So the class time was not used the way I expected it to be used, but it was definitely used well. Even I learned some stuff as I never thought about the idea of self-censorship. However, it is related to the something else I wanted to discuss; who is doing the censorship. One of the article that we didn't go over in class was the one about the Mexican drug cartels that executed bloggers. My own thought when reading this was the same as the way I felt in class. I would have never thought about the possibility that there would be another entity aside from politicians and industry leaders that might push for censoring the internet. Despite the disclaimer at the bottom of the article that claims the man murdered was just a scapegoat, the 3 who were murdered before him were not scapegoats (the previous 3 cases aren't mentioned in the article. The 2 shown in the picture were the first 2). When I first went into this topic of internet censorship, I wanted say the right to free speech would be the most important aspect that might be affected by internet censorship. However, here is a situation where something even more important than freedom of speech is affected by internet censorship (in a round-about way).
Another topic that I wanted to talk about is the OPEN Act and ACTA treaty. The OPEN Act is basically another bill aimed at tackling piracy, but has help being drafted by new media groups that actually depend more on the internet, such as Google. ACTA treaty is an international treaty signed by multiple countries, but drafted in secrecy since the 1960s. It was meant to protect medicinal patents, but has been used by movie industries to tighten the grip on their products. ACTA is very similar to SOPA and PIPA in the way it works, while the OPEN Act would try to be very precise in trying to find and take down websites dedicated to piracy. Despite the way the act and the treaty are portrayed, ACTA has been signed by the U.S. and OPEN has not obtained much popular support from people online. I wanted to know what everybody else thinks about all of these bills and treaties that try to regulate piracy, but end up being worded too strongly. Personally, I don't like all of these extra bills trying to put more regulation on the internet. If anything, the OPEN Act is the best option so far, but the problem of cost of regulation comes into play.
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Thanks to Simon for introducing such an important topic to the class. Prior to the readings, I did not grasp the importance of SOPA and what it would mean for the general public. Many times the society doesn’t realize these bills until it is almost too late and we try to fight it at a later stage. If the society could be more aware and careful in electing officials then maybe we won’t have to resort to risky solutions.
The way we use the internet as a way of embracing our democracy is an interesting argument. One cannot seem to get around the right to free speech, yet as we have seen in many cases free speech seems to overlap with other people’s interests. These interests concern safety issues that are caused by online bullying and capitalistic interests brought about by the entertainment industry. The democracy advantage is a very compelling claim because of how much it has already contributed. In a cost and benefit analysis of the situation, as the video Simon put up suggested, the U.S. is not making that much money from the media industry in the first place. Could this be a mask to stop other forms of communication and keep small businesses from starting up in order to let big businesses, well become bigger? On the issue of the cost of investigations, big businesses should be the ones paying for their investigations, they have the money. There are already laws set in place to let businesses sue people for using copyrighted work. They simply do not need MORE ways to suppress small businesses. The danger in SOPA lies in it handing over so much power to big businesses and then backing up them up with law enforcement. It seems that they are allowing the police to enforce class oppression.
I do agree that the laws and treaties have gotten a little out of control. At the same time, I wander what happened to make these acts come into play. You can't help but look at it from our generational view but what about the government's point of view (no matter how crazy it is): there has been crime committed and/or assisted via the internet, how can the government prosecute these people without there being a law to do so. Robert commented that there shouldn't be any more laws with the internet and I agree. I support the need for laws with a society big and technical as we are but no more laws. I think the simplier it is with these laws, the easier it would be to prosecute.
On a side note I do have to say the piracy thing is a little frustrating, especially in terms of plagerism. Turnitin and SafeAssign have become huge data bases for making sure students are not copying others. The problem is that it takes your paper and puts you into the data base as permanently anonymous so if you ever quote your own work, it wont show you, it will just say your plagerised...so in some ways as much as the internet has advanced us and especially help with international relations, it has it's consequences.
When I first read the article about the Mexican drug cartel, I immediately thought of the "stop snitchn" campaign that spreaded in my community. I thought of how people was being executed for having a voice and speaking out against crime and corruption in the community.
I do however think it should be not only more, but stricter internet laws and regulations. In light of this lesson, I googled three letters and was able to access a site which uses words like non-violent, destiny and honor to lure people, young and old, to become a part of their mission of hatred. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression is one thing, but when it comes to attempting to recruit individuals to participate in a movement of hatred, there should be absolute censorship on the part of the government.
Until this day, I really do not know if I agree or disagree with censorship because it is a huge debatable topic. I do agree with what Robert said in class though that there should not be anymore laws created for the Internet.
Internet censorship has its pros and cons. I do agree that websites that are inappropriate should be shut down. I remember my friend showing me a video on this website called WorldStarHipHop.com of these two women getting literally beaten up by these two guys. I do not know exactly why but I know they were in a hotel due to the surroundings. For all I know, they could have been prostitutes but I am not sure. The main scene was when the guys started beating the two women to the point where they were both laying on the floor bleeding. I could not watch any longer. It was just to graphic and disturbing. I cannot believe what people can post online nowadays. The same thing goes with pornography in general it should be banned because it is affecting our society and maybe it could be a factor for developing sexual offenders. In these kind of situations, I do totally agree with there being censorship.
I think Simon's point about the Mexican drug cartels and Christine's observation about how SOPA potentially enables "the police to enforce class oppression" leads to a discussion of the role of power in the issue of internet censorship and the internet in general. The example Simon gives us of the Mexican drug cartels alerts us to the ways in which an open internet serves as a tool for the relatively powerless to combat the influence of an organization, State, or institution with massive resources and outsized power. An unregulated or loosely policed internet is threatening to the drug cartels in a manner similar to the way it is dangerous for the regimes of oppressive States or States who lose legitimacy due to the wane or absence of popular support, or even States who advance unpopular policies.
In the case of the drug cartels, the brutality perpetrated upon those who dared to speak up both highlights and obscures the democratizing influence of an open internet. It highlights it because it clearly shows that the cartel realizes the threat posed by ordinary people posting blogs and other information; it obscures it because it individualizes the actions of the murdered, which is part of the purpose of this type of terrorism: "Here's what will happen to YOU if you speak up." My point is that in the example of the cartel's violence, it's easy to miss the potential, evident in it, of the internet to democratize--equalize power.
As with the advent of printing, the internet has VASTLY magnified "people power." The drug cartel example hints at it, but it is far more visible in recent events like what has come to be known as the Arab Spring. In Egypt, AFTER the fall of Mubarak, the army has been perpetrating brutal violence on protestors who had come back out into Tahrir Square to protest continued military rule of the country. In this movement and in the form of violence used--the alienated, mass violence of modern states, with their armies (and even more alienating, their drones), the democratizing power of the internet is clearly visible.
This is an aspect we did not discuss too much in class as we thought about the pros and cons of censorship.
@Christine & Gary; I would love to see the bigger corporations paying for the internet censorship that they want. However, it wouldn't be fair for them. It might be fair if everybody paid to get their own products regulated more online, but the problem would be smaller companies having a disadvantage at regulating their products. Also, the question of who would censor material that isn't from a big company, but still bad for the general public, like the website that Gary mentions.
@Dani & Timothy; I think more laws are required in order to tackle copyrights, because it is becoming a big issue. However, the laws would need to be a lot more descriptive as to who will look for the copyrights, how they will do it, what can stop them from being corrupt, etc. Also, I think that these laws should be very easy to understand, because it would effect pretty much everybody who uses the internet. I know I said that the new acts and treaties are really wordy, because it's filled with legal jargon.
@Robert; Thanks for sending out the interesting article about the Google Monster. I like to think that Google is on the side of its user-base, but who knows. As for the power the internet gives to the masses, I actually forgot about that when I was rereading the article this semester. When I was thinking about it last semester, I was trying to think about how it relates to the great firewall of China, and how both forms of regulation want to censor the people. Thanks for reminding me, because I really had a hard time remembering why I wanted to use the article aside from the shock value.
Simon, thanks so much for an interesting class. It’s not everyday you walk into a classroom and walk away with a handful of knowledge on the virtual world. Although many of us are either for or against strict censorship and copyright laws, I’m standing right in the middle and not moving! I think there needs to be a balance between censorship, accessibility and expression. To a certain extent, I agree with Dani on the grounds that copyright laws can be questionable and frustrating, however, I am able to empathize with artists and all others in the creative fields who produce work and depend on consumers for some compensation. If their work is accessible for free, then how can we expect them to make a decent living? Artists need us as consumers to help them become financially successful. The other argument is if every download requires a payment, then how will the poor prosper? In a way, costly downloads are stunting their growth. As Gary mentioned, internet censorship has its pros and cons. I welcomed them both as long as there is a balance.
I am intimidated by the vastness of the issues we confront when grappling with the regulation of the Internet. It is hard even finding an entry point that is not organized along a binary opposition (only Popy seems to be adept at holding the middle).
What Simon confronts us with is probably, more than anything else that we have discussed, the most concrete example of multiple stakeholders with huge incentives being party to legislation that impacts not just a swath of the populace but every single person in the country, indeed, in the world. Like Professor Reitz’s In A Grove, the story keeps changing. I think we can agree that all sides have a point but that is not really the most important issue.
What is critical is the distribution of power and how that is corralled and maintained. If SOPA, PIPA and OPEN are legislative wars and the win goes to the highest bidder (the best financed lobbyists) than that amorphous group we are so fond of, “the “people”, lose out no matter which act is passed by Congress. So, we should be heartened when the people take to the streets (uh, the net) and overcome corporate interests, right?
But if the people have no value system, who wins? (That is why we never want to put things like civil rights up for public referendum.) Google’s founders were famous for saying “information wants to be free” but that seems to have morphed into “I don’t want to pay for anything”. Just to play devil’s advocate, perhaps people’s revolutions that begin on the Internet are destined to become just as self-serving as any corporate complex. And sadly, it might be about monetary profit for them, too. Villains in the mirror, once again.
Just saying.
I don't know why I forgot to mention this, but one way that people can make money for their content on the internet is through advertisements. It's the biggest method for people to make money, which is why some of the punishments in all 3 of the legislative acts included preventing the websites that were considered bad from getting advertisements from American companies. Through advertisements, artists (at least the ones who gain a following, get established, or get lucky) should be able to make a living while putting thier stuff online for free. This is how youtube personalities make their living. Despite this new method of making money, I doubt bigger companies will ever release their material for free, because they can definitely make a lot more if they stick with the old model of just selling their products than relying on ads. Maybe it's not about people who have no value system, but people who's value system are changing. It's no longer about buying everything that you use, but only buying what you like and using the internet to sample what you like. Although, there will always be those people that don't buy anything and just take it all for free, these types of people are the real villains (mostly just youths without money, but some people persist with this behavior past the college years).
I agree with Popy in that although we enjoy the fruits of a free speech society our speech should be limited to a certain degree to respect the creativity of others and the safety of others. Although there are many problems which follows both of these ideas I do not think that there is a chance that these laws will work. Many people especially the younger generation does not view downloading a file as something wrong. I feel this is so because a lot of people do not want to side with people who are lobbying this bill. Although the newer version of SOPA and PIPA OPEN does take into consideration the worries of many individuals I feel that many people (especially in our current economic climate) will view this act as a way of rich fat cat corporations trying to make more money. That is exactly why I feel like many of these laws won’t work because people rather things cheaper or especially since they cannot afford it. The idea that piracy is not really a bad thing is what will make these laws difficult to pass, difficult to be uphold and difficult to be accepted within society as a whole. In addition bootlegging or the stealing of people’s ideas has always been around. I understand that the internet makes this crime easier and opens it up to a larger crowd, but these corporations have always been able to adjust to the times.
At the risk of being a broken record, I'd say that what we need to determine early on in this wide-ranging conversation is whether we see the Internet as continuous with offline society (and therefore governed by its laws and sharing our collective morals and standards) or if it is a new thing entirely (a new geographical/cultural space that would, then, require its own laws, morals and standards). Of course, it is very possibly both of these things and that's where it starts to get tricky. In many ways, as we said in class, it is continuous. Hate speech, criminal behavior, these get punished in "real" society and should be punished on the internet. But more interesting (to me, anyway) are the places where we are evolving culturally/personally in response to the Internet as a fact of our existence. Sometimes you are made aware of just how much it is an unthinking part of your daily life (ever lose internet access over the weekend and feel as if you were stranded on a desert island?). Think of how your behavior -- and your expectations of others -- have changed since having a cell phone. Many folks in my field (the 19th century British novel) talk about how the rise of publishing/literacy/the literary marketplace shaped utterly our ideas about individuality, subjectivity, etc. -- basically writing the concept of "the individual" into existence. Seems to me that the internet is an even more powerful cultural force than the novel -- what/who are we writing into existence?
I think that I am one of those people who stands in between of this topic. I am in some way against all these bills because I think that if our laws are enforced in everything and anything, then we should not be having this problem, however I do agree that the internet is almost a different world where you can be a completely different person that no one knows. I also think that although piracy is wrong, it is the only option for now for those people who are poor or financially disadvantaged. When certain services aren't available to a group of people that can't afford it, someone there will make it available to them. For example, the publication of a book is someone's masterpiece and the author should be compensated for their work. However, a financially disadvantaged person should have the same right to read that book. Thank you Simon for bringing this lesson to our minds and educating us on the importance of this topic.
As sick as it may sound; I was pleased to see the real issue of "who is doing the censoring " being addressed here. Reading about SOPA and PIPA really disturbed me in a sense. Are we really focusing on the real issues here as a society or sugar coating them with propaganda? The fact is that the drug cartel murdering journalists in Mexico is going unaddressed legally and instead the focus is on piracy of games,videos,music ,etc. Such things in my opinion are unimportant in comparison to human life.
Gary brings about an important topic. Websites such as "World star hip hop" publicize brutal gang beatings,sex,rape and many other disturbing occurrences.some say that it's all fake and but others believe them to be real taped violence publicized as entertainment on the web. Why is this type if website so hard to shut down? I guess we won't really take action until people are hanging in times square.
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