29 Sep 2017
I was alarmed to have found a number of blatantly false and malicious posts in the Donald Trump subreddit which have quickly garnered over 3000 upvotes.These posts often show up in most r/The_Donald users on their front reddit main page. Most recently, I have seen this post:
I saw another post which furthered the notion that Michelle Obama was a man, but that was quickly taken down by moderators.
Most people who read and upvoted these posts probably believed them to be true. The top 2 or 3 comments often affirmed the views espoused by the post. These comments often provided “rationale” for the misinformation presented in these posts. For example, in the post about Obama faking his Ivy League education, one of the top commenters said, “I would trust Malik because he’s Obama’s (Soetoro’s apparently) brother. I mean that’s a credible source if you ask me.” Another top commenter said, “Quick, grab the broom and sweep this back under the rug before America realizes they elected a foreign, American hating Muslim at the direction of the America hating Democratic party.”
In the Donald Trump subreddit, it’s CSS is programmed so that you can’t downvote posts in the subreddit. This allows for fake information to spread easily with little repercussion. Thus, it allows for bots to easily upvote posts and disallow for real people to bring accountability to these posts.
I think this is a testament to the power of echo chambers on online platforms such as the r/The_Donald subreddit. These echo chambers allows for fake news, making America more misinformed and divided.
What’s even more alarming is the recent news that Russia ran fake black activist accounts to spread division in America. I would not be shocked if we found evidence of Russian bots in the r/The_Donald subreddit and America should be more focused on that security issue.
27 Sep 2017
My answer to the Quora question:
How do you deal with aggressive racists on the basketball court?
In middle school, I played a lot of AAU basketball. Whenever I played in the inner city tournaments, opposing players often called me a “chink”. Those players resorted to racial insults to get inside my head. Back then, I was really bothered by this and often relied on the support of my teammates to overcome the verbal banter.
When I was playing pickup basketball in Philadelphia last summer with more athletic teens/adults, I didn’t hear any racial insults. Rather, based on my nerdy appearance, they just played “easy” against me. After I scored a couple of threes and stole a few passes, they started playing real defense against me.
Unfortunately, many basketball players assume that Asian players are weak or unskilled. Regardless if you are a target of racist remarks or microagressions, just ignore them and outplay them. That’s what Jeremy Lin has done throughout his basketball career.
23 Sep 2017
After seeing Trump’s recent tweets for the past few days, I’m getting even more concerned about America’s current state of leadership.
Seeing his Tweet about firing NFL players if they kneeling or sitting down during the NFL anthem is antithetical to what America stands for. Soldiers fight for this country to protect the constitution, not the flag. What I find more alarming than Trump’s divisive language is that he is quite hypocritical. He seems to be anti political correctness and pro free speech, yet he furthers this message that NFL players that do not participate in the pledge of allegiance should be fired.
At first, I thought this tweet was to distract the American people from the escalating tensions between North Korea and the US. Nevertheless, I was proven wrong when I saw that he wrote 9 hours later, tweeting “Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!”
His approach towards North Korea is alarming and not effective at all. He wants to show that he is tough which I understand, but constantly escalating the rhetoric won’t help. I believe he should keep his rhetoric down low while putting pressure on China and Russia to place economic sanctions will put enough pressure towards North Korea to give up its arms eventually.
Curbing the North Korea issue requires patience similar to the long conflict with Russia in the Cold War. Specifically, Trump can learn from John F. Kennedy’s solution towards the Cuban Missile Crisis with a naval blockade. Trump needs to be patient and resort to the international community to put pressure on North Korea.
We must understand that North Korea has demonstrated that it can actually cause great harm to US allies such as South Korea and Japan. If it launches a missile towards either country, that would cause economic instability, kill many innocent lives, and spark an unnecessary war.
Also, we should be aware of North Korea developing its warfare in the cyber arena. North Korea has been developing its cyber capabilities and have been training the brightest young civilians to learn how to hack. Most recently, North Korea has been trying to hack the bitcoin blockchain infrastructure to steal bitcoins to fund the regime. With technologies growing ever so quickly, the US should develop its own program to prepare for cyber warfare. Soon enough, wars we be conducted more and more through hacking and defense against it.
The North Korean issue should not be taken lightly and trump’s hostile language towards North Korea just brings us closer to direct and military conflict.
12 Aug 2017
The recent “Unite the Right” event is a testament that racism is still a huge issue that needs to be address. No one should ever be attacked or threatened on the basis of their race.
Here is the flyer for this eveent:
The event was formed to protest the removal of the Robert E. Lee Charlottesville Statue. Here’s a good reddit comment I found on the r/TheDonald subreddit which demonstrates why they were so angry about this: https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/6t9ot1/realdonaldtrump_we_all_must_be_united_condemn_all/dlj0j33/
I’ve been passively following these alt-right/Donald Trump supporter groups online for the past year through their Discord groups (an anonymous chat platform) and have seen racism and anger towards anyone that is opposed to their views.
I joined the alt right’s biggest Discord group earlier this month to evaluate why they were so passionate about white nationalism. The alt right Discord group only allows white people to join their group according to their rules:
On the other hand, in other right-leaning Discord groups such as the ones that support Donald Trump strongly oppose any racist sentiments and ban any users that racistly attacks others.
Nevertheless, their anger has reached to a high point where they are now organizing protests towards the Google memo issue and the most recent Charlottesville statue issue. This “Unite the Right” event was organized and promoted by the alt-right and Donald Trump groups in anonymous circles:
Why is this happening?
After the most recent presidential election, We’ve seen extremes from both the left and the right such as the Antifa and certain alt-right members physically attack others and promote violence.
I think all this racism and anger stems from the lack of open and civil dialogue from both sides. Media platforms such as CNN and Fox News promulgate sensationalist rhetoric which demonize certain political ideologies and people that follow under those ideologies. Thus, people from both sides are often tricked by these news media platforms and replicate this anger by calling others with labels such as “snowflakes”, “libtard”, “racist”, or “homophobic”.
To solve this issue, people should come face to face, perhaps in a town hall setting and have an open conversation on heated issues like healthcare, nationalism, etc.
Here’s a video about how a black man convinced a KKK member to quit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipuJHdFliBk
How did he convince these people who were vehemently racist towards non-whites to completely flip in his ideologies? He sat at the table with these KKK members and had an open conversation.
Many of these racist or violent people from both ideologies formulate a certain evil image of the other side. Schools, churches, and public policy won’t change a racist and violent person but perhaps an open conversation will.
In closing, I’d like to end this blog post with a quote from Martin Luther King:
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
06 Aug 2017
My mom is the strongest person I know. Her hard work ethic and her sacrifices for her family, my brother, and me are quite remarkable.
She grew up in a very poor family who fled to Hong Kong during the Communist Revolution after the communists ransacked their house and stole all their money. She had 7 sisters and brothers. Her two oldest sister had to work in the factory to put food on the table. Growing up, my mother’s mother often underscored the notion that if my mother failed, she would end up in the factory. Fearful of that, my mom worked hard and got her physical therapy license to practice in Hong Kong and then, over the course of a decade, moved to the US to work as a physical therapist.
Having a diffiult childhood led my mom to vow to raise educated children with many more opportunities than she ever had. She enrolled my brother and me into different educational platforms such as John Hopkin’s CTY or Stanfords ETGY or the Russian School of Math program throughout elementary, middle school, and high school. Moreover, she pushed us to explore different disciplines through sports programs such as the Boston Warriors AAU basketball program or art programs such as the New Art Center art camps. My mom wanted my brother and me to be exposed to many different subjects while having a strong academic foundation. More importantly, my mom wanted us to be happy.
Nevertheless, she was also very cautious, always planning 3 or 4 steps ahead. While my brother and I were in elementary school, she would work 3 jobs starting for 3 AM and ending at 6 PM and picking us up from school in the middle of work shifts. Both her and my father wanted to work as hard and long hours, often sacrificing their own health and social lives, to save money for me and my brother’s college education or potential healthcare costs.
When people meet my mother, they would consider my mom as a so called “tiger mom” or “helicopter” mom, but I see her as perhaps the most caring and dedicated mother. She instilled her hard work ethic into my brother and me. Her and my father’s hard work ethic and sacrifices motivate me to this day.