U.S. Senators Altering Facebook

The privacy issues Facebook arrises are not just spoken of by concerned parents, but now U.S. Senators are calling attention to them. Due to some of Facebook's latest updates, privacy precautions have been stressed less, resulting in users having "less control over private information, and it was done without the users' permission," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said on Capitol Hill stated. Due to the fact that Facebook's population has been consistently increasing, providing sufficient privacy settings for all 400 million users has been a struggle. Yet Facebook is making steady progress in ensuring all users that their information will be private. They are in the midst of converting the regular settings, where information is automatically shared with the public, to the "opt-in" setting, where no information is shown automatically, and instead one must choose what he/she wants to display to the public. "The way to go is opt-in," Schumer said. "The default position should be that the information is not shared, not that the information is shared. Amplifying his colleagues' concerns, Schumer called on Facebook to "reverse its policy so that users have to opt in to shared data, rather than opt out." With both parents, administrative figures, and now political figures on Facebook's case, they will surely clean up their act in terms of providing their users with more trustworthy privacy.

In terms of how this article correlates to an historical event, I feel as though this relates to when communication devices were first invented. Take the telegraph, for example. During the Industrial Revolution, inventors discovered a way to communicate via telegraph, sending messages from one location to another through a transporter and receiver. One of the biggest issues they faced with the telegraph was ensuring privacy amongst the messages being sent. In order for any messages to be received, they had to be decoded first, which was done most likely by someone who worked for the receiver of the message. This means that whatever information was being sent was not always kept private. Technical similarities between Facebook and the telegraph are scarce, yet the purpose they both hold is to make communicating and social networking possible. Also, they both have carried the same issue- ensuring privacy. Although it was difficult to provide much privacy for telegraph users, Facebook has and continues to search for new ways in order to ensure privacy to its users.

UKRAINE PARLIAMENT

In this current event, ukraine was having a debate on wether or not Russia can use a naval base in their country. The president of Ukraine was explaining and describing this law as betrayal to their country and it got ugly. Fist fights were present in parliament. I think that this relates to modern world history by portraying Nationalism. The president is just trying to get the picture out that they would be betraying their own country if the law past and that the people in Ukraine should have pride in their country. It is a very controversial subject.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/27/ukraine-parliament-fight-eggs

iPad

While looking through Nytimes.com, I found this article about the iPad. Basically, it is a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of this new Apple product. Simply put, this device is another evolution of technology that is changing the way people use older things like internet and books.

In relevance to modern world history, it can be compared to the industrial revolution. During this time, many new inventions and technologies were developed to better the lives of people and change the way people go about everyday tasks. Moving away from the iPad itself, technology in general is always improving and changing. It is a subject that has been around since the beginning of time and will continue to move forward everyday. It is one of the most important things in the world today and is relevant in every point in history.

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