Tuesday, 9 August 2011
It's all about control...
So this week, I was pretty surprised when I opened up the Barlow reading, an open letter to the governments of the world. I thought here we go, something light hearted and comical. But as I read on I took in the complexity and seriousness of what they were saying.
In the tutorial the main concept about the world of cyberspace that I found came up most was that of control. The declaration refers to governments creating 'guard posts' to 'hold the contagion', this made me think of how governments and corporations are trying to control and regulate cyberspace, and also why they're so interested in it. Sure, in places like China and Russia where they restrict access to certain websites and search results, this control and regulatibility seems easy and effective, but in our seemingly knowledge-based society, how can governments even begin to think about controlling how we use the Internet?
But when we think about why they want to control something, it seems pretty understandable. The Internet can be used as a tool for slandering governments, organising protests or riots (as we've seen in London this week). Why wouldn't the governments want to try and monitor and control what people were saying about them. If someone was saying something bad about you, wouldn't you want to stop it from entering the world of cyberspace?
As Kelly has mentioned there is a new economy forming around the information-based sector. In the end, the people who control the Internet are the ones who will gain the most money out of it, some of you may disagree. But if you have control over the platform and the people on it, you're in a better position to make a higher profit.
References
Barlow, J.P. (1996) A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace [URL: https://projects.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html]
Kelly, K. (1999) 'This new economy'. In New Rules for the new Economy. [URL: http://www.kk.org/newrules/newrules-intro.html]
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hey Nathan
ReplyDeleteI found your insights into the whole 'internet and control' thing quite interesting. Yes countries such as China are filtering content to its citizens, particularly politically sensitive issues and events, such as the Tiananmen Square Massance's of 1989.
Though I agree that some content should be blocked such as child pornography, I believe that content that is blocked should be kept to a minimum, without countries (such as China) blocking historical information just because its actions would be seen as being unjust.
The matter of the fact is that the internet is used as a communicative tool, and it would be impossible to stop people from sending messages which are deemed as inappropriate.
Further I also agree with your idea that with the new economy, there will be a few key players which will dominate the space, and who will make most of the money from it. Today I suppose Google would be the best example.
With Barlows idea of an internet utopia; where there is freedom of speech, and no greater power or prejudice, even though it would be magnificent, with people and governement trying to control it, I cannot see it ever eventuating, :(
I can't ever see the Internet become a controlled environment so to speak. However, you raise a good point when saying, "If someone was saying something bad about you, wouldn't you want to stop it from entering the world of cyberspace?" I mean, I haven't really thought about the Internet like that, but now that you've brought it to my attention, I can understand and some what agree with the Government.
ReplyDeleteNo one else has brought up the reasoning why governments would want to monitor and control the internet. But you are quite right. The internet is a forum where, quite often, the government is bad mouthed. And understandable they would want control over the internet to stop this reoccurring. Imagine if it actually happened. We all comment on China's governments control over the internet, and usually the comments are negative. Even the suggestion that Australia will enforce a similar law causes outrage among people. By no means am I advocating for the government to introduced methods of control over our internet usage. But at the same time I have not experienced the restricts, so who knows maybe for me it would not change how I use the internet.
ReplyDeletegreat post Nate. I hope the Internet never becomes a controlled domain, as the others have said as if the government wouldn't want to shut down something that constantly bad mouths you.
ReplyDeleteI am however a little worried for the countries that do have restricted/controlled internet access. I only hope the Australian government doesn't do the whole ISP filter thing when we get the new high-speed broadband network up and running. For the obvious reason, it will slow us down to where we were 23 billion dollars earlier. Only time will tell...