How are you doing today, with some of the world’s most popular websites shutting down in protest at proposed US regulations?
I’m doing OK, I guess. Mainly because I had a lie-in and then spent a couple of hours doing lots of offline work that didn’t need any internet access at all. I’m not taking part, beyond having this blog hosted on WordPress.com (who are), and agreeing with the strikers.
Let’s get one thing straight: SOPA and PIPA, the legislative acts that are being proposed, are not only muddled, wrong-headed and overly punitive, but they could have the perverse effect of making the internet more dangerous for ordinary users by potentially breaking the DNS system. And that should terrify everyone, not just US citizens.
ICANN, the body that basically manages the internet, is based in the United States. It has to adhere to US law. Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, many other of those websites striking today are in the same position. Just because they have a global reach doesn’t mean that their size will protect them from what’s going on on their home turf. This is despite the fact that the US by no means makes up the majority of global internet users, despite the power of Silicon Valley.
Should the rest of us be worried? Obviously. If the websites that we have come to rely on (no matter how incidentally) become vulnerable to malicious and vindictive regulation, it affects not only their US users, but their global audience. So what is to be done? Well, aside from encouraging everyone to move to Iceland, which is planning to position itself as a bastion of internet freedom, we can fight for internet freedom on our own turf. We have to agitate against action we see being taken that might undermine internet freedom elsewhere.
Above all, we must support those who are willing to take a stand, whether or not it causes us a minor inconvenience for a few hours. So lobby your local politicians, threaten to move your domains if your webhost looks wobbly, and join the virtual picket against shoddy lawmaking.
[Image by Steve Rhodes]
Filed under: Tech & Web | Tagged: #SOPAStrike, Blackout, DNS, ICANN, International, Internet, Legislation, PIPA, SOPA, Sopa Strike, Strike, USA | Leave a Comment »
The UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office has just
From Nigeria’s Department of Entirely Predictable Consequences, it turns out that if you remove a fuel subsidy overnight,
I got thinking about this question when trying to figure out if I knew any Kenyans in Sweden (long story). Now, there is a Swedish school in Nairobi, but I can’t say that I am on speaking terms with any of its alumni. Ask me to find a Kenyan in just about any US state, however, and I can probably come up with three or four names without trying very hard.



Are Internet Comments Getting More Stupid?
The fact is, the internet is (for now) more open than ever, giving everyone the opportunity to “speak their brains” on any topic they fancy. Now, I’m not demanding they be experts, but is a science article really the best place to start railing against the government? Does your personal anecdote mean that there is a worldwide police conspiracy to issue as many parking tickets as possible?
Don’t get me wrong; there are comments on blog and newspaper articles that are on-topic, articulate and can help to move a discussion forward. Unfortunately, they are outweighed by the sheer volume of rushed, ill-considered invective because some people insist on shoehorning their personal prejudices and bugbears into their comment, whether they have read the article or not. This can happen anywhere, but is especially apparent on US political websites at the moment. I know it’s an election year, but I don’t think 2012 will be won or lost by how many times people can accuse “Obummer” of being a Kenyan* socialist.
Perhaps the freedom of commenting has led to a coarsening in tone. It’s a well-observed phenomenon that people will be far ruder when they are anonymous than they would ever be in person, with a few exceptions for the clinically obnoxious. Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing, and I don’t want to shut anyone up. They’d only come back shriller and more hysterical than ever. What I would like to see is a raising of tone, an improvement in standards, and that is the responsibility of website owners.
Weak, irrelevant comments should be treated the same way as spam. No really, I mean it. If somebody can only provide a “LOLwut?” to a lengthy piece on FGM, that comment doesn’t need to be displayed. When a comment wants to talk about military recruitment underneath an article on deficit reduction, that’s off-topic and can be sent to the trash bin.
Is this censorship? No. People are free to comment, provided their comments are on-topic and substantive. If they want to, they can start a blog of their own to put across their own point of view. Nobody’s rights are being violated; there is no guaranteed right to be a jackass on the internet. This is a plea, a plea to site owners and moderators to pay more attention to quality control on their properties. Not every comment has to go through. Sift for quality, banish the stupid, and send them to belm into the void elsewhere.
*Seriously people, what is up with that? Even with changes to the Kenyan Constitution, the man remains as Kenyan as a Smurf.
[Image by DragonAssBabe]
Filed under: Tech & Web | Tagged: Blog Comments, Blog Moderation, Blogging, Censorship, Comment Moderation, Comments, Internet, Moderation, Quality Control | Leave a Comment »