Blog #3 ~ Eight Values of Free Expression

 Eight Values of Free Expression

1. Individual Self Fulfillment

The search for one's identity is crucial in the world we live in today. All the time people hear the word "sheep" or "drone", referring to people that hear what other's have to say and don't take the time to form their own opinion. This is how we have become so divided as a nation because the general public flows into "Option A" or "Option B" without truly figuring out their own stance on ALL of the facts. Unfortunately, people seem to be perfectly fine with living that way of life. It is our right as human-beings and Americans to be able to form out own opinions and not just sit back and agree with the first thing that we hear.

2. Participation of Self Government

If I understand this point correctly, I feel as though it is vital that people can understand and easily access candidates policies. People, especially in this upcoming election, are talking about voting for the person over the policies. In a certain regard, that can be a good thing. However, when one of the candidates has not put up any policies and is working off of a "trust me" policy, this is detrimental to the public well-being. 

3. Promote Innovation

The ability to create a safe space for speech and creativity is what made America what it is today. We were forged as a nation to respect and understand every individual's creative endeavors to ensure that everyone can be who they are freely.  America is a country full of every walk of life and we will never be able to fully appreciate that unless we give people the safety to speak their mind.

Blog #1 - My Five Sources

TikTok

I use TikTok much more than any other social media app on my phone, so most of the news that I find out about comes from it. I mostly keep up with sports news, but world news tends to find a way onto my For You Page from time to time. I tend to try to remove myself from American news sources because they tend to have skewed and bias views in order to gain revenue and viewership. That led me to Dylan Page, an Australian TikToker who has gained fame through charismatic and truthful reporting. He keeps his opinions out of stories and tells everything how it is. 

X

I have only recently started using X, formerly known as Twitter, in recent months. However, in my time using it I have found that the notifications that it sends to my phone have been very informative. Instead of going and trying to find information about what's going on in the world, it just pops up. I still don't go on X a whole lot because of the keyboard warriors, but it is nice to get that information then find more details out on my own. This leads me into my next three.

ChatGPT

As the world has been introduced to ChatGPT, and it has responded by taking over a lot of parts of life. For me, that has meant that I don't use Google as much as I used to. Google is flooded with opinions and hundreds of thousands of articles that all say different things about the same topic. Similar to why I watch Dylan Page videos, I want to form my own opinion and not hear what people have to say if I'm being honest. I want the facts and not have someone trying to sway my opinion while telling me the info. I'd like to think of myself as a people person, who can also fairly quickly get sick of people. I really only talk about politics with my best friends because I politics as a whole bother me, and all it does is lead to arguing for most people. I have lived a much more peaceful life that way.

Word of Mouth

With all that's been said, I clearly do not keep up with the news very much. So, a lot of news I will get from people asking me if I've heard about this or that. Most of the time that will go one way or another. The first way is someone asks me if I've heard of something going on, then they usually know more about it than I do, and I listen to what they have to say. The other option is if I saw something on X or TikTok then I'll ask them if they heard about it, and just like before, they probably know more about it than me, and I just listen to what they say. 

YouTube

YouTube has always been a decent size part of my life. I've been watching different channels on YouTube for over a decade now, so it would be impossible for it to not be a part of my "Top 5". Full length, and YouTube reels both add so much knowledge into my personal database. Most of the time, I just stick with my suggested videos which are a whole combination of different topics and themes. Whether I want to learn about the newest headline in the news or find out how to make birria tacos, I can rely on YouTube to grant me that knowledge.