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Case Study: China’s Social Credit Scoring

In 2014, China had issued a plan for Social Credit System to classify citizens behavior. It is expected to become the first digital nationwide scoring system to rate the behaviors of citizens. Citizens with good behavior can result in material rewards and gain reputation but bad behavior can exclude material resources and affect reputation negatively. China government had claimed that SCS allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step. But where is the baseline of good and bad behavior? Can we trust the transparency of SCS of defining the good and bad behavior?

SCS is implemented because of the lack off honesty and trust in Chinese society. Issues such as food poisoning, chemical spills, financial and telecommunication fraud, academic dishonesty had made Chinese enterprise suffer major loss. Moral decline was regarded as the most serious issue in China in 2017. Secondly is to boost domestic economy of citizen which SCS can have record a citizen financial history access to credit and investment communities in domestic market. So, citizens can apply loan based on the scores without proving financial creditworthiness.

There are 2 sides of this plan. SCS surely can help to differentiate the Relist and Blacklist record based on a person criminal record or financial situation. In the same time, a fully integrated SCS with transparency would likely to become a market transaction. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation suggests that introducing an external reward to a norm-guided behaviour turns this behavior into a commodity that can be bought. If one reliable receives monetary compensation for being honest, being honest will no linger be evaluated as a moral behavior for both actor and recipient. Individuals will likely to stop attributing a genuine moral character to individuals with high score in SCS. Eventually, the purpose of the SCS is not achieved or can even create totally different communities living under the pressure of SCS.

The credit that SCS provide supposedly can’t be measured by money but the attitude and moral of an individual which allow social resources to be allocated rationally and effectively. The evaluation shall be redesigned especially the measurement of defining bad and good behavior. Restoration of dishonesty and the incentive of trustworthy should be carried simultaneously. Compensation standard of trustworthy incentives should be further refined and clarified. In the process of constructing SCS, the trust between citizens and government is important. Social and community division should be avoided to prevent huge gap difference of life qualities.  

References

David Engelmann SK, Chen M, Fischer F, Kao CY & Grossklags J 2019, Clear Sanctions, Vague Rewards: How China’s Social CreditSystem Currently Defines “Good” and “Bad” Behavior, Research Gate.

Zhao Y, Zhou L, Liu B, Jiang Z & Li Z 2020, The Current Situation and Recommendations of the Construction of Youth Credit System, 3rd International Conference on Mechatronics and Intelligent Robotics (ICMIR-2019), Procedia Computer Science 166, p.g. 287-291

Kobie N 2019,  The complicated truth about China's social credit system, Wired 2020, viewed on 14 June 2020, <https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit-system-explained>

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Social Gaming

There are a lot of social communities such as Steam and Discord. People gathering in the social platform to share live gaming experience and their opinions on trends of gaming. Gaming market has changed significantly in the last decade due to expanded online connectivity options and online service elements, social media integration, monetization of virtual goods and use of player data to drive micro transaction. Gamers are introduced to gaming-like elements in game design. Monetized games include variety of forms, mainly included in-game purchase. These games potentially may operate as surrogate currencies as these currencies being co-opted for gambling purpose such as social casino games. Gambling also could be found within competitive gamine events and online broadcast. People illegally betting on possible winners through digital platforms.

Majority who do in-game purchasing are youngsters especially boys. You can say that these gamers are experiencing the gambling virtually. Simulation gambling has normalized the gambling towards young people, packaging gambling as activity that is positive, safe or being socially accepted. These artificial gambling situation gives the player experience of losing because virtual currency is free and unlimited in the same time enjoy pleasure of gaining. Dangers still lying because in this social gaming that involved features of gambling, players can encounter experienced gambler and encouraging them to do real money transaction. The chances of being addicted increase too.

Honestly, all games involve in-game purchase, but it depends on the elements of the games. From a game developer perspective, the main point of a game is the game experience and design to attract more gamers to download or purchase. It is a consumer and business relationship between game developers and players. It’s their right to declare profit from their own product. Online game such as Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) and First-person shooter (FPS) gaming involve team battling and cooperation. They do not directly ask players to gamble or doing money transaction. Some app such as casino and currency exchange games directly involve financial problem. The purpose of the game will affect the behavior players.

I also want to point out that dangers of social gaming not only financial loss but also mental and physical harm. Addiction maybe one of them but I’m also talking about life endangering. Let’s look into the Blue Whale Challenge, a suicide challenge game. It was introduced in Russia in 2013 and including series of task to be completed. It targeted depressed teenagers and also whoever is curious to try out. People get involved because of their online search activities. It appears as a recommendation or related topic in an individual’s social page. There’s no exit and if players want to quit in the middle of the game, administrators will threaten to harm their families. So the only final ending of the game is death. Games are supposed to be fun, release stress or mind development but this game only bring self-harm and mental abuse.

Everything has it own bright and dark side. It is important for a player to judge what the appropriate action they should take and how far should they go and stop. Find yourself a balance between your real life and virtual life.

References

Mukhra R, Baryah N, Krishan K & Kanchan T 2017, ‘Blue Whale Challenge’: A Game or Crime?, Sci Eng Ethics 2019, page 285-291

King DL & Delfabbro PH 2020, The convergence of gambling and monetised gaming activities, Current Opinion in Behavioral Science, p.g 31:32-36

Liao GY, Nguyen HV, Cheng TCE & Teng CI 2020, How do social networks foster online gamer loyalty? Perspective of weak/strong tie theory, Telematics and Informatics

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Fandom

Fandom may be an individual or a pack of people who is a fan of someone or something. These people admire or interested in what they are after. People share their experience or latest update in a community or any platforms to promote their fandom. The most significant fandom would be the K-pop. These years, the rise of Korean culture wave through whole world can be seen clearly through all the social medias such as drama, music, fashion, food and etc.

Fans especially young generations look to K-pop news coverage via online community or by subscribing to fan pages on social media. Under the influence of social media, K-pop fandom include any international fans as they can interact with each other’s to share information about their favourite celebrities. Mutual interest allows fans to communicate frequently and builds a social tie among fan communities. Social media is quite an open space for all the fans including superfans and anti-fan. Instead, online fan community is a closed space for specific group of fans.

There’s a common attribute in a community, loyalty. It is defined as online member behaviours addressing allegiance to and promotion of the his or her interest. This attribute may require purchasing or repurchasing goodies. In a community, cooperation is needed too. Each fan community will have administrators who control and manage an online community. It is critical for the members to be cooperative, observant of policies and rules, respectful and polite, and accepting the direction from the administrators. Administrators have the right to exterminate whoever who don’t follow. Even sometimes company or organisation steps in. There are some fan clubs or pages runs by organisation itself. They can monitor the communities especially ridiculous or fake rumours of their artists so they can release official statements or let their artist to communicate with fans directly.

As a K-pop fan for quite a long time, you see some dark side of a fandom especially cyber violence. This phenomenon not only happen in K-pop fandom but across all fandom. These are not normal fans, but their admiration has become obsession. With the addition of extreme action, it may lead to major terrorist attack. E.g. Boston Marathon in April 2013 or State de France stadium in Paris November 2015. These mega sports event outcomes had showed the power of obsessive sports fans. You also can see some obsessive fans broke into artist house or stalking after them. These actions are mentally abusing these celebrity’s private life until a lawsuit is needed to protect themselves. Eventually, extreme actions are taken including suicide. That left negative impressions about fandom or even celebrities.

Consideration and moderation are needed in fandom world. It is to keep the fan from crossing the border. Be considerate for the people you love with appropriate action and be moderate when spending time in fandom. It’s heart breaking to see these celebrities being offended by their own fans which suppose these fans are the support of celebrities to do greater things. In conclusion, it’s fine to join fandom but remember to protect yourself and people you love  with consideration and moderation.

References

Walters G, Shipway R, Miles L & Aldrigui M 2017, Fandom and risk perceptions of Olympic tourists, Research Notes and Reports/ Annals of Tourism Research 66 (2017), p.g 183-215

Min Seong K & Hyung Min K 2017, The effect of online fan community attributes on the loyalty and cooperation of fan community members: The moderating role of connect hours, Computers in Human Behaviours, p.g 232-243

Deluca K 2017, Shared Passions, Shared Compositions: Online Fandom Communities and Affinity Groups as Sites for Public Writing Pedagogy, Computers and Composition 47, p.g 75-92.

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Crowdsourcing & Crowdfunding

Social media is one of the most important tactics to contact the supporters of certain idea or projects. It helps to engage audience by online and create new connections. Social media not only helps the owner of projects but also help the supporters to share to other communities.

Many people consume news by social media and exposed to various news including those that have not been verified. Crowdsourcing may be the best weapons to fight against fake news. MIT professor shows crowdsourced judgments on those unverified news sources can effectively marginalize false news and misinformation. The solutions that provide by social media which is partnering with professional fact-checker been exclusively on fake news  rather than other contents. Warnings are tagged along some news to warn the social media these “implied truth”.

Organisers now prefer online donations over traditional fundraising efforts. Eventually, they need investors in the projects but how they can persuade them to donate to them. Organisers can’t just post a campaign but do nothing and waits. That’s social media is needed to create potential engagement and supporters. Studies show that companies who use social media to connect and promote their crowdfunding campaign increase 30% of success. These campaigns are a two-way communication as it depends on the networking skills of organisers to mobilize and persuade donors. In the same time, donors respond by supporting with finances and sharing the news.

But no one like being lied especially found out their passion are being misused for different purpose. A crowdfunding or crowdsourcing project is a responsibility as it involves finances and high expectation from donors. Sometimes, even famous platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo can’t help it too. Some projects sound good because there’s no limitation to the imagination. Some people do believe it although it’s too good to be true or obviously fake. When a campaign ends, normally the organisers will keep updating the development and progress to let the donors know that the fund is being spent correctly. But if organisers stop communicating, it starts to sound not right. When donors found out, it’s too late already.

One day, social media and digital platforms is going to replace traditional funding. Platforms such as Kickstarters doesn’t burden users to start a campaign. Users only need small investment in time and money to create video with compelling messages but it pays off with information of potential market. According to Social Media Today, Kickstarter has produced $786 million in 2013. Crowdfunding can be highly beneficial for marketing outcome.  

Looking from any perspective, it is the best if you can research before throwing yourself becoming a organiser or donor. Result shows many entrepreneurs of Kickstarter do not get funded because they do not meet their goals. Be realistic for the goals and maintain good connections with investors and donators.

References

MGH 2017, Importance of Social Media to Crowdfunding , Make Giving Happen Inc. viewed on 5 June 2020, <https://makegivinghappen.com/importance-social-media-crowdfunding/>

Fundchaser CZE 2020,  Fake crowdfunding campaign: How not to be a victim , FundChaser, viewed on 5 June 2020, <https://fundchaser.com/crowdfunding/fake-crowdfunding-campaign-how-not-to-be-a-victim/>

Rand D & Pennycook G 2019, Crowdsourcing is the best weapon in fight against fake news, The Hill, viewed on 5 June 2020,  < https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/436052-crowdsourcing-is-the-best-weapon-in-fight-against-fake-news>

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Public Health Campaign

Social media is one of the best way to share news nowadays especially when you are trying to alert people. As long you have any electronic devices, the message can reaches out to you anytime. In Malaysia, social media is helping the government to update the citizens for the latest situation of Covid-19. Our Director General of Health and Prime Minister been trying to use YouTube to hold live preferences to pass on country’s decisions. Newspaper authorities been using Facebook to post e-news using official accounts.

But in the same time, pandemic of COVID-19 runs across the globe not only in Malaysia. So what impact has social media had, good or bad? In a good side, numerous articles or news about the number of people being affected by illness including location and targeted communities. These news do help people aware of how the situation. Education articles about symptoms and safety precautions such as social distancing are spread through social media too.

Unfortunately, there’s a bad side of the affect that social media brings especially fake rumors. Indeed, social media is good in spreading information, but it doesn’t matter when it comes to positive or negative news. “Pandemic of misinformation” brings panic to the world. According to Pew Research Center studies, this phenomenon had made nearly two-thirds of Americans said they had seen made-up news and information. And the social media is the culprit. The massive misinformation and disinformation online is garbling the accurateness of public health guidance.

 Ubiquity of social media has made it easier to spread or even create COVID-19 falsehoods, making the work of public health officials harder

 Until now, the diseases had opened up an entirely different problem: the life-d angering consequences of supposed cures, misleading claims, snake-oil sales pitches and conspiracy theories (AFP 2020). Let’s narrow down into health precautions. Advice such as eating garlic, consuming anti-malaria drugs, drink more warm water etc. Maybe even more endangering rumors flushed into an individual social media. In Iran, a fake remedy of ingesting methanol has reportedly led to 300 deaths and left many sicker. Some people may ask why are these people trusting these rumors than the official public campaign?

“People are hungry for information, hungry for certitude, and when there is a lack of consensus-oriented information and when everything is being contested in public, that creates confusion among people. Especially during a crisis, public health communicators have to be seen as credible, transparent, and trustworthy. And there, officials are falling short”

— Kasisomayajula Viswanath,  Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health Communication at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Even there’s some minor degree that these rumors involved political will. You can’t underestimate a human instinct to live and survive. People can sometimes lean too heavily on traditional journalism which are written by people’s will. Those reporters may have no medical knowledge or health training to identify the accurateness of the myths, methodologies and researches

The right to freedom of expression and information includes the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds through any media,Nalini Elumalai, programme officer of international human rights organisation, Article 19 (Malaysia chapter).

Governments have the right to concern about the false information and myths circulating online and should be developing effective policies to counter misinformation (Jun 2020). Criminal measures and custodial sentences need to be considered as the last resort to punish these sources of fake news.

References

Godfreony L 2020, Social Media’s Role in the Coronavirus Pandemic, viewed on 23 May 2020, <https://www.business2community.com/social-media/social-medias-role-in-the-coronavirus-pandemic-02296280>

Jun SW 2020, Want to win Covid-19 fake news war? Make information readily available, human rights groups tell govt, viewed on 20 May 2020, <https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2020/04/19/want-to-win-covid-19-fake-news-war-make-information-readily-available-human/1858143>

Pazzanese C 2020,  Battling the ‘pandemic of misinformation’, viewed on 23 May 2020, <https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/social-media-used-to-spread-create-covid-19-falsehoods/>

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Activism & Protest

Hong Kong protest starts from June against plans to allow extradition to mainland China. Hong Kong was ruled by Britain as colony but then returned to China. The bill was already withdrawn in September but the protest still going on. Some people claim its too late. On 1 October, while China celebrating 70 years of Communist Party rule, that day had become a heat breaking and chaotic history of Hong Kong. An 18-year-old was shot when activism fought with police officers. Multiple incidents such as a Beijing lawmaker was stabbed by people who claimed is a supporter, a protester is shot in close range and another man is set on fire by anti-government protesters. In November, campus of Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University became barricade of protesters. Clashes between police and activism have become increasingly violent. Until now, there’s no sign of easing.

 Hong Kong demonstrators have remained largely anonymous, using social media as weapons to fight while avoiding identified. Using social media to gain support during political movement isn’t new such as yellow umbrella in 2014. Image of yellow umbrella is widely spread on Facebook to support pro-democracy movement.

Social media has changed the way people document history, said Tracy Loh, senior lecturer of communication management at Singapore Management University. 

 But for this time, it had gone beyond the “Umbrella Movement”. Protesters had been using social media to circulate images of a female protester that was injured by members of police force. The video of police brutality have been spread to galvanize demonstrations. In the same time, Chinese authorities had introduced videos of preparation of military forces and protesters disrupting public transit operations. Both parties are trying to use social media to gain supports and hears of public to further their own agendas.

 Social media has been used “as a tool in the battle for public opinion

 The Hong Kong protest can consider as a leaderless actions. There no a specific organisation or an individual to lead this movement. Social media tools have given leaderless pro-demoracy movement characterization ( Shao 2019). Social media sure is helping the movement to spread out the info internationally and widely in the world. As a non-Hong King citizen or a Hong Kong citizen who is not currently staying Hong Kong, social media do help to let these communities to know, at least at a minor degree, what the movement is about.

 Some of the articles have made me realize the limitations of “traditional” reportage

-Jenny Runnacles

 Jenny who lived in UK shared about a lot of Western reporting has been making judgement too quick and too keen to show mainland authorities in the worse possible light. Being a protesters 10,000 km away, technology helps her to feel being a part of protests. Her Facebook feeds is filled with the protest contents and also communicates with friends in Hong Kong. She is able to search using hashtags. All the video and pictures from social media helps her to have rationality and judges objectively.

Social media becomes a weapon for these protesters to tell their own story, honest about their feelings on feeds, providing real-time update to the world. It may depend on people to develop their own perspectives but still it is important to let other people know how the protest important to their human rights.

References

Runnacles J 2014,  The Role of Social Media in The Hong Kong Protests, Diplomatic Courier 2020, viewed on 17 May 2020, <https://www.diplomaticourier.com/posts/the-role-of-social-media-in-the-hong-kong-protests>

Shao G 2019,  Social media has become a battleground in Hong Kong’s protests, CNBC, viewed on 16 May 2020,  <https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/16/social-media-has-become-a-battleground-in-hong-kongs-protests.html>

BBC 2019,  The Hong Kong protests explained in 100 and 500 words, BBC, viewed on 15 May 2020, <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49317695>

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How Social Media Affect Political Campaign

During past decade, social media have become powerful political tools in campaigns and governing. The rise of social media becomes trend for politicians to use to run their own campaign. That’s major reason why and how people can get political information.

The political role of social media in American was first established in 2008 presidential election. Barack Obama’s campaign had taken a social movement towards citizen by having his own website. The website become a bridge, collaboration or community-building tool. It makes personalized appeal messaging. Voters are free to create messages about candidates. Barrack Obama even uploaded music video that earned million of viewers. Since then, there’s been a rapid use of social media for political movements.

As political scientist Bruce Bimber points out: “The exercise of power and the configuration of advantage and dominance in democracy are linked to technological change” (2014: 130). People who controls, consumes, and distributes information is largely determined by who is best able to navigate digital technology.  

Politicians leaders use social media effectively to achieve political end or even pushing the boudaries of speaking freedom. E.g. Donald Trump. Twitter has become his main tools to communicate and leave comments directly to public which most of them are brash. Aided by social media, he has exceeded the ability of his modern-day presidential predecessors to achieve these ends. Imagine the past few decades ago comments like this are made by a politician who’s running a presidential campaign.

The low barriers to entry and offer opportunities for mass political engagement. Growing numbers of people are using social media to discuss and share.

 There’s 2 purpose politicians use social media, normal use or abuse. Either they use for campaign tactic to spread messages or uploaded video or to abuse opponents by spreading false information. Trump and Bolsanaro campaigns. Some studies conflict on how fake news helped Trump to win the election as there was not enough evidence to show how effective social media abuse is to voting behaviour. When fake news fly everywhere, no matter is wrong or right, people start to lost interest and faith in politics which may benefits authoritarian factions in election and weakens democratic one.

It becomes easier to spread than correct it.

In the other side, while social media is being used wisely and effectively, it can become critical factor to social movements and political protests by promoting positive messages or slogan. #MeToo had become a global phenomenon when actress Alyssa Milano sent out a tweet to encourage women who had been sexually harassed or assaulted to speak up. Within twenty-four hours, 4.7 million people on Facebook and nearly one million on Twitter had used the hashtag. The number grew to over eighty-five million users in eighty-five countries on Facebook in forty-five days.

Social media has played an important role both in raising public awareness and develop social support for changes. European countries are the ones where #MeToo social media campaign took up most strongly and have most attention. Local equivalents of the international #MeToo campaign were created: #balancetonporc in France (“#DenounceYourPig”), #quellavoltache in Italy (“#ThatTimeWhen”), #yotambien in Spain (“#MeToo”), #sistabriefen in Sweden (“#TheFinalBrief”). It’s interesting to see the affect and effect of each countries. Originally started it started by activist, Tarana Burke more than 10 years. Now because one tweet 2 simple words, the world start to know and realise. According to the study's findings, use of the phrase often peaked on Twitter after high profile events such as the Golden Globe Awards and when Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford testified before a Senate committee. It also reached a high point after Time magazine named #MeToo activists as persons of the year and the day after International Women's Day. The focus of “Me Too” changed, moving from empathy to awareness.

Social media isn’t the primary reason far-right populists have been able to win elections. There are all sorts of more fundamental reasons, ranging from ethnic divisions to anxiety about crime to the weakness of the political opposition that these leaders have exploited in their rise to power. It would be absurd to blame technology for a phenomenon that has much deeper political roots.

References

Owen D 2019,  The Past Decade and Future of Political Media: The Ascendance of Social Media, Towards a New Enlightment? A Transcendent Decade, BBVA Group viewed on 20 April 2020, <https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/articles/the-past-decade-and-future-of-political-media-the-ascendance-of-social-media/>

Beauchamp Z 2019,  Social media is rotting democracy from within: How social platforms enable far-right politicians’ campaigns to undermine democracy, viewed on 19 April 2020, Vox Media,<https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/22/18177076/social-media-facebook-far-right-authoritarian-populism>

Botti F, Corsi M, Garraio J, Gurmai Z, Ponte J, Thissen L & Zacchia G 2019, The #MeToo Social Media Effect And Its Potential For Social Change in Europe, Foudation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS).

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Is Tumblr a blog or a social network site?

Well, from the first impression I have is that why not both? I think that Tumblr is a blog and a social network site.

Tons of text, pictures, GIFS and videos are uploaded every day on Tumblr. That become a trend to the people now to express rather than face-to-face. A way to express feelings with another way.

Tumblr surely is doing the jobs well. It provides options for users to choose what form or what way is the best to express the feelings right away. For people who are straight forward may want to use text or share some memes or GIFs with great impact. Although GIFs are short, sometimes they left greater impact than words. Things get done with a click and touch. 

While massive information being uploaded, how can other find what they specifically want? Then there goes hashtag to make things accessible and discoverable with few keywords. Users can choose and filter what they are looking for.

Hashtag also act as connection between information owners and users. Users only see what they want to see. Hashtag then create communities with diversities tagged with keywords related to interest, works, lifestyle, politic etc. People in specific community share and communicate. Users can leave comments under a blog post when they want to talk about their thoughts or want to know more about the blog. 

People who do blogging normally wants to be discovered. E.g. entrepreneurship. For company who want to target younger generation. Surprising they do not go for Facebook, they choose Tumblr. Half of the Tumblr user base are underage of 35. That’s how social networking site working. All about interaction and exchange of information. 

Some people also point outs that Tumblr is anti-blogging. Large crowd of Tumblr users don’t want to be found except for a few close friends. It gives users to control their account visibility. Younger generation choose Tumblr because they don’t want to be found especially their parents. This could be a big issue that could left impression on teenagers that they can post whatever they like including appropriate content with fake name. As Tumblr gives users control on privacy, hiding true self become main purpose to some younger generation. To younger generation, Tumblr provides accessibility but hides interaction and become their perfect choice.

Tumblr been providing a lot of freedom about the content including pornography. Users cannot access directly to pornography but links to it are allowed. That may become the main reason why Tumblr has bigger younger user base. Tumblr may be not smart enough while detecting these pornographies. Well some people claim some “porn-friendly” posts are acceptable because they are artistic such as a naked model modelling for magazine but picture of a mother breast-feeding her child is banned. Although Tumblr had release statements in 2018 on this issue before, still traces and incidents are being reported. 

Tumblr sure is a combination and blog and social network site but it does need some more work on how to create a more friendly community for users.