Leo Gadd's Blog

• What were the top three social media sites, in terms of traffic, in 22-23? List them in order of popularity.

The top three social media sites in terms of traffic in 2022-2023 were as follows;

1. Facebook – 3,030 million monthly active users
2. YouTube – 2,491 million monthly active users
3. WhatsApp – 2,000 million monthly active users

• Provide a brief summary of how each social media site works and why people use it. 

1. Facebook is a social networking and media site that makes it easy to share updates to friends and family online. You can upload text, pictures, and videos onto your account for your friends to see. People use this application to get closer to their friends and family and to connect with others.
2. YouTube is a video-sharing website in which users can share or view videos that users create. These videos can be about anything and they can be directed towards anyone for any purpose. People use this application for many reasons, some of which are, to become more educated on a topic, post videos for others to view, or watch for entertainment.
3. WhatsApp is a messaging service that can be used by anyone. This app can also be used to call or video chat people, as well as send pictures or videos to others. People use this application to chat with others, which can be for any purpose such as; work, family, or friends.

• What are “demographics” and why is it important in social media?

Demographics are statistics that describe populations and their characteristics. This is important for social media because it can help the application to figure out information about their users so they can change or add different implications to make the experience better for their users.

• Explain any demographics that stand out among the three social media sites you listed above. (More popular with a specific age group, are majority of users male or female, married or single, employees or self-employed, etc.)

1. Facebook’s age range is surprising, as there is a big area in the middle that is very popular for ages 25-34.
2. YouTube’s country demographics are most interesting to me, as India is number one by a very considerable margin, having 462 million users, while second place United States has only 239 million users.
3. WhatsApp’s country demographics are most interesting to me, as India is number one by a very considerable margin, having 487 million users, while second place Brazil has only 118 million users.

• On average, how much time do users spend on each social media site during a day, week or month? Provide a resource that supports your answer. 

1. Facebook – 35 minutes per day
2. YouTube – 6.5 minutes per day
3. WhatsApp – 38 minutes per day

• Which of the three social media networks is growing the fastest? Why do you think that is? 

I think that WhatsApp may be the fastest-growing app because everyone texts and calls other people, but not everyone uses social media platforms. Along with this, Facebook has been seeing a lot of counterparts growing much more rapidly than it, and YouTube seems to stay relatively the same.

• How are the majority of visitors accessing these three sites (computer, mobile device, tablet)?

1. 98.5% of its users accessing the website with a mobile device
2. 87.7% of all YouTube views come from a mobile device
3. Almost completely from a mobile device

Biggest social media platforms 2023 | Statista

U.S. Facebook demographics age 2023 | Statista

YouTube Statistics 2023 [Users by Country + Demographics]

WhatsApp Statistics for 2023 – All You Need to Know – Verloop.io

Average Time Spent on YouTube (2019–2024)

Average Time Spent on Social Media (2023)

WhatsApp Statistics 2023 – Usage, Users, Revenue & More

How Many People Use Facebook In 2023?

YouTube Statistics For 2023 (Demographics & Usage)

A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency secured by cryptography, which makes it nearly impossible to counterfeit or double-spend. Most cryptocurrencies exist on decentralized networks using blockchain technology—a distributed ledger enforced by a disparate network of computers. Cryptocurrency is available to the public. A defining feature of cryptocurrencies is that they are generally not issued by any central authority, rendering them theoretically immune to government interference or manipulation. Satoshi Nakamoto is the name used by the presumed pseudonymous person or persons who developed Bitcoin, authored the bitcoin white paper, and created and deployed bitcoin’s original reference implementation. As part of the implementation, Nakamoto also devised the first blockchain database. Cryptocurrencies represent a new, decentralized paradigm for money. In this system, centralized intermediaries, such as banks and monetary institutions, are not necessary to enforce trust and police transactions between two parties. Thus, a system with cryptocurrencies eliminates the possibility of a single point of failure—such as a large financial institution setting off a cascade of global crises, such as the one triggered in 2008 by the failure of large investment banks in the U.S. Cryptocurrencies promise to make transferring funds directly between two parties easier without needing a trusted third party like a bank or a credit card company. Such decentralized transfers are secured by the use of public keys and private keys and different forms of incentive systems, such as proof of work or proof of stake. Though they claim to be an anonymous form of transaction, cryptocurrencies are pseudonymous. They leave a digital trail that agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) can follow. This opens up the possibility for governments, authorities, and others to track financial transactions. If society decides to adopt this method of currency, there could be an increase of criminal activity due to the threats of crypto and its uses.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cryptocurrency.asp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto#:~:text=Satoshi%20Nakamoto%20is%20the%20name,devised%20the%20first%20blockchain%20database.

Bad behavior occurs all the time on the internet and can be from anyone and aimed at anyone. It can happen at any time and can be targeted or random. There are many different ways for someone to be affected by bad behavior on the internet, but one of the most common forms of online bad behavior would be online harassment. Harassment is caused by the use of information and communication by someone intended to cause harm to another person. In one specific case, harassment and threats led to legal action; 

“In 2016, Andrew Anglin, publisher of the neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer, called on his readers to engage in a “troll storm” against a Jewish woman in Montana named Tanya Gersh and her family. Confronted with a barrage of threats and hateful messages, she and her family fled their home. With the assistance of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Gersh filed suit against Anglin for “invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and violation of the Montana Anti-Intimidation Act.” A federal magistrate judge ruled against Anglin in 2019 after he failed to appear in court, ordering him to pay over $14 million in damages to Gersh.

In the landmark case of Elonis v. United States, a man in the process of divorcing his wife posted seemingly threatening song lyrics on Facebook. Anthony Elonis included disclaimers that the violent lyrics were “fictitious” and “therapeutic.” Elonis was prosecuted under federal law (18 U.S.C. § 875(c)) which prohibits making threats over the internet. The Supreme Court ruled that this provision of federal law required that prosecutors allege and prove that the defendant had the “intent” to commit a crime. The court determined that it did not matter whether a reasonable person would have been threatened by the statement. What mattered is whether the actual defendant had the subjective intent to threaten. In effect, this decision significantly increased the difficulty of prosecuting the posting of threats on social media.”

In this case, Tanya Gersh and her family were played victims, coming from targeted online attacks led by Andrew Anglin. Due to this, Tanya and her family left their home in worry about the online threats that they received. This led to a lawsuit filed against Andrew for “invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and violation of the Montana Anti-Intimidation Act.” This eventually led to the outcome of $14 million owed to Tanya and her family. The was a large financial loss for Andrew Anglin, as well as severe damage to his reputation and his career. The criminal in this case was indeed held accountable and was forced to pay the fine. From this, we can learn to think about our actions and their consequences. There should be zero threats and attacks whether that be personal or generalized. These comments can severely hurt other people and their careers, including your own. The message–think about your actions on the internet.

Online Harassment Case Studies

Throughout my corporation, I encounter some digital threats to my organization. Some of these include; data breaching, computer malware, viruses, denial of service attacks, and malicious insiders. Data breaching exposes classified or confidential information to someone outside of the organization. These can happen randomly and can be from anyone. This data can be stolen, copied, transferred, or viewed. These threats can be seriously harming to organizations, and can potentially corrupt them. These can be dangerous, even if they seem so basic. Computer malware is intrusive and hazardous software that infiltrates computers to steal information and corrupt platforms. These can be targeted and can potentially destroy computers and their systems. Viruses are malicious software that damages software and data. These aim to disrupt systems and cause operational issues. They infect certain programs and replicate themselves to infiltrate and insert their own code into systems. Denial of service attacks aims to make a system or computer unavailable to its intended users. These can disrupt services to certain networks and will ultimately shut down machines and block users from accessing certain sites. Malicious insiders is someone inside of an organization that chooses to sabotage their own information and can leak content, as well as steal and share the information. They use their privileged position to commit some devious acts and can lead to many issues within the organization.

I can use a plethora of utilities to help keep my organization safe, such as Cyber Resilience Reviews, Assessment Evaluation and Standardization Programs, Vulnerability Scanning, External Dependencies, and Safe Organization Practices. Cyber Resilience Reviews are interviews to assess the trustworthiness of employees and determine the organization’s operational resilience and cybersecurity practices. These could be exploited by false user input and lies, leading to potential moles still in the system. Assessment Evaluation and Standardization Programs is a program launched by the CISA to expand the availability of organizations and individuals qualified to administer cybersecurity assessments in accordance with CISA’s standards and in a manner that provides data back to CISA for risk management purposes. This can also be corrupt by false user input, but is much harder as it is monitored by the CISA. Vulnerability Scanning is a process of identifying certain vulnerabilities and flaws in systems of organizations in order to help the organization respectively fix the situation. These could be manipulated by moles and they can find these weaknesses and use them against the organization. External Dependencies are certain factors that outside organizations and higher ups can set in place to help maintain boundaries in an organization. These can only be corrupted if there is a mole in the higher up organization, which is highly unlikely. Safe Organization Practices can be used to safely implement employees and maintain rules within an organization and stop threats from not letting them in to begin with. This could be exploited by lies and fraud.

The recommendations that I give to my company would be to; hiring, virus protection, install firewalls, strong passwords, and CISA protection. Better hiring for employees and harsher interviews to create a more challenging competition and slow the traffic of moles. Virus protection would protect the organization from viruses and keep files more protected. Firewalls would increase protection into the organization and would block out many outsider hackers. Strong passwords that would only be shared with a few employees and higher ups would create a challenge for both insider and outsider hackers to access confidential information. The CISA has many great protection standards and have tools to help keep your organization protected and safe.

Content management systems are usually software that manages and controls content, allowing groups of people to create, edit, and share content. Content management systems are not only used for websites, rather they are normally used for all forms of digital media. Along with creating and editing content, content management systems are a very good tool to organize and manage content. 

Building a website using a content management system and building a website using HTML/CSS would be very different experiences. By using a content management system you would be able to collaborate on your project, and you would ultimately be able to customize your website much easier. Along with this, however, you may not be able to customize your website as much or as specific as you could by using HTML. So a drawback of using a content management system is that you would have less customization, while a drawback of HTML would be that it would take much more time and effort. The current best practice to creating a website would probably be CMS, but it is up to the user. As time goes on HTML basically stays the same, while CMS advances and continues to give the user more freedom, customization, and accessibility.

CMS impacts the web design industry, as it makes it so much easier for anyone to create a website however they like, with easy steps and freedom. This could potentially take jobs away from web developers of HTML or CSS, but overall it will just split into two groups of people. Along with that, HTML developers have much more experience and knowledge in the area, so they will also be suited to create CMS websites if needed.

Sources:

https://www.optimizely.com/optimization-glossary/content-management-system/#:~:text=A%20content%20management%20system%20(CMS)%20is%20an%20application%20that%20is,of%20templates%20like%20a%20website.

In today’s society, most people who access the web access it on mobile devices and cell phones. In fact, as of May 2023, more than 67% of web access comes from mobile devices. Safari and Google Chrome hold the most visits through mobile devices Resource: What Percentage of Internet Traffic Is Mobile? [Jun ’23 Upd]
Not one person or organization controls the World Wide Web. Instead, it is made up of URLs (Uniform Resource Locator), HTTP’s (HyperText Transfer Protocol), and HTML’s (HyperText Markup Languages). All of these factors come together to create the internet and the ways we navigate and view it. The World Wide Web: The Invention That Connected The World — Google Arts & Culture
Tim Berners Lee is a computer scientist who is best known for inventing the World Wide Web in 1989, along with URL’s, HTTP’s, and HTML’s. Tim Berners-Lee
A blog is an informational website that is updated regularly to share information with its viewers. Blogs can be informal or formal and can be used for a variety of purposes, such as to attract internet traffic or to gain an online presence/following. What’s a Blog & Why You Need One
Responsive website design is an approach to website creation that says design and development should respond to the user’s best interest. This means that the website should adapt to the user’s screen size, platform, and orientation. Responsive Web Design: What It Is And How To Use It
Responsive websites are necessary because websites need to work for all users to experience the most positive enjoyment and users. If a website isn’t responsive it will lose attraction and people will not want to use the site.
An SEO, or Search Engine Optimization is used to improve a website’s visibility on search engines. Website owners or managers may be concerned with this because popular websites may lose attention due to lower-viewed websites being pushed to the top. What Is SEO – Search Engine Optimization?
Dynamic content is any digital content that is customized based on user behavior. What is Dynamic Content? Definition & Examples
A content management system is a software that helps users create and manage content on their website without needing technical knowledge. The one we use is WordPress. What Is a Content Management System (CMS)?
A YouTube channel is a place for users to upload posts and videos for certain viewers. These would be good for someone to get popular or promote a business.