Zoe's Guide to Media Law

       Unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably heard of the viral social media platform TikTok. Originally called Musical.ly, TikTok has made its presence widely known. Created by the Chinese company ByteDance, TikTok is an app that allows its users to make and share short videos. Unlike most videos that are in a horizontal layout, TikTok's format is vertical. Think of Snapchat or Instagram stories, but the way you navigate TikTok is by scrolling up and down, like Instagram, instead of swiping side to side.            TikTok reached the height of its popularity during quarantine last year. The app is centered around a "for you page" where TikTok uses its algorithm to find videos that would be of interest to you. For example, one day, my For You page can be full of videos about hockey, and the following day I will wake up, and all my videos are about The Vampire Diaries. When it comes down to how TikTok knows what we like, our privacy comes into questio

       After listening to all of the presentations, I decided to write this blog post about Instagram. Instagram is a popular social media platform that allows its users to share photos and videos to their feeds and interact with their followers. Launched in 2010, Instagram soon dominated the game. Originally the app was not called Instagram; it was initially called Burbn. This was absolutely fascinating to me, an app that I use every day, and it is a very big part of my life that was created because of alcohol.       Instagram officially launched on October 6, 2010. By December 2010, Instagram had one million users. Two years later, in a record-breaking transaction, Facebook purchased Instagram for $1 billion. Instagram has made a significant impact in our lives. It created an entirely new category of social media. Instagram is now even a job title. Have you ever heard of a social media influencer? Well, that started because of Instagram. In addition to being a new type of social medi

     As of recently, technology has become something that most people physically cannot live without. Personally, I cannot imagine my life without it. A couple of years ago, I got all of my technology taken away. The only time I was even allowed to touch a computer was when I was at school in class or doing homework at home. My parents took away my phone for six months, and I was off social media for two years. I then realized how toxic social media was in my life that I was happier and more confident in myself without it. Before this experience, I would say that my relationship with technology was not healthy at all. Honestly, I abused it. Currently, I would say that my relationship with technology is much healthier. I now know how to use it appropriately and my limits. Especially now being in college, my phone holds my entire life within it. It has all of my banking apps, GPS, and most importantly, my calendar. When it comes to my news updates, if I didn’t have my phone to alert me t