Week 4

        This week we were able to learn from Paul Wilson who came in to speak with our class. He talked about the Dark Web which I never heard of before. I thought it was what people used to pirate content or pornography or something. But from what I understand it is a part of the web that people can access where everything is anonymous in such a way that it is very difficult or almost impossible to track you. It is not surprising that if this part of the web enables you to do things without leaving a trace that most of its content or users are using it to do illegal things. But what was surprising to me is that the Dark Web can also be used for a good thing. It can be used to open the freedom of speech and get things out to the public that higher authorities are trying to hide from the public because they did something wrong or illegal. I think that this is very important because it would be easy for a big authority to hide their tracks on the surface web because they would be able to just take that content off and find who put it their and punish them. 

        What was also interesting about the class today is how effective and valuable viral videos are. Or not necessarily viral but just well done videos in general are effective in getting your message across. What makes a video go viral? First thing mentioned is that it needs to have novelty or something that nobody has seen before. I can imagine this getting more and more difficult. Second to try to create an emotional response. Third you don't want it to be too long or people will lose interest. I think the smaller the better but it shouldn't be more than 2 minutes I would say. Fourth it should be targeted. You should know who your target is so you can customize the video to them.

        It was a good week of class overall.