The Eight Values of Free Expression ... How do you rank them?

This week in my Media Law and Literacy class, the teacher provided the class with a list of eight values of free expression and analyzed them with the class. 

The eight values consisted of: discovery of truth, participation in self-government, stable change, individual self-fulfillment, check on governmental power, promote tolerance, promote innovation, and protect dissent. 

After, we were to to talk with a classmate as to which we thought was the most important out of the list.  Here are my thoughts.

I believe that to be able to choose one of these as the most valuable or important on the list is next to impossible.  To put one over the other makes no sense; each value goes hand-in-hand with another. My partner, Sarah, and I believe that both the values of individual self-fulfillment and check on governmental power are the most important that we can pick out of the list to identify with free expression in our country today. Individual self-fulfillment allows any person to find themselves and create their own identity; thus, free speech allows for a person to have a certain autonomy to create their own way of expressing themselves through his or her own speech.  While every person has this right to become one's true self, they also have a certain duty to their country to check on the government, and speak out on things that happen, whether good or bad.  It is a citizen's duty to check on and call out the government, as even given as a specific right in the sixth clause of the First Amendment.  It is important for every citizen to respect and recognize their responsibility to the checks and balances system of our country to check on the governmental power, and that is why I am very passionate that this is one of the most important value on this list.  

Overall, I believe that every American should value every aspect of this list. Although every citizen does not recognize the responsibility given to us in the First Amendment, I believe it is my duty as not only a citizen, but one working in the communication field in this country, to uphold these values and keep aware of my responsibility. 

"Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

What Does "Self Made" Really Mean?

As Forbes officially named Kylie Jenner as the "youngest self made billionaire" earlier this week, many have been questioning what the significance of this word means today. 

Many believe that she should not have gained this title over Mark Zuckerburg, due to her family background and the fame she had already gained from reality TV show "Keeping Up With the Kardashians".  Her roots come from money. However, once stepping into her own light in the makeup industry, coming out with her own brand named "Kylie Cosmetics" in 2016, she quickly began to gain momentum in the social media light.  

Now, three years later, her net worth has amount to a billion dollars, and people are mad about it. They do not believe her story should be the one with the spotlight, as she gained most of her popularity off of her family name and relation to the Kardashian family.  It is easy to recognize she came from fame, but I think most people do not respect the fact that she used this platform to make a name for herself and do what she loved: creating a business and making make up.  She has my respect for how she has not only influenced the make up world, but also taking her situation and using it for the best and making something out of her situation instead of just leaning off her family wealth to survive.  

Cheering for Equal Opportunity

Although Title IX has been in effect for almost 50 years, the cases in school athletics violating this still occur regularly. Specifically, a case has arisen in Minnesota after male students filed a complaint last summer saying the their Fourteenth Amendment and Title IX rights were being violated by the Minnesota State High School League, in which they had a bylaw that did not permit males to join competitive dance teams.  

They are said to have believed this bylaw should still be in use because females at the schools had been deprived of equal opportunity for so long.  However, this thought completely goes against Title IX in that the underrepresentation had not continued and has since been balanced out across the League. 

On Wednesday, the US Court of Appeals for the Eight District overturned a district court ruling that allowed this bylaw to stay in place.  Additionally, they issued a preliminary blocking of this bylaw in the League. 

Facebook and Privacy ... Can these two finally meet?

Mark Zuckerburg, the CEO of Facebook, announced a new plan to introduce a "truly private" messaging system through Facebook.  Famously known for leaking private information of their users, Zuckerburg wants to start to change this narrative.  He believes amping up the security in messaging would help the company more than hurt it, not only in the eye of the public but also in their stocks. 

This new way of communicating through the app would encrypt the messages between users, an encryption that even Facebook could not read.  They also seem to be taking notes from Snapchat, in which messages automatically disappear.

Even with all these promises, users are staying skeptical.  Facebook users are still skeptical of the app using their private messages to target ads on their page, as they have already found happens on Facebook Messenger.  Along with the skepticism surrounding the privacy promised, other critics are worried that these private messages may allow false news and rumors to spread.  According to CBS News,  Zuckerburg noted this as an "inherent trade-off" between security and safety, as these messages would be encrypted and unreadable.

Personally, I believe that this level of privacy is not possible, especially after all of the scandal Facebook has faced itself.  To trust that all of the messages would be private and encrypted so that they could not be read by Facebook itself would just seem naive. Although I hope this plan works, I will not be waiting around for it. 

Vaccinations... Liberty v. Security

Vaccinations have been a long time developed science. Today, they are now one of the heavily debated topics we hear about in the news regularly. I recently discovered an article on one of the children who's parents chose not to vaccinate him.

He was invited to speak in front of Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions where he spoke on the misinformation of the American people. He blamed sites, such as facebook for allowing the spread of so many claims that hold no evidence. 

The case has gone viral with Senator Rand Paul saying, “I’m not here to say ‘don’t vaccinate your kids.’ I believe the benefits of vaccines greatly outweigh the risks, but I still do not favor giving up on liberty for a false sense of security.”

This peaked my interest since we have been discussing in class what "liberty" means and how it has become a blanket term for many other things.

SCOTUS: We the People Trust in You!

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), consisting of nine justices, has become one of the most powerful justice systems in the world. The people of our country, over time, have voluntarily put our trust into this small group to determine the constitutionality of laws and preside over cases that want a second chance. The Supreme Court receives approximately 100 new petitions every single day, according to the video shown in the Media Law class I am currently taking.  Out of the 7,000 or more petitions received in a year, SCOTUS takes on a total of 100 of these cases.

Before watching this video, I had never known this fact. Additionally, I wonder how many other Americans do not know recognize how much trust we put in to our Supreme Court, as We the People do not have any hand in choosing our justices. We put our full trust in the President of the United States and our Senators to choose and approve of the right justices to preside over our country. I believe our system of checks and balances written into the Constitution has really set apart our government from any other system worldwide. This system has not failed yet, and that is why I believe we have so much trust in our Supreme Court until this day.

For any other information on this topic, I would also visit this link to learn more.