Short Reads
In today’s digital age, we can’t live without technology. Printed paper is dying because everything we do is online. Our online presence is a digital copy of who we are. Electronic data that we put online, however, is not just for us to see and use, and it would be naïve of us to believe that anything we put online is entirely private and only viewed by us. So, who else is getting access to the digital copy of ourselves?
Over the past two decades, the Sunset Park, Brooklyn community has advocated for the New York City government to clean up its waterfront. This community activism has led to new green amenities. Now, Sunset Park has a new shoreline walking path and newly planted trees alongside roads. Additionally, the community was able to prevent a toxic gas-fired power plant from being built in its backyard. These improvements, however, led to increased housing and living costs, which forced some low-income community members to relocate outside of Sunset Park. The Sunset Park community was unknowingly forced to choose between affordable housing and being able to breathe. The community chose to breathe. Now, some community members are being forced to leave.
Almost 70% of adults in the United States used Facebook in 2018. Interestingly, Facebook does not charge any of its 2.45 billion active users for access to its platform, but instead generates revenue by collecting and analyzing personal data to sell targeted advertisements. This enormous user base is the foundation of the company’s dominance in the social-networking industry. Indeed, Facebook-owned companies account for 90% of all time spent on social-networking sites. As a result, nearly 84% of all online social advertisement spending is paid to Facebook.
Let’s face it: social media is political.
Based on a study by Pew Research Center, if you log onto your favorite social media site – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. – and scroll through your newsfeed for two to five minutes, there is a 93% chance you will see at least one political post.
And this raises one big question: Is it good or bad that social media is so political?
According to the National Inventory of Collateral Consequences of Conviction, there are an astonishing 44,778 collateral consequences stemming from criminal convictions. The ubiquity of these consequences mean that a guilty plea rarely involves only probation or a prison sentence; a guilty plea often affects voting rights, employment, housing, public assistance, and citizenship. In the context of sex offenses, a criminal charge and subsequent guilty plea can bar individuals from public and private housing, bar them from homeless shelters, and prohibit them from living in many communities.
