Today we are talking about politics. that is politics with out the capital P. Politics refers to people to people. We discussed the digital divide - the have and the have not's - and I will come back to this later.
Then there was the topic of encryption. Is it an option in a democratic internet society. Consider this: to find the terrorists / porn just follow the encrypted lines. If we all used encryption, what then?
Public sphere: once upon a time we would all gather in the town square and share / exchange information. Here we could voice our thoughts and opinions and be heard. And this was also true of the Internet until privatisation. It is taking away our public sphere.
Now another thought. If the Internet is a world spanning thing how does that relate to our world of nations? Is it a nation unto itself? I think I would rather consider it a place where all nations are equal, where all people can exist? together and share their knowledge for the good of all. But for this to work I believe that we also need rules or controls. If it was open slather then what a wonderful tool for those that want to abuse it. I don't think the Internet should be exempt from some form of law or control. The issue then raised is of democracy. But, if we consider the Internet a world spanning thing and the world is not united under democracy then can the Internet be a democracy? I believe it should and that we as it's citizens should have a right to explore the laws that govern it, question them, discuss them, exchange information to enable us to make informed decisions, to amend or change the laws to fit with today's society. This is a process that needs to continue as society continues.
A youtube film was shown today that I suppose expresses these ideas with a bit more gusto. The speaker, Cory Doctorow is an unemployed writer (his words) but seems to have a great understanding of the effect the internet and subsequent controlling bodies has had on his country, the USA.
Two other things mentioned by Cory are:
a movie called 'This film is not yet rated'
an album called the Grey Album. You can get more info from this link http://www.illegal-art.org/audio/grey.html
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