Promote Innovation

Growing up my parents always preached to me that freedom of speech in a community  is the foundation of the community itself. To have the ability to freely express and share your own ideas and thoughts will allow you to live in and contribute to an inclusive society. A community without freedom of speech would be in my opinion a community where there are many  problems that will occur more often because people will be angered as they will feel like their opinion doesn't matter and they don't have a voice and can’t contribute to society. 

 

As we have learned, the first amendment was created to  protect citizens freedom of speech. Many have used their freedom of speech to influence others. Freedom of speech has also been used to allow people to freely speak about issues that concern their communities and create a conversation that can create a change that will benefit society. 

 

We have discussed how in 2013 a baker refused to make a cake for a same sex marriage. The baker felt that their first amendment was being violated. The baker argued that they should have the freedom to choose what and how they express their speech. For them  their cakes express their art and a cake for a same sex marriage was not how they wished to express themselves.

In today’s society there are so many different platforms of social media where people have easy access to speak openly and share their ideas and views on any subject matter they choose. Social Media platforms allow people to share a wide range of views and their own personal opinions. As per Jack Balkin’s opinion on the matter that social media promotes innovation, I too share the same opinion. New technologies offer ordinary citizens a vast range of new opportunities to speak, create and publish.

The original intention of these platforms was to create a space where people could voice their opinions freely and create content where people who share their same ideas could follow them and share experiences. At the same time they allow for discussions on different views and opinions on a subject. They say that social media platforms are becoming more and more popular as people's primary source of news and information. As each social media platform gains in  popularity, so does the platform's censorship. This in my opinion goes against our first amendment. When we create our own social media page and share content, the content is of our own thoughts and opinions. However these platforms are becoming increasingly regulated and censored which contradicts freedom of speech. Twitter, Facebook and TikTok will allow certain opinions and views to be shared, but that is limited and a lot of content is censored and some users are even blocked entirely. These platforms use algorithms to censor content as they don’t want people thinking they share the same opinion. I argue here that this policing is against freedom of speech.

Social media is not just used as a personal platform, companies will use social media platforms to advertise their products or promote their business. Social media platforms are also increasing as a popular news source for many people.The ability to open up discussion in the comments sections  allow us to share and communicate our opinions. There still is control and censorship, but it does give people an opportunity to  share their opinion in society. 

U.S. Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court is very unique to me especially being from Canada, coming into this class I had zero knowledge of the U.S. Supreme Court but after reading about the court I realized how much power the U.S. Supreme Court really has and it's much more than the Canadian Supreme Court. The Supreme court was established by the United States Constitution on September 24th 1789. With the creation of the Supreme Court it allowed congress the power to create these inferior Federal courts.

The President at the time of the establishing of the Supreme Court was George Washington and Washington implemented an act that stated that the court would be made up of six justices whom would serve the court until death or retirement. Something interesting that I did not know about The Supreme Court was that  in 1869, congress changed the number of justices to nine and that still remains to this day. 1869 was also the last time that the number of justices would change at the time they had 7 but when Grant was elected congress gifted him with two more justices so now The Supreme Court would have 9 justices and to Grant's choice he picked them gamely.

The Supreme Court is of the highest power of all the courts. Something that was a very important takeaway for me was that the court can even overturn The President. This is because the Chief of justice is the one who impeaches the President. Multiple Presidents have been impeached such as Donald Trump and Bill Clinton although none of them were convicted. The Supreme Courts responsibility is to overturn unconstitutional legislation and its sworn duty to uphold the constitution. Something very interesting about The Supreme Court is that approximately 7000-8000 civil and criminal cases are filed by the court every single year, these files come from The State and The Federal courts.

In front of the main entrance of The Supreme Court the words, "EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW" are written which express the courts ultimate responsibility. Inside the court the Chief of justice is the one who is responsible for presiding over the court and the one who plans out what the court's weekly agenda was so that they knew all the cases that they needed to look up on and talk about as a group. I always believed that the President was the most powerful in the country and I had no clue that the President could be overturned before reading the article and doing research on The Supreme Court.

Top 5 Media Sources

My Top 5 Sources Of Media And Information

When it comes to the different types of media where people are getting their news from which is great but a lot of these sources of media have biased opinions due to who is the owner and their political point of views. I have put together the top 5 sources of media that I use on a daily for my news which typically stay away from media outlets with political standpoints and point of views.

 1. Twitter

I would have to say that twitter is by far my most used source of media for getting news. What I really like about twitter is that it updates its media so quickly so that when you refresh the page there is already fresh new post ready for you to look at. I use twitter to get quick news updates from around the world, sports and much more.

2. CTV News Ottawa

CTV News Ottawa is my local news station back home. I tend to enjoy watching the news in the morning before I go to work I feel like it really just gives me a good start to the day. What I like about CTV News Ottawa is that I can get stories of stuff that is going on in my city instead of just stuff happening around the world. Another great thing about CTV News Ottawa is that they are a radio station as well so if i,m late going to work I can get traffic, weather updates and trending stories all while i,m driving in my car on the way to work.

3. Instagram

Instagram is a great media and news source. I follow a lot of news based accounts on Instagram so my feed is a lot of news post weather it be local or somewhere else around the world. People may say that Instagram is not a very good media source, but i believe I get a lot of good and trustworthy media sources from Instagram. 

4. TikTok

TikTok may not be seen as a good source for media and news but as I scroll through my feed I get a lot of stories that are true and a lot of news content that is also true. When I open the app a lot of the times I am getting topics on what I had recently talked about throughout the day on my feed and a lot of this is sports news that I am talking about then eventually seeing them. You can also interact with people in the comment section to find out if the information given in the video is fake or not.

5.Fox News

Being Canadian not often do you hear about American news channels/stations but when you do it is always Fox News. I use Fox News for all my main line station news when I am at school. I will always check Fox in the morning and before I go to bed. I find Fox to be a very trusted news station that updates America with credible news.