Thursday, May 2, 2013

Internet Terrorists and Censorship

English: No clean feed protests against the Ru...
English: No clean feed protests against the Rudd government's mandatory ISP filtering at Rundle Mall, Adelaide, Australia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Internet- Stalkers, Mobbers, Bullies, Harrassers -

Are they the new Terrorists ?

Certainly harsh words on those little menaces of society, but the Idea is maybe not too far fetched.
But when our forefathers fought for the Rights of free Speech and other liberties with their life and limbs, they certainly did not had the above Socio-paths in mind, which more and more populate the free and anonymous Internet world.
Let us go back to the beginnings of the Internet and the possibilities it creates for mankind.
In those days we only had communication possibilities either by Phone or Mail, both rather expensive ways, and the latter relatively slow.
Already now Google, Yahoo and Bing are forced to "censor" their clientle, free or paid , by introducing more and more Internationally conform Terms and Conditions.

Those Conditions restrict certain behaviour, such as defaming and or publishing some Articles.
The Internet users, mainly from the US scream that they are censored, while forgetting, that often they simply went a little "over the edge".
Unlike Newspapers and Journalists which have, after Years of Study, learned to control the way News or other Facts will be printed or aired, the regular Populace has not yet understood how to do this.

Mostly People are used to communicate in inner circles or locally, which then leads to conflicts with the law when they go into the WWW.
And often  also their motives are rather doubtful, in particular when it comes to exposing or defaming People, which in most cases is solely done as revenge and always twisted exaggerated if not completely made up.
But even when based upon facts, the Law, even in the liberal USA, prohibits the spread of private Information into public and leaves this up to the media, which is trained and can take this responsibility.
And can also be held responsible !
In this context one can see, that most people complaing the loudets about the "censorship" of the Internet are...Anonymous.
Working with AKA or totally anonymous they can say what they like, and some are fairly active with their new "hobby".
Some are even completely deranged and rather need Psychotherapy. One should not overlook, that statistically the world has a percentage of 3-5 % which have mental problems, rather controlled in the Society, but when unleashed into anonymity they can do great harm.


And just like Terrorists planting bombs and executive People in order to fight for their false believes, those People are doing just the same, planting defamations Bombs or harassing their victims with 60 tweets per minute or other messaging possibilities.
Logical, that the Victims then use the help of Police, Lawyers and other legal institution, which often also sue the ISP provider as well for large sums.
And those then react by restricting the use of their services, which often are free anyhow.
Can anyone blame Google, Bing, Yahoo and others for protecting themselves ?
A clear NO is the answer.
Just like Newspaper or Radio/TV there are limits to what can be published, and the Internet does not differ.
Not to mention, that the ISP providers have to observe the laws of over 190 countries so risk being banned/punished for the behaviour of their users.

The solution would be to control the users in order to hold them responsible, which is done by IP addresses, but just like with the predecessor of the Internet, the Postal Service, this is not always possible.
And just like Countries harbouring terrorists, some Companies make money providing the Internet Terrorists with "safe Harbour" and anonymity. ( For exchange of Cash) Usually those are the same harbouring Child Pornography and other Internet Criminality.

(Article was Published here :  http://www.manilaherald.com/2013/05/08/1312/freedom-of-speech-in-danger/ )




1 comment:

  1. The big issue is getting something into practice with a one size fits all as although there are internet idiots there are also people who need the freedom of speech.

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