Land of the Free
Land of the free, this is the motto that most Americans live by. Many of us have heard it in elementary school, in presidential addresses and scattered through out common day life. So what happens if this wonderful land of the free turns into land of the copyrighted and censorship? This idea thoroughly scares me. When reading the The Master Switch by Tim Wu and “Open Code and Open Societies” by Lawrence Lessig this idea of controlling content on the Internet kept popping up. Instances of companies trying to control the flow of information to turn a profit litter the Internet highway. Before reading these two documents it hardly crossed my mind what information I was receiving on the Internet. I would download music when available, sometimes illegal and sometimes not, and when a site wouldn’t load or the every common statement “Flash not supported” appeared on my iphone I would strike it up to technological error and continue on with my day. Since being informed im personally scared for the future and what it will bring. The emphasis that companies put on content is astonishing. Companies are so afraid of losing control over their prized content that they are losing the very core of what the internet is, to share ideas through a medium which is open to the whole world. If this medium starts to close than can we really be called the land of the free? Especially when the government is putting more and more restrictions on the distribution of content throughout the Internet. One Instance in Lessing’s article which really shocked me was how when the Canadian company iCraveTV wanted to distribute television through the Internet to Canadians. However, when a few Americans tapped in and reached it too, it was apparently against the law because of the copyright rules in the U.S. What a contradiction to our founding principles, that Canada somehow has freedom of content and freedom of the internet to an extent and yet in the U.S the copyright laws are becoming so constraining and so limiting that we are seeing out freedoms slowly and slowly slipping away.
Claire,
ReplyDeleteWhile I definitely agree with you that the thought of what is and isn't being shown to us is a scary thought, could it be that sometimes we are being protected from things that we shouldn't see? Parental controls, I think most would agree, are a good thing for protecting young children from seeing things that may not be age appropriate on the Internet. Also, internet restrictions in schools helps to keep students focused on academics, which I think is a good thing, as well! However, I think that there is a line that should not be crossed and, if it is, it will be very scary.
I love the Mac OS, but because of Flash not being supported, my next device will come from Google, not Apple. Wu's book showed me why.
ReplyDeleteClaudia's point is well taken, but it seems to me that the decision not to support Flash was solely a business decision by Apple, regardless of Steve Jobs' protests about it slowing down his devices.
I wonder how many of you would have come to Richmond had we blocked Facebook? Some schools do that. Perhaps it's analogous to my decision to opt out of Apple's iOS devices. I have other choices.