Quote: sootyj @ March 25 2009, 12:23 PM GMTLove it when some one illustartes my point.
By being the exception which proves the rule?
Cleaning up teh internets Page 2
Quote: Lee Henman @ March 25 2009, 11:12 AM GMTI 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?
You need to look towards your violent movies and your computer games for why they're interested in that kind of thing and open to watching it so casually in the first place. The internet may ease and facilitate access, but it's not the grounding that establishes that interest.
Oh, and I've never heard of either of those sites before and wouldn't have a clue where to go in order to find them. So thanks!
Quote: Afinkawan @ March 25 2009, 11:21 AM GMTAnd 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.
I've had this conversation with mates down the pub, not the 'should the internet be censored' argument, as every single Daily Mail style, British liberal, knee jerk, ban it now reaction, never works and ends up marginalising the very people it's supposed to protect.
No, the conversation we had was 'when I were a nipper, we had to make do with a discoloured copy of Razzle we found in the woods. Kids these days get their porno delivered straight to their computers, via high speed broadband mind and they don't even have to leave the house...bastards.'
Then we mused, what kind of sex life would these teens have when they were older? Would they clamber into bed wearing scuba suits before whacking each other with haddocks as a horde of Japanese transsexuals vomited on them?
And then we came up with the answer, which is no. One is fantasy, one is reality.
Nutjobs who blur the line between fantasy and reality will always do bad things regardless of the medium presented to them (internet, rock / rap music, DVD, video games, etc). Mark Chapman shot John Lennon after reading Catcher in the Rye - no one called for a book banning. And don't even get me started on the Bible and Koran.
So my answer is do not censor the Googleweb, but do introduce the death penalty for those that perpetuate spam emails, scam emails and viruses.
I don't know. Hopefully other people do.
Moderation happens on the internet whether you want it to or not but to some extent you can say anything and everything.
Aaron, you hate to censor but you and I do it all the time on these very boards, if we didn't it would be choas.
A structure / Order has to be in place or people would /will run riot.
True, true. But that's not the same as the kind of content regulation which is the original subject matter of this thread, as I understand it.
Quote: Paul W @ March 25 2009, 2:09 PM GMTModeration happens on the internet whether you want it to or not but to some extent you can say anything and everything.
Aaron, you hate to censor but you and I do it all the time on these very boards, if we didn't it would be choas.
A structure / Order has to be in place or people would /will run riot.
Ah but that is someone moderating content on their own website. Anyone is perfectly welcome to go set up their own websites where they can spell badly, misuse apostrophes and ban capital letters from thread titles as much as they want.
That's entirely different from censoring the internet itself.
Quote: Afinkawan @ March 25 2009, 11:21 AM GMTConsenting adults posting vids of them doing all sorts of unpleasant (but legal) stuff?
It can be quite difficult to tell when someone is consenting, and consenting is in any case a relative term.
Exposure to images that dehumanise the subject are also likely to desensitise the viewer and shape their perceptions of what is acceptable in real life. It used to be that you had to live in a war zone to become that dehumanised, but with the wonder of the internet you can become a monster in the comfort of your own living room; which is sad for you, and potentially tragic for others if you act upon it.
Quote: Renegade Carpark @ March 25 2009, 1:50 PM GMTNutjobs who blur the line between fantasy and reality will always do bad things regardless of the medium presented to them (internet, rock / rap music, DVD, video games, etc).
But are nutjobs born or created? In societies that have broken and common decency has been perverted by indoctrination or experience, atrocities are committed not just by the occasional loon.
On a whole, if it's real life... don't censor...but with restrictions on age.
If you don't want to look, then don't.
You only find on the web what you look for, so you must be looking to view all you find.
If you surprise yourself by being intrigued enough to look again and again, surely, that is a part of who you are... is it not?
Quote: random @ March 25 2009, 8:55 PM GMTIf you surprise yourself by being intrigued enough to look again and again, surely, that is a part of who you are... is it not?
With some people it is best that they do not discover who they are and what they might be capable of.
Quote: Timbo @ March 25 2009, 9:04 PM GMTWith some people it is best that they do not discover who they are and what they might be capable of.
Certain people (not you, Timbo) would do well to discover who they are, and what they are - or perhaps rather, what they are NOT - capable of!
All of this still doesn't address the fact that young people all over the world are watching women being abused and people being mutilated / shot / beheaded.
This is a brand new situation that has never happened before in history, having death and torture and violent sex on tap. Who's to say how it will shape them as adults?
Yes they play violent games and watch violent movies but they're not real. This is very real, and freely-available.
Surely it must be some cause for concern?
Perhaps it's a cause for comfort: if they're watching it, then they might not go out and do it themselves in order to see it.
Maybe I should ask the thoughts of that guy on the bus who wanted to start a table dancing club for teenagers.
He'd have probably stabbed you though.
(Blimey, I'm so tired I almost wrote "shagged" then. Still, maybe he would have... The deviant.)