Cleaning up teh internets

Okay so this a potentially-big question.

For the last decade I've been surfing the web. I've seen 56k modems, I've waited 2 hours to download a 5 minute video, I've watched and clicked on Joe Cartoon's animations because they were the only interactive thing on the web, I've suffered shitty midi music accompanying web pages, and experienced the torture of AOL.

More recently I've sampled Tay Zonday, Star Wars Kid, Numa Numa, YouTube, Facebook...you know the drill. The internet's a weird and wonderful place.

But the question I'd like to put to you good folks is this. Should the internet be censored? A few months ago I'd have emphatically said no. But now, I'm personally getting sick of the gore and the ever more extreme porn flying about. How many more clips of Japanese people puking on one another do I want to see? How many more times do I want to see lesbians eating crap? How many more religious fundamentalist beheadings / stonings / burnings / etc?

Well that's the thing, you see. In real life, I'd be horrified to see these things occur. I couldn't look. But on the internet, there's so much of it that it no longer feels real. In fact to be honest, I send these clips out regularly to friends / family just to get a disgusted reaction. Sometimes I think the internet is desensitizing me, warping my moral judgement. Last night I cried over a TV movie. Tonight I watched a man being burned to death on the internet and barely raised an eyebrow.

So there's my question. Should there be more internet regulation? Or should we defend it to the hilt as one of the last bastions of truly free speech we have?

Quote: Lee Henman @ March 25 2009, 2:50 AM GMT

So there's my question. Should there be more internet regulation? Or should we defend it to the hilt as one of the last bastions of truly free speech we have?

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I rely on my own internal regulation to prevent me from seeing things that I don't want to see and reading things that I don't want to read. Why let the government or some other agency make your decisions for you?

Ditto DaButt.

Until the US Government sign the root servers over to ICANN, the Internet will always have an element of regulation. (And even then...)

But no. No no no. No. Not in a million years should there be regulation of the internet. (Or, as I suspect is actually meant here, the web.) Much like I switch channel if Big Brother or Ant & Dec appear on my screen, if I come across something online which I'm not interested in, I just head off somewhere else. Regulation, even seemingly the most harmless, unobtrusive, well-meaning regulation, easily creeps.

I refer you to China, India, Pakistan... All employ censorship to different degrees. All very, very wrong. Even British ISPs do it. Almost impossible to find certain types of content. And the government have passed privacy and security legislation which covers the net too...

But no. There should be no regulation or censorship of any form.

The internets pretty heavily regulated isn't it? I mean look at how fast stuff gets yanked off of YouTube. It's just that it's so fast and easy to put stuff up there that the clumsy engine of the state can't keep up.
Operation Ore has the details of 1000s of men who downloaded or paid for child porn. But each prosecution takes 1000s of hours and maybe a dozen police officers. So most of the suspects will get away with their crimes.
There's always grounds for some degree of "censorship." Promoting criminal acts or exploiting people is illegal as is slander and libel.
Puting mimeogrpahed posters calling for my death and calling me a wanker on lamp posts is a crime. Puting said poster on a blog doesn't make it any less illegal.

I think the more sinister area of net censorship is when governments go direct to ISPs and make demands on them. Hence in China Yahoo won't show you images of Tibetan riots if you search them. This really is 1984 where the very information doesn't exist.

It's similar to the 'free speech' argument. Many of us like the idea in theory but if taken literally it would allow for all kinds of incitement of violence and invasions of privacy.

Is it OK to post pictures of children, innocent or not, for adults to 'enjoy'?

Would it be OK to post someone's name, address, photos of them and their family saying they're not 'welcome in this country' encouraging other people to do whatever they thought necessary to get rid of them.

It's just words and images and they may not be committing the physical crimes themeselves, but the results could be pretty horrific.

There's a campaign this week re cyber bullying of children/ teenagers. As adults we may have thicker skins or stay away from those sites but kids are killing themselves over comments made by people who are doing it for their own 'entertainment'.

So unfortunately I'd say yes to genuine moderators and 'policing' of the internet/ web. But not where it's a type of 1984 situation. The problem as always, is that we all draw the line in a different place. Most of us think we have 'common' sense but there's nothing common about it at all! (Yes I kind of plagiarised that last bit).

Jx

Edited after my bike ride to work during which I realised I sound far too like one of the South Park mob "We have to protect the children" for my own liking. In conclusion this is why I shouldn't post on these kinds of thread.

Blimey, trust Lee to bring up a topic that is part of my everyday work. If you want to know what is happening in terms of regulation and content blocking et al you can get an informed view from one of our company blogs: https://publicaffairs.linx.net/news/

Quote: Lee Henman @ March 25 2009, 2:50 AM GMT

In fact to be honest, I send these clips out regularly to friends / family just to get a disgusted reaction. Sometimes I think the internet is desensitizing me, warping my moral judgement.

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Why, why, why send these on to other people?

I think you've answered your own question. Just don't look and don't send. Mostly you only find this stuff because you're looking for it.

I do get heartily sick of the endless range of old jokes I get sent by text or dodgy email clips.

The modern world seems to provide endless opportunities for idiots to be unamusing.

Sooty, you're spending way too much time in the critique section.

Quote: Dolly Dagger @ March 25 2009, 9:25 AM GMT

Why, why, why send these on to other people?

I think you've answered your own question. Just don't look and don't send. Mostly you only find this stuff because you're looking for it.

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I don't know why I do it. Probably because they do it to me. It's been going on for years.

The problem is that it's very, very easy to find stuff on the web that you'd never, ever see broadcast on TV. For instance Liveleak.com is a video sharing website that shows all the clips from warzones etc that show what really happens in conflict. It's gruesome, hard stuff to watch but also an education - a slice of reality that cuts through the relatively-sanitized images we're fed through our TVs.

I was horrified to learn though that my son (who was 15 at the time) had watched several Islamic beheadings online with his mates. I asked him what he thought about it and he just shrugged and said "Pretty grim". When I was 15, I just didn't have access to that sort of imagery. Now, young teenagers across the land are watching close-up murder and mutilation. And people eating shit. And Japanese rape fantasy movies. And they're all freely available on completely legal, very well-known sites such as Stileproject. Don't imagine for one minute that a group of young lads in front of a computer aren't going to go straight for the violence and porn. Of course they are.

So umm...that's my point really. Is the internet generation growing up with a desensitized view of extreme violence and violent sexual content? And if so, how will that affect them in later life? Will it make them less empathetic to people in distress? Will it give young men a distorted view of women?

Don't forget, we're not talking violent movies here. We're talking the real deal, actual murders etc freely available on the web. Surely that can't be right?

Mmmm hmmm, "Stileproject", eh? "Liveleak.com" you say? *scribbles note* Do go on....

I completely disagree with censorship of it. I don't want some of the crap popping up when I'm not looking for it, so some regulation would be good but I wouldn't want it actually censored.

Having said that, I am a big fan of human rights generally so the only censorship should be where those rights are breached - i.e. my rights end where someone else's starts. Child porn breaches the child's human rights so it is correct that it is illegal and gets removed. Consenting adults posting vids of them doing all sorts of unpleasant (but legal) stuff? Fine, I just don't want it popping up on my screen when I'm not looking for it. People doing illegal stuff that doesn't harm others (e.g. taking drugs and acting like twats), again, not bothered.

And as for forwarding stuff, it's something I do VERY rarely, and only specific things to specific people who I know will appreciate it, not just forwarding every email I get to everyone in my address book. It really annoys me when people do that: I ended up sending my mum a blank email with 'unsubscribe' as the subject line. It annoyed her but she got the point.

Quote: Afinkawan @ March 25 2009, 11:21 AM GMT

I ended up sending my mum a blank email with 'unsubscribe' as the subject line. It annoyed her but she got the point.

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Top Tip.

Quote: Rob H @ March 25 2009, 10:44 AM GMT

Sooty, you're spending way too much time in the critique section.

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Love it when some one illustartes my point.