Poppy Talks

Topical Tuesday :: Freedom of Information :: Web Censorship

Our very first topic of discussion is away, and it is one that sprang to mind when I read today’s press. The conservative party in the UK is proposing that there should be greater controls placed on web content. Is this a good thing? or do you think it is the first step to policing and censoring the exchange of information?

A day late getting this posted….

I am a big fan of the concept of self-censorship. And by that, I don’t mean stifling creative thought. I mean that we each have an obligation to try and get along with other people, and that means in part that we have to make an attempt to avoid offence. Just because it’s virtually impossible to avoid offending anyone isn’t a good enough reason to just give up and offend everyone.

I am not in favor of legal restrictions on web content; beyond the practical, I feel that if we needed them, we’d be not much better than children, unable to control ourselves. And there is the practical – unless you go the route that China has chosen and attempt to provide all of the internet content for your citizens internally somehow, it’s very difficult to control what web content can cross your borders.

In the less-distant future, perhaps we will actually be a global culture, governed by a single legal body. Even then, the appropriate route is in creating consequences. There are consequences if you open your mouth and insert foot at your boy/girlfriend’s family dinner and offend his/her family, and there should be consequences for putting certain types of content online or putting it online without appropriate safeguards to keep in out of the wrong hands.

What should those be? Depends on the culture we have developed by the time we’re able to enforce those. Right now, it’s usually monetary, and that doesn’t seem to be working. I’m not thrilled with punative options, although perhaps it would work better if “prison” were on Mars or something. Who knows. I think there’s gotta be a better solution. We’re too advanced not to be able to come up with something.

Social Network Sites

Since their introduction, social network sites (SNSs) such as MySpace, Facebook, Cyworld, and Bebo have attracted millions of users, many of whom have integrated these sites into their daily practices. As of this writing, there are hundreds of SNSs, with various technological affordances, supporting a wide range of interests and practices. While their key technological features are fairly consistent, the cultures that emerge around SNSs are varied. Most sites support the maintenance of pre-existing social networks, but others help strangers connect based on shared interests, political views, or activities. Some sites cater to diverse audiences, while others attract people based on common language or shared racial, sexual, religious, or nationality-based identities. Sites also vary in the extent to which they incorporate new information and communication tools, such as mobile connectivity, blogging, and photo/video-sharing. (via)

Big news at the moment still, and subject to a great deal of discussion – both pro and anti. Whats your opinion?

I started writing on this prompt, and found myself rambling on about experiences with each of the social sites. And that didn’t really seem to answer the question.

My opinion is pretty much the same as my opinion of a hammer, or a keyboard. Yeah, ok, it exists. It’s a tool. I think the pink and flowered hammers they came up with so us little wimmin could feel comfortable wielding a tool of nail destruction are silly. I think some of the high-end gaming keyboards are sort of a waste of time for anyone who doesn’t game for a living – sheesh, what’s wrong with just stretching your hands once in a while, huh? But those are just opinions, that’s all.

I’ve got accounts on MySpace (rarely used), Facebook (Research, plus I get a kick out of some of the games), Twitter (work-related stuff), and Flickr (photography – see my Flickr applet to the right). They all have their purposes. They’re all a little silly. They all take some effort to distinguish the signal from the noise.

I can understand why people are reticent to join social sites – they don’t take the place of sending an email to someone, much less sitting down with them for lunch or coffee. They take up time that most people really can’t spare. And they’re designed for people who don’t really have to think about separating personal from professional selves – high school or college kids. While people in their 30s and up are adopting them rapidly, they’re still designed in such a way that on one profile, you can have parents, aunts, cousins, friends, partners, and work colleagues all reading your updates. And the old way of thinking is that you don’t offer your work colleagues access to your weekend party pictures.

The new way of thinking, I think, is that it’s incumbent on those work colleagues to look for and draw out the information about you that they might care about from these sites. And, in a wider picture, the new way of thinking is that it’s not the responsibility of the content creator to provide only that information which will be useful, but the job of the content consumer to be able to filter the data for that which pertains to him or her.

This represents a new way of thinking about information, but I think it’s still too soon to predict its ascendency or failure.

And wow, you can tell I was raised by a former english teacher in this post.

“What’s the worst ‘best’ book you’ve ever read — the one everyone says is so great, but you can’t figure out why?”

Neuromancer, by William Gibson.

Supposed to be a great book. Supposed to be a classic Spec-Fic, the beginnings of cyberpunk.

And I couldn’t make it past the first 3 chapters. Couldn’t find my way to caring about Case enough to want to know what happened to him. You see, I read stories about people, not about wires and electronic chips and chemicals. People. And Case – well, he just wasn’t a very interesting or likable person. I’d still love to read some good cyberpunk, but it’s gotta be about the people.

Book #2, which almost made my top worst “best” book?
The Wise Woman, by Philippa Gregory.
Gregory’s books have hit best-seller lists, been turned into movies, gotten lots of acclaim… so I thought I’d try one of them.

In the first 2 chapters, the main character of TWW manages to betray the only people who’ve ever cared about her more times than she changed her underwear, all for a warm bed and walls that aren’t drafty. Sorry, Ms. Gregory, I just can’t continue reading about a character with the morals of a gerbil. I gave that one away, hopefully to someone who enjoyed it more than I did.

What’s your worst “best” book?