Forum Topic
Social Media
Social media is highly popular and seemingly addictive and many studies have concluded that these days people spend far more time on social media platforms than performing any other activities combined. This includes eating, sleeping and interacting with others. In todays society we too often see people walking in shopping malls, down the street or even sitting as passangers of vehicles with their heads burried into their devices. Alarming right...

It seems that many have become so highly addicted to not only knowing more about the world in which we live, but sharing every facet of our lives. On social media, facets of our lives are plastered in Posts and the populararity of that post often dictates the opinions of others. This is evident through the comments that accompany those posts and it appears that society tends to seek Positive Affirmation from others. For this reason the Like Button now rules social opinion and shapes what people share online.

Pros and Cons
Social media is bringing the world closer than ever before yet many highlight the seemingly invisible dangers of such platforms such as:
Time spent daily on social media, the need for likes and positive comments for posts, fraudulent identities being used to invade our lives and the list goes on. However there are a many benefits of social media which are seemingly invisible as well such as the ability to connect with family and friends, sharing positive life events and being able to access support in a time of crisis. Again the list goes on. Texting and social media is also shaping languages by way of foreign gramma, contextual lingo not to mention the shortening of phrases through acronyms. This is clearly be a great subject for the forum and I can't wait to see the conversations about this.

Forum Topic
PornTube
In the past twenty years the porn industry has been changed dramatically. Where actors once played a part in a movie to a script and directed by a porn franchise, now everyone has seems to be directing their own movies on webcams or mobile devices.

Many porn sites operate as legitimate businesses that sell a product, Sex, and their aim is much the same as any business, attracting customers. It is estimated that the porn industry is worth a staggering $100 Billion dollars globally each year. However that being said, most porn sites offer their product to consumers for free. So the question is How Do They Make Their Money? The simple answer is advertising. Companies advertise on these porn sites, providing additional services, chatrooms, products and you guessed it, even more links to other porn sites.

Porn sites offer a variety of sexual experiences or fantasies if you will, that reality doesn't and this in its self is dangerous. Our youngsters are more often than not having their first sexual experience online and learning about sex through porn. The reason that this is dangerous is that porn doesn't rarely portraits genuine sexual experiences. Porn sites also offer a variety of acronyms which to most of us are vulgar or in a foreign language.

Information for Parental Control and blocking this type of content in the link section below.

Forum Topic
The Sick, Perverse and Shocking
In 1996 a website called Rotton Dot Com (www.rotton.com) opened our eyes to a new world of morbid curiosities, devoted to the most disturbing aspects of life and death. This site hosted content that would undoubtedly give many a soul nightmares, offering a haven for the twisted minds to access terrifying subject matter.

Rotton Dot Com faced many lawsuits throughout its active years with the United States Government issuing Cease and Desists and ordered that some of the content was removed. This included family member requests to remove content of dead relatives and the site was closed as of 2012. Sadly, there is still an array of websites (which I won't list here) where people can still get their fix of morbid curiosities.

Information for Parental Control and blocking this type of content in the link section below.

Forum Topic
Scammers
The phone rings and you answer it thinking that it is family or friends only to hear a polite voice telling you Hello this is Sum Mo Fo. I'm calling to tell you that the money owed to you has been processed and is ready to be paid directly into your account. At this point most of us become aware that this is a scam call with the unsavoury character digging for access to our bank accounts. But some of us arn't as fortunate as they have been waiting for a refund or insurance claim to be processed and believe that it has finally arrived.

The scammers often have convincing stories and in some cases even know our names, so how do they do this? Our details are readily available and stored by huge data companies, consisting of names, age, cities (if not address), mobile numbers, marital status, purchase history, credit history, financial status, internet searches and more. Data companies sell this data to telemarketing companies and naturally scammers can buy this data and use it against us.

On a bright note, I have seen some remarkably funny clips on YouTube where the scammer gets scammed and in one video it was the scammer who got hacked, Priceless...

Forum Topic
Fuel Prices
What determines global fuel prices? The primary factor in the pricing of crude oil is supply and demand. The global demand for crude oil has steadily increased throughout the recent years and this has caused prices at the pumps to rise. The next determining factor is stock value of the dollar. If the dollar is low or weaker and oil crude oil prices the price rise, the cost of buying the oil is higher. Terrorism plays a huge role in pricing. September 2019 drone attacks in Saudi Arabia saw half of the Saudi oil production cease for days on end whilst they battled blazes and brought the oil plants back online. This evidently increased oil prices. Hyperlink: Australian Government to safe guard oil prices

Please have your say on this topic. Can governments do more to protect oil pricing? Are we being ripped off at the pump? Is the import tax on energy sources too high? Is it time for renewable energy to be implemented?