Its been a while since we argued and I have always enjoyed debating with you.
I'd give you a smiley but I would be afraid of it turning into a monkey.
What are the main things that should be regulated?
What should not be regulated?
Who do you think should police it?
How do you feel about a parental control system that you can opt in to, rather than a blanket control?
Personally, I dont believe in any censorship. I think that freedom of speech is very important for a healthy, unrepressed, equal and progressive society.
I definately agree that the internet is and can be used for some despicable things. My concern is how or if can we safely regulate/prevent those despicable things while still keeping the rest of the internet open.
Also, I think that we need a lot more research about internet communities, how people use the internet, how it affects them etc. I can definately see internet addiction becoming a more prominent issue. I dont think the solution for any addiction is to prohibit the object, but rather to educate the person on how to use it a heathier way.
I don't know if I have an answer for that. I couldn't claim to be any sort of specialist on the law or solve the problems that nobody else has been able to solve either, which is probably a big part of the problem-- and one of the reasons that you get things like SOPA in the first place. It seems like nowadays the popular reaction is to assume that everyone always knows exactly what they're doing and it's all an intentional plot, which I don't think is fair-- mostly because people are never as insidiously brilliant as you, I or they think they are.
Changing the Internet is a pretty huge task... to me, it's sort of the same thing as telling people to give up their cars and iPhones and all of those things that they really don't need but think they do. Sure, they're causing global warming-- but self-sacrifice is pretty much the last thing on anyone's mind nowadays... it's actually the exact opposite. We're all entitled to more and more and more... more freedom, more money, more security, more justice, more things... and the result is less and less co-operation, more defiance, more antagonism, etc. It's like there's nothing wrong with anything that anyone ever does, unless they do something that I personally don't agree with, in which case it's a crime against humanity.
I don't think it's such a bad idea to make everyone have an online ID. Completely depoliticize and de-anonymize (is that a word?) the entire Internet. An argument I hear about these people who are so anxious to post their pictures online is 'well, people can see me in real life, so why wouldn't I want them to see me online?'... but I don't think that those same people would say the same thing about the porn sites they visit, or their political activities.
I don't think that a still image and a random 3-D face in a crowd are even remotely the same thing, but I do think that people would behave themselves if they knew that other people were going to know exactly who they are. I think that discussion would become more civil. I think people would feel more shame about downloading illegal content, or watching porn. There's a difference between going onto Pirate Bay and no one even knows that you were there, and going there and knowing that absolutely everyone is going to be able to see exactly who it is that's downloading all of this stuff.
As for political activities-- I don't think that anyone in the western world would be particularly upset if you offered a viewpoint that was different to their own... but you should be reasonable about it. Saying that the government should be trying to move more to the left is reasonable. It isn't reasonable to say that the government is evil and needs to be completely destroyed and the corporations need to be destroyed too and anarchy should reign.
If it weren't anonymous, then I think people would probably be more likely to actually listen to each other instead of just aggressively disagreeing and labeling you the enemy or letting the discussion devolve into an ego battle. I don't even think that the government would be so opposed to a peaceful discussion with people who are genuinely concerned... people still want to get along, deep down inside. But all that this outrage and conspiracy BS does is breed antagonism and contempt... seriously, it's like a bloodthirsty mob that urgently needs sweeping changes that are probably impossible anyways, and they can't be reasoned with or they'll just bombard you with all kinds of propaganda.
I'm old enough to remember the beginning of the net, and people were sooo much nicer online. I think it was because even though they were anonymous, they weren't used to being that way, so they just acted like they did in real life.
But it seems like nowadays the Internet is just a lot of people being pissed off about absolutely everything all the time, picking their sides, battling their enemies... there's a violent, desperate and even authoritarian vibe to it all-- like 'we have to FIGHT. ACT ON THIS NOW OMG' when really, things AREN'T that desperate, and a calm, rational discussion would probably suffice.
Radicals who want to wreck everything need to be anonymous, but I don't think that removing anonymity would in any way prevent information from spreading... I can't be certain, but I think there's a pretty good chance that it's not the information itself that 'they' want to control, it's your reaction to it. And I think there's just wayyy too much outrage in the world and not enough calm, objective rationalization.
Call me a cynic, but I don't think that people CAN control themselves... especially not when they're anonymous. If we were more than human then maybe putting all the responsibilities in the hands of individuals or in the hands of their parents would work, but the problem is that their parents are human too. Actually, I know a guy who's dad was recently busted for child porn... so yeah, parents control their children's internet, but who controls the parents' internet?
If the Internet really is about knowing each other and coming together, then anonymity and facelessness is probably an obstacle too... maybe our online lives should be more like our real life lives...
That said, a lot of these countries are handling it pretty terribly-- mostly because they're NOT demanding the end of anonymity and they're just being sneaky and malicious about punishing people. They should be trying to turn all of the lights ON instead of leaving them off and spying on everyone, waiting for their chance to strike... that's just not fair. People just aren't the same people online... anyone could tell you that. And the Internet can warp your brain for sure, but I think that the anonymity is the real threat... the problem being that some people don't want to give that up.
