Each One, Teach One: Reaction Post
In this blog post, I will be reflecting on information shared by my fellow peers from their "Each One, Teach One" presentation!
There were many topics shared from many different students, but there were a few topics that I personally took an interest in, and I will be discussing them down below!
There were many topics shared from many different students, but there were a few topics that I personally took an interest in, and I will be discussing them down below!
Five Eyes
Before this presentation, I had no idea what "Five Eyes" was and had never heard of it before. Now, I am much more aware of what it is. Five Eyes is an intelligence sharing process between five different countries. It originated all the way back to WWII, where the US and the UK worked together to intercept enemy communication. They set up intelligence sharing between the two countries to stay in the know about the enemy and allied together to get ahead of the pack.
Today, Five Eyes still exists, and it mainly focuses on cyberthreats, geopolitical intelligence, and terrorism. Five Eyes only became apparent to the public once there were a bunch of data leaks from around the world. These leaks revealed extensive monitoring actions, which in return made citizens angry and upset about their governments spying on its own citizens.
Because of this outrage, there have been many who strive to completely eliminate Five Eyes and to discontinue its operations. While I completely understand why citizens would be outraged due to not being aware of the government's actions, I also understand why they had to keep that information under wraps. In order for them to catch criminals or conspirators, they had to go unseen by the public. However, I do believe honesty and transparency is the best policy.
Disinformation
I had heard the term of "disinformation" before, but never knew the full extent of its meaning. According to my classmate who presented on this topic, disinformation is information deliberately spread in order to influence public opinion or to obscure the truth.
My peer discussed both the negatives and the positives, as follows:
Positives:
- Removes shame
- Give feeling of power
- Confirm already believed thoughts
- Gives explanation to unexplained events
- Provides a release
Negatives:
- Takes away trust
- Can make you emotional
- Creates division
- Leaves you in uncertainty
- Can be dangerous
I have to say I completely agree with all of these positives and negatives, especially under "Positives," that it provides a release and gives feelings of power. Many people who deliberately spread false information want to feel that they have the power to influence those around them, and through disinformation, they are able to achieve that. In addition, under the "Negatives" list, it definitely takes away trust and leaves you in uncertainty. If you were to listen to everything someone says and find out that it is all false information, you would be left doubting everything you hear from someone else, regardless of whether it is actually true or false.
Within the presentation, it was mentioned that disinformation is mainly found on social media, happening through trolls, AI, hackers, and search history like recommended engines.
Ways to combat disinformation include:
- Looking at the author & where the source comes from
- Dig deeper on the topic to fully understand what is being discussed & so you are aware of what information is correct and what information may be false or incorrect
- Do a personal bias check; double check if the information is coming from someone who is biased
- Ask well-educated people about the information to ensure it is correct information
- Was the article with information done for satire? Was it serious?
**IMPORTANT: Disinformation is hard to spot!!!***
False Flags
The third topic I was interested in was the topic of false flags. False flags is a strategic operation put in place by the party at fault to pin the blame on another party. This is typically used in politics to paint one side as looking worse than the other. Countries also tend to use false flags to make their citizens lean on their own government for support rather than seeking out other countries. A perfect example is China. China tends to want to portray itself as elite and perfect to its citizens, hiding controversial events and using false flags to make other countries seem less appealing and look bad to their citizens.
Some positives of false flags include gaining tactical advantage in war, as well as possibly gaining public support.
On the downside, there are negatives of using false flags. For example, using false flags is essentially lying to the public, is unethical, and hurts international allies. For a country like China who does not really care about its reputation and its allies, the negatives do not really affect it. However, for countries like the USA and smaller countries with less military support who rely on having allies, using false flags can be very detrimental to their reputation and is usually avoided at all costs.
How False Flags Affect Society as a Whole
- Public loses trust
- Death of innocent people & destroying of their homes
- Affects who people vote for in the future
- Destroys social unity
- Protests & riots may rise
How it Affects Certain Groups
- Wealthier people tend to have more resources and power than people with less money
- Minorities are more likely to be targeted
Conclusion
To conclude, I really enjoyed listening to my peers' presentations; I feel I learned so much more than I expected to learn. There were so many more topics that I did not mention in my blog post that caught my attention and I learned many new things about our government and the actions it takes.
My next blog post will be my final post, so I am looking forward to seeing you join me in my last post on this platform! Thank you for reading, and see you next time!
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