If indeed censorship is ultimately impossible, and I would like to believe it is, then oppression, restriction or prohibition is also doomed to fail. Human will and ingenuity perhaps trump any efforts to tamp these down. It's a very curious point, isn't it.
Does every person across the world have the right to healthcare and education, shelter and fresh water, a decent living and personal dignity and freedom? The answer, of course, is yes. But is internet access on par with these key life provisions?
To me, the immediate answer is It depends. It depends on the nature of their crime and of course the subsequent punishment. It also depends, I imagine, on time served and behavioral progress. Prisoners in general are carefully guarded on what they communicate and what information they access, especially with the world outside prison. Perhaps the law or regulation governing prisoners needs to be reviewed vis-a-vis the radical developments in media and technology, information and communications over the last decade or two.
There are such ideological, such cultural, such human differences between some countries, that it is easy I suppose for a Westerner like me to frown upon, and scowl at, an Eastern policy and practice. The answer is no, of course, from me. But then it becomes a matter of understanding the reasons behind the decision to censor, that is, without judging it or expecting otherwise. It is also a matter of the Chinese, for example, to weigh in with their support for or rejection of such censorship and to decide what to do and how to do it.
I suppose this question is at the heart of Social Contract à la Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. The people agree to surrender some their freedom and rights to the ruler, in exchange for a host of protections of their broader freedom and rights from said ruler and the governing body. I'd say it's a complex balance, and how this balance is reached and maintained very much depends on the relationship between the government and the people: Is it trusting and respectful, or otherwise?
What should be the case - equal access, equal opportunity - runs head to head with how it is. Just as there are sociopolitical and socioeconomic matters in many countries, so there are sociotechnology quandaries as well. It makes sense to rally and advocate for such equality, but I believe entrepreneurs and philanthropists have a better chance of solving the issue than corporate titans or government officials.
These men and women speak to a host of complicated, weighty matters concerning privacy. There is, for instance, that give and take of social media: free use for data use. Where do you weigh in on these matters, and how do you navigate them in your personal and work lives?
This is a fundamental dilemma in media and technology: Obviously the ability to track mobile phones can keep citizens safe, including young people, but in the wrong hands the very same technology can endanger or take advantage of citizens. Unfortunately we cannot always trust that companies or individuals with know-how and access to tracking will use technology for the good.
Answer: Not without customer consent. But the question is, How clear or user friendly are privacy policies? The ones I've seen are couched in such legalese as to be too obtuse to read meaningfully.
Isn't it the case in the US that unless the police have probable cause, they cannot simply scope out information from just any particular or anonymous citizen? Of course it is their charge to pinpoint wrongdoers in their jurisdiction, but I believe they must do so without improper breach of citizens' privacy.
The challenge for any researcher investigating human behavior is that letting people know they're being investigated can prompt them to alter their behavior. Information and consent can therefore confound research. Ah but that's the very charge of researchers: that is, provide information and seek consent, as they must, and still protect the integrity of their methodology. They need to draw on their ingenuity to strike this crucial balance. So the answer to this young lady's question? No, Facebook shirked its ethical, perhaps legal responsibility to its members.
A Party Gone Wrong can certainly be distressing for a teen and her family, but we can imagine far worse actions by someone masquerading as anyone of us on social media. It is one thing to set policy or law against such behavior, but another thing to investigate and enforce it. Regardless, though, I believe that sites ought to have some fair and reasonable responsibility to prevent masquerading and to intervene accordingly. Otherwise we'd have cause to question the integrity and intent of a site and its members.
What these men and women speak to are a prompt for reflection and conversation. Shame, though, that The British Library didn't engage a wider diversity of nationality and age for these interviews.
I suppose this is not just a clash between liberal and conservative schools of thought. Values matter to people, and there is a melange of them, which defies dichotomies. Sometimes these values collide in very personal, complicated ways. Those in authority or those with influence may determine which ones are left standing, at the end of the day.
I find this question to be a terribly complex one. On the one hand, if one has paid his or her dues, and by law a past transgression is no longer a matter of consideration, for example, for getting a job, buying a house, or obtaining a credit card, then why should it remain available? On the other hand, I personally appreciate having any old information available on any person or topic of interest to me. This is how I learn about the background of actors, for example, and how I probe more deeply into their filmography. So the question comes down (a) morally to the freedom to move on with a clean slate and (b) pragmatically to the means with which to determine how ought to be, and ought not be, removed.
The answer in this situation iseasy: No. What is difficult, though, is finding answers on to how to stop cyberbullying. It requires patience and fortitude to do so, that is, in our working to get a better grip on the problem and what underlies it and on the perpetrators and what drives them. It requires empathic understanding: not to be confused with sympathy or compassion, but with the ability and willingness to probe into emotional, psychological layers.
At first I took umbrage at the idea of anyone petitioning to get artistic work taken offline. But perhaps in this case, it makes sense, especially as we don't quite know who might be viewing sensitive (albeit artistic) photos online and having whatever unsavory, obnoxious thoughts about them.
