Matt Boyer

 How large an online footprint do you have? Do you have a personal website? I try to keep any semblance of my true identity off the internet. Even so, I also have a fairly active Google account that I'm not particularly proud of. Of all web data collection services, Google probably has to most accurate profile of me of anyone given just how frequently I use its services. So, yeah. Even when actively trying to maintain a low profile, I'm not very good at it. I also have a portfolio website . I need to get hired at some point, so having this website is pretty much a must. Still, this site contains very little actual information about me. Which social media sites do you use? What have you put on them? What have you linked to?  My Facebook account has sat dormant for years, and is set to private. I don't use Instagram, snapchat or Twitter. The only one that I really use is a fairly filled-out LinkedIn because I need it for school.  My old Facebook account that I've since

  Disinformation, as the Merriam-Webster puts it , is " false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth." In other words, disinformation is a concentrated effort by one party to control another party with lies and half-truths. It's a method for populace control. A tool to sway and subjugate. Historic Disinformation In the 1980's the Soviet government purportedly perpetrated an elaborate scheme to convince the American populace that  "all victims of AIDS are the result of a monstrous experiment." The Soviet " aktivinyye meropriatia " (active measures) scheme was apparently designed to weaken the "'main enemy' ( glavny protivnik ), the United States — and to create a favorable environment for advancing Moscow’s views and international objectives worldwide" ( source ). If what the CIA claims is true, then the deliberate attempt to swa

  Privacy is dead, and the internet killed it. Specifically, major online companies and over-funded government agencies killed privacy. I've been aware of the decline of private browsing for a few years now. It's been a major topic of study for me, even going as far as writing a final research paper on Deep Fakes and Privacy a while back (yes, I'm aware of the irony of writing a paper on privacy with Google Docs). So, none of the information talked about in these videos is particularly surprising to me. In psychology, there's a theory called the " Kübler-Ross model " that proposes the experience of grief follows a basic pattern: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. While it's a bit of a stretch to equate the metaphysical concept of  'privacy' to death and grief, I do think that the model has merit here. I have reached the second-to-last stage of the model: depression. I don't yet accept that the mode of privacy has fundamenta

  Rodger's Diffusion of Innovations or Ideas   Everett Rodger's theory of how innovations and ideas are disseminated throughout the populace is a widely used construct that hypothesis how a society adopts a new concept or technology. When used in terms of a societal innovation or progression, Rodger's theory can also be validly applied. In the next section, I'll analyze LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance in the United States using this framework. While LGBTQ+ folks have been present since prehistory , largely the sex/gender construction was rigid in the United States for much of its early history ( with a few notable exceptions ). This prevented much traction in the US the later-middle half of the 20th century, with the now infamous Stonewall Riots . These riots brought visibility to the civil injustices that queer folks suffered in the US. As the bell curve of Rodger's diagram shows, the most significant moment in a concept's adoption comes after a period of rapid a

Torture by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq The United States of America has a long and storied history of exceptionalism . In short, Americans tend to view themselves as the ultimate international moral barometer and sole exemplar of foreign and domestic policy.  America also has a vetted history of imperialism . In short, this term refers to America's obsession with installing "freedom" and "law and order" in otherwise sovereign and unaffiliated countries. This concept has a direct link to American exceptionalism, in my opinion, as exceptionalism is what informs America that it knows best in any given situation. If you're the very best, then everywhere else is doing something wrong compared to you. This persistent feeling of being the best is cultural, and extends vertically throughout the entire American class structure. So, the reason why so many conflicts reported by antiwar.com are largely unreported by larger media outlets has roots in

  The 2020 Black Lives Matter protests (spurred by the extrajudicial killing of George Floyd) generally give excellent examples of the six freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. The six freedoms (which are freedoms of religion, from religion, speech, assembly, press and petition) guarantee the rights of citizens to express themselves freely without government interference. For the most part, the Black Lives Matter protests are exemplars of free expression.  Despite some people vehemently disagreeing with the Black Lives Matter movement's message, it's a bedrock principle of the First Amendment that it protects speech that is unpopular or disliked by certain groups or authorities. The core message of BLM, the idea that black people deserve equal protections, privilege and safety in their homes, is not inherently dangerous or inciting. Thus, most BLM protests enjoy the same protections and affordances that any other protest or parade does. There are cases within the BLM p