Research Paper Idea: Does Facebook protect free speech?

After our discussion in class on thursday, bouncing research paper ideas around, I became really intrigued by the idea of censorship on the internet.

My group discussed the different types of power and control within the hierarchies of the internet and how a moderator has control over the server information. The moderator can see all of the information and has dominion over what others see.

I've been looking for different articles about moderators and controlling what others are able to write and the idea of censorship. I am really interested in how this works in particular on Facebook and have found a few discussion posts about how Facebook prevents people from fully disclosing their opinions and censors their writing.

Possible Research Question: 

Does Facebook as a writing space really protect our freedoms of speech if there is a moderator who can edit whatever we post?

Music Tag

I have like a million favorite songs. I love music and a new song always pops into my head. However, a song I always love listening to is Kelly Clarkson and Reba's "Does He love You" because I love their harmonies.

Epic Bummer

In all honesty, I am not loving Linkedin. My first impressions of it were good because it is very similar to Facebook but the more I try to figure out what to do with it I find myself more and more disappointed. Right now in my life, I prefer Facebook.

I think this site would be very useful for someone in a more professional career (a desk job) but I work at a preschool. I have no real need to connect with people in the professional networking realm.

What I do like about Linkedin are the other sites you can connect to through Linkedin. There is a Linkedin Blog available to read about all the latest updates on Linkedin and what people are saying about the website.

You can also connect to tungle.me on Linkedin and get super organized for meetings (I love organization). You can also connect to Microsoft outlook, Twitter, Tripit, an Amazon reading list and Events.

There are a lot of valuable tools that can be used through Linkedin, which I like. I also like that through using Linkedin I learned a lot about my friends that I didn’t already know. Such as, the different careers they have held, the schools they went to, and the degrees they attained.

Another cool facet of Linkedin is the ability to get introduced to your friend’s connections that you hold things in common with. One of my friends is connected with a woman who he used to work with but is now working at a preschool like me and was also an English major. I have never met her before but I can get introduced to her through my friend on Linkedin and form a new connection to add to my contacts.

You can also create workspaces with whatever contacts you invite into that space and have discussions through discussion board posts.

Linkedin is definitely a writing tool but I had a hard time deciding whether it could be used as a writing space.

There are tools on Linkedin which allow you to post your thoughts and share them with others but does that make it a writing space?

 Like Bolter said, sometimes it is hard to know where the writing space begins and the thinking ends. “The behavior of a writing space becomes a metaphor for the human mind as well as for human social interaction” (Bolter 13).

Unfortunately I am unimpressed with Linkedin. However, like most of the stories in Selfe and Hawisher’s Literate Lives, I taught myself how to navigate the website.

I think if I had someone who already knew how to use Linkedin efficiently showing me how to navigate it better, I might be able to use it. 

However, I just don’t have the time to sit down and figure it all out.

I would like the website a lot better if it was formatted differently so that all of the tools were easier to find and clearly laid out.

It is nice that there are options on the homepage which guide you in how to complete your profile, but once you click on those steps you are pretty much on your own.

Unfortunately I'm not Linkedin right now

     I've been meaning to post another blog updating everyone on my use of Linkedin but I'm afraid my use of the website has been very limited considering I've been sick.

I spent some time checking everything out on the site trying to figure out how to use it and just felt super confused.

I added new people to my contacts list. I had no idea so many of my friends already had a profile on Linkedin and actually use it.

I think for the time being Linkedin is not a useful site for me. Considering I already have a job and I am not currently looking for a new one, Linkedin just isnt helpful.

 I think it will be a very helpful tool in the future after I have a degree and am seeking a career in my field of study. I think it is really cool to see a lot of my friends on Linkedin and be able to see where they work. We all have such different work fields it will be interesting to see if our work paths ever cross. It will also be cool to see how my contact list grows in the future and if my contacts get in touch with one another to help them in their careers.

I'll have another post with a better review of Linkedin later when I am feeling a little better.

A place to call my new writing space?

     Looking into all of the different possible “writing spaces” available on the internet was quite overwhelming.

I never realized there were so many different sites available to use as a “writing space” with “writing tools” available within each one.

 There were so many different writing spaces that I discovered and had never even heard of before. By checking them out, I still could not make sense of them or figure out how they worked.

I looked into sites like Twitter, Fail Blog, Ning, and Formspring.me to seriously consider trying out and using as my new “writing space” but none of them really struck my fancy.

In all honesty I was quite overwhelmed by the challenge given in my English 105 class to find a new “writing tool or space” to use. However, I was also excited to use a new form of writing technology.

From our discussion in class, I resolved that, every site on the internet that allows people to post their thoughts through blogs, posts, status updates, emails, and profiles can be considered a writing space that comes with writing tools. However, after researching different sites, the site I chose to stick with is Linkedin. This site intrigued me because it is not at all like a “writing space” it is more of a social network with writing tools.

Linkedin is a business-oriented social networking site. Like Careerbuilder, it can be used to help people find jobs after college, or change careers, or to find resources necessary for current work projects. Linkedin allows its users to view their direct connections and the connections of those they are connected with to broaden employment horizons. Professional connections become visible so that employees can ask the right questions and make the right decisions when it comes to advice in finding new contacts, funding, knowledge, and new opportunities.

There is not really anything about this site that I would call a “writing space” other than its ability to connect to other accounts on social networks and attach files that can be read by prospective employers.

The majority of this site is a writing tool. It creates opportunities to write to prospective employers and fellow employees through its system of connecting the right people together. There is a space for status updates as well as a community discussion board to share questions and get answers but the purpose of the website is not to give users a space to write down their thoughts but to connect people together so they can write one another; it’s a tool that leads people into other “writing spaces.”

I still have not fully figured out how to use Linkedin and I am quite content with the "writing spaces" I already use like facebook and myspace but the more I play around with all of these different portals of communication the more intrigued I become with how crazy it is that technology has advanced as far as it has.