John Lennon was landed under FBI surveillance due his involvement and outspokenness in protesting the Vietnam War. 

The Five Eyes relationship had two major ways of collecting public data, the PRISM program and Upstream Collection. The PRISM program gathers user information from technological agencies such as Google, Apple and Microsoft; while the Upstream system gathers information directly from the communications of civilians through fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past and the interception of phone calls. This is horrifying because as technology advances and we as a world continue to find ourselves more and more incredibly online, avenues in which the Five Eyes intelligence organization or anyone really can use to monitor and intrude upon the goings on of everyday individuals. Is it okay to live in a world where the intentional spying on individuals of your own country is the norm? Where our government can diffuse their blame by "subcontracting their dirty work" to other countries? 

This is the reality of the world we live in. Five Eyes is still operational, and is still gaining intelligence on the citizens of each others countries in the name of protection against terrorism, but at the cost of the privacy and individuality of those citizens they claim they are protecting. Where is the line between the protection and intrusion? How much should we as citizens be willing to give up, how much of our lives are we willing to have invaded by our government in order to protect us from being invaded by those we consider the enemy? Or do we as citizens have to reconsider who we feel is the true public enemy.